At this Christmas season, it is extra awesome to me to speak of Christ and rejoice in Christ and hear others doing the same so often. I love the sincere "Merry Christmas"es that have been given to me this week and especially today in church by friends I've made here over the past couple months.
This month in our family, we have had each lesson of Family Night centered around the symbols and events of the Savior's birth. I'm not sure I remember which topics we spoke of each week, but our lessons have been on Luke 2, angels visiting the earth (and we always remember that angels' first words to those they visit are, "fear not"), the shepherds, the wise men, the star, ornaments, green, white, lights, etc. All the good stuff. Today I remembered at lunch that we didn't talk about the color red so I brought it up and one of my kids said it reminds us of Jesus' blood. Excellent answer. It's what I thought of too, but I don't remember really talking about that symbol each Christmas season.
Today our lesson in elders quorum was on receiving patriarchal blessings and living by them as our personal scriptures. The room was filled with a thick sense of the Spirit. I love my patriarchal blessing and I read it often. Sometimes every few months, sometimes more often. Our teacher today told us that he hasn't received his blessing yet and he is going to get it now. He's thought about it for a long time and with this lesson he decided it was time. He also said that (one of) the presenter(s) in our Christmas program in sacrament meeting today is our stake patriarch. "One more thing about me getting my patriarchal blessing," he said. The brethren who participated were excited and felt blessed to have received their patriarchal blessings. One quorum member said his dad got called as a patriarch about ten years ago. I shared my experience of fasting with my patriarch before receiving my blessing. The Spirit was so strong. Feeling the Spirit is the best feeling ever and it tells me I'm doing the right things in life. Here's the General Conference talk our lesson focused on: President Monson, Oct 1986 General Conference.
This Christmas season has passed by very quickly with our moving into a new home and the associated busy-ness. We are buying a few presents for each other (Angie and I) and we are getting a few things for our boys. It's a very non-commercial kind of Christmas, something we have strived for in years past and are getting better at it. My feeling that is we save for the things that we want and Christmas is a time to try to find something that we want someone else to buy. I'm feeling more than a little wasteful about it. But this is our best year so far. I feel really good about that.
PS - it's snowing outside. It's the kind of slow, gentle snow that makes me feel like it's Christmastime. Much better than the driven, sideways snow that takes my mind off Christmas and turns it to survival mode.
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Life is better living the truths in the scriptures
Yikes, my last two posts were in September and January. I have not been consistent in writing since last year. This has been partly by choice and partly because of a lot of busy things going on this last year. Let's see where this post takes us (or me).
Ya, that's right. About a year ago I thought I was going to graduate, get a job and move. It turns out that I didn't graduate, got turned down for job interviews because of it and had no reason to move. There were a whole bunch of our friend who moved out of the ward at that time and we wanted to be a part of it. There was a mass exodus of friends that moved into this ward (branch at the time) and we wanted to ride the momentum and head out of here on a wave of excitement.
Heavenly Father has other plans for us. I actually think he has different plans for Angie, but I'll tell you the plans that I think He has for me.
I have learned to slow down a lot. Not all the way. But I am able to consciously slow down about all the things I think about and pack into my schedule. It turns out that the reason I'm so busy is because...drum roll, please...I fill up my schedule with stuff!
Man, how silly is that. I was so close to the problem I couldn't even see it. My stress levels have risen over the past several years and got to the point months ago that I thought I was going to pop. I'll just say that I was very tense, almost like I was in a fight or flight situation with every little thing in my life, every thing I thought about. There was no danger, just the perception that I had to accomplish a lot in a short time. The more I worked through, the more I pressed on to do more. Did I slow down to appreciate the accomplishments?
Nope. Big mistake.
Aren't I supposed to enjoy the journey and enjoy the accomplishments? Yes, yes, yes! But I didn't. I couldn't in that state of mind. I pushed to get done, thinking I'd feel better when my load was lighter.
One of the many scriptures that has brought me to this realization is 2 Ne 2:25, which says
25 Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.
27 ...it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength.
Ya, that's right. About a year ago I thought I was going to graduate, get a job and move. It turns out that I didn't graduate, got turned down for job interviews because of it and had no reason to move. There were a whole bunch of our friend who moved out of the ward at that time and we wanted to be a part of it. There was a mass exodus of friends that moved into this ward (branch at the time) and we wanted to ride the momentum and head out of here on a wave of excitement.
Heavenly Father has other plans for us. I actually think he has different plans for Angie, but I'll tell you the plans that I think He has for me.
I have learned to slow down a lot. Not all the way. But I am able to consciously slow down about all the things I think about and pack into my schedule. It turns out that the reason I'm so busy is because...drum roll, please...I fill up my schedule with stuff!
Man, how silly is that. I was so close to the problem I couldn't even see it. My stress levels have risen over the past several years and got to the point months ago that I thought I was going to pop. I'll just say that I was very tense, almost like I was in a fight or flight situation with every little thing in my life, every thing I thought about. There was no danger, just the perception that I had to accomplish a lot in a short time. The more I worked through, the more I pressed on to do more. Did I slow down to appreciate the accomplishments?
