Family Updates End of 2018

Dear Kids,

I have been going through and getting these stories ready to print. It has been a blast to go through some memories from so many years! I am SO grateful I took the advice from the Lord in the blessing I received over 8 years ago. I was told to "record as many stories and personal experiences in your life as you possibly can, it will serve you and many others in the years to come".

I am starting to see the reason for that advice. I will keep writing stories!

Along with that... I realized that I haven't done an update for a little while about you guys (those are in individual posts) or for our family. So here goes for 2018~

• We are in "The King and I" as a family that starts in January 2019. We started rehearsals at the end of October. You are all LOVING it! Everyone is in it in some capacity except Joshua... he is the backstage mascot. 
• Brent is still doing his Quartet music with Kirt Keeler, Peter Skousen and Mark Evertson. He LOVES it! They did a concert in the St. George Tabernacle in December. I was able to do "White Christmas" with them and the families sang a few songs as well. It was great!
• I was in "Because We Also Sing" Choir at the end of this year and got to sing a solo in the SLC Tabernacle for the Christmas Concert of Lighting of Temple Square. How amazing it was to sing in that building praising God and Jesus to the crowd. I finished the concert with the solo in the song "In The First Light."
• I was also in Lieto at the beginning of the year and stopped over the summer. It was fun and I'm so grateful I did it, but wanted to do the women's choir more during the fall so didn't join back in again. 
• Brent is still working for Financial Engines. It is doing so much better since switch out of management. I have written quite a few posts about the personal, spiritual and energetic growth we are going through together. It has been AMAZING how much the Lord has helped us in our thought growth, our emotional growth and spiritual growth. I will keep writing about all of that. 
• We did a family money making project during this Christmas Season of making kits for the "Paperboy Storybooks". The kids did great! It was quite involved and required quite a bit from Brent and I, but I'm so grateful that we did it. The kids are learning really great money skills and awareness. They sold about 67 book kits. 
• We did a 12 days family again for Christmas service and each of the kids were able to buy a gift for one of the nights with some of the money they earned. 
• We attended the Basket Brigade in November together as a family. It was SO wonderful to be able to go attend and see how it has been passed down and knowing that we started it all! So rewarding for the soul. The Jeremy Larkin group took it over and it felt so good to show up and just participate. 
• We did quite a few couple trips this year, mainly went to Vegas for some overnighters and get aways. We saw "Mystere", a Cirque show... We went on a tour of the Grand Canyon and Brent showed me all his tour guide stops whenever he does that tour with the Tour company. We gave ourselves some getaways together as "rewards" for habit goals we accomplished together.
• Brent went to Yosemite again with the Tour Company and of course had an amazing time... that is a park that we need to go see together!
• We got a BRAND NEW TRUCK! The Lord opened up the way for us to get the truck that has been on our dreamline for the past 8 years! He opened the doors for it to happen through Krista and Al getting a "dealers" license. We were told very specifically to take it on and add it to our stewardships... even thought it didn't really make logical sense. We obeyed and did it. 
• I went to Idaho for like 6 weeks this summer to help my mom. She has been VERY ILL and I was actually afraid for her life while I was there. She is slowly improving, but it was taxing to be up there. We think that she had come congenital heart failure as a result from phenomena from February. I hope she continues to improve. The kids had a great time up there and with cousins and everything, but I got home and completely crashed. It was really tiring, but I'm SO GRATEFUL for the time I had up there and building our relationship together. I went and visited Kalea for a few days and also Shayla over in Boise for a couple days. 
• Brent and I were working on "Habits" for 2018 and we did AWESOME, until July when I went to Idaho. I lost my motivation going up there... but we are ready to get back and track again. We know that for stewardship to improve we must improve our souls and our habits. I love that the Lord is teaching us line upon line with it all. 
• We bought tickets to go to Italy in March of 2019! Can't wait for that!! We found a deal for 500$ round trip!
• Still been homeschooling the kids, and I'm starting to feel like I'm wrapping my heart and head around it more and more. I feel very dedicated to it all. That is a whole other update... our homeschooling patterns and systems deserve their own post.
• Mesha and Jeff moved down here "officially" just about 3 weeks ago! It is going to be an adjustment getting used to them being here, but a good one. The kids have been so excited!
• I taught quite a few natural medicine classes this past year as well. It has mainly happened because of word of mouth and people asking me to come teach them. I really love teaching those classes and know that it helps and enriches people's lives when I help them in that way. 
• I helped to put together the Mom's homeschooling retreat for the area in September. It was fun to be on the board and get to know more ladies in the area. We have SUCH quality families involved in homeschool and I love so many of my comrades in arms with it!
• The kids went to their first Karate tournament in May. It was fun... but I'm not sure we will do it again for a while. I feel like we were a little bit out of our element... we shall she how we feel about it within the next few months. 
• I have made SO many great friends this year! I feel like I'm finding my tribe here and I love it!
• Brent made a trip to Seattle in the spring with the tour company as well!
• I went on "Women of Worth Wednesday" with my friend Ganel and got about 15k views on my video! It was about scripture study. It felt good to teach to a bigger crowd.
• Colleen Tucker has come to visit us a few times and the kids have loved it! Shauna Little came for a little while as well. I'm so grateful for these adopted aunts in our lives!
• The kids have done a homeschool choir, karate, piano lessons, robotics, dance, entrepreneur projects, craft fairs, reading, etc. We were constantly going to Sandhollow Lake in the spring and summer and the kids were loving that. We went camping to Lake Kolob in the summer (I wrote about Gabe's adventure around the lake with that trip). 

Joshua Updates End of 2018

Dear Joshua,

I have realized while reviewing the last couple years of journal entries that I haven't written very much about you and your improvements and updates! I'm so sorry! So here we go:

• I can't even tell you how much I'm enjoying you right now. You are SUCH a pleasant soul and baby... and you have been since you were born. You have added such happiness to our home. It has melted my heart. You have taught me how to treat the other kids. I remind myself all the time to smile at the other kids and treat the other kids with as much patience and happiness as I do with you... it has been a HUGE help for me and your dad with that. 
• You are a DADDY'S boy! You love your dad! 
• You love your binky. You always want to have it. We are starting to take it away during the day so you will actually start to learn how to talk. Your first words were "momma" and "Taya" (Talia). 
• You will follow Elijah around while he listens to music, specifically "Pirates of the Caribbean" music and "direct" the music together with him all the time. 
• You are very particular about things. When you take your binky out of your mouth, anywhere you are, you find a very specific place to put it. You set your shoes in your basket. You want to hold a fork to eat your food, you don't like your hands dirty.
• You are going to be a very White/Yellow personality!
• You love to have fun with your brothers and sister! You love your sister and will do whatever she wants all the time. You guys share a room right now and you always wake her up in the morning. 
• You are getting mad at me often when I won't let you outside to go play with the other kids.
• You are a blanket boy, and carry around your blue blanket EVERYWHERE. It is at the stage where I have to wash it ALL the time. You love your grew fuzzy bear when you go to bed and lay on it like a pillow. 
• You have a routine of getting into the shower with your dad of laying down on the bathroom rug until someone helps you get undressed, then you must have the toothbrush with you. If you don't follow this routine, you get very frustrated. 
• You have SUCH a sweet disposition. Whenever you see Jesus in a picture, on the computer, in videos, anytime, we say, "Is that Jesus?"... and you say, "yeah" so soft and quiet. You have such a sweet personality. It has brought healing to our family and our hearts so much. 

Elijah Updates End of 2018

Dear Elijah,

I haven't written just specifically about your for a little while and it is time for updates!

