You can start your day off right if you get up and get going as soon as you wake up. I have picked 8 things (make them simple!) I do as a routine every morning before 8:00, I call it "8 Before 8"
Here's my 8AM routine:
1. Wake up at 6:00
2. Pray
3. Use the bathroom
4. Weigh-in
5. Drink 12 oz. water
6. Skin Brush and Get Dressed
7. Drink my cleansing water
8. Exercise (I'm doing P90X right now - love it)
Did you finish by 8:00? Way to go! Keep going, do 8 more things before 8:00 p.m.
My 8PM list:
1. Shower
2. Get Dressed
3. Make up and Hair
4. Study the Scriptures
5. Do a load of Laundry
6. Shine Sink
7. Play and read with my kids
8. Scrapbook for 30 minutes
Most people probably have shower and make-up in their 8 AM routine and exercise in the evening. That's great - just find what works for you.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Future Photographer
I enjoy taking pictures, but I think Hyrum enjoys it even more... Here is some of his work.
Of course there are many self portraits...
...and then there are the other things of importance to his little 5 year old self: His toy dog "Matthew" and his kindergarten backpack.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Scrapbooking Brazil
3 miles of beach with the city looking on and a rainforest preservation at each end of the bay.
How you travel with kids in Brazil! Hop in the back!
I still only do hands on scrapbooking, although today I did peek at Scrapblog to see some of the possibilities for digital scrapbooking - pretty cool. But I was at my table this last week catching up as always with preserving family memories of BYU, Virginia, and Brazil, and remembered how we didn't get many pictures of our week vacation in Brazil to Balneario Cambouriu cause my camera was out of film, and that was quite tragic cause Cambouriu was the absolute highlite of our 4 months in Brazil. Two friends of ours, Jeff and Casey, stopped by in Cambouriu on their tour of South America, and many thanks to them for catching a few pictures of us and the city and sharing them with me:
Enjoying some pao bread at a boardwalk cafe.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Happy Birthday to Abigail
Abigail turned 1 year old last week - Happy Birthday Abi!
We all celebrated and Grandma and Grandpa's house with cake and ice cream...
...presents (a new drum!)...
....and with the adults watching Sarah Palin speak at the Republican National Convention. Party!
We all celebrated and Grandma and Grandpa's house with cake and ice cream...
...presents (a new drum!)...
....and with the adults watching Sarah Palin speak at the Republican National Convention. Party!
Mount Timpanogos
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| A picture of Mt. Timpanogos from the Alpine Basin to the east of it. |
On Saturday August 30th I woke up at 4:30 and got ready to head to Utah County with a group of church friends. Ready to go on a hike? How about 7 miles up and 7 miles back down? Yes, this is going to be an all day event. We started the trail at 6:45 a.m and it was beautiful, I can't even begin to describe it, so here's a few pictures. It was beautiful. We reached the peak at 11:45. It was amazing to be up so high (11,441 feet) and to see all of Utah County and Utah Lake to the west, the Bingham Copper mine up North, and to the East I could see Jordanelle, Deer Creek Reservoir, Heber, what an amazing panoramic view. It's also amazing to hike that and see how much depth there is to that mountain that looks relatively two dimensional. It looks like a tent from the valley, wide coming up to the tip then going down, but there's so much depth to it, so many different peaks, there's a huge basin behind it that we climbed through, it was amazing. Shannon hikes it every year and I hope to join her in that annual tradition if we stay in Utah. Laura came, she did awesome, but her shoes weren't that good, so she slipped a few times and her ankles gave way on the way down her knee got pretty scratched and looks bad to me, but she said it doesn't hurt. She's a trooper. On the way down, wanting to try and make it a little bit of a pleasant experience for her, I decided to run the rest of the trail down and go get the car - we had to park a mile up the Alpine loop road cause the parking lot was full. The attendants at the gate for access to the canyon seemed a little too eager to tell us when we pulled up at 6:00 that the parking lot had been full since 4:30. Show offs. They were trying to make us feel bad - here we had tried to get a head start on the day and everyone else beat us to it. So we had a mile walk back to the car after we finished hiking down the trail. We were all ready to be done. I reached the bottom at 3:45, so it was 4 hours down. Pretty good time - 14 miles in 9 hours.
So that was my first time up Mount Timpanogos, loved it.
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| A picture of our Group in the Saddle. |
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| Looking West down at Utah County |
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| My first time ever seeing mountain Goats! |
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| Me on top of the world |
La Familia Montes
So I haven't posted for a while - but I have a good reason. We are hosting a family of 5 from Argentina. They've been here for about a month, and things are starting to settle into a routine enough for me to actually document some of it. I'll be posting some pics now and then of our house guests who are Pablo and Laura and their three boys, Lucas, Tomas, and Julian. With our family of 4 boys, Melodie is feeling a little outnumbered here. Abi doesn't notice or care yet. But so far so good. Laura and I are applying some FlyLady strategies and have started alternating dinner days following this menu:
Sunday - Crockpot/frozen dinner
Monday - Beef
Tuesday - Pasta/Cassarole
Wednesday - Fish/Seafood
Thursday - Chicken/Pork
Friday - New Recipe/Ethnic dish
Saturday - Pizza
Today was my turn - I love Pizza night! Easy dinner for 13 taken care of with two pizzas in the oven, yes!
Sunday - Crockpot/frozen dinner
Monday - Beef
Tuesday - Pasta/Cassarole
Wednesday - Fish/Seafood
Thursday - Chicken/Pork
Friday - New Recipe/Ethnic dish
Saturday - Pizza
Today was my turn - I love Pizza night! Easy dinner for 13 taken care of with two pizzas in the oven, yes!
Sunday, July 20, 2008
5 Dangerous Things - # 4
A few weeks ago I watched this video that talks about 5 dangerous things you should let your children do. In case you don't have 10 minutes to watch it, here's a summary:
1) Play with fire
2) Own a Pocketknife
3) Throw a spear
4) Deconstruct an appliances
5) Drive a car
Here are some pics of my kids enjoying doing #4 - using cd player/radio that they broke, (although everyone has denied responsibility for it.)
1) Play with fire
2) Own a Pocketknife
3) Throw a spear
4) Deconstruct an appliances
5) Drive a car
Here are some pics of my kids enjoying doing #4 - using cd player/radio that they broke, (although everyone has denied responsibility for it.)
Melodie did the initial unscrewing and wire clipping
Then the boys moved in for the complete destruction,and I must say they did an excellent and thorough job.
As a side note, Corey as a computer programmer is always telling me how programming and computers are such proof to him that evolution is false. He talked to the kids about it by asking "Which do you think is more complicated? This radio, or your body?" "Body" is right. Well if people think our bodies just evolved, let's say this radio just evolved - is that possible? If lightning struck some metal or a rock and it was given enough time over millions of years, it could make something like this, right?
I highly doubt it. There needs to be a creator, a plan, and execution of that plan by the creator. That is how we were made to. There is a God, he is the Creator, he made this world and all the miraculous things in it, including each of us.
Learning to Ride a Bike
It's been about two years since my kids had their first bikes, which we gave away when we moved across country. At that time they all had training wheels. A month ago, a neighbor gave us a bike that they were no longer using, and much to Joseph and Melodie's surprise, Ethan who is 6 was able to just take of riding. How was this possible that I have a kid who can ride a bike with absolutely no effort on my part? Teaching a kid to ride a bike was on my list of parent burdens, falling into the same column as potty training. Ethan had learned his balance from riding a little razor scooter. So I went out and bought bikes for all the kids at garage sales that weekend. Joe and Mel couldn't ride and were a little jealous of Ethan and embarrassed with themselves. I told Joe to learn the scooter and then he'd be able to ride the bike. Sure enough, he got the scooter down after a few hours and then was able to take off on his bike too. Melodie also recently decided to put the effort into learning balance on the scooter, and after one hour, had the scooter down, and the next morning she was able to ride a bike. It has been the easiest for me and the best way for them to learn to ride a bike - have them practice on a scooter for balance. It's a lot easier for kids to catch themselves from falling off a scooter that's 3 inches off the ground than to stop falling off a bike.
