So many reasons to love October!
First of all we started the neighborhood Spooks and I got to sit in the car while Kyle took the kids to deliver them. Tai would start running back and then Kasen would ring the doorbell, jump to Kyle and I'd hear Kasen giggling the whole way back to the car saying he's an airplane.
Kasen had been asking to decorate for Halloween for the last couple weeks of September, so on October 1st we finally got out our Halloween decorations and the kids decorated with what few decorations we have. I was excited to put out the cornstalks from our own garden to decorate our porch though!
Then of course, my favorite first weekend of October tradition- hanging out at home together to watch General Conference! AND I made some yummy chocolate chip, zucchini, pumpkin bread! And some avocado egg rolls. Just in time too cause not long after that I ended up sick with a 102.5 degree fever! Didn't keep me from watching all the sessions of conference, but man it wiped me out. I'm pretty sure I just had a clogged milk duct but for 48 hours I'd have a fever and chills, take Ibuprofen and then sweat bullets for a little while. No fun. Kyle got tested for Covid so he could go work the VP debates on Wednesday and was negative, but then we found out that both Mike and Keslee tested positive for Covid that same week so who knows!
Now back to General Conference.
There were a few themes that stuck out to me throughout conference: Preparation, that we are ALL God's children and that the Gospel is not meant to be comfortable or stress free.
Elder Bednar
Tests absolutely are essential to learning. We are to prove, examine and try our spiritual knowledge.
Prepare to prove that we can learn lessons of eternal importance through the things that we suffer.
Effective and timely preparation precedes successful proving.
As leaders, we are not under the illusion that in the past all
relationships were perfect, all conduct was Christlike, or all decisions
were just. However, our faith teaches that we are all children of our
Father in Heaven, and we worship Him and His Son, Jesus Christ, who is
our Savior. Our desire is that our hearts and minds will be knit in
righteousness and unity and that we will be one with Them.
"Unity and diversity are not opposites. We can achieve greater unity as
we foster an atmosphere of inclusion and respect for diversity."
Elder Oaks
"The Savior’s teaching to love our enemies is based on the reality that all mortals are beloved children of God."
Elder Waddell
From the beginning of time, the Lord has provided direction to help His
people prepare spiritually and temporally against the calamities and
trials that He knows will come as part of this mortal experience.
Being temporally prepared and self-reliant means “believing that through
the grace, or enabling power, of Jesus Christ and our own effort, we
are able to obtain all the spiritual and temporal necessities of life we
require for ourselves and our families.”
The Lord does not expect us to do more than we can do, but He does expect us to do what we can do, when we can do it.
Elder Uchtdorf
God uses adversity to bring about His purposes.
We all must walk through difficult times, for it is in these times of
adversity that we learn principles that fortify our characters and cause
us to draw closer to God.
In fact, things might get worse before they get better.
While I could not choose the adversity I would encounter, I could choose how I prepared and how I reacted.
We will move forward, and we will be better as a result.
Sister Craven
He gives us much, much more than the value of what we can ever return to
Him. So, what can we give to Him, who paid the incalculable price for
our sins? We can give Him change. We can give Him our change.
Enduring to the end means changing to the end.
Because of Jesus Christ, we can change to become more like
Him. And with His help, we can keep the change.
Elder Oaks
"It was intended that life be a challenge, not so that you would fail, but that you might succeed through overcoming.”
Elder Holland
The point is that faith means trusting God in good times and bad, even
if that includes some suffering until we see His arm revealed in our
behalf. That can be difficult in our modern world when many have come to believe
that the highest good in life is to avoid all suffering, that no one
should ever anguish over anything. But that belief will never lead us to “the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.”
“one’s life … cannot be both faith-filled and stress-free.”
Christianity is comforting, but it is often not comfortable.
There will be times in our lives when even our best spiritual effort and
earnest, pleading prayers do not yield the victories for which we have
yearned, but our harvest comes "by and by".
President Nelson
"If ye are prepared ye shall not fear."
Never stop preparing.
Turbulent times are opportunities for us to thrive spiritually.
The Lord is gathering those who are willing to let God prevail in their
lives. The Lord is gathering those who will choose to let God be the
most important influence in their lives.
Favor or disfavor with God is dependent upon your devotion to God and His commandments and not the color of your skin.
Keep an eternal perspective. And whatever your
challenges, my dear brothers and sisters, live each day so that you are more prepared to meet your Maker. Let that be your new normal.
Monday night for FHE (and to celebrate that my body aches were gone) we took the kids on our monthly temple date to see the Saratoga Springs temple being built and get some ice cream! 25 years ago I remember the Timpanogos Temple being built. It was the 9th temple built in Utah and now the new Lindon Temple just announced will be the 26th temple in Utah!
I am so grateful for the truth of God and that we have living prophets to guide us in knowing His truth.
It was a weekend full of ups and downs, both essential to our experience, but because of Him even the downs have meaning and I can still feel peace during them. For that I am so grateful.
Peace. Power. Purpose. Perspective.
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