Colorado Road Trip -- Part II

CE and the hike

Sleeping like a baby

Are we there yet?!

Mini golfing with a very tired baby

The baby was DH's "handicap" but he still beat the rest of us.  Even with the baby on the green half the time.

Even though the kids have weird expressions in this picture, I still love it.  It somehow captures the mixture of happiness and fiesty annoyance that is the experience of road tripping with kids. 

AJ on our hike up Powderhorn

I love these baby legs and baby feet and baby feathery hairdos in the sunlight

Hope DH paints this some day.  He can do it if he finds the time.

This is AJ and CE at Il Ristorante Italiano in Downtown Grand Junction

Something we noticed about Grand Junction was that there were SO many churches!

I have never seen a city with more churches than I saw in Grand Junction, Colorado.  As we drove, searching for the Dinosaur Museum and the Downtown Art and our hotel -- WOW.  Denomination after denomination:  Catholic churches, an Episcopal church, some Baptist churches, and legions of different Christian churches.  But we never saw a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints church --not one!   I am hoping there must have been a few somewhere.

 That was so different from at home in Utah, where we see our churches on every corner, with a very few other denominations on a few rare corners.  It made me not want to take the church for granted and to absolutely cherish the knowledge of life and the afterlife that honestly, no other church comes close to explaining fully.

"there are many yet on the earth among all sects, parties, and denominations, who are ^ablinded by the subtle ^bcraftiness of men, whereby they lie in wait to ^cdeceive, and who are only kept from the truth because they ^dknow not where to find it— "   (Doc. & Cov. 123:12)  People don't know where to look to find the well of truth.

I put myself in the shoes of someone outside the church; how would I ever filter through hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of different denominations, most of whom claim to teach about Jesus Christ?  How would I ever find the only true church, that held His authority, from Him directly?  With truth pouring out in a never-ending stream from real, live  holy  prophets and apostles, with working temples and pure truth from the Savior Himself?

How would I ever find it or believe it, if my parents hadn't found it when I was a child?

Even asking the question, I believe that if I really sincerely asked God to help me figure it out, He would help me get there.

Even as a 9 year old child, as I was in a Baptist school when my parents began to listen to LDS missionaries, I was aware of this avalanche of additional truth.  I got it, that there was more to the gospel than the Baptists had taught me.

I am grateful to the Baptists at that Calvary Christian School in East Hebron, New Hampshire for what they gave me-- Bible stories, hymns, a wonderful love for Jesus.  But I am more grateful to the LDS missionaries for what they gave me and my family-- living prophets and apostles, a true priesthood, a real baptism, not made up by humans; eternal marriage (not till death do you part) and family sealing in the holy temples, and the huge joy of the knowledge that my un-baptized dead ancestors were being taught the truth in the spirit world, also, by missionaries as we were.

These things were the tip of the most wonderful of all icebergs.  It really is true church.

I realized, driving through that "Bible Belt" in Grand Junction, that lots and lots and lots  of people simply do not know.  Maybe they don't want to know.  But what if they do.

Scottish Shortbread and Mission Memories

For C.E.'s Young Women's activity tonight, they are practicing teaching the gospel to families, including ours.  Then they're reading missionary stories and sampling treats made by returned missionaries who have volunteered, including me. 

So, I made the shortbread (Here's the recipe:  4 cups of flour, 1 cup of powdered sugar, 2 cups of butter, rolled on a cookie sheet and baked for 20 min at 350.  I took them out early and let them finish on the sheet.  Then cut them into rectangles.  I also added a tablespoon of brown sugar to the mix.)

And I wrote the stories.  I wanted to post them here, too.

Voila:  Some mission memories---

Story # 1:  SECRET LISTENING:   The bishop in Irvine, Scotland asked us to visit a family where the parents were inactive, the kids weren't baptized, and the father had the habit of throwing home teachers off the porch.  Maybe because we were sister missionaires, the father let us in.  Over the next few months, as we taught his daughters and prepared them for baptism, the father was secretly listening to the lessons from an upstairs room.  He started to read the Book of Mormon, and he quit smoking and drinking, and came back to the church when his children were baptized.  The mom became the Relief Society president.

