A great letter from a great sister...

Hello Sisters, August 16, 2007
Recently I was thinking about trying to buy a home. I never had one of my own before and was kind of excited and yet really scared. I even went looking at houses and found one I really liked. Yet, no matter how I went over my finances I just couldn't manage to come up with all of the needed money right now. I was anxious and frustrated. This was not at all the "peacefull feeling from the Holy Ghost I expected to feel. After all, wasn't this a "good thing"? Didn't I do all of my "homework" and make a decision? So why wasn't I feeling that peace? Could it be I wasn't supposed to move yet? But that hardly seemed logical since the longer I wait the more difficult it will be to get a loan and move. I wanted that house. Still I felt unsure and anxious. But was that really the spirit or just the normal I'm going to owe on this for the rest of my life anxiety?
I was perplexed and asked for a blessing. In the blessing I was told that Heavenly Father knew of my desire for a home of my own but that he wanted me to wait for awhile. I seemed to feel some relieve but also disappointment that I would never attain this goal. Why am I telling you all of this? For two reasons 1) we all face every day delimmas in which we are sometimes uncertain if it is the spirit or our own feelings and anxieties. We all want to do what Heavenly Father wants us to do so we must really trust that when we have good calming feelings our answer is yes. The opposite is also true. We must trust that when we have strong anxiety and uncertaintly then we shouldn't do as we planned no matter how much we may think we want to. 2)As I was contemplating this very thing and wondering if some day I would have a home of my own and if so how, I came across a wonderful scripture that can help us all to increase our faith and patience Doctrine Covenants 5:34 "Yea, for this cause I have said: Stop, and stand still until I command thee, and I will provide means whereby thou mayest accomplish the thing I have commanded thee." There it is sisters, all we have to do is be obedient and He not us will provide a way for us to accompish what he commands us to do. This scripture has brought me much relief and hope in my everyday problems. I hope it does the same for you.
Sister H. M.
Stake R.S. pres.

Giving in and giving up

Somedays you feel so overwhelmed with all your troubles, stresses, and blah feelings that you tend to just want to run away and hide from it all...give in to them or give up fighting them. There are some few simple things we can do to help us not give in or give up fighting them. They are simple and basic seminary answers, but isn't that what the Gospel is all about? Keeping things simple and remembering the basics? This doesn't encompass all things you can do, but are some things I have done recently to help me:

• Remember to never stop praying -- pray for things you are grateful for and the specific things you are in need of
• Read and study your scriptures everyday!
• Attend all your church meetings

I think I've quoted this before, but here it is again.

If you want to talk to God, pray. If you want God to talk to you, read the
scriptures. (John Bytheway)

When we follow the commandments and do the things given to us to help us progress spiritually as a person, He will bless us for it!!! Yesterday was one of those "not so bad, but could be much worse" kind of days even with doing the things above. It was frustrating to me, bc I felt I was doing all I could to help uplift my somber mood. But things come in due time...well, actually the Lord's time. The answers or blessings we seek in earnest come when we least expect them. Mine came at the end of the day to make it a good and very worth while day. :-)

A Particle of Faith

Does it ever seem that even though you are trying to do your best you are always coming up short? I see a need to work on "A", but then "B" falls by the wayside. I work on "B" and still on "A" but then "C" starts to weaken in me. Okay, to better explain: I am doing really well with keeping my house a house of order. I'm keeping the floors clean, keeping the rooms uncluttered, etc. I then am starting to really hunker down on my school studies bc I want to stay on schedule, but then a lot of Katie Jo's toys end up cluttering the living room where I'm studying. I try to only do school work during the day so that I can still focus on my house and my family. As I'm trying to balance these two sides of my life, I see that I forgot to prepare my lesson for Sunday and it's friday or saturday night. My alarm goes off at 6:30am every morning so that I can take care of my physical and spiritual body...I work out and then read my scriptures while Katie Jo is still in bed and Randy is off to PT. Katie Jo comes downstairs bc she just woke up and is hungry but I'm not done reading or working out. I have to stop one and do the other. :-p

Now, there are easy fixes on all of these...by switching around my schedule...planning better. I'm not saying these situations are what make me frustrated...no, no...these are way too simple. But you can imagine what I'm trying to convey in more complex situations.



That is when I start to bang my head against the wall. I get so frustrated bc I can't do it all.

Yeah, yeah...nobody is perfect, but they tell us try and that is no easy task to do!

"I never said it would be easy, I only said it would be worth it"

"But behold, if ye will awake and around your faculties, even to an experiment
upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more
than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a
manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words" Alma 32:27

I like experimenting with new things. And it seems easy enough...just have a desire to believe. That desire is like a seed that I nourish into stronger faith and then to knowledge. I want to believe that I can master "A", "B", and "C" plus all those other things. Something that I learned recently is that you can't exercise faith while you have fear at the same time. They contradict each other. I just need to let loose of all those fears of failure and exercise that particle of faith that I can do this, that I can try and succeed. Little by little & eventually I can master it.