Coincidence or By Divine Design - Relief Society

            When I'm teaching primary, I'm sitting down.  When I taught RS, I was standing up.  The sisters have decided to put themselves in a circle, which has its benefits.  I thought I might try walking around and pace myself back and forth as I've seen another instructor do - but my voice doesn't seem to carry as loud as hers nor did I have much of a voice on Sunday and so had to stand behind the microphone.

            NONE of the shoes that I wear on Sunday are very comfortable and so my feet hurt as I neared the end of my lesson and later on that night I was experiencing back pain.  I blame the shoes.  I think Roland would blame my weight.  Probably a combination of the two.

            There are posts on either my own or my brother's blog which provide several reference to everything I discussed in my lesson - well almost everything.  

Dear Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin spoke of an occasion when President Thomas S. Monson said to him: “There is a guiding hand above all things. Often when things happen, it’s not by accident. One day, when we look back at the seeming coincidences of our lives, we will realize that perhaps they weren’t so coincidental after all.”

            After I had passed around the photos of my mom and dad found in this post, I shared an experience that Roland and I had while he was a realtor.  He had made appointments for showing clients houses that were still occupied by their owners.  The clients noticed a newly listed house across the street that hadn't been on Roland's agenda because  he hadn't known about it, but as it was also occupied, he might have to make arrangements for another appointment and return at a later date.  As it turned out, the owners were gone and we were able to go inside.

            The interior of the first house seemed to have dark walls in most of its rooms.  No photos on the wall.  Just a couple on a night stand.  I thought it seemed poorly lit. The house across the street was the same exact floor plan except in reverse.  And with brighter walls.  A great big picture of an LDS temple (though I forget which one; the picture was definitely the largest I have seen - exceeding the entire length on the couch) LOTS of photographs and "families are forever" themes. It was roughly 20,000 more than any other house they looked at.  But it's the one that they wanted.  Was it a coinsidence or divine design?

  

"But remember, He has always used ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things" - Ronald A. Rasband,  Oct 1, 2017

            I'm sure that to most people my dad was as ordinary as they come.  He was a very quiet man which I have mentioned in a post I created  the year that I started my blog. Even though we lived in the same house for over 30 years, talking to dad was often like pulling teeth.  Most of what I had shared with the sisters was second or third hand information from sources other than my dad.  I shared a bit about my dad's upbringing and his not having a testimony of the gospel - or perhaps it was just the church itself that he had strayed from.

            He was quite studios and a very good student.  In 1955 he'd been offered a full scholarship to BYU but had turned it down in order to join the navy - which he loathed.  He had joined the navy choir and had enjoyed that.  The nation was between wars and so he was never involved in active duty.  I don't think he had even left the country, but I could be wrong. Overall he really did not appreciate his time in the service.  Since he didn't talk about it, we can only speculate about what we think it was.  I think he may have found the vulgar language and lack of ethics among many of the sailors to be upsetting.

            I think my dad used Church as an escape from the navy.  One fast and testimony meeting he remembers a girl of about ten years of age (this is one of the few sources I have directly from my dad's own mouth) bore her testimony and said she knew the church was true, and he thought  - "If she can know, I can know."  And he devoted more time into finding God and getting reacquainted with the LDS faith.

          One night he was given permission to go to a Church dance.  There he met my mother.  They were married 14 months later.  They were married in Los Angeles Temple and had their wedding reception in the Church in the photo I had passed around where my father had had his picture taken 12 years before.  I don't know if my dad made the connection.  Probably not. I don't remember having seen the photo until my brother Corey posted it.  Had this all come about by coincidence or by divine design?

"Our lives are like a chessboard, and the Lord moves us from one place to another—if we are responsive to spiritual promptings. Looking back, we can see His hand in our lives" - Ronald A. Rasband,  Oct 1, 2017

             

              I then asked the sisters:  "How many of you have ever made plans about where your life was headed?  You work so many years of your life to stay on that path toward your goal and all of the sudden there is that fork in the road.  God may nudge you to go one way or perhaps you believe you made that choice on your own.  And one day you look over to where you could have been and compare it to where you are on the road right now and think:  "Hey, wait a minute.  I'm supposed to be over there on that path.  I don't think I like where this path is taking me"

            I asked the sisters if any would like to share an example.  When nobody did, I continued. The next example I shared was about Diane Ellingson. I had breifly mentioned her remarkable triumphant found here.  You can also hear her life story in her own words in a two part video fournd here.

"Sometimes life is hard and seems unfair but you are only defeated when you stop trying." - Diane Ellington Smith

" Most often, our good works are known to only a few. They are, however, recorded in heaven. One day, we will stand as a witness of our whole-souled devotion to works of righteousness." - Ronald A. Rasband,  Oct 1, 2017

            I also shared some examples about how often when we ask for blessings, God will send us the tools we need to acquire that blessing.  I used the example of Princess Merida from Disney/Pixar's "Brave"  here.