Nope. Big mistake.
Aren't I supposed to enjoy the journey and enjoy the accomplishments? Yes, yes, yes! But I didn't. I couldn't in that state of mind. I pushed to get done, thinking I'd feel better when my load was lighter.
One of the many scriptures that has brought me to this realization is 2 Ne 2:25, which says
25 Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.
And, of course, my friend King Benjamin's wisdom in Mosiah 4:27, which teaches me that
The Lord is blessing me through the truths in the scriptures and the whisperings of the Spirit. I have been practicing turning off my Go, Go, Go habit and playing more with my kids or actually sitting around and doing nothing.
This week I read a nice article about productivity on LinkedIn by Ilya Pozin. It's really about unproductivity. Thing #1 hits the nail on the head - put less on the To Do list and get more things done. It's not about the amount of things you check off your "list", but what is actually accomplished. And I'm not even talking about work here. I'm talking about life in general. Life needs to be worth living and that means enjoying the journey as we were meant To Do by our Creator.
I'm becoming better off by living the truths in these scriptures.
Yes!
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Family Search and Indexing
A few weeks ago I was visiting family and went to church in their ward. Our lesson in priesthood meeting wasn't from Teaching of Presidents of the Church: Lorenzo Snow, but was a special lesson about indexing on FamilySearch.org.
I've done some indexing before and I thought it was a lot of fun. Angie got into it too and she did even more than I did. I was about to say, "I don't remember why I stopped indexing," but then remembered why. The records that were available to download were so hard to read that I couldn't contribute. I'd download a batch and try to decipher some names, but couldn't do much. There were some Brazilian census records back then so I thought it would be awesome to give those a shot. I served a mission in Brazil so I knew I'd recognize some names. Well, it happened to be the same story. I could read some, couldn't read others. So I stopped.
Lots of time has past - probably a year and a half or two years. I never checked the indexing database in the meantime for legible records. After this lesson a few weeks ago I got really interested again. The demo that day was of some really legible documents so I came home, loaded the software on my laptop and away I went.
The first projects that I saw on there were census records from the 1800s as well as passenger records. The census records were from New York. I think they were only from 1865, but there may have been other years. I thought it was kinda funny that the census was on a non-decadal year and how we got on a different track than that. Just a curiosity, but I like thinking about that kind of stuff.
The census records usually have a whooooooooole bunch of people on them. It feels like it takes forever to index names like that if I base it on how often I finish and upload batches. That's not the real goal here, it's the overall project. But there is a certain satisfaction that comes from finishing something, uploading it and downloading another.
The passenger records were quite different. Lots of them only have a single name on them. Talk about simple! Some of the passengers' gender was recorded with just a check mark! Ha! I loved thinking about who these people were, why they were leaving Europe (some Prussia and Bavaria) to come to America (mostly New York and Baltimore). Were they seeking a land of new opportunity? Catching up with family? I don't know, but I'd love to find out. It's so fascinating!
Ah, I just remembered that I also got some records of servicemen joining the military to fight in the Spanish War. Crazy daisy! Joining the military makes me nervous so I was a little nervous for them.
I don't know how many people around the world are helping with this indexing project, but I know it's a lot. Have you helped?
I've done some indexing before and I thought it was a lot of fun. Angie got into it too and she did even more than I did. I was about to say, "I don't remember why I stopped indexing," but then remembered why. The records that were available to download were so hard to read that I couldn't contribute. I'd download a batch and try to decipher some names, but couldn't do much. There were some Brazilian census records back then so I thought it would be awesome to give those a shot. I served a mission in Brazil so I knew I'd recognize some names. Well, it happened to be the same story. I could read some, couldn't read others. So I stopped.
Lots of time has past - probably a year and a half or two years. I never checked the indexing database in the meantime for legible records. After this lesson a few weeks ago I got really interested again. The demo that day was of some really legible documents so I came home, loaded the software on my laptop and away I went.
The first projects that I saw on there were census records from the 1800s as well as passenger records. The census records were from New York. I think they were only from 1865, but there may have been other years. I thought it was kinda funny that the census was on a non-decadal year and how we got on a different track than that. Just a curiosity, but I like thinking about that kind of stuff.
The census records usually have a whooooooooole bunch of people on them. It feels like it takes forever to index names like that if I base it on how often I finish and upload batches. That's not the real goal here, it's the overall project. But there is a certain satisfaction that comes from finishing something, uploading it and downloading another.
The passenger records were quite different. Lots of them only have a single name on them. Talk about simple! Some of the passengers' gender was recorded with just a check mark! Ha! I loved thinking about who these people were, why they were leaving Europe (some Prussia and Bavaria) to come to America (mostly New York and Baltimore). Were they seeking a land of new opportunity? Catching up with family? I don't know, but I'd love to find out. It's so fascinating!
Ah, I just remembered that I also got some records of servicemen joining the military to fight in the Spanish War. Crazy daisy! Joining the military makes me nervous so I was a little nervous for them.
I don't know how many people around the world are helping with this indexing project, but I know it's a lot. Have you helped?
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