Dear Kids,
There was a talk in sacrament meeting several weeks ago that I HAVE to write down - it was so good and it stuck with me so much that I realized I have to write it down in my journal.
The man who got up to talk works for the United Nations. His job is to go into refugee camps and evaluate how everything is going in the camp. Are the people healthy? How are their accommodations? How is the leadership? How is sanitation? Are their needs being met?
He told us how usually he has about 24 hours to complete an assessment and he will walk around the camps, he will interview people, and through observation and communication is able to put together the necessary information to report back about the state of the refugee camp.
He has done this all over the world and in multiple situations.
He then talked about how sometimes they have emergency situations that happen and because of a lot of different circumstances he will only be given 1-2 hours to put together a full evaluation of the camp. He then told us how impossible it seems to put together an evaluation that will do anything justice. It is such a process and when he's faced with emergency situation and has to complete it - HOW does he do it?
He talked then about how he has a few "indicators" that he relies on that have never failed him.
The best indicator is children. When he walks around the camp he can tell very quickly by behavior of children if they are in a healthy safe environment or not. Are they playing? Are they displaying normal childhood behavior? Or are they sitting, staring at a wall, overwhelmed, not making eye contact?
There are several "indicators" he is able to see in a moment in order to get the feedback he needs to put on his evaluation sheet to report back. It doesn't take much to see how human behavior is affected by trauma and to sense normal human reaction compared to trauma response.
He then said this, "Brothers and sisters - you can do the same thing in your life. It only takes a moment to look at your "spiritual indicators" to know whether or not you are on track with what's happening in your soul. When I say, "scripture study" it only takes you a moment to evaluate what's happening in your life with your personal or family scripture study. When I say, "Prayer", it only takes a moment to understand what is happening in your prayer relationship with your Heavenly Father. These are "spiritual indicators" where in a moment, you can tell immediately HOW you are spiritually doing. My question for you is... What are your spiritual indicators telling you? How would you fill out your evaluation sheet?".
It was SUCH A POWERFUL TALK. I loved it so much. It just hit me in a very specific way.
In general conference there was a talk by Elder Lund where he used the phrase, "Righteous routines and Holy Habits."
I want our family to have righteous routines and holy habits. And I can't do it alone, I need all of you to be emotionally and spiritually involved in order to make our family work.
I feel like night time routine can be helped A LOT - but it's tough in someone else's home and space to take control of that myself - so I am going to be patient for that until we move in somewhere. Your dad really needs to be part of these righteous routines and holy habits as well.
I'm doing my best. There is always more to do - and I don't have that much longer with you in my home, so I have to take advantage of the next several years as much as I can.
I love you kids. Don't forget - YOUR MOTHER KNOWS THE LORD - and I want you to know Him too.
Love,
Your Mom
(picture is of us as a family after we went and gave hot chocolate to the homeless in downtown SLC)
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