• You have improved this year LIKE CRAZY. I am amazed how far your behavior has come from the beginning of the year. You were so defiant at the beginning of the year, and now you are listening, we can talk through things, you are controlling your reactions... it is SO much better. I am so grateful for all the work that you have done and that we have done together. Your dad and I have focused like crazy on filling your love bucket as much as possible during the good times so you are receiving as much positive reinforcement as you can. When you go to "time out" I read the scripture to you before you leave. We read parts of the Book of Mormon together to soften each other's hearts and it has made such a huge difference. 
• You are still VERY head strong. You are a WARRIOR. You always will be. That part of your personality will always be with you, and it should. It is one of your greatest strengths if you use it the right way. You KNOW what you know. You are capable and smart. You get things around you so quickly. You are smart and funny. You are extremely great with numbers. 
• We are reading together as part of your daily routine (when I'm on a good routine!). You are still not hugely interested in reading a ton, but we will get there. 
• You are SO cute with Joshua, but you like to antagonize him a lot. Same with your other siblings, you are an antagonize. You know how to push people's buttons and you are good at it. Just like your uncle Jonathan. 
• You are going to be starting more sports this upcoming year. Your coordination is amazing. 
• You have an AMAZING voice already. You get embarrassed getting in front of a group and crowd, so you won't sing in front of people because you are so worried about doing something wrong, but your tone and ear are wonderful. You will probably start piano next school semester.
• You are ALL about trains. You love everything about them and that is all you want to play with. 
• You are also in Karate and are doing pretty good at it. You aren't quite as focused on it as Gabe and Talia, but you are still six years old and you have time. Right now it is just for learning. You will grow into the ability and focus of it. 
• You go with me to run errands all the time while the older two are in classes. For homeschool our focus for you is your morning routine and how the house runs. I'm really following the concepts in Thomas Jefferson education and being patient with your growth. You are a perfectionist and I can squash your love of learning if I push you too hard. You will get it when you are ready with how smart you naturally are. 
• You will do anything to earn time to hold my phone and listen to "Hans Zimmer" (that is the pandora station that plays the music from "Pirates of the Caribbean and Star Wars). You LOVE the music on there and could listen to it forever, while walking around the house like you are directing it. 
• You are devilishly handsome and always will be. 

Talia Updates End of 2018

Dear Talia,

It has been a while since I have written an update specifically about you, so here we go!

• You are in four dance classes this semester and you are LOVING it. Your favorite is definitely jazz dance. Dancing and music is just part of your soul. You are always walking around the house singing something and you always want to be playing music with whatever we are doing. 
• You read 10 chapter books for homeschooling in the last 3 months. It was awesome watching you do that! Your favorite was "Little Women" and a book about an Indian Princess. 
• You are in piano lessons with Tauna Buckway and you LOVE her. You like the music you are assigned, but more than anything you like to make your own music and play around with sounds a lot. 
• You were BAPTIZED this year! It was in Idaho, in a swimming pool of a friend of Papa and Mimi's. Mimi has been REALLY sick, so you were baptized up there so you could be close to her and cousins while we were in Idaho for the summer time. 
• You did a homeschool choir this past semester and ATE it up. 
• You sang a solo in the St. George Tabernacle during a concert of your dad's and did fabulous!
• You are a major social bug. Your biggest motivation for getting your task chart done is so you can go play with Emery and Maeli (girls in our neighborhood circle). You invited as many girls to your birthday party as possible because you wanted a good crowd. You are always asking who can come over for dinner, especially on Sunday's!
• You are in Karate as well, and you are killing it! You are definitely a warrior princess. You are currently a blue belt. You missed your belt test because of piano lessons... so the next class Master Judd just had you do a bunch of extra things and he gave you the belt in class! You have intensity in class that is amazing to watch.
• You earned 100$ of your own money to buy a tablet. You are determined to get it and saved for about 3 months! Your favorite thing to do is message people that are close to you and tell them, "I love you". 
• You really want a kitten but we have to wait until we aren't renting a house anymore. 
• You are SUCH a little mom to Joshua. One of the first words he said was your name! "Taya!!" He is always calling for you to come and help him and hug him and get it out of bed. It is adorable to see how naturally you just know how to help him, know what to do to make sure he's okay. 
• You love art, you love crafts and you LOVE containers of any kind!! You would do your nails, make up, and hair every moment of your day. You are a girlie-girl, that is for sure. You are still very sad that you don't have a sister, but we try to make up for it by going out just the 2 of us as often as possible. 
• You made a secret "hiding spot" under your bed where it is JUST your space.
• You LOVE to cook. You want to be with me in the kitchen all the time. You get out your "easy bake oven" with your friends EVERY chance you get. You always want to cook something and your favorite meal is Tilapia and veggie rice. 

Gabe Updates End of 2018

Dear Gabe,

I haven't done a "general" update on your for quite a while! So it is time now that 2018 is almost done!

• This whole year you have been doing First Lego League Robotics club for homeschool. At the beginning of 2018 I was your coach together with Katrina Lantz. At the beginning of the 2018 school year, Sarah and Chris Ashworth became your coaches and they are awesome! The focus from Sept-now has been on SPACE. Your competition is January 5th for this semester. I'm excited for you and everything you are learning!
• You are still doing Karate with Joshua Judd as your Master. You are enjoying it quite a bit... and working really hard. You were stuck at purple belt for QUITE a while. Talia advanced before you did to blue and it hurt your feelings for quite a while! But you just did your belt test a couple weeks ago and you made it to blue! yay!
• You are still in piano lessons with Tauna Buckway. Right now your favorite thing to play is ANYTHING from "Pirates of the Caribbean". You have learned quite a few songs from that movie and you LOVE it. You memorize EVERYTHING you are given. I never have to remind you to practice, you sit down at the piano about 4-5 times a day and just play. It is so great!
• You are still in your mind A LOT. You get distracted a lot because of something you start playing out in your mind. You are a daydreamer... sometimes it's a cute thing and other times it is a little tough. But you are getting better and better with attention span and capabilities. 
• You unload the dishwasher for me each morning so it is ready for the day. You always take out the garbages. I love it.
• You are getting quite frustrated when we don't give you space to do your own thing. I can't believe you are 10 years old! You will be going to the temple at the beginning of 2020!
• Your primary teachers LOVE you. You know the scriptures so well and remember EVERYTHING you read. 
• You love to learn about animals and anything about the ocean. You remember the most random facts about animals and the ocean and blurt them out at random times. 
• You still LOVE scouts and everything about it. 
• For homeschool you just finished reading 20 chapter books! Your favorite was Treasure Island. You are into EVERYTHING that has to do with pirates right now. 
• You are starting to babysit together with Talia for short amounts of time and it is HEAVENLY while I go run errands here and there.
• You love Home Alone (the movie) and after watching it set up traps to get "bad guys" for like 2 weeks after. 
• Throughout the Christmas season this year you gave money to people who were needing help from your own motivation... dad and I didn't prompt you at all to do it. You gave 20$ to a homeless couple in Salt Lake while we were up there, you gave money to the Salvation Army every time you saw them outside of a store, you bought a gift for 12 days family by yourself... all of these things from your own wallet. You are SO giving!
• "Hey mom, you should watch all the Pirates Movies tonight with dad for mom and dad movies so that you can tell me all about them in the morning."
• You earned 100$ to buy your own tablet about 3 months ago and you are doing AMAZING at self control with it! You are learning about how to use technology the right way so far. I'm very happy with you about it. 
• You got a BB gun for Christmas and want to shoot it with dad all the time. 
• You are CONSTANTLY wanting me to snuggle with you at night before you go to sleep, you want to tell me all about your day and have me tell you all about mine. You are always wanting to talk through your frustrated feelings about your brothers and sister to try to figure out how to make it better. 
• You still love to build with Legos!

Be The One Who Picks Up The Shirt

Dear Kids,

I went "after Christmas" shopping on Wednesday. It was like Christmas fever all over again, there were tons of people out gathering their years worth of birthday presents (at least, that is one of the reasons why I go! ha! You can't miss out on legos being 50%-70% off!).

Anyway, I finished my lego shopping and went to a nice long line, waiting to be checked out. While I was watching everyone around me I saw an interesting thing. About 40 feet away from where I was there was a shirt that had fallen on the ground in the middle of the walkway. It was blocking like 3/4 of the walkway. I watched as one person after another went around this shirt! They were dodging it like it had an infectious disease; or hopping over it, or stretching as far as they could with their legs to get around it. You get the picture. The funny thing was... it was causing a traffic jam. This shirt that had fallen in the aisle. Such a simple thing, yet it was causing such an issue.

The fascinating thing was that NO ONE took the time (one minute TOPS) to just bend over and pick up the shirt and put it back on the rack. I am not exaggerating when I say that I watched this phenomenon go on for over seven minutes. This shirt on the ground received disapproving looks, scowls, frustrating sighs, and a host of other emotions while it was just laying there on the ground.

There is a saying that I hear one of my sisters say all the time to her kids (and, of course, it's rubbed off on me), "SEE A NEED, FILL A NEED!". How hard is it to just bend over and pick up the shirt?

"Oh no! Not me!"
"Someone will come by and pick that up eventually."
"That is the employees job, not mine."
"Don't step on the shirt Jhonny! It will get it dirty!"
"I can't believe someone dropped that and didn't pick it up!"

I'm sure there are 100's of reasons why people didn't pick up the shirt, one of them being the fact that they just didn't take the time to notice and fill the need.

So... to finish the story. Eventually, someone did pick up the shirt. Me. I left the line I was in, went and picked it up and put it on the rack, then went back in line (the lady behind me saved my spot, yay!). What an interesting small study it was for me to watch such a simple thing, yet remember the lesson that it was teaching me, and anyone who took the time to notice.