Story # 2:   OCEAN BAPTISMS:   I started my mission on an isolated Scottish island that was a long, seasick ferry-ride from the mainland. There was a tiny, struggling branch of the church that met in a trailer.  Some of the key (few) members really struggled with word of wisdom problems, and there was no baptismal font.  When we scheduled a baptism, we had to ferry over some elders to do the baptizing. But I'll never forget those baptisms. We stood on the frozen beach with blankets ready to wrap around the white-clothed people who came out of the icy North Atlantic with purple feet.

Story # 3:  SPEEDY WALKING WOMAN:  We were street-contacting in a small city when I noticed a short woman with a child, bustling along very fast, and the spirit told me to follow her.  She walked extremely fast and crossed the street before a load of cars slowed my companion and me down, and we almost lost her in the busy-ness of the city, but I knew I had felt/heard the spirit pointing her out, so we sort of ran to catch up to her.  She gave us her name and phone number, which was unusual for a street contact, and we met her soon after, to teach her the gospel.  I found out, months later, that her family had joined the church after I'd been transferred from the area, and she was the relief society president there.

Story # 4:   TWO MARGARETS AND AN IRONED SKIRT:  As we always did when visiting less-actives, we asked Margaret if she had any friends we could teach. She offered to introduce us to another Margaret, who lived upstairs. The second Margaret was very religious and attended another church. But when she started learning about the Restored true church, she felt the spirit and had us back several times to learn more.  Then, sadly, one day, she called us to say her minister had been visiting, and she wanted nothing more to do with us, ever.  Sad.  And I got transferred.  Many months later,  I got a surprise phone call.  She had tracked me down to tell me the rest of her story: one Sunday morning, the voice of the Spirit suddenly spoke to her, "Margaret, iron your skirt and call a taxi.  Go to the LDS church." She obeyed.  She walked right in, found the missionaries, and said, "Hi, my name is Margaret, and I want to be baptized into this church."

Story #5:  HOMESICK:  I was a very spoiled and slightly lazy greenie when I arrived in Scotland. The rigorous schedule, the cold and wet weather, the feeling of isolation, and the scariness of street-contacting & getting rejected every day made me extremely homesick.  I called my mission president and my parents, when I'd been out for a month, and said,"I think I'm going to go home."  The mission president sent the closest strong priesthood leader to visit me-- he had to take a train and a ferry to get there-- and he gave me a priesthood blessing.  Also, my father and my mission president told me stories (in phone calls) about being in the Marines, about the descendants of Mary Fielding, etc., that inspired me and turned my heart and made me stay.  I later received the slightly embarrassing honor of being named my mission president's most improved missionary.

Story # 6:  THE RESTORATION SPIRIT:  Scotland is dotted with castles, and sometimes, on P-days, we got to visit them.   Other times, on mission conference days, our mission president would organize a castle-lawn conference or a hike-up-a-hill conference.  I loved these outdoor meetings.  But whether we were out on a grassy hill, or inside a stake center, this is where I learned the doctrines of the church with power and with the spirit.  I filled many notebooks with notes as my mission president taught and inspired us.  He promised us that if we would be true to the spirit of the Restoration; that is, mention the Prophet Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon on the doorsteps and in the city streets, then the spirit of the Restoration would touch people and we would find success.  It was true.  There were thousands of Christians in Scotland, and many, many Christian denominations.  Introducing the Savior's living church to them was only possible via the Sacred Grove.  I got a strong testimony of this, and it has been an anchor to me throughout my life.

Good Friday and Good Easter -

Today is Good Friday, the day millions celebrate Jesus giving his body and soul on the cross, taking the weight of punishment for every sin of every person, out of obedience to His Heavenly Father.  I am feeling quiet and awed.  It makes me want to be more willing to do whatever I should, and more loving.

Easter represents hope.

