Virginia & Philadelphia!

I had such a wonderful visit with my beautiful and lovely daughters back east! Kristi's home is so lovely, she just remodeled her kitchen, put in sod in the backyard and had her deck painted! I got aquainted with her dog again. Acadia is a beautiful 80 lb and growing 10 month old! He is a very good dog and a wonderful companion to my darling daughter! I also got to go to the Cherry Blossom Festival with her! So great!

Then Julie and my little darling Aubrie came on Sunday and Kristi cooked a wonderful meal for us. The next day we were planning to see more D.C. sites, but it rained buckets! So, we just drove to Philly in the pouring rain and I got a cold and then gave it to Aurbrie. It was a really mean one too! We hung out in Julie's darling row house most of the week in Philadelphia because Grandma and baby were sick, but it was sooooo wonderful to cuddle with my little girl again! Jules is a wonderful cook and fed me wonderful meals every night! Brent is so considerate and kind. Wow, am I blessed or what? They did show me downtown and I got to attend church with them. I have to tell you everyone just loves Julie and she is the most amazing teacher ever! I was so very proud of her. She and Brent are doing so much good in their ward! The ward pretty much consists of very new members (mostly black) and students. They learn so much from those amazing young people. (Especially mine!)

When I was teaching seminary at West Jordan High School more than a decade ago, we were taught many wonderful things in our inservice meetings. One of them was that our study time was ours, but the lesson time was the Lord's, that it is His sacred time to teach His children. That puts a little different take on it, than if we view the class-time as belonging to the students (because they can sometimes take the class in a very weird direction and we were taught to have very good control of the discussions, making sure they were edifying!) Or that the time was our soapbox to share what we had studied.

We were taught in CES that because it is sacred time that we need to do what the Lord would have us do with this time. If He inspired us to lecture that day, then lecture we should, making sure that lecture were the words of the spirit to His children in the class. If we were to play in seminary that day then the Lord had a lesson to be learned from that. And, if the spirit took us in a totally different direction than our hours of preparation called for that day, then were to freely give away our study time and not try to impose it on the class, when the Lord would have us rather follow the spirit so that He could instruct His children. We were to learn to be the vessel!

I have to say that Jules absolutely teaches this way! She is awesome! I wish I could hear her every week! Way to go Jules!

For The Beauties of the Earth

On Sunday I taught my gospel doctrine lesson on the Sermon on the Mount! All last week I played the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's "Consider The Lillies" CD. Ever since, I have been absolutely filled with "the beauty of the earth!" I played the music as prelude music with a note on the board asking everyone to look up the corresponding scriptures to items I had placed on the table. All items I found in my own home---salt, a picture of lillies that Ron gave me that I had printed, a rock from the yard, bread, a picture of my newest little bride, a beam of wood, a picture of my neighbor, and many many more things.

This idea came to me so clearly as I prayed for guidance in teaching. Before prayer, I had no idea how to present so much absolutely wonderful material in half an hour! We really didn't have time to discuss each item, but they got the message before class even started. The wonderful thing was how reverent it became even before starting class! The power of sacred music has always been wonderful to me. It never fails to bring the spirit! After my son Robert died it was the ONLY relief and comfort I could find. Several of my friends who knew how much I love reverent, spiritual music gave me new CD's and they were, and still are my lifeline to the Lord and to hope!

I spent most of that class time talking of the Beatitudes and of their progressive nature as outlined in the Bible Dictionary! It is worth reading, really worth reading! I have pondered so much since preparing and then giving this lesson. We all have to go up the steps---line upon line---from being poor in spirit and finally learning to love ourselves, to then mourning for our sins enough to repent, being meek enough to submit to the prophet and thus to the Lord, which leads us to actually hunger and thirst after righteousness! Those steps teach us to love the Lord! Then on to being merciful, in other words, treating others with patience, kindness, and long-suffering, while always remembering our OWN weaknesses. This leads to our becoming pure in heart---being purged of all desire to do wrong by the Holy Ghost---till we become peacemakers. A person wanting to live in unity, law abiding, pleasant agreeable and generous. (Doesn't that sound like Ron? He's pretty wonderful!) These three beatitudes teach us to love others! And, then---the hard one---learning to love our enemies, by being willing to suffer trials and NOT compromise our ideals to win approval of the world! And, I think even harder, to do this without offense to man or God (Well, some men will take offense no matter what) but even when they do, the Savior actually commands us to pray FOR our enemies.

I am so thankful that He judges us by the intent of hearts. He is so merciful when we fall short! He just wants us to get back up and try again! I think I realized after studying these principles this time around, that we can go through all of these steps in certain times and phases of our lives, and then boom---we are right back to having to learn to love ourselves all over again. Life gets more challenging. We find ourselves at the top of the ladder only to discover that it is, in fact, the bottom of the next ladder, and so on I suppose to the end of our lives and even beyond until we have become perfect!

I pray that the Lord will help all of us. I think if we just find ourselves going up ... just keep going up we can make it! But, even when we slip down, the minute we reach for Him, our Father in Heaven is there. It has always amazed me that when I turn to Him, He just overwhelms me with his love!

And, I believe that things will always get better. They always will! The world is indeed beautiful. Like this picture I took while Ron and I were in the canyon on Saturday! It was a beautiful, beautiful autumn day! The big rock in this picture reminds me of the "rock of our salvation" Jesus Christ. Ron is also a rock for me---strong, steady, safe and kind!