Now, please don't get me wrong, I have stepped over "shirts" in aisles before too (figuratively speaking). There have been plenty of times in my lifetime when I have been lazy, dropped something, didn't pick it up, left out the shopping cart, etc. But since becoming older and wiser, taking the lazy way out is something that I don't do anymore when I see an issue. See a need, fill a need has become mantra of mine for years. What goes around comes around is a true principle. Go the extra mile, always. Be the first one to act. Lead by example first. Be the one who picks up the shirt.

If you live this way, you will never regret it, and you will help put smiles on people's faces along the way. Someone who sees you picking up the shirt will remember... and maybe they will be the first person who will pick up the shirt in the next store they go to.

I love you,

Your Mom

Report Of Elder Bednars Question and Answer

Dear Kids,

Last night I went to a fireside "question and answer" with Elder Bednar. It was, of course, so wonderful! As soon as he walked into the room with his wife, I teared up. It was just like being back at BYU-Idaho again! So many tender emotions from that time of my life.

The question and answer session was very good. Here is a run down of most of the things:

1. There was a question about the biggest concern the brethren have for the youth of the church, and how we as parents can help our children to overcome those concerns.

He basically said that the biggest concern of the brethren for the children and youth of the church is their ability to do hard things. Their ability to be resilient and push through life. His answer consisted of MANY poignant answers with the theme of "Let your children fail! Start when they are young! Let them fail, don't be a helicopter parent. Don't try to save them from heart ache. They must experience heart ache and try to overcome the hardships BEFORE they leave your house in order to be functioning adults. Let them fail and be their cheerleader on their side while THEY try to figure out how to get past the hard things."

Don't start when they are 18 years old. Start when they are young. Teach cause and effect. Let them face things that are hard. So many missionaries are coming home simply because the mission didn't "meet their needs". Elder Bednar said, "It's NOT about meeting their needs! It is about serving the Lord. It is about losing yourself in the service of God." Children must learn this importance of the base in the gospel!

They can have character building experiences, and it is okay, talk through it with your kids, but let them get through it on their own while you are there as a cheerleader, not a rescuer. Be an involved parent and give them the emotional tools for facing challenges.

They talked about teaching children how to pray and the strength they can find through KNOWING how to pray for themselves... not just from the parents. Admonished us to  seek for parenting help in the scriptures and follow the Lord's example of parenting, NOT what the world is telling us about parenting. Always compare it with the scriptures and the temple.

This whole discussion was so validating for me because of the way he talked about parenting. That is how I feel like it is best to parent, but sometimes I have felt like a horrible parent for feeling that way because our world is moving so far away from this kind of parenting. I loved it!

2. There was a question about young children 8-12 years old and how to help them understand technology and use it wisely.

Elder Bednar said that the group that is increasing the most on the prayer roles is 8-12 year olds with the motivation of parents being "afraid" for them and their future. He reminded us that the LORD sent these children here at this time. We should not be afraid for them, we should be excited for them!

He then talked about teaching children how to use technology properly. He said, "Use these tools (held the phone and iPad up) for good in your home. Teach them how to do indexing. Teach them how to use the gospel tools app. Let them use those things EVERYDAY. Let them use these tools for LIGHT, then when something comes up on these tools that is dark, they will know how to get rid of that darkness and know where to go in order to get rid of that darkness. If they are never taught how to use these tools for good and light, then when they face darkness from these tools, they will be caught off guard."

That was really good for me to hear and very validating that we are teaching our children how to use them the right way.  He referred to Section 50 of the D&C and told us all to read about replacing the darkness with light. He said, "Someone can't just "stop" looking at pornography, they have to REPLACE it with light." He admonished us to teach our children at an early age how to use technology properly and GIVE THEM RESTRICTIONS of time. It's not a "free for all" that someone should use all the time. He said over and over to teach the children how to use the technology to feel LIGHT.

He talked about role playing with your kids about situations of what can and will happen so they are prepared for it. To put together a "Family Porn Plan" and actions steps of what that includes. And told us to be in the temple as often as possible.

He reminded us that there is NO NEED to fear, these are the times that have been prophecies of! The world is getting darker, but the kingdom of God is getter greater! Look at the light! Do NOT be discouraged, we know how this ends. Keep your eyes on the kingdom.

3. There was a question about how to teach children how to overcome temptations.

He went into that this is the dispensation of the fulness of times. The Light WILL overwhelm the darkness and we HAVE to aggressively chase it away.

He talked about how he had conversations with his sons BEFORE morality issues were presented. He talked to them when they were 12 years old about the DETAILS of what can happen when a girl throws themselves at you. He was the source of the information. He talked to them about the difference between David and Joseph. That the NUMBER 1 problem with David was NOT that he looked... it's that he wasn't where he was supposed to be in the first place. He should have been at war. If he was at war, and where he should have been, he never would have been put in the position of looking and then falling. There is a GREAT lesson in that. Then the example of Joseph and running away from sin. He said don't be afraid of bringing these things up about these details of things your kids will face, especially out of fear of "introducing" something that they've never thought of. If YOU don't introduce it, then Satan will and the results will be horrible! Take charge! Take control of any possibilities in your family and teach your kids how to combat it. IT is a battle.

He then talked about how he could have these conversations because he had already made many deposits into their relationship. Keep depositing into the relationships, then when the hard thing happen, you will be the source. Have OPEN conversations, don't hide behind your fig leaf.

4. There was a question about how in the world are we going to teach our children in our home when they won't even sit still for 5 minutes. It was a great, funny, real question!

He went into talking about the home centered curriculum and the goal is for the family to be central in God's teaching ways. He was basically saying that the Lord wants for us to be prophets in our own homes and stop relying on the church so much! It is OUR job to prepare our families. It is our job to teach our families. The child should come to YOU first, NOT their bishop. Take FULL accountability of your family.

Then he talked about how before his son went on his mission, he and his wife went to the bishop and met with him first before his son was interviewed and that THEY commended their son for a mission and approved of him going. They took full responsibility, it wasn't the bishops choice! It was theres and their stewardship and responsibility.

He talked more about depositing in our children's emotional bank account about gospel relationships and creating your own traditions and your own family patterns.

We were told to ask ourselves the questions of "What are we doing as parents to cause contention?" and then taking responsibility of our actions and how they are affecting our homes. Watch our tone of voice. Then we talked about how we give our best effort and the Lord will make up the difference.

Sister Ence, the regional authority's wife, got up and said how as her kids were growing (they had seven) and she always said she felt awful about how inconsistent they were with scripture study and the other "check list" items. They would do great for a few months, then fall off the wagon, then to great again, and then fall off the wagon, and it was constantly this back and forth. But she said, "If you ask any of our kids, all they remember is that we always did scripture study, We always had prayer, we always did those things. So I did my best, I brought my 5 loaves and 2 fishes to the Lord and HE was the one that magnified it and expanded it to fill in the rest. I didn't have to feel like I was doing it on my own. If we bring our best to the Lord, HE is the one who makes up the rest."

I LOVED hearing that. It was so validating and so right! We do our best! He makes up the difference for our humanity.

We were told to focus on what the kids need to learn, NOT what we want to teach or told to teach. Help them learn what the spirit is telling them, that is the most important gospel skill they can have. The best goal is to teach the children to be dependent on the Lord, and completely independent from you... or from anyone else. Dependent on the LORD only.

The Holy Ghost must be present while teaching, or it doesn't matter. turn the teaching time into experiences. Then Elder Bednar said, "This is not about you teaching them. It is about you learning together. Let the kids teach! Let them take charge of the lessons! Let them do it! Let them mess it up and learn in the process."

5. There was a question about studying about things in church history and it affecting our testimony because of questionable things we read about church history.

Elder Bednar said, "YOU haven't studied ENOUGH of church history or in the gospel if you are thinking about separating yourself from the church."

Then he said to give EQUAL time to the Book of Mormon as you give to reading anything that is anti- literature. He always tells people when this comes up to give equal time to reading the Book of Mormon as you give to reading anything that is causing you to want to give up your testimony. "If you spend 2 hours reading something that takes away your testimony, that's fine! Read, find out what you can... but then read just as much in the Book of Mormon."

Then he challenged us to do our due diligence and find out about our sources. NEVER believe something until you find out your sources and how they found out their information. So many people believe just whatever comes up.... VERIFY your sources!!

He said that true IN DEPTH study about church history will actually strengthen your testimony, not picking and choosing a few things to study... not getting stuck on 2-3 things that bother you.

6. Question about balancing spouse and family.

He talked about how there is NO family unless you have a strong relationship with your spouse. IT is of absolute importance that you are together as spouses. If you don't put your spouse first there won't be any eternity!