Wesley is too little to go without training wheels, but he is starting to use the scooter!
Abi - too young for a 2 wheeler too. Cute little girlThursday, July 17, 2008
Hyrum - Four and Feisty
Hyrum. Sweet little Hyrum. He seems like a harmless little boy, right? Smiling, happy, cute, just a timid little guy who's afraid of dogs. But looks can be deceiving. The picture above was taken probably 2 minutes before the following sequence of events. Hyrum was playing with Abi and rolled over on his face somehow and totally tweeked the right side of his glasses. I had a hard time unscrewing it to put the lense back in, but got it unscrewed, got pliers to bend the frame to have it hold the lense and was able to line it up for the screw to fit in. I was feeling rather anxious here because this was a brand spankin' new pair. His other pair just broke the nose pad off 3 weeks ago, a week for the new pair to come, so like 2 weeks new. Breathe Tiffanie. I was able to get it screwed back together, and while I was trying to do all that I heard Abi freaking out cause someone was bugging her. I went in, told Hyrum to knock it off in a firm tone, then told him his glasses were fixed and to come get them. I should have known better that to scold him right before I gave him his glasses, cause he was offended and didn't want to listen to me, thus he replied "NO! I'M NEVER WEARING MY GLASSES AGAIN!" Ok, whatever. I kinda laughed inside at what a feisty 4 year old he is, then went to continue folding the laundry. He started playing nicely with Abi, he was laughing, she was content, I figured things were cool again. After about ten minutes, he came over to the laundry room door, and turning his happy face into a scowl as he told me with defiance "I BEND MY GLASSES INTO A "W"!!!" I went to go see, sure enough, there they were bent in half into a W on the counter, to which I totally freaked out. 
I spanked him as I yelled "NO NO NO!" as I sent him into his room. What's another hundred bucks down the toilet? (Did I tell you Melodie accidentally flushed her glasses down the toilet a few months ago? I shall have to post that story too...) I might be able to bend them back, seeing as the pliers and tiny screw driver I had just used to repair them were still on the counter. I haven't tried yet. Ethan did this to his glasses once when he was a feisty 4 year old. So Corey says we should let Hyrum just go without glasses for a while, and hopefully he will not like not being able to see and will learn some respect. Breathe.Update - 1 hour after this journaling therapy to calm myself down, Hyrum came in with his glasses on. They looked a little crooked, but pretty good, and he sweetly said "Mom, my glasses are not in a W now!" He had bent them back himself.
Apology accepted.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
P90X
I'm still trying to work off those final 10+ pregnancy pounds. I thought a half marathon would do the trick, but I guess it's such a gradual increase in the training regimen, that my metabolism doesn't get the kick into gear that it needs. So I'm still the same weight as I was during training for that (which was 3 months ago). So after a few friends talked to me about this, and after having Corey around when an informercial for it came on TV and making him step away from his laptop for 10 minutes so he could come be amazed at what it can do for us, we ordered it! It arrived last week, and we began our 90 days on Monday. So here's hoping for P90X to come to my rescue, and so far so good! It's day 3... and I am way sore. I wasn't sure I'd be able to get through an upper body workout today since I was still sore from the workout on Monday (and I didn't even do any of the pull-ups in that workout... we need to go buy a pull-up bar...). It's gonna be good. So, not that I want to raise anybody's expectations, but if you do happen to see me sometime within the next 90 days and you find yourself thinking "WOW! Look at you! What have you been doing to be in such phenomenal shape?!?" I thought I'd let you know now. :)
Monday, June 30, 2008
One Nation, Under God
Corey and I spoke in Church yesterday. Here's a copy of Corey's Talk
"One Nation, Under God"
To help get us in the right frame of mind for the 4th of July, we've been asked to speak on the phrase: "One Nation, Under God."
The words, of course, come from the United States' pledge of allegiance. The pledge is an oath of loyalty recited at many public events. When I was in school, we'd frequently recite the pledge before the start of class. My wife is an avid student of history, but I have a lot more to learn. I just assumed that the pledge of allegiance spontaneously appeared (by inspiration of course) on July 4, 1776 along with the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Star Spangled Banner, Washington D.C. and many other tokens of America.
So, I was quite surprised to learn that the pledge was actually written in 1892 by a Socialist by the name of Francis Bellamy. Bellamy was forced to leave his ministerial position at a Baptist Church in Boston because of his extreme socialist sermons. He later went to work for the National Public School System where he published the pledge in a children's magazine. The pledge originally read like this: "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all". It did not refer to the United States and did not have the phrase "under God". Bellamy revered the slogan of the French Revolution "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" and strongly considered putting the word "equality" into the pledge.
Today, we put our hands over our heart when we recite the pledge, but in Bellamy's day, children would raise their arm straight toward the flag just like the Nazi salute. I was quite surprised to learn about this seemingly un-American aspect of the pledge. It was the American Legion and the Daughters of the American Revolution that pushed for the change from "my Flag" to "the Flag of the United States of America.". When reading history, it's interesting to see how things that we take for granted often come with a struggle, and evolve over time. Only in very rare occasions does God seem to intervene in a moment. Most of the time, it He lets things take their natural course. And even when He does intervene, he usually does so through people actively seeking to do His will. It seems that our Heavenly Father prefers that we struggle back-and-forth through this life with the consequences of our own decisions – both good and bad.
The pledge is a good example of this. It started out with a socialist bent, but was later modified to contrast with the socialist Soviet Republic. In the 1950's, the Catholic Fraternity Knights of Columbus adopted resolutions to urge Congress to include the words "under God" in the pledge. Without it, they felt like the socialist Soviets could utter the same pledge to their flag and country. Inserting "under God" emphasized the contrast.
The Knights of Columbus took inspiration from Abraham Lincoln who, when giving the Gettysburg Address, spontaneously inserted the words "under God". Lincoln made a proclamation during the Civil War that gives insight into what he meant by the words "under God." After the Union army's defeat at Bull Run, Lincoln wrote:
"We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown.
"But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious Hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.
"Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!
It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.
Lincoln warned that we had become "too self-sufficient". To me this is a great paradox. God clearly wants us to be self-sufficient. We have the example of Oliver Cowdery who was admonished to "study it out in [his] mind; then … ask if it be right". The Lord likewise left it up to the Brother of Jared to decide how to cross the ocean with light. "What will ye that I should do that ye may have light in your vessels?" The Lord led the Children of Israel out of Egypt with pillars by day and by night, but they still had to exercise faith. Latter-day Saints followed the prophet to their own promised land, but they still had to pull their wagons with their own strength. It seems that the Lord takes every opportunity to stretch us, and yet simultaneously declares:
"And in nothing doth man offend God, or against none is his wrath kindled, save those who confess not his hand in all things
As with so many Gospel things, it's easier to understand the nature of our Heavenly Father through our own life lessons in parenting. We recently decided that it was time our baby girl Abigail sleep through the night on her own. We prepared a room and a crib and left her alone to cry herself to sleep. I sat outside listening to her tears, and in a moment of weakness, went inside to assure her. I held her until she fell asleep and - of course - the moment I left she was again screaming her version of "why have you forsaken me?" I couldn't think of any way to communicate that it was for the best. In reality, she would just have to suffer through it. In time, she would grow and mature enough to endure it well.
