August 2024, Week 3

 *Today at church we had a High Counselor speak.  He is an AP Physics teacher at my kids' high school, and he's had several of our ward's kids as students there and in Seminary when he taught.  We have been in the same ward in the past, and he mentioned that Ben taught him how to "boom chuck" on the guitar while Ben played the banjo so that they could play some bluegrass together.  (In other words, he's a gifted teacher and we like him!  Scott, who had him as a teacher at school and Seminary the same year, called him "Mr. Brother Shipp.")  Then he talked about a video he had watched about a man making a guitar from a palette.  He talked about how palette wood is not the kind of wood you would want to make a guitar, but the craftsman took it and prepared it and shaped it and made a beautiful guitar.  It reminded me of a real-life example of the poem, "The Touch of the Master's Hand."  He helped us to see how Christ is ready to take any one of us and refine and shape us into something beautiful. He also reminded us to reach out to "the one," as we've been challenged to do for President Nelson's 100th birthday.  EVERY soul has worth.  We can bring them back to Him, and He will shine them up and make beautiful music with them.

*Today for Primary I had again struggled to make the lesson cohesive in my planning.  We were talking about Captain Moroni, with the Nephite army's armor, building the protections for the cities, the Title of Liberty, and so on.  I was praying about it last night, and the word "preparation" came to mind.  All the things Moroni did was to prepare his people--physically (armor, walls), and spiritually (asking the prophet Alma for direction, motivating the people with a just cause) for the war ahead of them.  (And of course, we can prepare ourselves for hard things ahead of us, too.)  That helped me to tie everything together.  However...

*About half-way through my lesson, I was called out and Ben told me that Emma had been in a car accident on her way to her ward.  She was okay, as far as we knew, but her car was probably totaled (again!) as she had been rear-ended (again!).  I left my class with my co-teacher and Gracie so I could take Ben home to get our other car to go help Emma.  I had a chance to talk with her (she was pretty rattled), and let her know Ben was on his way.  Then I went back to pick everyone up from church and we went to choir where I subbed on the piano (which was hard to focus on!), and eventually Ben and Emma made it back home.  Her car was drivable, but the rear lights are smashed, so it's not safe to continue.  This will make things a little tricky to get around in the next few weeks, while she and Gracie are both working and now both need my car [and I have a few places to go, too], but Emma is planning to leave in September for BYU-I, and wasn't planning to take her car, so it will be fine in the end.  I was playing the piano in the afternoon, and I played a spiritual called "All Night, All Day," which says in part, "All night, all day, angels watchin' over me, my Lord."  I thought of how Emma was 100% being watched over by angels during this accident.  No doubt.

It was a delight.

August 2024, Week 2

* Today at church one of my friends spoke on faith.  She talked about how when she was young, she had a good understanding of the gospel, but didn't know how to make it meaningful in her life.  She decided that she had to have faith in faith, which I really liked, and she was able to develop more faith as she relied on the Lord to help it grow.  She has five young children, and her husband has been a truck driver for the last six years, spending an average of four days a month at home.  It's been rough all around for them.  He recently lost his job, though, and even though it is a big trial, she feels comfort through her faith that this is the path her family needs to be on.  She mentioned several things that they have been able to improve on in her family because of this event. Things are not settled, but they're better.  I appreciate her example and willingness to share.

*A brother also spoke about faith.  He shared a quote about the pioneers, and appreciated that the speaker acknowledged that the pioneers had their challenges, and we have our challenges, and their trials are not easier or harder than ours--they are distinct for our times--but the uniting factor is that the challenges all require faith to overcome.  That is a good reminder.

It was a delight!

August 2024, Week 1

 *Today we went to Sacrament Meeting in Utah with Grandma and Grandpa Roper and Scott and Kaitlyn (and Kaitlyn's mom, sister and brother, as we were all in town for their Open House).  It was Fast and Testimony Meeting, and the Bishop acknowledged that there were a lot of visitors, and invited everyone to participate in the meeting.  One brother said that he had grown up in the ward, so he hoped he wasn't considered a visitor, and he shared how the church was doing in the northeast, where his family is living.  Then Gracie decided to share her testimony about her excitement for sharing the gospel in Germany (and nervousness for doing it in German!), and helping people to come closer to Jesus Christ.  It was so moving as her mother to hear her faith expressed, and hear her desire to serve, and to remember the same feelings I had while preparing to go on my mission.  She will be a tremendous servant in a mission that will be difficult in some ways, but a blessing in many others.  

*The next brother to speak was Daniel K Judd.  He was the Stake President when Ben and I were engaged, and while my dad was a bishop in the stake, so he knew Ben growing up and me through my family, and we had some interviews with him.  He said that the first person who had shared his testimony was his son, who had served in the Hamburg Germany mission!  (PS--the mission had closed in the 90's, but reopened just in July of this year!)  He also said that he would love to be Gracie's mission president. ☺ He really wanted to share, however, about his testimony of the the Book of Mormon.  He had a copy with him that he received when he was eight in Primary.  His grandfather was an antagonistic atheist, and took opportunities to berate Bro. Judd for his growing beliefs.  He said that he would read the Book of Mormon at night in his room, and it helped him to learn to feel the Spirit, so that he was able to resist the words of his grandfather.  I can't imagine persecution coming from my own loved family members, so that must have been so difficult to live through, but probably so formative to his testimony.

*After the meeting, Gracie was able to speak with the "Junior Judd" about Hamburg, and he built up her excitement.  She's going to arrive in the country a week before Christmas, and he said that's when the people are the most friendly.  It's going to be amazing.  Then we headed outside for a couple pictures, and then we loaded up in our over-stuffed car and began our journey back to Texas (with an overnight stop in Santa Rosa, NM).