Then he went into teaching the WHY of the doctrine from an early age and maintaining relationships with each other in enduring to the end.

"We can't be perfect... but we can be WORTHY." THAT was a huge statement for me. Pray for each other in couple prayers outloud for each other for the other to hear (we were given that counsel in our sealing ceremony... so that was validation for that!)

We will be in the right place at the right time when you are on the covenant path. Trust, have a little faith that if something isn't working in your life and you are on the covenant path, then you are still being lead in the right way. You are going to be where your re supposed to be, there are NO ACCIDENTS. Nothing is messed up, nothing. There are no mistakes, only opportunities, God trusts us to learn the lessons we need of eternity. Inspire of heartache there can be joy in coming unto Christ

Sooooo

What does this mean for our family? As Brent and I talked about it, these were the most important things we felt counseled by the spirit to do for our family (which Elder Bednar said this a lot, "Can you hear what the Holy Ghost is telling you individually??")

1. We need to pray more out loud for our children in our family prayers. The kids have been saying family prayers a lot. So we are going to say more family prayers so the kids can hear us pray for our family more often and receive those lessons in our prayers.

2. Let the kids teach the new manual and Come Follow Me lessons.

3. Individual time with the kids. Do late nights with the kids on their "birthday" date of the month.

4. Do role playing with the kids about pornography, bullying, technology, dangerous things, what to do with someone trying to touch them inappropriately, how to appropriately search on you tube, what do to when something inappropriate comes on the screen, etc. ROLE PLAY so they are ready and act instead of being acted upon!

5. Helping the kids recognize how the Spirit talks to them individually.

6. Realizing the ANCHORS that our children are getting... what associations they are having with the gospel experiences and if there are enough deposits.

That's it!

Love you,

Mom

Getting Rid Of All Doubt

Dear Kids,

Your dad and I stayed up until 2am last night just talking about so many things. Sometimes I can't articulate things well enough to really express everything that I am feeling, seeing and believing inside of our lives and the energies of our souls together.

I came home from finishing a fireside with Elder Bednar. I will write my impressions and notes down from that in another entry. But after telling Brent about everything from that fireside, we went into more conversation about us.

It started with me finishing up telling him about when Elder Bednar was answering questions about what we are "supposed" to be doing with our lives. He was telling everyone in the audience that he is convinced that it isn't so much about making the choices of (example) "whether I should be a lawyer or a dentist". But that it is more important that you remain on the covenant path and then the way will be made clear for you.

In this conversation I was telling Brent that I had feelings of wondering whether or not our "bigger goals" were necessary, because all we need is to stay on the covenant path and that's all the really matters. I had doubts of feeling like, it doesn't really matter about those big goals of ours.

He then told me about how he knew we have a big mission to fulfill. He has always known it. He has always felt how big his stewardship is, but he always knew in his life that he had to find me to have it happen. Even when he was away from the light, everyday Satan was trying to convince him of the "untruths" of the gospel. And everyday Brent told Satan that he knew the church was true, he was making bad choices and sinning against the light, but that he would never give up his knowledge of the church being true. But when he saw me and met me, he knew that we could accomplish those things together.

Now I don't know what the exact path looks like for our future. I DO know that keeping on the covenant path IS THE WAY to accomplish any big goals. I want to be an instrument in the hands of God. Period. I want to do all the good in the world that I can for HIM, and your dad feels the same way. We are willing to put ourselves in the position to do what the Lord would have us do with our lives, and that equals big things.

Then your dad went on to tell me about specific revelations he has had, and how he has hesitated telling me about them because of the doubt he felt from me... and just feeling like how saying the revelations and inspirations outloud almost sound a bit insane. We then had a HUGE conversation about overcoming doubt... specifically about me overcoming doubt inside of him, your dad.

I wrote in another post about the inception thought that the spirit helped me to identify in my heart about your dad and our lives together. I have been amazed how apparent my doubting thoughts have even prevalent in my thought processes, so subtle, but keeping me from completely giving my heart to our future... doubting NOTHING.

The other thing we talked about was how much Brent has felt tutored by the Lord. When we were first married, there was an energy in our marriage that was very real inside of feeling like Brent wanted me to take the reigns and provide for our family. He told me last night he felt that way in a very REAL way, so often just subconsciously feeling like, "take this from me, I don't want to do it anymore." And with my professional background, I could have! Part of the reason for him feeling this way was because the women in his life had always followed that pattern. His mom always provided for the family. His dad NEVER showed an example of what it was like to be a provider and patriarch.  Your dad literally had/has no idea how to do it. He feels like so often he is failing because he's making it all up as he goes along. It has taken YEARS... 10+ years literally for him to energetically put himself in a place of confidence that he IS the patriarch of our family. He is that priesthood leader, and we lead this family together in our individual stewardships.

I can't tell you how many prayers I have prayed over the last 10 years begging Heavenly Father to teach Brent... to take him in the palm of HIS hands, and teach him how to do this patriarch thing. And it's really hard to even articulate exactly what that struggle looks like. All I know is that I always felt like I was the one who was "acting and not being acted upon" as far as leadership in our home. Your dad has had to grow into that capability. I felt SO MUCH gratitude for the fact that he WANTS it. He wants to be the leader and patriarch. He wants to be that man, and he is learning as he goes. And the Lord is tutoring him! I have prayed and cried and spent countless soul stretching hours begging Heavenly Father to teach my husband what it means to be a patriarch and father.

All day today I have been praising the Lord that it's working! I always had false expectations for so many years that that specific tutoring would happen in just a few weeks time and I would see a difference quickly. That was a false expectation. It has been years of tutoring. Years of making changes. Years of adversity and overcoming. Years of learning experiences. Years of learning and studying. It is VERY true the thought of "what we are doing RIGHT NOW is creating our life in 5-10 years". What we are experiencing RIGHT NOW is a result of those choices made years ago. Incremental choices that lead to big results with the compounding of time.

We then talked about me, and how I have been learning how to be a matriarch... the creator in our home. How to be a co-creator with Brent and with God. What that energetically and spiritually really feels like and looks like. I feel like the last few months my understanding of all of that has increased exponentially. I praise God for it! I glory in my Jesus because of it. In my heart the Lord is showing me how I act with faith in my thoughts and in my actions and in my "recreating" of my thought blue prints. My work over the next months and years is purging myself of doubt. "Doubting NOTHING" as it says in the scriptures. Doubt not, fear not. That is my tutoring right now. Recognizing all the ways I have doubted the masculine and feminine roles, and doubted Brent and really feeling like HE is the one who can accomplish all of this. I am being purged of all thoughts doubt thoughts and it feels AMAZING!

We talked about my feelings with Brent's decisions in the past and I realized that I still had some things in my soul I had to get rid of. I was able to process them with Brent and feel so much more confidence in trusting him completely with his morality choices. I was so grateful to talk through it because we need to talk about our story and what we have gone through and overcome. But we have to be both okay with telling that story and I had felt like Brent wasn't sharing because of shame he still felt... when in reality it was because he was very perceptive of how it was affecting me when he would talk about it. So we were able to work through that and really labor through those emotions and flow them out of my physical body. At one point I started shivering uncontrollably and got SO COLD. It was my body getting rid of that anxiety I still had in my heart about it. I'm so grateful to be rid of it!

The conclusion of the conversation consisted of so much confidence in each other. Knowing where our roles are inside of this path and feeling complete peace about it. My role as a creator in my family is very powerful... "Look what I have created" is the theme of my life right now. Doubting NOTHING and glorifying in my Jesus along the covenant path. It is a lot of mental work. It is A LOT of recognizing when Satan is attacking and placing thoughts, and recognizing the thoughts and feelings of doubt that must be purged from my heart. It is changing thought habits, it is changing thought emotions. But it is a beautiful thing and something I'm so excited about going through. My arms are open to all the change and I accept with my arms outstretched loving everything involved with bringing it about.

Some might be confused about what this process looks like. I will give an example. Today, after having the conversation last night, at one point the thought came of, "That revelation Brent shared last night was a little crazy." As soon as that thought came I said, "I cast out that thought and I am doubting nothing." then I replace that thought with , "I have faith in the revelations the patriarch of my family is receiving." Another example is, "It doesn't matter trying to reach the big goals you have for your life." That is a DOUBTING thought, as soon as it came I said, "I cast out that thought and I am doubting nothing." then REPLACE the thought with , "I have faith that the Lord has moved us by the power of the Holy Ghost to have these desires of being instruments in His hands for a reason, and I am leaving the details of the HOW it will come about to the Lord." Another example is, "Because of Brent's past, he can never hold a calling in the church of any significance." That is a fear thought. So I say, "I cast out that thought and I doubt not and fear not for the future." then replace the thought with, "Because of Brent's past, he will be placed in those callings and experiences the Lord has in mind in order to best help the people around us, no matter what that looks like, we will be happy to give the service."

