His Answers Meet our Needs while Motivating us to Grow?

President David O. McKay testified, “It is true that the answers to our prayers may not always come as direct and at the time, nor in the manner, we anticipate; but they do come, and at a time and in a manner best for the interests of him who offers the supplication.” Be thankful that sometimes God lets you struggle for a long time before that answer comes. Your character will grow; your faith will increase. There is a relationship between those two: the greater your faith, the stronger your character; and increased character enhances your ability to exercise even greater faith.

Your life will be easier when you accept that what God does in your life is for your eternal good.

He will reply in one of three ways. First, you can feel the peace, comfort, and assurance that confirm that your decision is right. Or second, you can sense that unsettled feeling, the stupor of thought, indicating that your choice is wrong. Or third--and this is the difficult one--you can feel no response.

What do you do when you have prepared carefully, have prayed fervently, waited a reasonable time for a response, and still do not feel an answer? You may want to express thanks when that occurs, for it is an evidence of His trust. When you are living worthily and your choice is consistent with the Savior’s teachings and you need to act, proceed with trust. As you are sensitive to the promptings of the Spirit, one of two things will certainly occur at the appropriate time: either the stupor of thought will come, indicating an improper choice, or the peace or the burning in the bosom will be felt, confirming that your choice was correct. When you are living righteously and are acting with trust, God will not let you proceed too far without a warning impression if you have made the wrong decision.

His answers meet our needs while motivating us to grow?

Using the Supernal Gift of Prayer
http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2007/04/using-the-supernal-gift-of-prayer?lang=eng


These are my thoughts this week. They are from my YW lesson on the Godhead and How Do I Know My Heavenly Father. I've been sick for awhile and I don't have any energy, but I've been thinking a lot. Thinking of the choices I have in my life. Thinking about how my life is changing, that you guys are growing and have families and lives of your own. I miss you, but I am so proud of you. I am happy for the people you are and the families you have. It's a good feeling to know that I have been a good steward. My life isn't over, but there are changes. It's made me think and pray. What do I really want? What does my Father in Heaven want me doing right now?

In reading it's made me think of my mom and when she would ask me to do something that I didn't want to do (like go to the neighbor's and ask them if I could pick their prickly pears or another time when I was going somewhere and she made me make my own arrangements). It wasn't a big deal and she knew I didn't like it so why didn't she just do it for me? She would always say, "It builds CHARACTER." (I used to respond and say "I have enough Character." Obviously I didn't). I am so glad she made me take those opportunities that gave me character - they gave me strength, strength gave me courage and courage gave me power.

I also remember writing either Cassie or Carly and talking about TRUST. When you are doing everything the Lord has asked you to do you can trust Heavenly Father. And when you are in that place it is a good feeling because you know the Lord can Trust you - trust you to do His will, trust you to listen and to follow. It is then that our faith is sure and time is ok - we don't have to understand everything all the time. We can be patient and we can be content. We can feel joy in the moment. We can be thankful for where we are that moment.Sometimes we think that we can only feel joy when something big is happening. We can feel joy when practically nothing at all is happening. It is a serene feeling.

God is good always. He can do more with my life than I can. He loves me and all things shall work for my good. His answers meet our needs while motivating us to grow? Learning to listen and trusting him enough to act on his promptings is what I need to do right now.

More routine and talents

George now eats his feet, likes grabbing onto them, rolls, likes sucking in my chin, especially if I'm talking and moving it (he thinks it's funny) and grabbing things.

 

It's been a good week. I don't know if I got too much done but I felt on top of things. Almost every morning George and I listen to a chapter in the book of Mormon, first in English and then the same chapter in Spanish. Sometimes we'll multitask and nurse at the same time. Then we go downstairs and play and most days I've started a load of laundry. Then he'll take a nap. This is my time. I usually shower during this nap and do personal reading. I'll clean or something else if the nap is long enough. Then the second period of George being awake we do educational things. We have a book of animals. We read about one (it's 2-4 pages with lots of pictures) and then look for a short YouTube clip of the same animal, playing or making a noise or something. We do 2-3 animals a day depending on George's interest. I think his favorite this week was either lions or cheetahs. He talked and made happy sounds when he saw them playing. Then more playing. This includes reading books, dancing, rolling on the ground, peek a boo and putting lots of toys in his mouth. Then another nap. This is cleaning, cooking, working time for me. Next awake time is playtime and sometimes running an errand, like to the grocery store. If I Cook during this time I put him in his Bouncer and bring it in the kitchen and he likes me to sing 5 little monkeys jumping on the bed.

 

A few specific things. George is now 4 months! Tuesday he came with me to book club for relief society and was one of three babies. He can't move as easily as they can but he still liked seeing other babies. We did some missionary work with a lady the sisters are teaching. I went to a relief society conference on Saturday which was really good, which is where my spiritual thought will come from. And we went on a short outing on Saturday with jon. One of the animals we read about were Canada geese. The Canada geese are actually in two of George's books and there's a pond in our neighborhood. The weather has been very nice for winter, and so we took a walk down to the pond where there was a flock of Canada geese. We walked around and showed them to George. He was happy and seemed to be talking but didn't love the wind or being put back in the stroller.

