General Conference was fantastic last weekend. Three new apostles were called. Pres Monson seemed to really struggle by the end of his talk. I am not sure how much longer he will be on the earth. Between his loneliness with his wife gone and now the most recent losses of Pres Packer, Elder Perry and Elder Scott, they must have weighed heavy on him besides his health issues.
One of the new apostles came from the Sunday school presidency. In his place is Bro. Durrant. Bro Durrant gave a talk with two pieces of advice: 1) save money and 2) ponderize. The challenge of ponderizing is to choose a scripture each week to ponder and memorize. For family home evening, we did just that. Matthew would have liked to have a family scripture to ponderize, but the boys wanted their own do that's what we did. Here are this week's scriptures:
Me: 1 Nephi 3:7
Jared: D&C 6:36
Aaron: 1 Corinthians 15: 21-22
Matthew sat down with the boys yesterday and asked what thoughts they had about their scripture. Jared just basically recited it, but Aaron brought up the garden of Eden but accidentally called it Gethsemane. Matthew realized that for both aspects a garden played an important role. I believe Aaron also was able to explain the meaning of the verse.
Later last night Jared asked if he could pull out his trumpet and work on putting his verse to music. He was supposed to be in bed so I wouldn't let him, but tonight he kind of sang it to me so I could hear what he's come up with. I've heard him throughout the afternoon singing it. It makes me smile. I asked him what he thought his verse meant or something similar and he still didn't have any input, but he shared an experience with it.
We had a discussion with the boys recently about the amount of money we'd receive in life insurance if Matthew were to die while on assignment. Matthew often implies that we'd be better off with the money than his physical presence which is far from the truth. So we asked the boys if they had to choose between money or dad, what would they do. They both said money, not realizing the implications. When I explained why we would get the money, they both immediately changed their answers.
So tonight, Jared told me he was thinking of that money and wondered about his dad dying. He said he immediately had the thought, "doubt not, fear not" come to his mind. I shared with him how when I was younger I'd always say "I love you" when I prayed and the immediate responding thought was "If ye love me, keep my commandments." I explained it was the Lord's way of telling me that obedience was the proof of my love (although I think I just wrote it more succinctly than I said it to him). He nodded in understanding. I should have also validated his experience by pointing out that he heard the Spirit.
We changed the topic when he brought up his friends, but it led to a discussion about my experience in choosing to live here. I told Jared how worried I -we- were about him and the prospect of living on this side of town. I told him I cried a lot, and we prayed hard on his behalf. I shared that after feeling that here was where we should be, I was driving around after just looking at the house. An airplane flew over head and the thought came, "They will be happy here."
I told Jared the Lord is looking after him and knows him.
There are five other kids he rides the bus with and three of them are our neighbors. It's pretty amazing odds. They get along really well. This has been the easiest experience with making friends for him.
We agreed that he is happy here.
Jared's scripture and mine make a pretty powerful team. His is the invitation and mine is the example of application.
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