This is the tricky part. Those thoughts are coming to me ALL THE TIME. So it is strenuous mental acknowledgement and work. I will try to write down more examples as they come... but those are a few. This mental work is a constant. And it is work. But it is worth it. I am so grateful to the Lord for this spiritual uplift and change that has happened in my heart, in Brent's heart, and in our home.

I love you... you will have challenges in your marriage. As long as both of you want to work through it, the Lord will help you. don't give up! You are being developed into an amazing human being with the process of time, experiences and willingness to serve and glorify the Lord.

I love you,

Your Mom

Inception Thoughts

Dear Kids,

There is a movie called "Inception". The basic storyline is about a man who has the technology to insert himself into other people's dreams. He uses this technology as his job. He and his wife end up going "under" for a long enough period of time in their dreams to be there for years and years in their minds, but only for a day in reality. He comes to understand that he can place in her mind a "thought" that will dominate all of her behavior when they finally wake up. This deep thought placed in the subconscious mind is called 'Inception'.

He ends up being hired by someone to place an 'Inception' subconcious thought into a competitors mind in order to change the course of his company.

There is a purpose to me telling you all of this I promise!

I have been doing quite a bit of inner work, especially since the mother's homeschool retreat in September that I went to. I had so many validations from the spirit at that retreat.

Some of the inner work I have been doing consists inside of my feelings and relationship with your dad. I have always had this underlying feeling that if any "success" was going to happen in our family, if any "recognition" was going to come to us, if any "building" of ourselves was going to happen, it would be because of me. It has been a predominant but underlying thought I have had for many, many years. In my meditations, I have always visualized and felt that I was the more dominant reason in my meditations and visualizations in our future.

I knew this was wrong, but it was still a deep feeling of mine. So I started changing my meditations in the last month or so. I have been visualizing your dad and I together. I have a practice during meditations of almost "seeing" my mind opening on the top and light and knowledge is being poured into it from heaven. I changed that so instead of seeing just "me" in this visualization I have been seeing your dad and I together, standing side by side and when the top of our heads open, it happens across both of us. I have another practice of seeing a spark in my heart and it expands from inside of me to all around me, to filling my home, filling our town and then filling the world. I have changed that so instead of seeing just spark in my heart, I have been seeing your dad and I together and the spark is between both of us and then expanding from there.

This has been really powerful to experience these types of visualizations and meditations with both of us in mind, especially to get away from the "it's all because of me" thought and complex. It is wrong to be so 'me' focused.

Since doing that, there was a day when I was sitting on the porch while you were all playing with friends in the circle. Then I had this inspiration come to me, "Andrea, you have an inception thought that you placed in your subconscious years ago that Satan is using to destroy you and using to 'get' to you and keep you and Brent from accomplishing things together and getting to a level together in your relationship."

When the spirit told me that I started feeling and thinking about what it could be. Then I had flashes back from when we were dating. And then I knew! the thought came as clear as day. The inception thought was this:

I don't know if Brent is the man it talks about in my patriarchal blessing.

THAT was the thought I had several times while I was dating your dad. I had those thoughts because of your dad's past sins and choices. In my blessing it talks about that if I use the power the Lord has given to me with my testimony of Jesus Christ, then my family, my children and my husband will not fall to the temptations the adversary places in our paths. There are also other places in my blessing that it tells us very specifically what we will be doing, involved is sitting in some of the highest councils of the church and being an inspiration to couples, families, and individuals all over the world.

Now, as we are here in this story, obviously it is 12 years later and I did choose to marry your dad. I had several experiences that confirmed to me the power of us being together that it was the right choice. But I have always been confused with the promise in my patriarchal blessing about my spouse not falling to the temptations of the adversary, especially because of the places where Brent has had to come back from. I either put all the responsibility of his choices on my shoulders and that I didn't use my power "right", or that he wasn't the right man. THAT was the inception thought that has been in my subconscious for YEARS.

When the spirit hit me with the inception thought, and how Satan has taken that thought which had originated from me, and twisted it in my mind and my energies in my marriage, I couldn't believe the power I have been giving away.

I talked to your dad about this as well. I told him about this whole experience and then he had some very good insight for me. He said this, "Andrea, it's interesting because when I hear the word 'fall' I think in the scriptures when the people fell completely away from the church and completely lost their testimonies. Even though I 'gave in' to temptations around me, I never fully 'fell'. I knew every second of everyday that I was making the wrong choices. I KNEW the church was still true, I never lost my testimony, I never lost my love from my Heavenly Father and my Savior, I never lost my testimony of Joseph Smith. I never fully "fell". And that is because of your promise in your blessing. I 'gave in' and made bad choices... but I never 'fell'."

That did my heart so much good talking to him about all of this. The spirit confirmed to me that he was right! That is exactly what my blessing meant about falling. The hold Satan has had on my thoughts inside of my marriage from that deep, subconscious thought, has been a strangle hold for me. I feel like in the last month after going through this break through that my thoughts and feels and hopes for our marriage has been set free!

It has caused me to pay attention to other "inception" thoughts that I have placed in my subconscious mind, and rewriting them where appropriate.

So I want you to remember how powerful your thoughts are. They are SO POWERFUL. Thoughts truly do become things. We have ALL the control and power over our lives because of the way we feed our minds, hearts, and spirits through the power of our thoughts. Don't ever let anyone tell you differently. Our thoughts are tangible things, we create the whole melody of our lives.

I do believe that things happen "to" us. But I believe it is 95% of the time that things are "created" by us. Sometimes, the Lord places things in our laps that we didn't invite there. But that is rare. MUCH more rare than we want to admit. It is more acceptable to feel like 95% of the things that happen in our lives have happened "to" us instead of seeing the power we have in our minds and souls inside of the creation of our lives. We create. We are Gods and Goddess's in embryo. We have more power than we can possibly comprehend. And that is not prideful or boasting. It is simple fact. The other part of this is that GOD wants us to discover this power. That is one reason why we are NOTHING without him. He is our mentor on this road to Godhood. We cannot do it without Him. We must have Him by our side the entire time. But most of the time the things that happen to us are created by something we have either thought, or caused to happen to us.

I love you kids. Pay attention to the thoughts you place in your subconscious. It is life changing.

Love,

Your Mom

Elijah Teaching Me To Try Again

Dear Kids,

This motherhood gig is not for the faint of heart.

The other day I woke up NOT prepared to face the day. I didn't get up and do my normal routine (reading, praying, exercising, meditation and taking a luxurious shower) which always throws things off for our entire day. I can't believe the difference in our days when I get up and get all my "soul-filling-self-care" in for the day before I start to face the motherhood battle.

Anyway, this particular day I didn't get all that done. I woke up reacting to the day from the moment my eyes saw the light through the cracks in my eyes. I consciously knew I shouldn't be feeling to negative about the day already. There was no crisis, no emergency, but subconsciously I was in one of those "funks" and wasn't shaking it off. And children are the BEST at soaking up energy from anyone around them, doesn't matter what kind of energy it is, they soak it up and emulate it.

So, of course, that also lead to reaction from everyone...but especially Elijah. He's been figuring out so many things in his soul I feel like for the entire six years of his life. He is full of fire, fight, spunk, humor, and particularities. Inside of those strengths are a bunch of weaknesses wrapped up in the package, and anger is one of those things. He reacts with anger and defensiveness automatically to EVERYTHING if he is allowed to. He isn't afraid to face life square in the eyes.

When I am reactive, and he is reactive, it is a bad combination. And this day was after a week of HARD mom days (days that I wasn't reactive and really doing my job well... but they there still hard and had reached a climax of exhaustion). Before 9am this day I already had to interfere with about five fights going on, with Elijah being in the middle of them.

I asked him to brush his teeth and he snapped at me, "I can't find my toothbrush!!" I said as calmly as I could, "Don't you remember... you threw it at me yesterday in the kitchen. Do you remember where it landed?" It was under the stove. Gathering the grim and muck. But I was waiting for him to be ready to get it out from under there.

To the kitchen we went. He reached under and he couldn't reach it. So he snapped at me to help him. "Try again buddy." Again a bad reaction. "Try again." Finally, he got to the place of saying, "Mom, will you help me please."

I ALWAYS wait for him ask kindly before doing anything, because he can be very demanding, and this day, the way it was starting out, was leading to some major "try again" statements ALL DAY.