Speaking of endurance, about a year and a half ago I took my pregnant wife and five children on an adventure, leaving our townhouse in Northern Virginia to live in São Paulo, Brazil. We went to do market research for a business idea that I had that uses popular movies to teach English. Brazil has a huge English-teaching industry and we spent four months in the country to determine if this business idea had validity.
Before making the move I had done significant research on how we would make it work – but I hadn't totally committed to the venture. Everything was lined up, but I still needed to do some irreversible things such as: put money down on a place to live, quit my job, and end our housing lease. I was very anxious about the decision and went to the temple for guidance. I reasoned that the worst-case scenario was that we would return back to the US broke, in debt, with no job or place to live and would have to move into my parent's basement. I thought that things would surely go better than that, and decided to take the risk.
I went to the bank to wire a housing deposit to Brazil, but was still scared. I sat in the bank lobby for over an hour trying to muster up the courage to take the plunge. The longer I waited, the less courage I had. I felt like I knew the Lord's answer, but wanted assurance. I wanted him to reach down from heaven and compel me to the counter – but he didn't. I felt like I was all on my own and had to eventually force myself to the window before the bank closed. It was an extremely scary decision, but after I committed myself all sorts of wonderful things began to happen. In the days and weeks that followed I thought often of the inspirational quote frequently attributed to Germany's Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: (gerte)
"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back-- Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.
For the next several weeks after making the decision I was on an emotional (perhaps even spiritual) high. I felt like I had near perfect faith and could do anything, that the power of faith transcended even the physical. Joseph Smith once said:
"If I were sunk into the lowest pit of Nova Scotia and all the Rocky Mountains piled on top of me, I ought not to be discouraged, but hang on, exercise faith, and keep up good courage, and I should come out on the top of the heap."
In the excitement of committing to my dream, I began to wonder if Joseph wasn't speaking figuratively, but literally. It felt like the power to move mountains was almost within reach.
So, we moved to Brazil. But true to pattern, God let us suffer and struggle often in our new environment. We lived in the country about 20 minutes form civilization. We drank water from a well and my poor wife washed cloths and dishes by hand. Tiffanie began to think often about Lehi sojourn into the wilderness and freely confessed she would have been part of the murmur ing side of their family as they followed their visionary patriarch into the wilderness. It felt like we had to struggle for everything. Nothing seemed to just work out like we hoped or expected.
For instance, it took many days before we could purchase a car – nobody at the used car dealership seemed to be in any hurry and I had to wait and wait and wait. It took a long time to select a car and then more days to come back and actually buy. They had cars that wouldn't sell in the US for $500 washed and ready to go with the year brightly painted on the front window: "'92, '89, '90". Part of me cried inside that we agreed to pay $6,000 for a '92 VW Santana station-wagon. But I was told it was a great deal by the locals and would be very reliable. And, we could sell it back in a few months at about the same price. The dealership also had a 100% guarantee and assured me that we could pay with our American Express credit card.
The next day we discovered that the dealership doesn't accept credit cards, but their buddies down the street at a gas station would arrange for us to buy several thousand dollars of gas instead. It didn't occur to me until later that we probably violated the terms of agreement on my credit card. I used every bank card I had and ran around for a couple of hours to various ATMs trying to pull out the most cash I could before my daily limit was reached or my account was locked on suspicion of fraud. It was bizarre circus, but I was finally satisfied with myself when I gave the dealership a combination of cash and gas credits. I was proud to drive home in our fancy new ride and felt a degree of accomplishment to have actually gotten something done.
The next morning when the car wouldn't start I learned that their guarantee didn't apply on holidays or weekends. We rigged a work-around with some wire until the dealership could apply a patch. Weeks later the car overheated and the engine mount cracked – this was getting expensive. Weeks into the country, we were still carpooling, borrowing, and ferrying groceries home on the wild bus rides. I finally went back to the dealership with Ethan and Hyrum late one night to pick up our fixed car. My friend Luis drove us towards the dealership, but his car broke down on the way. Nothing in Brazil seemed to work.
We walked for several blocks with my tired and anxious kids on our shoulders fearing the dealership had closed. But, we were thrilled to see that our salesperson was still there. It was a great moment to get back into that car. 20 minutes later, my boys and I were on the freeway when the front hood flew up and cracked the windshield. I couldn't see anything as we were driving about 55 MPH. I carefully veered off the side of the road into the grass and sat in the dark night with my scared sons wondering what to do. The accident could have easily been fatal, and yet I felt warm assurance of protection. The words of Hyrum Smith to his brother Joseph in a more difficult situation immediately came to my mind "The Lord is in it." Almost as if he were waiting for us, a man with an official-looking uniform with a flashlight ran over to help us. He called a tow truck and we were soon at Luis' house with our broken car.
I had done my absolute best and failed. We didn't have the resources to buy or rent another car and our situation was looking grim. As you can imagine, Tiffanie was very stressed - and so was I. We had done all that we could do, and I couldn't think of anything else. Fortunately God's grace entered the picture. As I paced the floor in worry, one of my friends contacted me to ask how we were doing, and if he could lend us his car for the rest of our stay in Brazil. It was an absolute miracle – without a doubt. God had directly intervened through another person. He was aware of our situation and cared. And it turns out that the car we borrowed – a 2-door hatchback – was just the right size for a family of 7.
We had some positive experiences in Brazil, but it was about 90% struggle. One of my greatest experiences there was teaching classes to members of the church interested in attending graduate school at BYU. My classes aimed to help them pass the GMAT entrance exam. One of our students once told me 'If you wanted to stay in Brazil and teach these classes to the public – you could live like a king.' I thought for a moment about the money he said I could make and then responded that "In America, everyone lives like a king." Comparatively speaking, it's absolutely true. We have been tremendously blessed. Our time in Brazil made us all the more aware of the wonderful blessing we have in this country.
Not only do we live in abundance, but we are free from fear. We tend trust our public officials and believe in the rule of law. I absolutely love Brazil, but it's kind of like the wild-wild west where most everyone lives behind iron bars outside their home. Everyone, it seems, has first-hand stories of kidnappings, ransoms, shootings, and altercations with the police. Back home in Utah everything seems to abound in wealth, beauty, and peace. The other night Tiffanie and I recognized the contrast when we discovered our greatest annoyance with our house has been the dead spots on our lawn.
We've had about a dozen students from my classes admitted to BYU. One wrote me after arriving in Utah saying simply: "You live in an amazing country!" He's absolutely right.
We felt protected by God while living in Brazil, and I looked forward to things getting easier when we returned home. We had significant market research on the English teaching industry and a working product prototype. However, things with our business didn't just take off as expected. In fact, my worst-case scenario came true. We returned to the US broke, in debt, with no job or place and living in my parent's basement. We kept working and waiting for something to happen, but it never seemed to come. Apparently Lord felt there was more we could do on our own. It has been a rough ride, and I find myself often wondering about the hand of the Lord – and wanting more direct help on his part.
A few weeks ago our children were out learning to ride bikes for the first time. Joseph didn't have any sense of balance, so I held onto the bike most of the time and chased alongside him. The most comfortable position for me was to grab onto the back of his neck. As a result, he tended to lean into me and ride at about a 70 degree angle. He put all of his weight into my hand with absolute and total dependence. I wanted to be there for him, but I also wanted him to be self-sufficient. Eventually I felt like the best thing to do was to let him struggle on his own. I stayed near and gave tips and advice – but he had to figure his way through it. Joseph can now ride just great – and likewise – things are beginning to pick up with our business. The Lord is there, but he stands back enough so we can grow.
