Monthly Archives: January 2010

General Conference Book Club Week 15: Sister Dibb

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Sister Dibb is married to my dad’s cousin, so that makes us practically like sisters, and therefore, I think it’s totally fine that my siblings and I call President Monson “Uncle Tom,” don’t you think? (If I knew how to make really tiny font, it would say here: “Not that we’ve ever met him or anything.”)

Anyway, Sister Ann M. Dibb gave a great talk in the Sunday morning session of General Conference called “Hold On.”  It’s a fun and meaningful talk, plus Elder Holland referred to it in the talk we just studied last week.

You can read the talk here.  You can also  watch it here or listen to it here.

“Heavenly Father has not left us alone during our mortal probation. He has already given us all the “safety equipment” we will need to successfully return to Him.”

“In the scriptures there are very few stories of individuals who lived in blissful happiness and experienced no opposition. We learn and grow by overcoming challenges with faith, persistence, and personal righteousness.”

As you read this talk, what are your thoughts and impressions about “holding on”?

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We are already at week 15 (out of 25, I think)!  Can you believe we’re only about 10 weeks out from Spring Conference?  If this is your first visit to our weekly book club, welcome!  (You’ll find details about GCBC here.)

Confession and Clarity (dramatic subtitle: How the Bachelor has changed my life)

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I watched the premier of The Bachelor the other night.  I wouldn’t even mention it except that I commented something about it on Kristina’s post, and have since been publicly mocked for watching it … and rightfully so.  DeNae said something to the effect of “Stephanie watched the Bachelor?  Now I’ve heard everything.  Bring on the Second Coming!”  (I paraphrased a little.)

In my defense, it was kind of accidental.  I had put my kids down to bed and turned on the TV to keep me busy while I folded laundry.  I happened upon the Bachelor at some part where he was being interviewed about his intentions, and he seemed nice and genuine enough (“I believe in lasting love, I’m ready to be a husband and a father, blah, blah, blah, etc.) so I kept watching.  (Pay attention ladies, this is how Satan works his magic.)  Anyway, then these 25 ladies showed up, and it was all downhill.  They came pouring out of limousines with predator eyes and dresses that were all bought at “Pamela Anderson’s Prom Shop.”  It was kind of like witnessing the destruction of the Twin Towers– you feel shocked and horrified, but can’t take your eyes off the TV.  I believe the producers searched far and wide to find twenty-five women whose most-prized possession is their breasts, and their least-prized possession is their dignity.  Enough said.

So, yeah.  I watched it.  And I couldn’t stop thinking about it all that night.  Or in the shower the next morning.  Or driving to the doctor.  Geesh, those women need help.  Plus it only took Mister Nice-Guy about 10 minutes into the program to fall straight into the “forget about forever– this is all about who turns me on the most right now” mode.  I kind of want to lock my children up in our house (with the TV unplugged) until they’re well past puberty.

And then yesterday, I received a copy of a talk I had requested by Sister Julie Beck.  (I’m sure you’ve figured out by now that I love her talks.)  This talk is an address she gave recently to all the Seminary and Institutes of Religion teachers.  It is the BEST. TALK. EVER.  And I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.  So many great points.  Things I’d never thought of before, but make so much sense.  It totally gave me a new perspective on what I want to teach my children and what I want the young women I work with at church to know.  Unlike the Bachelor (that I couldn’t get out of my mind because it was so wrong), it was just so right. It just oozed TRUTH.

I know I give you links to talks and articles and stuff all the time, but you should REALLY read Sister Beck’s declarations about the theology of the family and our sacred, eternal roles as parents and teachers of the next generation.  It’s so good.  I’ve never tried to link to a .pdf before, so I’m hoping that if you click on this link, you can download the talk.  If you want to read it and can’t get it to work, email me — dd.stephanie [at] gmail [dot] com– and I’ll send it to you as an attachment.

2009-beck-teaching-the-doctrine-of-the-family__eng

So, rest assured (I’m talking to you, DeNae) that I’ve watched my first and last episode of The Bachelor.  Those people on TV and all the watchers who buy into those philosophies and lifestyles just have it all wrong; they have no insight into the power they have as women, or how mighty a relationship blessed by God can be.  I couldn’t be more grateful for a husband who’s my partner in a real “reality” relationship and the opportunity to teach my kids that they can have the real deal for themselves, even when the rest of the world is putting up billboards and neon signs telling them it’s impossible, even stupid.

“I would have you live in your homes, in
your families, in your marriages so your
students have the hope of eternal life from
watching you. Your objective is to live the kind
of a home life that your students want to have
—have that kind of a family. They won’t get
that message from many other places. Live it
and teach it with so much clarity that what you
teach will cut through all the noise they are
hearing and pierce their hearts and touch them.
You don’t need to compete in volume; you
don’t need to compete in the number of words;
you just need to be very clear in your examples.
You are the ideal for them. . . .”

“Your role in this is to teach them so they don’t
misunderstand, to be very clear on key points
of doctrine, which you find in the proclamation
on the family. This is prominent in your
teaching, prominent in your classrooms,
prominent in what they’re learning. You are
preparing them for the blessings of Abraham in
everything you are teaching. You are preparing
them for the temple. You are seeking to send
forth from every classroom an Isaac and a
Rebekah. You’re living so they have confidence
in you, and through your example they know
they can form eternal families.”   –  Julie Beck

So here’s the thing about resolutions. Or, how children ruin everything.