It was a delight!

July 2024, Week 4

 *Today we attended Sacrament Meeting with the first ward of the day (which is actually the Wylie 3rd Ward), for a couple reasons.  One was that Gracie's friend was giving her mission farewell talk.  (PS--Gracie received her mission call to Hamburg, Germany!!)  It was a sweet reminder about trusting in the Lord and following His guidance in our lives.  Her sisters played a piano duet which was well done and cute.  (The younger sister played with CONVICTION!)  A bonus reason for attending their ward was to see a lot of our friends from when we were together before the two Wylie wards became 3 (and then 4).  It is not my favorite thing to not see these friends regularly, but life keeps rolling along, and there are not many other occasions when we get together.  It was good to visit for the short time that we had.  (The size differences in our wards is stark!  Theirs is a normal small ward.  Ours is bursting at the seams.)  The final reason we attended is that we wanted to get an early-ish start on our road trip.  After Sacrament Meeting, we met with our Bishop, so that Benson could be set apart as the Deacon's Quorum President, and then Emma, Gracie, Caytie, and Benson and I said goodbye to Ben and Tessa to begin our trip to Utah.  Ben was staying for work and Tessa was staying for band camp (and to give a talk in our own ward later that day!), and they would be flying to join us on Friday.

*Our road trip Sabbath was better than I expected.  The kids were willing to listen to church music and my "Don't Miss This" podcast (while keeping themselves entertained on their own devices).  Gracie drove for a couple hours, and I hosted my family book club the best I could during that time.  We ate at a gas station Arby's, which was a mistake we won't make again, but we made it to our hotel in Albuquerque safely and without any mishaps, caught up on the Olympics, and got ready for bed.

It was a delight! 

July 2024, Week 3

*Today at church, since my co-teacher had taught part of the lesson in Primary already, I decided to teach the parts she hadn't covered.  It happened to be the story of Alma, his sons, Amulek, and Zeezrom (what a dream team!), going among the Zoramites who had been worshiping at the Rameumptom, to preach the gospel to them.  I brought my preschool blocks to build a tower.  We actually only had two kids show up to class (thank you, summer vacations), so the lesson went really fast, and they had a lot of time to build their towers, which became castles, which became villages, which wasn't the intent, but it was fun for them.  Maybe they'll remember something about it someday. ☺

*After church we had a choir practice again--yay!  We are preparing to sing some of the newly-released songs for the new hymnbook.  I don't know why, but the words of the songs really touched me, especially "It is Well with My Soul" and "His Eye Is on the Sparrow," which I learned two years ago on the mandolin and loved.  They are such tender messages of humility and faith.  I'm so glad we get to sing them more often.

It was a delight!

July 2024, Week 2

 *Today at church Benson was asked to teach the lesson for his Deacon's Quorum.  He doesn't have a phone yet, and Ben was teaching his Primary class, so I let Benson use my phone to access the lesson and videos that he wanted to use.  I wasn't teaching this week, so I didn't think it would be a problem, but I did casually read over the lesson beforehand to be aware of what we'd be talking about.  When it came time for our lesson, my co-teacher began to teach the lesson for next week!  Which I hadn't looked at!  This was not a big deal, until she was called out to attend the setting apart for her daughter who was called as her Young Women's class president.  Now I was to continue a lesson I hadn't read without a phone to see it.  (They stopped giving us physical teaching manuals a couple years ago.  It's mostly okay, except for occasions like this.)  Thankfully, she had prepared an activity of walking around the church to observe all the ways that Heavenly Father has blessed us, and then to draw something that was observed, so we did that together until she returned to conclude the class.  The kids were actually pretty thoughtful in their drawings, too--one drew the world with flowers on it, one drew the Bishop giving a blessing, one drew a whale (because he always draws whales), and one drew a seed and made a story about it growing into a tree.  We truly are blessed by our loving Father.  (Benson reports that his lesson went well.  Ben reports that his class is a challenge!)

It was a delight!

July 2024, Week 1

 *Today at church we had some more families come who recently moved in.  This is a weekly event as our ward continues to grow.  Being in Primary and sitting in the front of the chapel means that I don't get to see the new people's faces often, so I'm not keeping up with who they all are.  I feel there is some improvement that I could make there.

*President Nelson is turning 100 soon.  He invited us to think of the story of the 99 + 1 (sheep) in these few months before his birthday, and to reach out to "the one" in some way.  I've had a few ideas, but one brother in our ward who lost his wife during Covid and hasn't been coming to church for a while keeps coming to mind, so Ben and I invited him to dinner.  I hope that is a good place to start.  So I guess that even if I don't know all the new people in the ward yet, there is still love to give to the people who have been here for a while.

It is a delight!

June 2024, Week 5

 *Today at church I was, for the first time, a mother-in-law, though my sweet son and daughter-in-law were off on their honeymoon.  Our theme for the day was once again the blessings of temple covenants, as it has been for the month, and I couldn't help but reflect on the joy we had experienced earlier in the week at the Dallas Temple during their sealing.  My parents flew in from their temple mission in Denmark so that my dad could perform their sealing.  I remembered the words he said, about how each covenant we make brings us closer to Christ, and the symbolism of each helps us to remember Him, and want to learn more and draw nearer to Him.  He had Scott and Kaitlyn join hands together, with intertwined fingers, and called it a "covenant clasp," because it's really hard to pull the hands apart when they're like that, and invited them to think of that whenever they're holding hands in the future.  It was so very sweet.  We also had Ben's parents with us, though only for the Sacrament.  Grandpa R. was not feeling well and went home to rest.  Though his health is mostly good, he does have some scares with his heart, and again, the covenants we've made bring us joy to know that when death comes, it is not the end of our relationships or our love.

It was a delight!