I've often wished that the Lord would hold onto the back of my neck – that he'd hold me and let me ride above my ability. And then sometimes, I wish he'd back off a little. Years before I married my wife I hung up from a phone call with her. I felt very much in love and said a quick prayer telling the Lord that she was the woman I would choose to marry. To my great surprise, I had a very strong, immediate, and unambiguous answer of "Yes!" It shocked me – and I even resented it. I wasn't really ready for that answer and certainly not to commit myself. I actually felt like my free agency had been taken away. It was only my first year of BYU and there were lots of women I'd still like to date.
No, God's usual pattern is to whisper. Rather than seek God's overt intervention – it's better to seek his will. That is what I believe being "under God" truly means. Don't seek for divine intervention; seek out his will. Elder Neil A. Maxwell has said:
"The submission of one's will is really the only uniquely personal thing we have to place on God's altar. The many other things we 'give,' … are actually the things He has already given or loaned to us. However, when you and I finally submit ourselves, by letting our individual wills be swallowed up in God's will, then we are really giving something to Him! It is the only possession which is truly ours to give!"
The Lord is not going to intervene and dictate the words of the Pledge of Allegiance. If the recent movement to remove the words "under God" from the pledge succeeds, God will not stop it. Likewise, God will not unilaterally stop the redefinition of the family that is occurring in many parts of our world. God is also not likely to overrule the voice of the people in who we elect as our next President. Frankly, he's placed us here to steer our nation and put it "under God." We live in a land that is both promised and cursed. If we seek the Lord, we "shall prosper upon the face of this land; and … be kept from all other nations." Our country was established for the Lord's purposes, and we must not distance ourselves or our country from Him.
That said, we also live in a pluralistic society – with a belief that the separation of Church and State is absolute. So, I can understand the hesitancy one may have to keep God in the public sphere. However, if we choose not to be a nation "under God"; we aren't choosing to be independent and free from influence. We will simply choose another influence.
In this month's First Presidency message, President Henry B. Eyring says:
"men and women have falsely argued from the beginning of time, that to take counsel from the servants of God is to surrender God-given rights of independence. But the argument is false because it misrepresents reality. When we reject the counsel that comes from God, we do not choose to be independent of outside influence. We choose another influence….In rejecting His counsel, we choose the influence of another power, whose purpose is to make us miserable and whose motive is hatred.
Our country was founded and has prospered on a Christian world-view. We now appear to be adopting a new State religion of Secularism. Adherence to God is being replaced with piety for Mother Nature. My point is, if we drive God out of our country, he will not intervene, and we will simply believe in something else. During the First World War, German prisoners of war were all found with Bibles. But in the Second World War, there was hardly a Bible found. Germans instead carried with them lucky charms, lucky swastikas, and rabbits' feet.
We should not sit on the sidelines expecting God's voice to thunder when things go wrong. We should seek to discover His will and advance it. That is what it means to be "under God."
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
"One Nation, Under God"
To help get us in the right frame of mind for the 4th of July, we've been asked to speak on the phrase: "One Nation, Under God."
The words, of course, come from the United States' pledge of allegiance. The pledge is an oath of loyalty recited at many public events. When I was in school, we'd frequently recite the pledge before the start of class. My wife is an avid student of history, but I have a lot more to learn. I just assumed that the pledge of allegiance spontaneously appeared (by inspiration of course) on July 4, 1776 along with the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Star Spangled Banner, Washington D.C. and many other tokens of America.
So, I was quite surprised to learn that the pledge was actually written in 1892 by a Socialist by the name of Francis Bellamy. Bellamy was forced to leave his ministerial position at a Baptist Church in Boston because of his extreme socialist sermons. He later went to work for the National Public School System where he published the pledge in a children's magazine. The pledge originally read like this: "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all". It did not refer to the United States and did not have the phrase "under God". Bellamy revered the slogan of the French Revolution "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" and strongly considered putting the word "equality" into the pledge.
Today, we put our hands over our heart when we recite the pledge, but in Bellamy's day, children would raise their arm straight toward the flag just like the Nazi salute. I was quite surprised to learn about this seemingly un-American aspect of the pledge. It was the American Legion and the Daughters of the American Revolution that pushed for the change from "my Flag" to "the Flag of the United States of America.". When reading history, it's interesting to see how things that we take for granted often come with a struggle, and evolve over time. Only in very rare occasions does God seem to intervene in a moment. Most of the time, it He lets things take their natural course. And even when He does intervene, he usually does so through people actively seeking to do His will. It seems that our Heavenly Father prefers that we struggle back-and-forth through this life with the consequences of our own decisions – both good and bad.
The pledge is a good example of this. It started out with a socialist bent, but was later modified to contrast with the socialist Soviet Republic. In the 1950's, the Catholic Fraternity Knights of Columbus adopted resolutions to urge Congress to include the words "under God" in the pledge. Without it, they felt like the socialist Soviets could utter the same pledge to their flag and country. Inserting "under God" emphasized the contrast.
The Knights of Columbus took inspiration from Abraham Lincoln who, when giving the Gettysburg Address, spontaneously inserted the words "under God". Lincoln made a proclamation during the Civil War that gives insight into what he meant by the words "under God." After the Union army's defeat at Bull Run, Lincoln wrote:
"We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown.
"But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious Hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.
"Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!
It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.
Lincoln warned that we had become "too self-sufficient". To me this is a great paradox. God clearly wants us to be self-sufficient. We have the example of Oliver Cowdery who was admonished to "study it out in [his] mind; then … ask if it be right". The Lord likewise left it up to the Brother of Jared to decide how to cross the ocean with light. "What will ye that I should do that ye may have light in your vessels?" The Lord led the Children of Israel out of Egypt with pillars by day and by night, but they still had to exercise faith. Latter-day Saints followed the prophet to their own promised land, but they still had to pull their wagons with their own strength. It seems that the Lord takes every opportunity to stretch us, and yet simultaneously declares:
"And in nothing doth man offend God, or against none is his wrath kindled, save those who confess not his hand in all things
As with so many Gospel things, it's easier to understand the nature of our Heavenly Father through our own life lessons in parenting. We recently decided that it was time our baby girl Abigail sleep through the night on her own. We prepared a room and a crib and left her alone to cry herself to sleep. I sat outside listening to her tears, and in a moment of weakness, went inside to assure her. I held her until she fell asleep and - of course - the moment I left she was again screaming her version of "why have you forsaken me?" I couldn't think of any way to communicate that it was for the best. In reality, she would just have to suffer through it. In time, she would grow and mature enough to endure it well.
Speaking of endurance, about a year and a half ago I took my pregnant wife and five children on an adventure, leaving our townhouse in Northern Virginia to live in São Paulo, Brazil. We went to do market research for a business idea that I had that uses popular movies to teach English. Brazil has a huge English-teaching industry and we spent four months in the country to determine if this business idea had validity.
Before making the move I had done significant research on how we would make it work – but I hadn't totally committed to the venture. Everything was lined up, but I still needed to do some irreversible things such as: put money down on a place to live, quit my job, and end our housing lease. I was very anxious about the decision and went to the temple for guidance. I reasoned that the worst-case scenario was that we would return back to the US broke, in debt, with no job or place to live and would have to move into my parent's basement. I thought that things would surely go better than that, and decided to take the risk.
