Enjoying Diversity

The first Sunday we attended our new ward in Texas, I was delighted to hear an Asian accent and a Hispanic accent as the Sacrament prayers were given. At the conclusion of our meetings, I realized that we had the blessing of moving into a ward that had a wonderful mixture: born-in-the-Church & converts; native Texans & people from various states and other countries; young, old & everything in between. In Relief Society, as different opinions were expressed, I sensed an open-heartedness that was refreshing and inspiring.

The day we moved into our new house, we noticed that many of the neighbors came outside with their children, and the first two families we met were from South Africa and India.

We look forward to making many new friends!

On the Road, Again

Yes, we are moving again. But to two different places, so it's double the fun, and way more than double the hassle. If all goes well, by the end of 2007 we will be fully established as permanent residents of Texas, with a second (mostly summer) home in Washington state. The call of grandchildren is strong, and we are answering!

Everything in our present house (including that large, full basement with its hundreds of boxes) must be examined. Once the decision to donate, trash or keep is made, an additional decision comes to the fore--do we want this to go north, or south? Then we need to pack everything ourselves.

Ah, for the days when a company was moving us, and once we had cleared out everything we didn't want, in a matter of hours all our worldly goods were boxed up and taken away to be crated prior to being shipped to another country.

Thus, for the next few months, any serious blogging I do will be on A Prayer of Faith. That blog is being revived this month after a long period of light activity caused primarily by the fact that all of the permabloggers hit super-busy times in our lives!

But we are determined to get things going again, and with the addition of some new writers, it will happen!

Some Things are Definitely Worth Looking for

Our first stop took us to the home of one of our daughters--an intelligent, beautiful, charming, thirty-eight-year-old woman who has a thriving career in marketing for one of the big housing developers in a Southwestern state.

She would trade that career in a second for the opportunity to be a SAHM of a large family.

Unfortunately, Mr. Right has not yet made an appearance. Her nieces and nephews, as well as young cousins, are the focus of her loving nature, and her new, tastefully decorated home is replete with photos of family, with emphasis on the youngest members.

Mr. Right, wherever you are, your wonderful life-partner is still available. Look for her. Your reward will be well worth the effort.

Wandering in Earnest

My husband and I have begun a road trip which is intended to last about five weeks. He does the driving, and I switch between dozing, listening to the Book of Mormon in Spanish on my personal CD player, listening to classical music on the car CD player, gazing out the window, thinking deep thoughts/meditating/praying, and contributing scintillating comments to intervals of fascinating conversation.

Growing Up unto the Lord (Helaman 3:21)

In a post entitled Gratifying, on A Prayer of Faith, Starfoxy recently wrote, "I love to comfort [my son], and enjoy sitting with him in my arms." Téa, in a concurring comment, wrote, "I need to hold onto those joyful moments in anticipation of when he will no longer seek to be comforted."

I like the analogy that Starfoxy then drew between a mother's relationship to her child, and our Heavenly Father's relationship to us, his spirit children: "When we need comfort from him we’re much more ’still’ we seek him out and listen carefully." And Téa remarked, "I like your application to us and our relationship with God. Do you suppose part of the gratification He feels is pleasure as we are doing as He has asked, to come unto Him, to cast our burdens on Him?"

This thought-provoking post and the ensuing comments prompted me to seek out a passage in my journal where I wrote about the changing joys that come with parenthood as our children grow up. At the time, our six children ranged in age from 13, down to just-turned-two.

Searching for Truth

I was recently invited to join several other LDS women as a blogger on "A Prayer of Faith," and today I published my first (not counting my introduction) post, entitled "Oh Say, Where is Truth."
When I first starting writing the post, I had difficulty focusing in on just one main point. I knew I wanted to stimulate discussion on how we find truth in the media, and how fiction can often strike us as containing more truth than history books, biographies, works dealing with the social sciences, or even the physical sciences. I also am interested in how parents teach their children to discern truth in the media. Perhaps I can refocus my thoughts and write another post (or two) asking those questions.

Showing love for our spouse

Starfoxy has an interesting post on The Prayer of Faith blog entitled Change which probes the question of how we should deal with changes we may observe in our spouse. Here are my comments (slightly modified) on Starfoxy's post and follow-up remarks by another person:

One of my father's favorite sayings is "Nothing in life is certain except change." And hopefully we can concentrate on dealing with change (in ourselves and in others) in a positive, rather than a negative way, especially as change may affect marital relationships.