Polygamy

This might be a wierd post, but I am curious. I had a neighbor ask me yesterday about Mormon's stand on polygamy. With the recent news frenzy over the cult in Texas, her husband told her to ask me. She said she told him that from what she'd seen and heard in the news, those people lived nothing like I lived or believed nothing like I'd told her I'd believed, but that she would ask me. I then tried the basic, "We don't practice polygamy in our religion". So, she asked me why her husband had that association....so I had to try and explain. From my understanding, when polygamy was practiced in our church, it was more out of necessity than anything else. Women and children were being left fatherless and needed someone to take care of them. It is also practiced anciently (think Abraham). Anyway, does anyone have any ideas on how to address this issue with people who ask?

FHE - Planting a Seed

I was sitting in a meeting a while ago when my mind started to wander and I found myself thinking about Family Home Evening. I firmly believe that Family Home Evening is an inspired program of the Church, however it is something that I have been struggling with. With our schedules it seems that it is always late when we get started so we rush through it, or we have so much to do that we count our errands like running to Walmart or Target. I always told myself at least we are doing it right? But it always seems that as soon as we start our Family Night, the kids start to fight, or get rowdy, or I lose my patience, or someone calls, or something goes wrong so that when the night is over I regret even trying. I almost always think, boy those are just "blessings I could do without." I felt bad though because I firmly believe that there are blessings in store for families that do FHE. So as I sat in my meeting pondering on this topic the spirit whispered a thought to me, and it was simply "FHE is like a seed."

As I thought about this concept I could visualize myself planting a seed. I am not a natural green thumb, so most of the time my plants die, even my kids "faith is like a seed" seeds never sprout. But I have seen some beautiful gardens, so I know it can be done. I started thinking that people with beautiful gardens take a lot of time to prepare them. They know which plants will grow during each season, how much water to give them, how much sun etc. I on the other hand know nothing, have not done research and spent very little time cultivating my plants. Now, If I put a seed in a pot and cover it with dirt and set it outside, it might grow. Just like with FHE. If you just do it, you will receive blessings as promised. However, I think that if I did a little more preparation, a little more research and plan my FHE better, a more beautiful flower will grow, and more blessings will present themselves. I hope that in the future, I can truly set the time apart to have a real FHE, with a sit down lesson, instead of yelling back a quick story to whomever can hear me in the car.

Does anyone have any good ideas along this line, have you tried taking more prep time for your FHE's? Does it work? Is it really possible to have FHE without the fighting and bickering? I would love to know what you think.

Conference with a Kid

This was my first year to have conference with a kid around. It made things much different. On Saturday Abe soundly slept....through the 2 hours in between sessions, of course. On Sunday he slept through the first session so I was able to really pay attention as President Monson gave his first talk as prophet. I thought that was really cool. I agree with the later apostles who said you could witness him take upon himself the mantle of prophet. I also enjoyed the talk on mothers and on family. Since conference I've tried to renew my efforts to read my scriptures on my own. Ken and I read each night before bed, but I want to study from the institute manuals on my own during one of Abe's naps each day. I haven't been perfect, but I have been able to read through a few chapters so far. I'm starting with the Book of Mormon. I know there are many things we can each do to improve our lives, so I'm excited Barlow started this blog and I'm excited to share the joy of the Gospel with everyone!!!

General Conference

Wow, what a great conference! I really enjoyed Priesthood session. I look forward to reading the talks in the Conference Issue. I have found that reading the talks helps me remember what the spirit prompted me to do when I first listened to the talk. Please, post a comment about what part of conference you enjoyed the most.

Welcome to my scripture study blog!

Welcome! I hope that this page helps you feel the spirit as we search, ponder and pray about the scriptures. If you would like to become an other to this blog, send me an email.