I went to the bank to wire a housing deposit to Brazil, but was still scared. I sat in the bank lobby for over an hour trying to muster up the courage to take the plunge. The longer I waited, the less courage I had. I felt like I knew the Lord's answer, but wanted assurance. I wanted him to reach down from heaven and compel me to the counter – but he didn't. I felt like I was all on my own and had to eventually force myself to the window before the bank closed. It was an extremely scary decision, but after I committed myself all sorts of wonderful things began to happen. In the days and weeks that followed I thought often of the inspirational quote frequently attributed to Germany's Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: (gerte)
"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back-- Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.
For the next several weeks after making the decision I was on an emotional (perhaps even spiritual) high. I felt like I had near perfect faith and could do anything, that the power of faith transcended even the physical. Joseph Smith once said:
"If I were sunk into the lowest pit of Nova Scotia and all the Rocky Mountains piled on top of me, I ought not to be discouraged, but hang on, exercise faith, and keep up good courage, and I should come out on the top of the heap."
In the excitement of committing to my dream, I began to wonder if Joseph wasn't speaking figuratively, but literally. It felt like the power to move mountains was almost within reach.
So, we moved to Brazil. But true to pattern, God let us suffer and struggle often in our new environment. We lived in the country about 20 minutes form civilization. We drank water from a well and my poor wife washed cloths and dishes by hand. Tiffanie began to think often about Lehi sojourn into the wilderness and freely confessed she would have been part of the murmur ing side of their family as they followed their visionary patriarch into the wilderness. It felt like we had to struggle for everything. Nothing seemed to just work out like we hoped or expected.
For instance, it took many days before we could purchase a car – nobody at the used car dealership seemed to be in any hurry and I had to wait and wait and wait. It took a long time to select a car and then more days to come back and actually buy. They had cars that wouldn't sell in the US for $500 washed and ready to go with the year brightly painted on the front window: "'92, '89, '90". Part of me cried inside that we agreed to pay $6,000 for a '92 VW Santana station-wagon. But I was told it was a great deal by the locals and would be very reliable. And, we could sell it back in a few months at about the same price. The dealership also had a 100% guarantee and assured me that we could pay with our American Express credit card.
The next day we discovered that the dealership doesn't accept credit cards, but their buddies down the street at a gas station would arrange for us to buy several thousand dollars of gas instead. It didn't occur to me until later that we probably violated the terms of agreement on my credit card. I used every bank card I had and ran around for a couple of hours to various ATMs trying to pull out the most cash I could before my daily limit was reached or my account was locked on suspicion of fraud. It was bizarre circus, but I was finally satisfied with myself when I gave the dealership a combination of cash and gas credits. I was proud to drive home in our fancy new ride and felt a degree of accomplishment to have actually gotten something done.
The next morning when the car wouldn't start I learned that their guarantee didn't apply on holidays or weekends. We rigged a work-around with some wire until the dealership could apply a patch. Weeks later the car overheated and the engine mount cracked – this was getting expensive. Weeks into the country, we were still carpooling, borrowing, and ferrying groceries home on the wild bus rides. I finally went back to the dealership with Ethan and Hyrum late one night to pick up our fixed car. My friend Luis drove us towards the dealership, but his car broke down on the way. Nothing in Brazil seemed to work.
We walked for several blocks with my tired and anxious kids on our shoulders fearing the dealership had closed. But, we were thrilled to see that our salesperson was still there. It was a great moment to get back into that car. 20 minutes later, my boys and I were on the freeway when the front hood flew up and cracked the windshield. I couldn't see anything as we were driving about 55 MPH. I carefully veered off the side of the road into the grass and sat in the dark night with my scared sons wondering what to do. The accident could have easily been fatal, and yet I felt warm assurance of protection. The words of Hyrum Smith to his brother Joseph in a more difficult situation immediately came to my mind "The Lord is in it." Almost as if he were waiting for us, a man with an official-looking uniform with a flashlight ran over to help us. He called a tow truck and we were soon at Luis' house with our broken car.
I had done my absolute best and failed. We didn't have the resources to buy or rent another car and our situation was looking grim. As you can imagine, Tiffanie was very stressed - and so was I. We had done all that we could do, and I couldn't think of anything else. Fortunately God's grace entered the picture. As I paced the floor in worry, one of my friends contacted me to ask how we were doing, and if he could lend us his car for the rest of our stay in Brazil. It was an absolute miracle – without a doubt. God had directly intervened through another person. He was aware of our situation and cared. And it turns out that the car we borrowed – a 2-door hatchback – was just the right size for a family of 7.
We had some positive experiences in Brazil, but it was about 90% struggle. One of my greatest experiences there was teaching classes to members of the church interested in attending graduate school at BYU. My classes aimed to help them pass the GMAT entrance exam. One of our students once told me 'If you wanted to stay in Brazil and teach these classes to the public – you could live like a king.' I thought for a moment about the money he said I could make and then responded that "In America, everyone lives like a king." Comparatively speaking, it's absolutely true. We have been tremendously blessed. Our time in Brazil made us all the more aware of the wonderful blessing we have in this country.
Not only do we live in abundance, but we are free from fear. We tend trust our public officials and believe in the rule of law. I absolutely love Brazil, but it's kind of like the wild-wild west where most everyone lives behind iron bars outside their home. Everyone, it seems, has first-hand stories of kidnappings, ransoms, shootings, and altercations with the police. Back home in Utah everything seems to abound in wealth, beauty, and peace. The other night Tiffanie and I recognized the contrast when we discovered our greatest annoyance with our house has been the dead spots on our lawn.
We've had about a dozen students from my classes admitted to BYU. One wrote me after arriving in Utah saying simply: "You live in an amazing country!" He's absolutely right.
We felt protected by God while living in Brazil, and I looked forward to things getting easier when we returned home. We had significant market research on the English teaching industry and a working product prototype. However, things with our business didn't just take off as expected. In fact, my worst-case scenario came true. We returned to the US broke, in debt, with no job or place and living in my parent's basement. We kept working and waiting for something to happen, but it never seemed to come. Apparently Lord felt there was more we could do on our own. It has been a rough ride, and I find myself often wondering about the hand of the Lord – and wanting more direct help on his part.
A few weeks ago our children were out learning to ride bikes for the first time. Joseph didn't have any sense of balance, so I held onto the bike most of the time and chased alongside him. The most comfortable position for me was to grab onto the back of his neck. As a result, he tended to lean into me and ride at about a 70 degree angle. He put all of his weight into my hand with absolute and total dependence. I wanted to be there for him, but I also wanted him to be self-sufficient. Eventually I felt like the best thing to do was to let him struggle on his own. I stayed near and gave tips and advice – but he had to figure his way through it. Joseph can now ride just great – and likewise – things are beginning to pick up with our business. The Lord is there, but he stands back enough so we can grow.
I've often wished that the Lord would hold onto the back of my neck – that he'd hold me and let me ride above my ability. And then sometimes, I wish he'd back off a little. Years before I married my wife I hung up from a phone call with her. I felt very much in love and said a quick prayer telling the Lord that she was the woman I would choose to marry. To my great surprise, I had a very strong, immediate, and unambiguous answer of "Yes!" It shocked me – and I even resented it. I wasn't really ready for that answer and certainly not to commit myself. I actually felt like my free agency had been taken away. It was only my first year of BYU and there were lots of women I'd still like to date.