            I concluded with a poem Corey had written which could be used to desribe almost every "ordinary" person.  His poem can be found both here and here.

            Other references for my lesson include: 

Ronald A. Rasband

                                        talk found here

                my comments from talk found here

              

Mom &Dad

                                 great pictures here and here

                      dad's service in navy and awesome tribute by Corey/Cody here

               

Merida

                        trailer for Brave here       

Missing, Understanding and Appreciating Mom Even More

          I miss my mom.  I have missed her since before she passed.  

          As I start aging, there are more things that I appreciate or understand about mom that I may have taken for granted many times before.  I don’t have the exceptional hearing that my mom did, and my eyesight is no longer what it used to be.  I find that I am often blowing up the screen or font size – especially when I am trying to view two windows at once.  I will still do a spell check but am unsure if a suggested word is the one I really want to use;  I can’t see what is being suggested – not from a comfortable position anyway.

          I remember going to the pool with mom – who seemed to have worse eyesidht then than I do now.  She was literally blind without her glasses.  There wold be a clock right above the pool.  She could see the clock itself – but couldn’t determine where the hands were.  She would always ask what time it was.  I couldn’t understand why it was a problem for her.  Now I do.

          Jenna will often say things to her dad or me that we’ll ask her to repeat.  My hearing is better than Roland’s.  It used to be as great as Jenna’s.  At least I still have the ability to hear and see – just not small fonts or faint sounds.  I have lost my inability to smell and have written a few posts about that.  My mom’s smelling sense had been numbed when she was very young.  I don’t remember my mom ever being able to smell.  Every once in a while I can smell things faintly – but not often.  I still don’t know what skunk smells like, even though Roland has pointed it out.

          Mom would get frustrated with herself when she couldn’t remember the words she was searching for;  she would get even more upset if someone tried to help her out by suggesting words.  She would forget what it was that she was trying to say.  I have experienced that myself – though I don’t remember having dealt with it much this year.  Jenna has figured out that it annoys me.  Roland hasn’t though.

          The change of life.  We all grow old.  Sometimes we forget things.  Sometimes we lose our senses.  Why do so many age quickly while others don’t seem to age at all?  I don’t get it.

          I miss my mom.

Recognizing Effort

                My appreciation for art is so-so.  There are certain paintings that appeal to me for various reasons - and perhaps on a subconscious level, it is the lighting and balance and whatever other techniques are used by the artist.  Usually, it is the subject of the painting.  That is what I am focused on, not the colors, tones, hues or layers for example.  All the detail that is put into a professional painting seems overwhelming to me and actually seems to detract from the beauty that I had seen there initially.

            In college, I once took an art appreciation class - just to force myself to understand and hopefully appreciate it more.  It backfired. I was so put out by the symbolic gestures and the history, it's a wonder I didn't drop the class.  I would struggle with these foreign concepts and tried to apply them to whatever piece of work we were doing.  I tried really hard.  Or so I believed.  My work and effort were below average and therefore so were my grades . . . . until one assignment that we did in crayon.

            The subject was a milk can.  Our instructor said to pick out all the colors that were reflecting off the milk can and underneath the surface and this and that and lighting, shades and hues and . . .  my poor confused brain.  I really didn't understand what he was talking about.  As I wasn't doing particularly well in that class anyway, I decided to "fake" it.  I got out my box of crayons and started scribbling a variety of colors over what would become my milk can.  I scribbled one area with a white crayon and one with a black crayon to that when I went over the entire milk can with my grey crayon, some of it would appear lighter and some would be darkened. 

            I was in the midst of covering all the scribbles with my gray crayon when the teacher came around and complimented me on my good work.  Was he for real?  Did he really believe that I had really seen the blue, orange and green scribbles in the can?  I wasn't even trying.  I hated creating "art" and I just didn't even care anymore.  That was the day I stopped trying to better myself in that particular class.  My grade point average had gone up after that.  It felt like a slap in the face, really. It didn't seem appropriate that I would receive the message: "you'll do a whole lot better if you don't try"  That's not right!

            I did not post last week as I had devoted so much of my time to my payroll final - which by the way, I never did finish. I did try.  Boy, did I try.  I burned out more hours on this one assignment than I had any other in my entire lifetime - or so it seemed. My final grade for the class came as a surprise. I was pretty certain that my instructor would not be going through each and every single answer of each and every single student.  Apparently, I did enough that he did know I had at least tried (on the final, excel would not accept the wrong answer - so it was either come up with the correct answer or leave it blank)

            I am more satisfied with my grade and my accomplishments that I earn.  I'm not an accountant yet.  I don't like numbers.  I don't like business.  But I do enjoy learning.  I'm grateful for the opportunities I have been given that I may accomplish even more.  Perhaps one day I'll actually develop a love for my "career".  Right now I'm just tolerating it.

            I've finished payroll and am now taking two more accounting classes.  I think they will be easier than payroll.  I don't know if my instructors will be as easy as my last instructor.  I suppose I'll have a better understanding later this week.