Without Easter, there is only despair.  We either believe that Easter is true-- there literally was a resurrection of Jesus Christ, and there'll be a literal, physical resurrection for all humanity-- or we don't believe it.  No gray area.

If you don't believe, what purpose is there?  Anything meaningful is like a wildflower, glorious one day, and dust the next. 

I believe in the miracle of Easter.  I believe in the literal resurrection: bodies together with spirits, for everyone.  Joyfully!  The resurrection will be a free gift to everyone, whether or not we follow God at all.

The New Testament says:

But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.

... even so in Christ shall all be made alive. (1 Corinthians 15: 20-22).

And the Book of Mormon says:

Now, this restoration shall come to all, both old and young, both bond and free, both male and female, both the wicked and the righteous; and even there shall not so much as a hair of their heads be lost; but every thing shall be restored to its perfect frame, as it is now, or in the body, and shall be brought and be arraigned before the bar of Christ the Son, and God the Father, and the Holy Spirit, which is one Eternal God, to be judged according to their works, whether they be good or whether they be evil. (Alma 11: 44)

On a related topic:

Last night, at bedtime, C.E. said it didn't make sense: baptisms of people who lived before Jesus was born couldn't count.  She said that he hadn't paid for their sins yet, and he hadn't been resurrected yet.

I said that it was like A.J.'s little "I-owe-you" papers.  You can't take a scrap with "I owe A.J. 50 cents" to the bank or the mall because it doesn't count; it's not Real. But you keep it in your piggy bank with faith that someday that scrap of a promise will become something Real.  It turns into something Real when you trade it for real money from your mom.

This conversation reminded me of my own thoughts as a nine-year-old kid, attending the Calvary Christian School in New Hampshire.  I loved that we learned about Jesus from the New Testament every morning, before any other subject, at that school.  I could feel the holy spirit of what was being taught. 

But there were limits to what those teachers could teach me.  They didn't have the Book of Mormon. And I was not a Mormon.  One day, my 4th grade teacher answered my question, "What will happen to my Morfar (Grandfather) who died without believing in Jesus?" by telling me that Morfar would have to be in hell with all who are not "saved".  Horrible.

When the (Mormon) missionaries taught me that there was definitely missionarywork taking place in the world of the dead, just like here on earth, it made sense.

D & C 138: 57-58 says "...Faithful elders...when they depart from mortal life, continue their labors in the preaching of the gospel of repentance and redemption, through the sacrifice of the Only Begotten Son of God... in the great world of the spirits of the dead. The dead who repent will be redeemed..."

God provides a chance for everyone.  Even a nine-year-old can understand these things.

General Conference Weekend

Saturday, C.E. and I went to the giant conference center in Salt Lake City to see the annual young women's general broadcast.  There were tens of thousands of 12-18 year old women and their mothers together there.  Beautiful.

I loved it.

Friday night we're going to Salt Lake City again, to the missionary reunions.  I loved my mission so much and I love hearing from my mission president and his wife.  They are like parents.  My mission president is now a temple sealer, and he married Scott and me in the Timpanogos Temple three years ago. 

He also writes books

prolifically, and they are great.

        

I remember being a kid and being soooo bored during the conference talks.  Wow.  I remember it well.  It was torture.

How things change!  Now I bask and I soak in the talks, and wish I could memorize the words.

So, this weekend I am thinking about faith.  You can't just get faith once and that's it for life.   I have to keep living it, probing, pondering, asking, moving forward, practicing, trying, hoping, learning, and feeding my little faith so it becomes mighty some day.  Like a plant, it can wither away if neglected. I have seen it happen to people, and it is sad.  This weekend is our weekend of extreme faith.  Twice a year, at general conference-- I wish it were oftener. 

Saturday and Sunday, for hours, off and on, we'll get  the broadcast from General Conference on the internet or on t.v. or from my sister's house.  My life is better for it and I can't wait.

 So, there's what's on my mind today.

http://lds.org/pages/why-conference-matters?lang=eng