No, God's usual pattern is to whisper. Rather than seek God's overt intervention – it's better to seek his will. That is what I believe being "under God" truly means. Don't seek for divine intervention; seek out his will. Elder Neil A. Maxwell has said:
"The submission of one's will is really the only uniquely personal thing we have to place on God's altar. The many other things we 'give,' … are actually the things He has already given or loaned to us. However, when you and I finally submit ourselves, by letting our individual wills be swallowed up in God's will, then we are really giving something to Him! It is the only possession which is truly ours to give!"
The Lord is not going to intervene and dictate the words of the Pledge of Allegiance. If the recent movement to remove the words "under God" from the pledge succeeds, God will not stop it. Likewise, God will not unilaterally stop the redefinition of the family that is occurring in many parts of our world. God is also not likely to overrule the voice of the people in who we elect as our next President. Frankly, he's placed us here to steer our nation and put it "under God." We live in a land that is both promised and cursed. If we seek the Lord, we "shall prosper upon the face of this land; and … be kept from all other nations." Our country was established for the Lord's purposes, and we must not distance ourselves or our country from Him.
That said, we also live in a pluralistic society – with a belief that the separation of Church and State is absolute. So, I can understand the hesitancy one may have to keep God in the public sphere. However, if we choose not to be a nation "under God"; we aren't choosing to be independent and free from influence. We will simply choose another influence.
In this month's First Presidency message, President Henry B. Eyring says:
"men and women have falsely argued from the beginning of time, that to take counsel from the servants of God is to surrender God-given rights of independence. But the argument is false because it misrepresents reality. When we reject the counsel that comes from God, we do not choose to be independent of outside influence. We choose another influence….In rejecting His counsel, we choose the influence of another power, whose purpose is to make us miserable and whose motive is hatred.
Our country was founded and has prospered on a Christian world-view. We now appear to be adopting a new State religion of Secularism. Adherence to God is being replaced with piety for Mother Nature. My point is, if we drive God out of our country, he will not intervene, and we will simply believe in something else. During the First World War, German prisoners of war were all found with Bibles. But in the Second World War, there was hardly a Bible found. Germans instead carried with them lucky charms, lucky swastikas, and rabbits' feet.
We should not sit on the sidelines expecting God's voice to thunder when things go wrong. We should seek to discover His will and advance it. That is what it means to be "under God."
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
In God We Trust
Corey and I spoke in Church yesterday. Here's a copy of my talk
"IN GOD WE TRUST"
I love the last verse of the Star Spangled Banner ~ it reads:
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust!"
We will be a nation under God as each of us as individual citizens and people learn through our daily experiences and trials to cleave to God and put our complete trust in Him. In beginning my remarks on Trust in God, I'd like to share with you an experience I had that has helped me remember God's goodness to me...
Corey finished graduate school at BYU two years ago. At a Stake Conference we attended during our time there, a newly called Stake Presidency and their wives were invited to share their testimonies. As part of one of the wive's testimonies, she said "I know I married the right person." As she said that, I was impressed that I should remember God goodness in hearing my prayers and giving me the right person. I also realized that my marriage is a part of my testimony of the Gospel. I know God answered my prayers in giving Corey to me.
For I did pray, long and hard, to have him. Corey and I met at the beginning of 7th grade in a HomeEc class. I knew at that time that he was the kind of man (boy) that I wanted to marry. I don't have proof of that until the 9th grade, where I wrote in my journal that I wanted to marry him... or... someone exactly like him. Through Jr. High and High School I spent my freetime calculating my plan of attack. I took up rollerhockey, joined the chess club, science club, asked him to Prom dances, took AP courses, memorized his class schedule and found out his locker combination and did everything else I could in effort to be in the same room or hallway as him. ...and, although marriage was far off, I prayed to God at that time and on into my college years and asked God to let me marry him ...and it was then, in college - after he entered the "find your companion" atmosphere of BYU - that he finally began to come around and thought he might like to date me.
I'm forever grateful to BYU's dating and courtship environment that finally after 6 years helped Corey relent and give me a chance at winning his affection. It was a little harder at that time cause we were going to college at different schools, but lucky for us, that year of 1994 was the year our colleges began to use EMAIL. So we have a good record of our very first email messages to each other and officially started dating. On February 19, 1995, we had our first kiss. After I returned home that night, I got out a 5 year calendar and after calculating the time that serving missions would separate, I WROTE DOWN in my journal that night that I would marry him in exactly four years on February 19, 1999, which was a Friday, so it would work out good. He left for his mission to Santiago Chile, and I served a Spanish speaking mission in Tempe Arizona, and I flew down to my mission the same week his parent's flew to Chile to pick him up from his mission. So we missed each other by a few days and a couple thousand miles, but it would turn out to be 3 and a half years of letter writing before we saw each other again. Two months after I got home from my mission, we were married...(just like I had written in my journal...) on February 19, 1999, the day of the 4 year anniversary of our first kiss. So right now I want to testify of the importance of writing in your journal and writing down your goals!
So I did pray to marry Corey, but during one difficult time on my mission, when he was an RM, dating, at BYU, I felt I needed to be willing to consider the possibility of him not marrying me. I remember asking God to take away my concerns about home and help me to focus more on the work. ...And in a small way of turning my will over to the Lord, I told him I was willing to sacrifice what I wanted most for what God wanted. Looking back, that my prayers were eventually answered in the way I wanted, but at that time going forward, when I did not know what the future would hold, I had to exercise faith and learn to TRUST IN GOD and his timing.
I testify that we can turn our lives over to God, and he will not give us a stone when we ask for bread. As the Savior taught, "If we, being evil, know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give good gifts to them that ask him.
But we are often times challenged to endure, to trust in God and his timing. I love the hymn "Come thou font of Every blessing, particularly where it sings "Prone to Wander, Lord I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, o take a seal it, Seal it for thy courts above." I have felt the spirit testify to me strongly at times that the Gospel is true and at those times I pray for God to help me remember how wonderful it feels and to burn those memories into my heart. But I know it will only be a short time before I am struggling again and am having a hard time feeling His Spirit close to me guiding me. That is a natural pattern in this fallen world where the natural man in us is prone to wander and forget the God we love.
I'd like to speak on 3 ways we can show God that we trust him: Through PATIENCE, GRATITUDE, and ENDURANCE
First - PATIENCE
Patience is tied very closely to trust in our Heavenly Father. Elder Neal A. Maxwell taught that "when we are unduly impatient, we are suggesting that we know what is best—better than does God. Or, at least, we are asserting that our timetable is better than His" ("Patience," Ensign, Oct. 1980, 28).
We can grow in faith only if we are willing to wait patiently for God's purposes and patterns to unfold in our lives, on His timetable.
When we lived near DC two years ago, we traveled to Yorktown for the 225th anniversary of the Siege at Yorktown, which in 1781 was the last major battle of the Revolutionary War campaign that eventually secured America's victory. That battle was fought in 1781, but it was not for two more years that the war formally ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783. During those two years, the future still was uncertain, and they endured with patience and trust in God.
A 2nd way to show God we trust him is to be Grateful. I love the Thanksgiving holiday. It became very special to me when I first read the Thanksgiving Proclamation that George Washington issued in October 1789. It states:
It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and to acknowledge with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"
The proclamation continues by recognizing God as that "great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be;" I know that God is good and am so grateful for this free nation that he established for us.
A third way to show our Trust is through enduring to the end.
Elder Eyring said "the test a loving God has set before us is not to see if we can endure difficulty, it is to see if we can endure it well. We pass the test by showing that we remember him and the commandments he gave us. And to endure well those commandments whatever the opposition, whatever the temptation, and whatever the tumult around us." (April 2004)
Difficult circumstances surround us that are consistent with prophesy about the last days which surround us in these last days, we must never let fear divert us from faithful living. There have always been questions about the future.