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Obviously the Blogosphere is full of posts about New Year’s Resolutions– some serious, some sarcastic.  I like the idea of resolutions, I really do.  As my life gets more and more busy, I’ve found that taking time to inventory my goals helps me stay focused, and it keeps some of my dreams from slipping through the cracks.

When we first got married, I rolled my eyes at Matt and all his Franklin-Covey Core-values life-planning goal-sheets with step-by-step plans from today to exaltation.  I just liked to live life from day to day doing the best I could and figured that as long as I was pointed in the right direction, I’d eventually end up in the right place.  I was fine with that.  And it worked for a quite a while.  In some areas, it still does.  But once my days became divided between three little attention-parasites and a husband who wants me to remember he’s still around too, plus church and civic commitments… well, I got confused.  The whole “resolute” part of resolutions is the most difficult part.  It’s hard to keep track of everything without really thinking through what matters most and making sure it gets done.  It’s easy to get distracted.

I’ve tried list-making and note-taking.  I’ve posted goals on my bathroom mirror and kitchen cupboards.  But the thing that finally clicked for me came after I heard Sister Julie Beck’s talk about “intentional parenting” last Spring.  I learned that I needed to think about what I really want to accomplish with my family and build those related activities into our routines.  On purpose.  So, for me, goals and resolutions have turned into schedules and calendars.  I’ve found that when I actually PLAN my goals, they don’t disappear.

Do I want to make sure we make it to the temple?  Put it on the calendar!

Do I want my children to learn how to serve and how to work?  Put chores and service in the weekly routine.

I’ve spent the last week or two trying to think about what things are going well in our family, what things need to go, and what are things have been neglected.  Less TV?  More one-on-one time with kids?  Regular temple attendance?  More or less extra-curriculars?  When’s the best time to schedule in my scripture study so it has the greatest chance of getting done every day?  You get the idea.

It took days of thought and hours of document design, but this is the final result.  (Don’t you dare laugh at me.)

So, this is what I’ve become.  I would have never imagined.  Then again, I shouldn’t be shocked since I do have a minivan and a mommy blog– a couple other things I probably didn’t originally have on my young, naive list of future plans.  Anyway, I was so proud of my new weekly schedule.  I showed it to the kids with optimistic enthusiasm.  They’re used to my constant charts and signs, so they were on board.

And then like a dark cloud, the holidays were over and today was back to school, back to real life, and test-drive day for our new weekly schedule.  Please tell me that your children go through post-holiday detox too.  They were out of control.  No more presents to open, no more grandparents to entertain them, no more unlimited access to movies and computer games, no more days off of school.  If I could describe the day in one phrase . . . it was a day of time-outs within time-outs (breaking rules upon rules while still being punished for the last broken rules).  I really wanted to throw out the schedule and tell them to go watch TV until bedtime.  Needless to say, my twinkly dreams of an organized and peaceful New Year went up in flames by about 3:00 p.m. and my children’s chances of living through the month were almost completely diminished by 6:00 p.m.

And this is where the whole “resolute” thing comes into play.  Are the goals important to me?  Yes.  Is it worth sticking it out and being consistent?  I think so.  Will my children be incarcerated in the process?  I hope not.  I have to believe that with commitment and consistency, we’ll fall into a routine that reflects what kind of family we want to be.  This is not a new concept around here– there was a summer schedule and a Fall schedule and this one is just adjusted for changing family needs.  (As a side note, I’m not a nazi about the schedule minute-to-minute, but it gives direction and focus to each day.  For example, a day with emphasis on service, one on outings, one on chores, etc.)  They’ve learned to thrive in the routines in the past and they’ll do it again, if I can survive the first two weeks.  Wish me luck.

Here are three talks (in addition to the Sister Beck one I mentioned earlier) that have really helped me in trying to figure out what kinds of things need to be part of our family’s patterns.  The first two are both by Elder Dallin H. Oaks, and the third by Elder Bednar.

“Good, Better, Best”

“Focus and Priorities”

“More Diligent and Concerned at Home”

Happy New Year!

General Conference Book Club Week 14: Elder Holland

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I figure we should start off the new year with this rock-star talk from General Conference.  Do you remember back in the 80s when Elder Bruce R. McConkie gave that famous testimony of the living Savior just days before he died?  Well, this talk by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles ranks right up there as an incredibly powerful testimony; you can’t watch it and not be moved.  The talk is called “Safety for the Soul,” wherein he boldly declares the truth of the Book of Mormon as the word of God.  The talk was given during the Sunday morning session of the October 2009 General Conference.

Just read it.  Or even better, watch it or listen to it.  I’ll let the conviction speak for itself.

(And just in case you randomly landed here by Googling something like “Is the Book of Mormon really true?,” the links in this post take you to a testimony by a living apostle answering the claims by some that the book is a fraud.  I add my own witness to his that yes, the Book of Mormon really is true.  I encourage you to listen to Elder Holland’s talk, and read the Book of Mormon for yourself.  I’m confident that God himself will reveal its truth to you.)

“I want it absolutely clear when I stand before the judgment bar of God that I declared to the world . . . that the Book of Mormon is true.”

“I testify that one cannot come to full faith in this latter-day work—and thereby find the fullest measure of peace and comfort in these, our times—until he or she embraces the divinity of the Book of Mormon and the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom it testifies.”

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Thanks to those of you that have faithfully read and even commented as part of our Book Club.  If some of you are just joining us as part of a New Year’s Resolution, welcome!  (You’ll find details about GCBC here.)  And a warm welcome back to other friends who are rejoining us.