Back to the toothbrush. I got something to help me reach it under the stove. Pulled it out and not a second after I got it out from under the stove Elijah grabbed it out of my hand. In the process he completely knee'd me in the face... specifically my nose. It brought tears to my eyes. Remember I am on the kitchen floor, laying flat on my stomach because of getting this toothbrush out from under the stove. Elijah was on my right side, so when my left had came out holding the toothbrush and he reached across to grab it so suddenly, my face was in the way.

Well... it didn't just bring tears to my eyes because it hurt, it also brought tears to my eyes because of emotion. Through the tears and emotion I blurted out, "TRY AGAIN! You can't grab things out of my hands! You hurt me!"

He was taken aback because he could tell my reaction wasn't normal. He asked me nice, I gave him the toothbrush then I rushed to my room. Your dad was there finishing up his shower and came out just in time for my outburst and the blur of my body rushing past him to go to my room away from all of it.

There I just broke down. My mind starting whirring around in circles with thoughts of complete despair. I can't do this! I can't raise this child! I can't raise these children! I am so tired of all the fights! All the exhaustion of NEVER being done! I am sick of doing dished and laundry all the time! I am so tired of kids never getting a long! Why can't I just have a bad day and have it not affect everyone else in the process!

I just went through all the reasons why I was DONE. I didn't want to do this motherhood thing anymore. It was one of those climax moments of insanity, but full of reality all at the same time. In the midst of my break down, Brent came in to me and just rubbed my head without saying a word. When I calmed down and got my emotions and thoughts under control, he simply said, "You are amazing. No one can do this but you. You are perfect for the job. Even when you have bad days."

In that moment, I didn't believe those words. But it was good to hear. Then I saw a timid little face peak around the corner looking at me from the hallway. My Elijah Boy. I saw him, made myself give a half hearted smile, and he came rushing to me with his snuggly, soft blanket wrapped around him. He looked at me with such remorse and whispered, "I'm really sorry I hurt you mom."

I gathered him up in my arms and hugged him and rocked him. My heart just burst open in love for this boy. I just imagined him, after I went momentarily insane, running to his room, wrapping himself up in his soft blanket, and trying to figure out in his little heart what had just happened. I told him I was sorry for my outburst and we just held each other for a bit. Then he leaned back and I smiled at him and said, "Let's try again. Let's start over. Let's say a prayer." He could feel my heart completely forgave him, opened myself up to him, and had turned to God together to find healing. Children are so responsive to pure love. Love with no other motive besides just forgiveness, accepting, repenting and moving forward together with Christ helping us.

That climatic moment changed the course of the day. That is something I love about conflict... when we choose to let the seed of benefit from the pain be planted in our hearts, it brings us together.

I am so grateful for real life moments like these to remind me of my humanity. To help me empathize with others. To help me let down my walls, get my emotions out, and to try again. Take a deep breath and try again. And again. Just like I told my son, "Try again."... it is the same for me. Try again mom. It's okay, you will get it after a few tries. And it's okay. We are all children learning together how to walk on this road of life back home.

I try again another day. I breath in another day. Remind myself that there will be peace in my home as long as their is peace in my heart. I am realistic enough about my humanity to understand that this won't be the last time I will feel like giving up. And it won't be the last time that I will pick myself back up to "Try Again". But among all the trying, doing, completing, and living in this life are moments like those of that face looking at me around the corner and rushing to me with an open heart to consummate our love together once again.

I love you kids,

Your Mom

Gabe's Adventure Around Kolob Lake

Dear Kids,

We went camping about a month ago up at Kolob Lake.

It was GORGEOUS!! So beautiful with the trees, water, beach, and NO technology. It's always so refreshing to get away from all the hustle and bustle. We were only going to be able to stay for an overnighter, but that was plenty!

There was one specific situation that happened that I MUST write down and tell you about.

We brought walkie talkie's with us to the lake and all you kids were just having a blast with them. You would wander around with one and we could still keep track of you back at camp. Such a needed adventure for your young souls who want to be so independent!

At one point Gabriel came to me and asked, "Mom, could I walk down the beach a while by myself? I will take a walkie talkie with me." After talking about it, we decided that it would be okay and that after a bit he needed to turn around and come back to camp.

So he headed out. We kept checking in with each other and talking about things that were going on around him. All the birds he was seeing and the mud his shoes were getting stuck in. At one point he said, "Mom, can you see me clear down here?? I'm waving! I'm at the big rocks!"

Well, this was MUCH farther than I had even thought he would get. I could see him, but he was like a speck on the horizon. I told him, "Wow buddy! That's amazing that you got that far!" He was going much faster than I had anticipated, but I felt really happy for him to have that adventure.

It turns out that at some point he got it in his mind that he wanted to walk all the way around the lake.  Unfortunately when I thought he was turning back to come back to camp, he just kept right on going. And this isn't just a small lake, it's quite a jaunt to go all the way around. After I had seen him waving, I checked in with him just  a bit later and he wasn't radioing me back.

"Gabe.... are you there?"
"Gabe... where are you buddy?"
"Gabe... It's time to come back to camp now."

NO ANSWER. Well... my heart started to do some pitter-pattering. I had seen enough movies when kids are kidnapped or something and immediately my mind just went to fear. What happened? Why isn't he answering? He should be coming back to camp by now.

Brent ended up jumping into the truck to go look for him. He came back about 20 minutes later and hadn't found him. So by this point, I was REALLY starting to feel nervous. After talking about it, we decided that I would jump in the truck with Brent, we would take Joshua with us, and Brent would go drop me off at the halfway point and I could start talking to people about if they had seen Gabe at all. We told Talia that she needed to stay in camp and just keep checking in with us on the radio.

So we drove for a bit, and kept walking back and forth to people on the shore talking to them about seeing Gabe.

"Oh yes! About 10 years old? Red stripe down his pants? He came through here a while ago. He was on an adventure!"
"For sure I saw him... just doing the boy thing and walking around the lake."
"Yes, I wondered what he was doing."
"Yes, I asked him about how he was doing and if he needed anything and he told me that he couldn't talk to strangers but that he appreciated it."

Then we got about 3/4 the way around the lake and the end answer from a 50 year old lady was this.

"Yes, I saw him about 20 minutes ago, but he didn't keep going around the lake, he went up into the forest to go over the ridge. I was watching him the whole way until I couldn't see him anymore. I knew someone would probably show up that would be looking for him."

With that answer, I had no idea what to say or think. I had started to hike around the lake and go in a certain direction and Brent took off in the truck in another direction... all the time checking in on the radio and never hearing back from Gabriel.

During this whole process it was a fascinating back and forth from my mind to my heart.

First, I got just a taste of what it feels like to loose a child and have no idea where they are. It's AWFUL! That feeling of emptiness having no idea where they are and no answer was just gut wrenching. Second, I noticed a huge battle between my mind and heart and gut. My mind was going 45 million miles an hour thinking of all the horrible things that could have happened. My heart was just longing to find him, to hold him, and to know that he was okay. My gut kept telling me, "Andrea... it's okay. He's okay. Be calm."

The wrestle going on was so interesting. I kept swallowing my panic and listening to my gut. Because I know that my gut NEVER steers me wrong. I have spent YEARS and YEARS fine tuning the difference between these 3 faculties of mine, and I know the difference... even when it's a stress filled moment. I prayed. I praised God for going through this empathetic moment. I praised Jesus for whatever needed to happen. I prayed some more. I started to almost FORCE my mind to see Gabe healthy, strong, and okay. I have learned so many gut wrenching experiences that those are my best weapons of truth. To be spiritually centered, praise God, and then say, "It is all Yours. Whatever happens is Yours. Let me be your instrument."

I had been looking for him for A WHILE and I had decided when I made it back to camp that we would get more people involved if we didn't find him by then.

As it turns out when I had about 10 minutes left to get to camp while I was walking around the lake we got a call on the radio from Talia.

"Mom!! You won't believe it! I see Gabe! He's coming over the ridge and over to camp. He's coming to camp!"

I had almost forgotten about the fact that the kids back at camp were as worried as I was!

Turns out, Gabe had lost his radio about 2 minutes after he waved to us from "the big rocks", which is why we didn't hear from him. He was lost in his mind (happens a lot with his thought processes) and left it there on the rock while he was looking at some plant.

Oh the relief! The joy!

Also... the understanding. I understood more how parents feel when their children are lost. Physically or spiritually. It's not complete. It's not whole without them. And the fight with the devil to not go into complete despair. Luckily, our story turned out for the best. He was fine. He told me he decided that he knew he could get around the lake and so he was going to do it. He is also a boy who will get things done when he pus his mind to it. He knew where he was going. I asked him how he knew where camp was over the ridge.

"Oh mom, I knew exactly where came was and how to get there."