Every person in every era has had to walk by faith into what has always been some uncertainty—starting with Adam and Eve in those first tremulous steps out of the Garden of Eden to Moses, Lehi, and Brigham Young, each leaving their homes for the desert and wilderness. But that is all right - this is the plan. Just press forward. Like those pioneers, you do have to keep moving—one step and then another and then the next. That is how tasks are accomplished, that is how goals are achieved, and that is how frontiers are conquered.
Elder Holland
"God expects you to have enough faith and determination and enough trust in Him to keep moving, keep living, keep rejoicing. In fact, He expects you not simply to face the future (that sounds pretty grim and stoic); He expects you to embrace and shape the future—to love it and rejoice in it and delight in your opportunities."
"God is anxiously waiting for the chance to answer your prayers and fulfill your dreams, just as He always has. But He can't if you don't pray, and He can't if you don't dream. In short, He can't if you don't believe."
George Washington called the founding of the United States a miracle, and I think he would know. He was more aware than anyone of all the problems and difficulties America faced. Yet he pressed forward. Also, as we look back upon the founding of this country from the privileged perspective of the present, it can read with the charm of a great adventure story with a happy ending for the American Side, but this is not a version that Washington would have recognized or endorsed. "Hindsight History" glides smoothly toward reordained conclusions, but for Washington and the founders, they traveled a bumpy road toward an uncertain destination.
I read 1776 by David McCollough. That book made me feel like I was in the midst of that terrible, miraculous year. It is amazing to read how close we came to failure. And inspiring to read of the courage and perseverence in the face of such desperation.
When we lived in Virginia, I was able to visit the Brandywine Battlefield in Pennsylvania. The US lost this battle in 1777, Perhaps they doubted God's support for them and felt abandoned. There is a story that proves that even though they lost, God was there:
Patrick Fergueson was a soldier for the British. The muskets most of the soldiery used in the Revolutionary war were guns that did not shoot straight - the balls would bounce of the sides of the barrel as they were shot out, but Fergueson was an excellent rifleman and designed his own breechloading rifle that had amazing accuracy. At the battle of Brandywine, he had in target an American officer, but decided to not pull the trigger because it was ungentlemanly to shoot a man in the back of the head. He later learned that this man was George Washington, but said even knowing that he still would not have shot.
So they were in the third year of the Revolutionary War, they lost that battle, and it might seem like God wasn't helping them? But God was there, and protected Washington, the only truly indispensible figure in the founding of this nation.
--------(That was all of the talk that I gave, I cut it short to make sure Corey had enough time for all his talk, which he had read to me at home and I thought it was great. But if I had finished, here's the rest of what I would have said, and ended it with my testimony of how God has blessed America.)-------
Perhaps we rationalized - Well, those were the Founders, God says he raised them up for that purpose. But there's nothing too incredible or important going on here right now or in my life, that's why I'm just another average person." Well, I think the Founders and God may have more faith in us that we have in ourselves. What are we capable of accomplishing?
"When one young man tried to congratulate (John Adams) for belonging to a truly heroic generation, Adams felt obliged to correct him: "I ought not to object to your reverence for your fathers, meaning those concerned with the direction of public affiars," he cautioned, "but to tell you a very great secret, as far as I am capable of comparing the merit of different periods, I have no reason to believe that we were better than you are."
Elder Maxwell
"When in situations of stress we wonder if there is any more in us to give, we can be comforted to know that God, who knows our capacity perfectly, placed us here to succeed. No one was foreordained to fail or to be wicked. When we have been weighed and found wanting, let us remember that we were measured before and we were found equal to our tasks; and, therefore, let us continue, but with a more determined discipleship. When we feel overwhelmed, let us recall the assurance that God will not overprogram us; he will not press upon us more than we can bear (D&C 50:40)." ("Meeting the Challenges of Today," in Devotional Speeches of the Year, Provo: Brigham Young University, 1978, p. 156.)
President Benson
"A few years ago, we knew our Elder Brother and our Father in heaven well. We rejoiced at the upcoming opportunity for earth life that could make it possible for us to have a fullness of joy like they had. We could hardly wait to demonstrate to our Father and our Brother, the Lord, how much we loved them and how we would be obedient to them in spite of the earthly opposition of the evil one.
And now we're here—our memories are veiled—and we're showing God and ourselves what we can do. And nothing is going to startle us more when we pass through the veil to the other side than to realize how well we know our Father and how familiar his face is to us. And then, as President Brigham Young said, we're going to wonder why we were so stupid in the flesh.
God loves us. He's watching us, he wants us to succeed, and we'll know someday that he has not left one thing undone for the eternal welfare of each of us. If we only knew it, there are heavenly hosts pulling for us—friends in heaven that we can't remember now, who yearn for our victory. This is our day to show what we can do—what life and sacrifice we can daily, hourly, instantly bring to God. If we give our all, we will get his all from the greatest of all.
"IN GOD WE TRUST"
I love the last verse of the Star Spangled Banner ~ it reads:
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust!"
We will be a nation under God as each of us as individual citizens and people learn through our daily experiences and trials to cleave to God and put our complete trust in Him. In beginning my remarks on Trust in God, I'd like to share with you an experience I had that has helped me remember God's goodness to me...
Corey finished graduate school at BYU two years ago. At a Stake Conference we attended during our time there, a newly called Stake Presidency and their wives were invited to share their testimonies. As part of one of the wive's testimonies, she said "I know I married the right person." As she said that, I was impressed that I should remember God goodness in hearing my prayers and giving me the right person. I also realized that my marriage is a part of my testimony of the Gospel. I know God answered my prayers in giving Corey to me.
For I did pray, long and hard, to have him. Corey and I met at the beginning of 7th grade in a HomeEc class. I knew at that time that he was the kind of man (boy) that I wanted to marry. I don't have proof of that until the 9th grade, where I wrote in my journal that I wanted to marry him... or... someone exactly like him. Through Jr. High and High School I spent my freetime calculating my plan of attack. I took up rollerhockey, joined the chess club, science club, asked him to Prom dances, took AP courses, memorized his class schedule and found out his locker combination and did everything else I could in effort to be in the same room or hallway as him. ...and, although marriage was far off, I prayed to God at that time and on into my college years and asked God to let me marry him ...and it was then, in college - after he entered the "find your companion" atmosphere of BYU - that he finally began to come around and thought he might like to date me.
I'm forever grateful to BYU's dating and courtship environment that finally after 6 years helped Corey relent and give me a chance at winning his affection. It was a little harder at that time cause we were going to college at different schools, but lucky for us, that year of 1994 was the year our colleges began to use EMAIL. So we have a good record of our very first email messages to each other and officially started dating. On February 19, 1995, we had our first kiss. After I returned home that night, I got out a 5 year calendar and after calculating the time that serving missions would separate, I WROTE DOWN in my journal that night that I would marry him in exactly four years on February 19, 1999, which was a Friday, so it would work out good. He left for his mission to Santiago Chile, and I served a Spanish speaking mission in Tempe Arizona, and I flew down to my mission the same week his parent's flew to Chile to pick him up from his mission. So we missed each other by a few days and a couple thousand miles, but it would turn out to be 3 and a half years of letter writing before we saw each other again. Two months after I got home from my mission, we were married...(just like I had written in my journal...) on February 19, 1999, the day of the 4 year anniversary of our first kiss. So right now I want to testify of the importance of writing in your journal and writing down your goals!
