Light Refreshments Served

I recently discovered MormonLife.com, which is this amazing site that bills its role as “scouring the web for all things Mormon.” They pull together links to news stories, blogs, headlines, videos, a big variety of Mormon-related stuff. I love this because there just seems to be so much out there, and I could spend my whole day jumping around. This site leads me quickly to the stories I’m most interested in, so I can always speak knowingly instead of just giving people blank looks, which I am wont to do because I don’t seem to live close to ANY grapevine.

I like this site a lot. But now I like something about it even BETTER. Mormon Life has just started an opt-in once-weekly e-mail that sends, right to my inbox, headlines with links for the top ten stories of the week, including videos and other fun stuff. So now, even when I’m too preoccupied to remember to visit the site, I get a quick nudge (FREE, of course) that keeps me in the know. This is so much fun for me! Now I don’t have to try to guess where to look for the latest, or find stories in a hit-and-miss fashion. The Mormon Life crew does the work, and I get the great stories: fast!

You can click here to sign up to start receiving this e-mail. And then pop over to Mormon Life and take a peek. Betcha you’ll love it!

Finding myself already overwhelmed and stymied by the expectation of exhibiting a chosen effective behavior for a WHOLE YEAR, I decided in a quiet moment today (yes, I actually had one, contrary to the usual way of things) to try for a New DAY’s resolution instead of a New Year’s resolution. In fact, I’m going to try it every day.

Today’s resolution is related to the decision I have made to try moving forward day by day instead of attempting to swallow a whole year at once. It is this: Today I will do what I can  for this one day and refuse to hold the whole day hostage to an eternity’s worth of responsibilities. Yes, I have more to do than I’ll ever be able to handle. I can’t do it all today–and I don’t have to. I will choose what absolutely MUST be done before day’s end if my life is to continue to run without serious complications (surprisingly little, it turns out). I’ll do that first. Then, everything else I fit in to the day is a CHOSEN activity instead of a mandate. That sure takes some of the pressure out of it!

On Saturday, January 2, 2010, we deposited our youngest child in an apartment in Rexburg in preparation for her first semester of college at BYU-Idaho. That’s child number 5, folks, and we drove home across the snowfields of Idaho almost giddy with the anticipation of it being just the two of us again. (Child number 4 is currently at home, but our fingers are crossed that it won’t be for much longer. More on that breaking news as it develops.) It brought back clear memories of our first long drive together, on our honeymoon, when we were just figuring out who we were as a couple and who we wanted to be.

And now we’re figuring all that out again.

What will I do with the time I save picking up shoes and hair tools and old receipts to toss them into her room before the visiting teachers arrive?

What will it feel like to be able to say to Larry, just on the spur of the moment, “Hey, let’s drive down to Cedar City this weekend,” and not have to worry about anyone feeling left out and lonely?

How much longer will a freshly opened bag of Cheetos last?

What will it be like to open the drawer and find the scissors and tape exactly where I left them?

I know I’m going to miss this child. I miss them all, at various points. But boy, I’m sure going to be interested to see what the year holds!

Well, it’s almost here. And in the calm before the storm, I wanted to write a post about how I really feel about Jesus Christ, but I found my words so inadequate that I almost backed out altogether. Then it occurred to me that many gifted and inspired writers before me had already expressed what I’m feeling, so I thought I’d borrow their words to share a few of the thoughts of my own heart this season:

I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me. Oh, it is wonderful.

And when I think that God, His Son not sparing, sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in.

Ponder anew what the Almighty can do, who with His love doth befriend thee.

And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long, steals on the ear the distant triumph song, and hearts are brave again, and arms are strong. Alleluia!

He lives! and while He lives, I’ll sing! He lives, my prophet, priest, and King!

Be near me, Lord Jesus, I ask Thee to stay close by me forever, and love me, I pray.

Oh, that our faith may never move, but stand unshaken as Thy love, sure evidence of things unseen.

Hallelujah! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!

Merry Christmas, my friends.

Because of my work as a Deseret Book editor, I have the chance to become intimately acquainted with some wonderful books and music, and every year people ask what I would recommend as Christmas gifts. Here’s what I’m telling them this year. And if you see something you like, I’ve gotten permission to share our special “friends and family” offer with all our LRS readers (you’re my friends and family, right?) so that you can get a great deal on what you want! Here’s the link to the coupons.

 And here are the titles:

 For anyone who loves America:

 Seven Miracles That Saved America, by Chris and Ted Stewart

 In this great read, the authors have created a unique blend of carefully researched facts and fictionalized storytelling. It’s an approach I’ve never really seen in all my years as an editor. For example, to tell the story of Jamestown, the authors draw you in with a snippet of the story as seen through the eyes of a little girl, one of the settlers of the colony. Then they relate (in a different typeface, so it’s clear when we’re in “story mode” as contrasted with ”historical mode”) a number of facts surrounding the miracles that happened in Jamestown. Back and forth they go, keeping you riveted with the fiction bits and filling them out in a deeply satisfying and informative way with the historical explanations. They close with a convincing exploration of why we should still have hope in this country. This might be my favorite book of the year.