The realization of how big he is getting flooded over me. And his capabilities. I would have NEVER thought he could make it all the way around that lake and make it over the ridge on his own. But he said, "I was afraid a little, but I just told it to go away." Amazing. I hope he can feel that way about life.

I love you kids. I love you so much. It would never be complete if even one of you is gone, physically, spiritually, mentally... any way.

I love you,

Your Mom

Book of Mormon Christ Specific Reading Challenge

Dear Kids,

During conference (Oct. 2018), President Nelson challenged all the women in the audience (during women's conference), to read the Book of Mormon before the end of the year and highlight EVERY verse and phrase that mentions the Savior.

This has been a fascinating exercise of study! I grabbed a Book of Mormon that had never been marked so I could start with the clean state. Then I started following his recommendation. I have been BLOWN away at the phrases and consistencies that are constantly popping out at me... and I'm only in Alma so far! It has expanded my faith and praise vocabulary immensely.

The amazing part is the phrases that are repeated over and over and over again. They are about deliverance. Constantly there are phrases of deliverance. And remembering. Remembering God. Remembering Christ. Being delivered by His hand. Coming back to God and living. His arms are always open.

-Begin to call on the name of the Lord
-Praise be to God
-Praise God
-Glory be to my Jesus
-The Lord worketh in many ways
-Enlightened by the Spirit of the Lord
-Raise their/your voice to God
-Cry unto the Lord
-He did show forth might power
-In the strength of the Lord
-The Lord covenanteth with his people
-The Lord remembers those who are His people
-In the power of the Lord
-He will deliver you

So many of these phrases have become part of my thinking throughout my day with all of you. I can't tell you how many times I have thought, "It's okay... all praise be to God!". Praising God IS the way that I get through motherhood!

So I challenge you, just like the prophet challenged me... that when you read this that you read the Book of Mormon and mark every verse and phrase where any mention of Christ is written. And remember... Christ is the Lord of the Old testament, and the Book of Mormon IS an Old Testament Book (well... 75% of it!). So it doesn't just have to be 'Jesus Christ'... but the majorities of the "Lord" and "God" mentions are Him as well.

I love you,

Your Mom

Being Involved

Dear Kids,

Something I never want to forget is how important it is, and how INNATE it is, for every human being to want to be involved with people around them.

Joshua, who just turned two years old yesterday, is reminding me of this fact. He is constantly wanting to be involved in everything going on around him. When all the kids are outside playing, he must be out there with them. Just tonight when everyone hopped in the truck to go on a ride with dad, he was freaking out because he wasn't there with them. When anyone is brushing their teeth, he wants to do it too.

There are lists and lists of things that are like this, and Joshua is not unique in this fact. EVERY child does this.

So where do we loose it? It is so natural for every child to push to be involved and "be a part". At some point we choose to listen to the negative thoughts inside of us that we are "not enough" and don't allow ourselves to be part of things any more. Maybe because of being afraid of what people will think of us, not wanting to look silly, not wanting to intrude... for whatever reason... just remember, it's NOT NATURAL. It is a learned behavior. Learned at 6 years old or 16, at some point all of us go through it.

So unhook! Remember that, just like a child, people are born to love. Kids are born to be "a part". To be involved, don't forget! It is such a natural state of "flow". When we don't stop ourselves from being part of something and don't stop ourselves because of fear, we can live in faith. It is natural for us to live in faith, we have just forgotten.

Remember kids! Remember to live in faith! Remember to flow with your natural positive self that you were given at birth. Remember!

I love you,

Your Mom

It's The Little Things

Dear Kids,

It's the little things.

Like Talia setting up a bed for Elijah in the tent they made today so he could sleep there tonight.
Like Gabriel reading books to Elijah the night before his birthday to help him sleep really well for his "big day".
Like Elijah watching Talia show him how to do a ballet leap and trying to do it over and over.
Like Joshua coming to me and handing me a diaper and smiling with his big smile.
Like Gabriel being so frustrated, not knowing how to handle his frustrations, they are boiling up inside of him so strongly, but he doesn't lash out.
Like Brent rubbing my neck while we are working on the Christmas book details for the kids.
Like Talia telling me that she can't sleep and asking me over and over for a massage with oils.
Like Elijah holding onto my arm trying to stop me from leaving his bedtime snuggles.
Like waking up to Elijah and Gabriel playing automatically from the moment they wake up with their legos and action figures.
Like watching my kids paint at the table and trying to get that creativity out of their minds.
Like asking them, "what do you think of your painting?" and they say, "I love it!".
Like sitting in my camping chair on the front porch watching the kids come in and out of the yard, back and forth between houses playing army, cops, robbers and girls in distress.
Like Joshua throwing rocks into the street and looking at me with a big smile because he knows he is not supposed to.
Like the kids being more patient than I am explaining something to each other.

There are so many moments like this everyday. I am so blessed.

Fall in love with motherhood? Yes, it's a process.

Yes, it's worth it.

I love you,

Your Mom

Tender Mercy Twine

Dear Kids,

I can't forget to tell you about our tender mercy twine. I was reminded when I saw the twine on our van this morning.

When we were coming home from Idaho about a month ago we had a situation with the bottom part of our bumper... the mud flap thing that is underneath the bumper. It had come loose while up in Idaho. I went to Papa's car care shop to get it fixed and we thought we had it taken care of.

We were going to do a stop in Blackfoot to pick up a tortoise from my friend to take back home with us as a pet. As we were heading to the freeway I had the DISTINCT impression to go on the back roads to Blackfoot. I ignored it, but again felt like I needed to, so I turned around and went away from the freeway exit and heading back to the back roads.

We made it to Blackfoot, picked up the tortoise, and then hopped on the freeway. I felt okay about getting on the freeway from Blackfoot. So about 2 minutes onto the freeway I felt a huge "POP" and then something was dragging... which of course was the mud flap.

I pulled over to the side. Got out, checked it out, and saw that it was going to be a HUGE problem for the rest of the trip. I tried to just take it off, but that wasn't going to happen, I wasn't strong enough. I tried to attach it somehow, but nothing was working. So I stepped back away from the van and thought, "Okay Heavenly Father, what am I supposed to do with this? I can't keep driving like this." We were on a time schedule as well in order to make it to Esti's baptism on time before heading to Salt Lake.

The spirit just said, "Look around." So I turned and looked around. There on the side of the road by the freeway was a piece of blue twine. There was NO OTHER twine to be seen. Just that piece, right by the side of the road where I stopped the van. I immediately thought, "It's tender mercy twine!"

So I grabbed it and was able to tie up the mud flap to the attached 'safe' part of the bumper so it was stable, and we were able to keep going on our way.

The most amazing part of this to me is that the Lord is in the very details of our lives. Had I not listened to the spirit and not followed the back roads to Blackfoot, that POP would have happened on the road too early. The Lord knew there wasn't anything there by the side of the road that was going to be able to help me. BUT He did know there was my tender mercy twine on the side of the road by Blackfoot.

Those small details of our lives are important to God. He loves us that much. He wants to provide the littlest things that can help us on our journey. He is in those details, MORE than we know and more than we realize.

I love you,

Your Mom

Notes from Homeschooling Mom's Retreat

Dear Kids,

I just got back from a homeschooling mom's retreat this weekend. I was on the committee for it this year, and I loved that aspect of it.

We had a few speakers come and talk with us about various things this year. The theme was "Seek"... to come desiring to seek for God. I have so many thoughts and experiences with it all... I am actually not sure where to start. I think I will go one by one with the various speakers and things I gleamed from them and go from there:

Leslie Householder:
She has written a few books on the laws of vibration and other physics laws of the universe... God's laws of science in actuality. There were several big reminders for me with what she had to talk about.

But the BIGGEST blessing from her presentation was the confirmation from the spirit that we are were we are today because of the work we put in all those years ago.

We did SO MUCH inside work for the first 8 years of our marriage... all the while everything was just crashing down around us in so many different ways. We ended up getting so burnt out with it all, trying and failing and trying and failing and trying and failing and doing and getting back up and doing it all over again. But we were absolutely doing our BEST at applying everything that we had learned and were learning.

The whole gap inside of that was that we were putting a timeline and the "how's" involved too much instead of giving that to the Lord to solve. We were assigning that "if we do this then in 6 months this 'should' happen". THAT was the falsehood. The Lord is in charge of the timeline, we are not. The Lord is in charge of the details of the how's, we are not. The Lord is in charge of partnering together with our creation. HE is the one who helps us create, we cannot do that on our own.

I see now so clearly that we are where we are right now because of all the work we did. We expanded ourselves so much in those years, and we created our life for the better 5-10 years later. Truly what we do RIGHT NOW IS creating our life in 5-10 years.

