Night In Bethlehem

A family in Sean's neighborhood does a live nativity every year. It is a huge production called Night In Bethlehem. They have an old carriage house that they turn into a market, and there are chickens and sheep and people everywhere. Then there is a decree from the tax collector that everyone needs to go to the city of their ancestors to be taxed, and then all of a sudden there is a donkey being led by Joseph, and a pregnant Mary riding on the back of the donkey. They walk through the village and go out the back. Then the whole group goes outside where the angel appears to the shepherd, and then there is a curtain drawn and you see Mary and Joseph with baby Jesus in the manger. The shepherds go worship, the wise men come, and a couple of other villagers, and they also throw in a Roman soldier, which I thought was a nice touch. It is very moving, especially when the crowd sings Silent Night together. If you are ever in the area for Christmas, you start at the old church building on 200 S and 100 E in Provo. They do it on the 23rd and 24th usually. It is amazing!

My father-in-law, the Tax Collector

Gratitude Days 3-5

I was such a slacker this weekend! Actually, I made a deal with myself not to get on any social media, and I succeeded. Except for the picture I posted on Instagram of my friend Morgan at her wedding reception. Aside from that, no email, no facebook, not twitter, nothing. I was pretty impressed that I actually did it...

Anyway here we go:

Day 3: I am grateful for the temple! Sean and I got to do an endowment session with his parents on Saturday, and we had family names from his dad's side of the family. It's been really fun doing family names; we started with the baptisms and have been working our way through everything else! It's fun making relationship connections just by looking at the names and dates on each card.

Day 4: I'm grateful for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the opportunity to take the Sacrament every week. I love that I can feel close to my Savior and that feeling gets renewed every week at church. I love the weekly dose of the Spirit that comes, even in Primary! (And that is a whole other blog post.)

Day 5: I'm grateful for pinterest and new recipes :) Come on, there had to be a cheesy one in my catch-up. A few months ago I found a sweet and sour chicken recipe on Pinterest and made it. Now it is a regular in our dinner lineup, it is so good! I blogged the recipe a couple months ago. Or look at Pinterest...

prayers

On Sunday Sean and I met with a counselor in the stake presidency and got our temple recommends! Yay! He gave us some advice as they normally do, and then mentioned that Satan is going to work extremely hard on us the next few weeks to try and stop our wedding from happening. And boy, that happened pretty quick. Surprisingly quick.

Yesterday was awful. Not even 24 hours after our interviews, I woke up, went running, and right before I was leaving for work I went to put my ring on and I couldn't find it. I could not remember for the life of me where I had put it the night before. I called Sean in a panic, and he told me places to look while he was waiting for his class to start. I said a little prayer and continued to look. I even went outside with a plastic bag covering my hand to check Blaze's poop to make sure he hadn't swallowed it. (It was disgusting and I will NEVER do that again.) Luckily, Sean remembers my nighttime routine better than I do apparently and asked where I had put my ring after lotion. I then checked the pocket of the sweatshirt I had been wearing and there it was.

Now I'm not saying it was Satan that misplaced my ring, but my overreaction was probably, eh, most likely aided by him. It was a scary thing worthy of a few tears, but I was hysterical. It was a terrible feeling, and I know Satan wasn't helping.

Anyway, after I found it, I said a quick thank you prayer and hurried off to work. After work, Sean picked Blaze up and took him down to his house where we were eating dinner because I was getting off late. We borrowed a long leash from our neighbors so Blaze could move around while on the leash. At some point, he slipped his collar and took off. I have no idea how long he was gone, but it was a good 10 minutes before Sean finally found him. Again, though, the hysterics started. I couldn't believe all these things were happening and in such a short amount of time. I'm an emotional person, but not this bad. We got Blaze in the car and said another quick thank you prayer.

Prayer is amazing. In the last 48 hours Sean and I have had experiences that have helped grow our testimony of prayer immensely. I am so grateful that we are able to communicate with our Heavenly Father, and that He listens and answers even the simplest of prayers, like finding my ring so I don't have to go without it for a day, or finding Blaze after 10 minutes of looking and him not being injured at all.

I love this story President Thomas S. Monson shared in October at General Conference:

"I gained my testimony of the power of prayer when I was about 12 years old. I had worked hard to earn some money and had managed to save five dollars. This was during the Great Depression, when five dollars was a substantial sum of money—especially for a boy of 12. I gave all my coins, which totaled five dollars, to my father, and he gave me in return a five-dollar bill. I know there was something specific I planned to purchase with the five dollars, although all these years later I can’t recall what it was. I just remember how important that money was to me.

At the time, we did not own a washing machine, so my mother would send to the laundry each week our clothes which needed to be washed. After a couple of days, a load of what we called “wet wash” would be returned to us, and Mother would hang the items on our clothesline out back to dry.

I had tucked my five-dollar bill in the pocket of my jeans. As you can probably guess, my jeans were sent to the laundry with the money still in the pocket. When I realized what had happened, I was sick with worry. I knew that pockets were routinely checked at the laundry prior to washing. If my money was not discovered and taken during that process, I knew it was almost certain the money would be dislodged during washing and would be claimed by a laundry worker who would have no idea to whom the money should be returned, even if he had the inclination to do so. The chances of getting back my five dollars were extremely remote—a fact which my dear mother confirmed when I told her I had left the money in my pocket.

I wanted that money; I needed that money; I had worked very hard to earn that money. I realized there was only one thing I could do. In my extremity I turned to my Father in Heaven and pleaded with Him to keep my money safe in that pocket somehow until our wet wash came back.