For the grade-school crowd (and other fantasy lovers):

Fablehaven: Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary, by Brandon Mull

Please tell me you’ve discovered Fablehaven by now! Brandon’s writing just gets better with every volume. I love that he doesn’t pull his punches when it comes to vocabulary (he does readers the honor of giving them some words they might actually have to look up, although they can probably guess the meaning from the context, which is how vocabulary is built), but I love even more that he knows how to tell a story and how to create a character and how to make you believe in the world he’s created. Just So Good. THIS might be my favorite book of the year.

For the fiction lover:

The Undaunted, by Gerald N. Lund

The pioneers got here! Welcome to the valley! Happily ever after, right? Not quite. What if, once you’d finally gotten your home the way you wanted it and your business built up and your crops in and your family truly settled, the prophet asked you to pull up stakes and head into the wilderness to set up a community amidst hostile Indians and notorious outlaws? And what if the journey that was supposed to take six weeks stretched into six months? It’s true. It’s the pioneer story I’ll bet you didn’t know. And it comes from the skilled pen (all right, word processor) of the unparalleled Gerald N. Lund (Work and the Glory). If you’ve been longing for a novel you can really sink your teeth into, with Lund’s trademark interweaving of factual accounts with a great fictional story, one that will fill you with awe for the sacrifices made by the early Saints, this is your book. It’s my favorite book this year. (Oops. Hmm. Well, it’s like asking me to pick a favorite child. They’re all my favorites—for different reasons!)

For the Church history buff:

The Joseph Smith Papers: Revelations and Translations, vol. 1

It’s like they just opened up the Church vaults and invited you in to take a peek at the handwritten revelations that were recorded as they fell from the prophet’s lips. But it’s even better than that, because it actually provides you with a library-quality copy of those original documents! There is a spirit in these pages that is almost palpable. You cannot imagine it, really—you just have to see it for yourself. This is the most important book I bought for our home this year.

For the lover of Christmas:

Christmas Once Again, music CD, by Hilary Weeks

I love a sing-along Christmas album, and there’s no one more fun to sing along with than Hilary Weeks. I love Hilary’s voice, her friendly style, and especially her testimony, which always, always comes through when she sings. This fresh, spirit-filled album is a perfect addition to the season–a great blend of new songs and traditional favorites. The intermingled “First Lullaby” (new from Hilary) with “Silent Night” just took my breath away. I love to crank this album up and join Hilary in song while I’m baking Christmas treats!

For the romantic:

The Hourglass Door, Lisa Mangum

Can a novel be intelligent and gripping and well written and page-turning and really romantic all at the same time? Believe it. This is the first romantic novel this side of Jane Austen that I have felt completely comfortable putting into the hands of my teenage daughter (who devoured it and came raging at me for the sequel). But she had to pry it out of my hands first!

For anyone:

The Continuous Atonement, by Brad Wilcox

Not since Believing Christ has there been a book that made the blessings of the Atonement easier to understand and to explain than this one. Brad’s analogy of the sacrament prayer (it has to be perfect, but the priest gets as many chances as he needs to say it right) is so clear and memorable, I have found myself using it over and over in teaching situations. Yes, our ultimate goal is perfection, but Heavenly Father is there for us every single time we need to start over. This is the most helpful and hopeful message I’ve read in a long time, especially for people who seem mired in the same old problems. (And aren’t we all that way about something?) You’ll want it for yourself, but I also think it’s a must-read for parents and Church leaders.

For my girlfriends:

I Hate It When Exercise Is the Answer, by Emily Watts

You need a laugh, right? And a little perspective? And a chance to think about potentially important things in small chunks—kind of like reading a really meaty blog? Okay, yeah, I’m the author—but that doesn’t mean this isn’t a really fun book!

There it is. I hope you find a new favorite on this list. Merry Christmas!

I applaud whatever downtown SLC commission made the decision to dress up the construction barrier walls for the holidays by rolling out decorative panels on them. They’re very clever, with images shaped like windows through which you can look “inside” to a Christmas tree or a stack of presents or “outside” to a snowman or a cluster of carolers. Exceedingly festive. But today as I walked past admiring them, I noticed one scene that threw me for a bit of a loop. It was a “looking-inside” scene of a cozy fireplace with a deer-head trophy above the mantel. Rudolph’s head, to be precise. And his antlers were serving as a candelabra. I’m not easily rattled, as a rule, but does that seem faintly macabre to anyone but me?

Ah, well, ’tis the season. Hope yours is starting off well!

Okay, so I’m pretty sure I’ve already driven two girls out of our YW program because I made them have a ride home on Wednesday night instead of “walking home with the boys.” I did this because LAST week when they were supposedly “walking home with the boys,” I ended up walking home right behind the boys, and those girls were decidedly NOT with them. Ours is not a neighborhood I feel good about allowing 13-year-old girls to walk alone in after dark. So I put my foot down. After many murderous looks and a lot of muttering, they finally deigned to be driven home by my counselor.

Is this a hill worth dying on? Or am I locked in a power struggle I have no chance of winning? What would YOU do?

In a bizarre twist of the kaleidoscope that is my life, I got called last Sunday to be our ward Young Women president.