It's fascinating because our answers didn't come in the was that were were "expecting" them too. We still have yet to really get a business started and under our feet again, but the answers came in different ways, and very beneficial ways.

I also was warned by the spirit that if we don't keep going on that self improvement and creation path together with God, then we will stagnate and our 5-10 year state will NOT be improved. We have to keep reaching, keep improving, keep expanding our souls and our desires. We must not stop. We must not give up. We must go back to that "feeling" space.

Feeling it. Feeling what it will be like. Feeling the completion. Thinking about the end of our life and what feeling we will have. Truly feeling it on a daily basis, then give it up to God. We still get to work. We can't just sit around and do nothing and see results... but we also can't try to take over too many of the details that are God's to have. I really felt this reminder VERY powerfully.

I was also reminded that I must get a clear vision of what I really want our 20-40 year life situations to be. I haven't been clear enough about that. I haven't been clear enough about my dreams and desires, really becoming too complacent about it all.

I understand why I have been, it's because of the time of life I'm in. I also am going to be very patient with myself about what I can give to projects outside of my home, because TRULY my home is where I am needed right now. But I also can't stop creating in my mind, in my heart, in my visions, in my dreams. I need to keep up with both.

I LOVED all of those reminders. I was so grateful to receive those reminders as well. Especially the confirmation of the spirit about our lives and our power of creation.

I feel like I also needed to get clear about my patriarchal blessing as a part of my vision and what that includes. I have been stagnant about my gifts... but not in a bad way. Just because I have been so involved in my children's upbringing. That has been a necessity.

Also, I have a book in me. I'm going to identify what it is.

Some quotes I wrote down for me to remember:

"There is more good that God wants done than there are people willing to do those things"
"See the end as you intend"
"What's it going to feel like when....(then answer the question with feelings instead of words, get emotionally connected to the experience)"
"I will write a book and let THAT be my seminar"
"There is something inside of me that needs to come out"
"Doing something with intention, repeated intentionally, brings those results"
"Set the intention, FEEL what it will be like, and then get to work, the 'how's' will be shown to you"
"Be grateful before it happens... THAT is faith"
"Telling the truth in advance"
"Every child has an innate desire to know ho to fulfill their purpose"
"Just help them love learning, they will want to learn what they are drawn to, let them figure out what they want to learn... help them know how to take a passion and bring it to the world"
"They have a life's mission they will fulfill and there are intuitions and tutoring happening from the other side to help them with their mission"
"Turn them over to God and give them the space they need to do their their own flow"
"There are more epiphanies to discover if you will JUST take the time to PONDER"
"You can't make decisions for your children based on a fear mindset because your answers will not be inspired"

Hank Smith:
His presentation was about happiness. It was also full of really good reminders for me, and really simple ways of getting them done. He talked also about relationships of low trust and high trust. THAT was the section that I truly loved the most. It helped me identify how I can build relationships of higher trust with my kids and with my spouse.

Some quotes I wrote down for me to remember:
"Just like the art piece 'Starry Night' by Van Gogh, our lives are made up of hundreds of thousands of brushstrokes. Same with motherhood, it is made of 100,000+ brushstrokes. It is about the consistent application of different systems and behaviors that make the difference"
"Give children $30 to give away during Christmas time and see how they come alive thinking about how to use it"
"Happy people get enough sleep... your kids deserve a happy mom MORE than they deserve a clean house"
"Everyone has a book in them"
"YOU have specific gifts and talents and you NEED to use them regularly"
"When you are using your gifts you AREN'T tired, it is part of your flow and rejuvinates you. Give yourself permission to use them"
"You can't 'MOM' like someone else, just like your husband can't 'DAD' like someone else. Stop comparing and notice the good in the way YOU do things, NOT trying to be someone else"
"You are supposed to have issues in life, this is what causes us to keep coming back to God"
"4 things inside of building trust with someone: Frequent interaction, personal interaction (leaving with good feelings), positive interaction and LOW RISK involved (they don't feel like they are going to be attacked whenever they are around you"
"If you work on the low risk trust relationship building blocks, then you will have high trust relationships where you can give critical feedback, experience innovation together, seek help from that person, and be productive together"

Greg & Rachel Denning:
I ATE UP this presentation. They have been traveling together around the world as a family for about 11 years. The stories they shared were so soul expanding, I absolutely loved it. What I loved the most was how "out of the box" they are in their thinking. Not fear based AT ALL. I loved it.

Some quotes I wrote down to remember:
"My mission is to become a superb human being"
"From wherever we are, we can level up"
"The power in our homes lies in your heart set, your mind set and your tools and systems in place"
"A mind once expanded can never return to it's original dimensions"
"Once you commit, then the creativity happens"
"Stop hacking at the branches and get to the root of the problem"
"God told me 'You carry him (Greg carrying his son), and I will carry you"
"You do 60 minutes of learning everyday, do it together with your kids"
"Look at your kids and realize that they need growth experience outside of you and outside of themselves in order to become the human being you are trying to cultivate"
"We don't rise to the leel of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training - Archilochus"
"Influence is neither automatic and episodic... Influence has to be earned, especially with our children"
"All I see is the goodness in your (Don Quixote)... THIS IS WITH YOUR KIDS! See the goodness in them"
"We need a better story that we are living, kids will take a 'story' of meaning and purpose and give them a dream that's meaningful"
"We can take anything and move from transactional to transformational with a little bit of effort and intention"
"Be intentional about your family culture and help to irraticate the fear"

OTHER THINGS:

There were a few other things that I really want to remember about the weekend... a family brand. Have them help with images, colors, words, etc. to make a family brand to put on t-shirts, backpacks, swag, etc.

Fly Phobia

Dear Kids,

I had a memory come back tonight that I never wrote about, that you MUST remember... especially Elijah.

So about 3-4 month ago Elijah had a MAJOR phobia of flies. He got up one day and all of a sudden he was scared, literally, TO DEATH of flies. He couldn't be close to them, he would freak out if they were near... just couldn't handle it.

He couldn't go to bed that night because he was so afraid of a fly in his room. So he slept in our room. And this went on for a few nights, he just refused to go to sleep in his room. He ended up telling me at some point in this time period, that one night a fly had been in his room and wouldn't leave him alone. I imagine, in my mind's eye, that it was one of those really aloud, annoying flies, that kept flying around his face and just pestered him horribly, until he just couldn't stand it anymore.

Well, after this went on for a few days, we seriously were doing EVERYTHING we could think of to help Elijah with this phobia. Helping him know how to work a fly swatter, talking with him about it, naming it to tame it, helping him see that there were no flies in the house, just everything we could do. But he still refused to go to bed in his room. He just wouldn't do it.

So finally one night, Superhero Dad came to the rescue! Brent had a stroke of genius that just happened in the moment. It was right before bed time. He went into the kitchen and proclaimed, "Okay flies, you are all going to die!!!". He grabbed the fly swatter, ran into the boys room (VERY pronounced and cartoon "like" running so Elijah could see everything over exaggerated to help him laugh about it), then shut the door.

Then we heard Brent in the boys room yelling this, "Die!! You fly! I got you! Hi-ya! Hi-ya~! Wahahahaha!" ... and he just kept doing this for a couple minutes in the loudest, strongest voice.

Well, watching Elijah's reaction to this the whole time was so distinctive. He had the look on his face of, "My dad really is rescuing me and protecting me. He's helping me be okay!". He had this look of happiness, satisfaction, care, laughter, and relaxation come over him. It was a glorious thing to behold... in fact I don't know if I ever have seen him do that face EVER in his life up to this point. It was an expression and feeling pulsating from his little body that I hadn't seen before.

Brent, at the end, came out of the boys room, huffing and puffing. Looked at Elijah and said, "All of the flies are dead. I got them all!" Elijah went and took his hand, and went into his room and was completely satisfied.

We haven't had an issue with this since with him.

I learned quite a few important things in this situation:

1. Not to discount how little things are BIG things to a child... even a fly phobia is a MAJOR situation to them.
2. They absolutely love it when you come to their aid.
3. Using exaggeration and humor and going "into" the imagination place that the child is in, in order to solve the issue is HUGE. That is what Brent did... he WENT TO ELIJAH'S brain space instead of trying to pull Elijah to our brain space about it all (which is what we were trying to do before that wasn't working).
4. Children love to know that they are loved.

All of these things are all very much "duh" things to learn... or re-learn actually. But in those moments of the everyday situations with my kids, it is these things that really make the difference in their tragedies.

I am so grateful for a husband, your dad, that loves you all so much. He isn't perfect... but he is absolutely doing his best and he is rocking at doing his best. I love how much he has grown as a father and husband. It is a privilege to be part of it.

I love you all so much,

Your Mom