Two very long days later, when I knew it was about time for the delivery truck to bring our wash, I sat by the window, waiting. As the truck pulled up to the curb, my heart was pounding. As soon as the wet clothes were in the house, I grabbed my jeans and ran to my bedroom. I reached into the pocket with trembling hands. When I didn’t find anything immediately, I thought all was lost. And then my fingers touched that wet five-dollar bill. As I pulled it from the pocket, relief flooded over me. I offered a heartfelt prayer of gratitude to my Father in Heaven, for I knew that He had answered my prayer."

I am so thankful for a loving Heavenly Father that I can turn to in all situations for help, guidance, or whatever I need, and I know that He will answer prayers in His timing. Sometimes it is immediate, sometimes it takes years. But He will answer if we are willing to ask.

Gratitude-a-Day 18

Today I am grateful for my siblings: Jennifer, Carly and Tim.

Oh and sibling-in-law, Bryce :)

I love the relationship I have with each of them and the love and support we offer. I'm so glad that whenever we get together, no matter what we do, we are having fun. I'm grateful that we have opportunities to serve one another. And I'm grateful that we get to spend eternity together.

Which is a darn good thing, because I haven't seen Carly and Bryce since there wedding two and half months ago, and I don't get to see them at Christmas. Lame? Yes. Yay for the Plan of Salvation!

I love you guys!!!

Gratitude-a-Day 12, 13, and 14

Busy weekend. Wow.

Day 12: I'm grateful for old friends. The friends that you can go months without seeing and it is like no time has passed. I went to my old roommate's bridal shower this weekend, and got to catch up with her and another old roommate for a few minutes, and it was soooo wonderful. Also I'm grateful for memories: at the bridal shower one was brought up about our apartment fish, Adolph, who I had completely forgotten about...

Day 13: I'm grateful for inspired church leaders, who know just what to say when I'm stressing about my calling.

Day 14: I'm grateful for the temple. Last week Sean and I went and did sealings because we were late for the session our ward was doing, and then we met everyone in the Celestial Room after. It is such a happy place and I know that the Spirit is there in great abundance. Also I'm thankful for the peace the temple brings.

Gratitude-a-Day

My friend Jess (blog found here) does a Gratitue-a-Day post every day for the month of November, every year. I've been thinking about it since last year, and decided to give it a go. Because I know I have a lot in my life to be thankful for. And I'm going to extend the same challenge to you that Jess did... do the Gratitude-a-Day and see what happens!

So for today: I am grateful for my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

I would not be who I am today, or where I am today, without the Atonement, and the constant guidance from the Holy Ghost. I won't go into specifics, but my testimony of Christ and the Atonement has really grown tremendously over the past couple of years. I know that He is there for us whenever we need Him: through good and bad times, through hurt feelings and happy occasions, through pain, whether emotional or physical, through sorrow, through everything we are to experience in this life, He is there. And He wants to help us through those times, and will, if we just ask Him.

This message is from Easter, but its message applies throughout the year, and throughout all time.

"Rough Start, Great Finish"

Some people like to wonder, Why is my life so tough?

Mortality is full of trials, and every day is rough.
They say, “Hey, Lord, I’m being good, why punish me with trials?
I thought that if I chose the right,

I’d have a life of smiles.”

So here’s some things within a poem we mustn’t disregard
Which hopefully will answer why our lives can be so hard.

Nephi crossed a desert to find a place to build a ship.

I think we’d all agree that this was not a pleasure trip.
The wilderness dark and dreary lay before the tree of life.

You must fetch Ishmael’s family before you find your wife.
The wilderness will always come before the promised land.
Before they sewed in dark, rich soil, they saw a lot of sand.

The kind of things that they went through, we go through now today.
Here’s 25 examples of how things can be that way.

You’ve got to eat the Cracker Jacks before you get your prize.

You have to sit through drive-through before you get your fries.

I drove a Chevy Vega before my Honda Prelude.

I had to take my finals, man, before I got my grade, dude.

Before the 80’s music came we had to go through disco.

Before the Teflon frying pan we used to cook with Crisco.

You do a lot of dating, son, before you find your honey.

Bank officers will check your past before they loan you money.

Endure the small apartment, kids, before you buy a home.

My Franklin planner weighed a ton before I bought a Palm.

You have to pass the food court before you reach the mall.

And I was really, really short before I got this tall.
It takes a lot of courage, boys, to ask the girls to dance
Without the risk of asking, though, you’ll never find romance.

The ugly duckling

came before the really pretty swan.

You’ve got to pull the dandelions

to have a gorgeous lawn.

Could take 300 Wonka bars to find a Golden Ticket.

To eat that pile of chocolate, boy, you’ve really got to dig it.

We shovel snow in wintertime

before we get to spring.

Some guys will sacrifice their Jeep

to buy a wedding ring.

It’s half a dozen previews then the feature presentation.

And only after 8^th grade trials comes high school graduation.

Airport security must be passed before you find your gate.
It’s odd that much of traveling is stand in line and wait.

You’ve got to go through rush hour then you park in your garage.

You have to do stuff for your wife to earn a back massage.

Hours of piano lessons came before the big recital.

The Cougars played the U of U before they won the title.

Perhaps I should get to the point before this poem gets longer.
I guess that what I’m trying to say is trials make you stronger.

So when you have a problem there’s no reason to complain.
It might just be that all that’s wrong’s for your eternal gain.
Next time a trial comes along, don’t gripe or write a letter.
Just see what’s really going on: your problems make you better.
I hope my amateurish poem my point will not diminish,
Sometimes a rough start comes before a really awesome finish.

-John Bytheway, "Rough Start, Great Finish"