Faith to Hasten the Work

 

Yesterday a missionary broadcast from the Marriott Center in Provo was aired for church leaders and interested members. Of course, I was most intent on finding my missionary son who sang in that huge MTC choir but I was also profoundly spiritually fed. I choked up as I looked upon those bright and beautiful young sisters and Elders. To me they seemed to radiate joy, intelligence and faith. God must be so pleased to have such a fine army of young people to teach His children. To all those young people who heard the prophet's call last October and set aside other compelling interests; to all those who, with child-like faith, believe that the Lord will open windows of opportunity to hasten his work, I thank you. Thanks for setting a wonderful example for your parents and for any naysayers who may question as to whether there will be enough work for 72,000 plus missionaries. Thanks for having unwavering faith and eyes to see the vision of the Lord's plan for our day. You've set the standard and now the rest of us will have to catch up and do our part by inviting our non-member friends. I know I felt the Spirit... and today, I called my friend!
 


Musings about Focus and Concentration--a fruit of Self-Discipline

I had an interesting conversation with a woman that I visit teach. She has a 21 year old daughter who attends NYU. Her mother told me that is she very talented and accomplished; she was an AP student and leader at her high school and is a professional ballerina. At NYU she continues her outstanding ways and will graduate in just three years instead of the usual four. But then her mother said, "She seemed to understand at a very young age, the importance of self-discipline. She has always had an incredible ability to focus and concentrate on what she wants to do." My thought was, "What a great gift!" But the next day I read something that seemingly refuted my conclusion that her ability was a gift. I read, "Discipline is the secret of concentration. Concentration is an acquired skill and like most good things in life, you have to work for it.  To concentrate is to choose." A choice? I hadn't thought of it like that.

So many days my mind is unfocused, distracted or swept about by my emotions or worries. Sometimes I am unfocused because I am attempting to do too many things at one time, sort of like attempting to chase multiple rabbits and catching none of them. Sometimes I lose focus because the scope of the task seems so big or daunting that I start to fear and doubt that I can do it. At other times, I believe that because of my not-as-sharp memory or math challenges,  I am not able to focus and learn. I even find that strong emotions or worries can usurp my ability to stay focused on the matter at hand.So to understand that the ability to focus and concentrate is a choice seems especially significant to me.

It means in the most practical of terms, that I need to turn to the Lord more often for help to prioritize so I can focus my energy to what is most important. It means that I should learn from the life of the apostle Peter when he looked down to gaze at the great expanse of water and waves that surrounded him instead of focusing his sights on the Savior who has power to still fear and doubt. It means trusting in His ability to make me equal to the task and also believing that, in spite of human frailties, I can improve with focus and hard work. It also means a willingness to lay my burdens at his feet and placing my faith and trust in Him, no matter what, so I can be happy and peaceful and actually focus on that which I do have control over.  This isn't always easy to do but it seems like an important thing to learn...at least for me.

The Sista's Reunion!

I love my sisters! After years of only talking about it, we finally committed to having a sister's reunion at my place...otherwise known as Rancho Relaxo. We had so much fun; in fact, way too much fun because nobody wanted to go back to their normal life. :) Here are some fun pics of us doin' our thing!



Four people in a two person golf cart....yeah....should have seen us squeeze 3 in the front!

Dad and his daughters



La Jolla Caves, doesn't get much prettier than this!



Arms UP! Ask Sandi what that is all about!



Love you Dad! So glad you joined us.

 

The only sister who couldn't make it this time was our sister-in-law, Annette. We love her and missed her but she was on a family camping trip with their son, Andrew, before he reported to the MTC on Wednesday. But next year, okay, Annette?

Of course, there isn't any possible way we can fit one more body in that golf cart.....:)



Inviting the Savior

            Saturday was our Stake Women’s Conference and the theme was “Forget Not.” Kathy Clayton, wife of L. Whitney Clayton was the keynote speaker. Something that I especially enjoyed from her talk was the idea that we need to invite the Savior out of the “guest room” and into the details of our life…even the messiest details. After all, it isn’t like we prevent him from knowing about the challenges we have by keeping him at a distance. He already knows everything about us. But if we choose to let him in then we enable him to do what he really wants to do; help us! It isn’t a sign of weakness to accept help from our divine benefactor but it is certainly a sign of our faith in Him.