I have served in the Young Women organization in our ward before. Beth, who was a Laurel at that time, has seven children now. So yeah, it’s been a while.

Do not get me wrong: I love young women. I was one, once. But yeah, it’s been a while. And you can almost see that in their eyes–this old lady is going to be our leader?

I’ve taught Gospel Doctrine for 6 years. I loved teaching Gospel Doctrine. I was comfortable teaching Gospel Doctrine. There is not one thing about working with the Young Women that I am comfortable with. For example, when I shop with my 18-year-old daughter, if I pull something off the rack to show her, she’ll invariably hate it (politely, of course), and conversely I will turn up my nose at just about anything she thinks is cute. I don’t know the styles. I don’t know the music. I barely speak the language. And not only can I not text, I don’t even have a cell phone from which TO text.

So I need help, and I need it now. What is the most fun or memorable YW activity you’ve participated in, either as a leader or as a young woman yourself? If you ever had an old lady as a Mutual leader, what did you appreciate most about her? Why am I here?

I just had a bag of caramel-toffee-white-chocolate popcorn that, if the only reason I had come to mortality had been to get a physical body with taste buds so that I could taste this stuff, it feels like it would have been worth it. It was from V Chocolates, if you want to know, which happens to have its factory about two doors down from my husband’s office, which is rather bad news for my figure, which will likely never be less ample while confections like this exist in the world.

That got me thinking about the best foods I ever ate, and although the list is long the one that stands out at the moment is a grilled artichoke I had at a restaurant in Las Vegas that makes me kind of dreamy thinking about it. Fortunately, having recently consumed a whole bag of that popcorn, I can experience the artichoke memory as poignant without having it spark an insatiable craving.

What’s the best food you ever ate? Or what are your old-standby favorites? Or what would you be happiest to see show up to be pilfered from your kids’ trick-or-treat bags?

I have been teaching Gospel Doctrine in our ward for six years now. This time. I’ve done two four-year stretches previously, plus a couple of years teaching the same lessons to 16-17-year-olds. So I’m pretty sure I have tenure and they can’t release me, which is good, because I really, really like teaching Gospel Doctrine. And one of the reasons I like it so much (aside from the fact that I have no extra meetings to attend, no one I’m particularly accountable to, and it’s easy to get a sub if I can’t be there)  is that in the course of the lesson I often learn something new even though I’ve been at this for quite a while.

This happened to me Sunday. We were talking about the Salt Lake Temple and how the pioneers had worked on the foundation for several years and then buried it when Johnston’s Army came through, and then when they unearthed it later, they noticed cracks in the sandstone, and Brigham Young said they needed to build a temple to last through the Millennium, so they dug up that whole foundation and replaced it with granite. (Sorry. Long sentence. But sometimes when you’re cramming things into a nutshell, it doesn’t seem worth stopping to take a breath.)

Anyway, as we were talking about this, it hit me right between the eyes: “If you recognized cracks in the foundation of your own earthly temple, would you have the courage to dig the whole thing out and start over? Are you building a temple that will last through the Millennium?”

I’m not kidding: That stopped me in my tracks. I’m sure the class thought I’d gone catatonic or something. (Epiphanies are pretty cool, but I’m not sure it’s great to have them in public. It just confuses people.) I finally recovered myself and told the class what had occurred to me, but what I really wanted to do was go somewhere and think about this.

Which makes me admit that there probably ARE cracks, and I’d better figure out where to start digging.

I used to think 8 hours of general conference was too much. I would justify myself in skipping the Saturday sessions, claiming that I would “just read them later in the Ensign.”

Something happened to change me a few years ago, and I don’t even know what it was, exactly. All I know now is that conference sessions seem to whiz by really quickly now, and I’m always surprised when it’s time for them to end. I feel sort of cheated that the men get to go to priesthood.

What has made the difference? I think maybe it’s because I’ve learned to articulate my most burning questions for myself before conference starts, so I’m watching for answers. It’s kind of like when you watch two athletic teams play that you have no real connection to–it’s okay, but it gets boring pretty fast, at least for me. But let it be playoff season, with even one guy I’ve heard of on the team, and it’s a whole different experience. There’s something at STAKE now, and I’m eager and cheering and staying right with them. Same thing when I come to the conference experience with questions. I’m staying right with it, because there’s something more personal at stake.

And watching the sessions is different from reading them. Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful they print those addresses in the Ensign, and I love to reread them. But I will bet you money that the experience of watching Elder Holland deliver that stunning address will not really be duplicated effectively in print. And you can’t read on the page when President Eyring gets a little choked up. You can’t see the twinkle in President Uchtdorf’s eye. It’s just not the same.

Luckily, we have the Internet now, so if there are talks you missed when they were first given, you can go back and catch them in visual form soon. Try it. DO NOT MISS Elder Holland, Elder Christofferson (who is fast becoming a favorite for me), President Uchtdorf . . . well, don’t miss any of them, if you can help it. As Ariel, the Little Mermaid, might say, “Ask ‘em [your] questions, and get some answers.” You might be surprised how many of those talks were given just for you.