So I did pray to marry Corey, but during one difficult time on my mission, when he was an RM, dating, at BYU, I felt I needed to be willing to consider the possibility of him not marrying me. I remember asking God to take away my concerns about home and help me to focus more on the work. ...And in a small way of turning my will over to the Lord, I told him I was willing to sacrifice what I wanted most for what God wanted. Looking back, that my prayers were eventually answered in the way I wanted, but at that time going forward, when I did not know what the future would hold, I had to exercise faith and learn to TRUST IN GOD and his timing.
I testify that we can turn our lives over to God, and he will not give us a stone when we ask for bread. As the Savior taught, "If we, being evil, know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give good gifts to them that ask him.
But we are often times challenged to endure, to trust in God and his timing. I love the hymn "Come thou font of Every blessing, particularly where it sings "Prone to Wander, Lord I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, o take a seal it, Seal it for thy courts above." I have felt the spirit testify to me strongly at times that the Gospel is true and at those times I pray for God to help me remember how wonderful it feels and to burn those memories into my heart. But I know it will only be a short time before I am struggling again and am having a hard time feeling His Spirit close to me guiding me. That is a natural pattern in this fallen world where the natural man in us is prone to wander and forget the God we love.
I'd like to speak on 3 ways we can show God that we trust him: Through PATIENCE, GRATITUDE, and ENDURANCE
First - PATIENCE
Patience is tied very closely to trust in our Heavenly Father. Elder Neal A. Maxwell taught that "when we are unduly impatient, we are suggesting that we know what is best—better than does God. Or, at least, we are asserting that our timetable is better than His" ("Patience," Ensign, Oct. 1980, 28).
We can grow in faith only if we are willing to wait patiently for God's purposes and patterns to unfold in our lives, on His timetable.
When we lived near DC two years ago, we traveled to Yorktown for the 225th anniversary of the Siege at Yorktown, which in 1781 was the last major battle of the Revolutionary War campaign that eventually secured America's victory. That battle was fought in 1781, but it was not for two more years that the war formally ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783. During those two years, the future still was uncertain, and they endured with patience and trust in God.
A 2nd way to show God we trust him is to be Grateful. I love the Thanksgiving holiday. It became very special to me when I first read the Thanksgiving Proclamation that George Washington issued in October 1789. It states:
It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and to acknowledge with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"
The proclamation continues by recognizing God as that "great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be;" I know that God is good and am so grateful for this free nation that he established for us.
A third way to show our Trust is through enduring to the end.
Elder Eyring said "the test a loving God has set before us is not to see if we can endure difficulty, it is to see if we can endure it well. We pass the test by showing that we remember him and the commandments he gave us. And to endure well those commandments whatever the opposition, whatever the temptation, and whatever the tumult around us." (April 2004)
Difficult circumstances surround us that are consistent with prophesy about the last days which surround us in these last days, we must never let fear divert us from faithful living. There have always been questions about the future.
Every person in every era has had to walk by faith into what has always been some uncertainty—starting with Adam and Eve in those first tremulous steps out of the Garden of Eden to Moses, Lehi, and Brigham Young, each leaving their homes for the desert and wilderness. But that is all right - this is the plan. Just press forward. Like those pioneers, you do have to keep moving—one step and then another and then the next. That is how tasks are accomplished, that is how goals are achieved, and that is how frontiers are conquered.
Elder Holland
"God expects you to have enough faith and determination and enough trust in Him to keep moving, keep living, keep rejoicing. In fact, He expects you not simply to face the future (that sounds pretty grim and stoic); He expects you to embrace and shape the future—to love it and rejoice in it and delight in your opportunities."
"God is anxiously waiting for the chance to answer your prayers and fulfill your dreams, just as He always has. But He can't if you don't pray, and He can't if you don't dream. In short, He can't if you don't believe."
George Washington called the founding of the United States a miracle, and I think he would know. He was more aware than anyone of all the problems and difficulties America faced. Yet he pressed forward. Also, as we look back upon the founding of this country from the privileged perspective of the present, it can read with the charm of a great adventure story with a happy ending for the American Side, but this is not a version that Washington would have recognized or endorsed. "Hindsight History" glides smoothly toward reordained conclusions, but for Washington and the founders, they traveled a bumpy road toward an uncertain destination.
I read 1776 by David McCollough. That book made me feel like I was in the midst of that terrible, miraculous year. It is amazing to read how close we came to failure. And inspiring to read of the courage and perseverence in the face of such desperation.
When we lived in Virginia, I was able to visit the Brandywine Battlefield in Pennsylvania. The US lost this battle in 1777, Perhaps they doubted God's support for them and felt abandoned. There is a story that proves that even though they lost, God was there:
Patrick Fergueson was a soldier for the British. The muskets most of the soldiery used in the Revolutionary war were guns that did not shoot straight - the balls would bounce of the sides of the barrel as they were shot out, but Fergueson was an excellent rifleman and designed his own breechloading rifle that had amazing accuracy. At the battle of Brandywine, he had in target an American officer, but decided to not pull the trigger because it was ungentlemanly to shoot a man in the back of the head. He later learned that this man was George Washington, but said even knowing that he still would not have shot.
So they were in the third year of the Revolutionary War, they lost that battle, and it might seem like God wasn't helping them? But God was there, and protected Washington, the only truly indispensible figure in the founding of this nation.
--------(That was all of the talk that I gave, I cut it short to make sure Corey had enough time for all his talk, which he had read to me at home and I thought it was great. But if I had finished, here's the rest of what I would have said, and ended it with my testimony of how God has blessed America.)-------
Perhaps we rationalized - Well, those were the Founders, God says he raised them up for that purpose. But there's nothing too incredible or important going on here right now or in my life, that's why I'm just another average person." Well, I think the Founders and God may have more faith in us that we have in ourselves. What are we capable of accomplishing?
"When one young man tried to congratulate (John Adams) for belonging to a truly heroic generation, Adams felt obliged to correct him: "I ought not to object to your reverence for your fathers, meaning those concerned with the direction of public affiars," he cautioned, "but to tell you a very great secret, as far as I am capable of comparing the merit of different periods, I have no reason to believe that we were better than you are."
Elder Maxwell
"When in situations of stress we wonder if there is any more in us to give, we can be comforted to know that God, who knows our capacity perfectly, placed us here to succeed. No one was foreordained to fail or to be wicked. When we have been weighed and found wanting, let us remember that we were measured before and we were found equal to our tasks; and, therefore, let us continue, but with a more determined discipleship. When we feel overwhelmed, let us recall the assurance that God will not overprogram us; he will not press upon us more than we can bear (D&C 50:40)." ("Meeting the Challenges of Today," in Devotional Speeches of the Year, Provo: Brigham Young University, 1978, p. 156.)
President Benson
"A few years ago, we knew our Elder Brother and our Father in heaven well. We rejoiced at the upcoming opportunity for earth life that could make it possible for us to have a fullness of joy like they had. We could hardly wait to demonstrate to our Father and our Brother, the Lord, how much we loved them and how we would be obedient to them in spite of the earthly opposition of the evil one.
And now we're here—our memories are veiled—and we're showing God and ourselves what we can do. And nothing is going to startle us more when we pass through the veil to the other side than to realize how well we know our Father and how familiar his face is to us. And then, as President Brigham Young said, we're going to wonder why we were so stupid in the flesh.
God loves us. He's watching us, he wants us to succeed, and we'll know someday that he has not left one thing undone for the eternal welfare of each of us. If we only knew it, there are heavenly hosts pulling for us—friends in heaven that we can't remember now, who yearn for our victory. This is our day to show what we can do—what life and sacrifice we can daily, hourly, instantly bring to God. If we give our all, we will get his all from the greatest of all.
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