 

So, spiritual thoughts revolve around my Stake's Relief Society Conference. We chose to go to 2 workshops. I went to one called, "A Personal Witness of Who We Are" which was on talents and one on "how are we treating our husbands" and then the last talk was on abuse (weird topic but actually very good on how to recognize it, either for yourself or those around us and how to help. One of the counselors in our stake RS Presidency is divorced but stuck with her husband for several years despite the fact that he tried to murder her multiple times.) So on talents there was a story of one lady who was told her talents would be taken away if she didn't develop them but she didn't feel she had any. So she just started acting on her desires. I really liked it. I know I have talents but my patriarchal blessing mentions talents that I am not aware of. I never fully understood how I was supposed to develop what I didn't know, but this lady acted on promptings and her desires. Anyways, some talks quoted included, "Quick to Observe" by Elder Bednar, "If Your Talents Come Incognito", Ensign, June 1991 by Anya Bateman, "I Dug Up My Talents" by Nancy Seljestand, Ensign, Mar 1976, and Marvin J Ashton's "There Are Many Gifts: Ensign, Oct 1987. One quote was from President Monson (Ensign, May 1992, p. 101), "Every woman has been endowed by God with distinctive characteristics, gifts, and talents in order that she may fulfill a specific mission in the eternal plan."

 

Concerning the "How Are We Treating Our Husbands" it mentioned how sometimes our husbands are the problem, but still all we can change is ourselves. One of the pieces of advice was to say thank you for the "invisible" things- like going to work, doing dishes, the stuff that you notice if they don't happen but sometimes take for granted otherwise. The teacher was our new Stake President's wife, she also said, sometimes guys are dense, so sometimes we just have to say, "You should thank me that the kids are alive today. (Instead of waiting for him to say thank you for your invisible work) You're now in charge, I'll be back in 10 minutes." Not that that should happen every day, but when we aren't being thanked we can just tell them what they should be thankful for that day and in essence thank ourselves. Just try to make it humorous instead of accusing. (As a side comment, she mentioned how some therapist suggests that a lack of eye contact can make a confrontation less intimidating. So possibly sitting side by side instead of face to face.) I can't remember exactly how she tied it into the rest of her talk, but she brought up Disneyland and how expensive it is to go on the rides. She also mentioned how at a State Fair, the rides are much cheaper. She said, Why is Disneyland so expensive? Because it's the Happiest Place on Earth? So why is there more requirements to get to the Celestial Kingdom? Because it's better.

I'm sorry I haven't done pictures recently. The pictures have been on my phone and my app hasn't been working. I know I could've put them on the computer but I didn't get to it, so I'm catching up on some photos now

Ready...

So these past few weeks have been crazy to say the least, but I think I am finally in a good routine. Now to the fun stuff. Brody the idiot is in my ward and wants to be friends... But better yet, I have been dating ;) WHOOP WHOOP haha. Anyway so I went on a date with this one kid Bryce. So Bryce and I have gone on 3 dates, and all were a lot of fun, but I'm just not feeling it. The first date was a lot of fun, and we played N64, went to a haunted swing which was really creepy, mainly cause it was super foggy, and went to an abandoned radio station... I think he was trying to get me scared, but I try to turn things into a joke when I am scared.. So nice try Bud, I was laughing the whole time. So our last date, we played arcade games... YAY? I stink at arcade games... I did win at air hockey though. But he didn't fill the car up with gas so we ran out of gas on our way to get ice cream. He had to push the car to a parking lot!! LOL so anyway thats been the high lights... My life is not super exciting, but I am really happy Haley is here this semester cause I like seeing her almost everyday, she has a fun group. Oh and this friend of Haley's wants to set me up with his nerdy little brother, so wish me luck with that one :)

I am Kinda ready to just go on my mission.... Boy stink... BTW I am pretty sure I am going to Russia.... ~XOXO Gossip Girl haha jk

Crazy weeks.

So I know it's been a while. Life has been crazy the last couple of weeks.

My roommate Sarah was having suicidal thoughts so she checked herself into a Behavioral Center. It was probably the last thing I was planning on. Driving down to Idaho Falls is not the most convenient drive in the middle of the week or even in the middle of the afternoon on the weekends.

However, through it all, I really have seen how grateful I am for Mom and how she has raised us. Everytime we go visit Sarah, she just hugs us and tells us how truly grateful she is to know people like Katie and I.

I remember when we first showed up to the Behavioral Center. As most of you know, I HATE hospitals. They make me sad and that's definitely not my strength. You are supposed to be strong for the people who are suffering, and I'm the one crying. When we walked into the center, a few tears rolled down my cheek and I thought, "Great, I can't be crying right now." Somehow I sucked it up and I remember when Sarah looked at me and said, "Carly, I can't do this," that the Lord somehow gave me some strength not to say, "I wouldn't be able to do this either" and just cry. Instead I was able to give her a hug and say, "You can do this," and "It's going to be ok."

It's been really nice to see how much my Bishop truly cares. He has called Sarah a couple of times, and I send him updates occasionally. It's nice that after he listens to what's going on, he always asks how I am doing.

I'm so grateful for the gospel and for the power of prayer and just the simple reminders that the Lord really does care about His children.

I still can't hear out of my ears really, but besides that, I don't feel sick. I've been trying Mom's recommendation of Bragg's vinegar (which really clears up my sinuses and makes my nose run) and then lemon and echanshea tea. I'm not sure if it's working, but worth a try.

Well, this week's goal is to get up early every day and study my scriptures instead of just reading them at night. I hope it goes well. Love you all.