In Our Family This Week...
* Aubrie and Lexi decided to try out for the local Middle School's Volleyball team. Tryouts started this week and the teams will be made this next week (no one gets "cut" from the middle school teams - they just assign them into A, B and C teams). They say they don't like it as much as Rugby, but it's been fun and they're excited to play and learn the rules of the game.
* Dad has had a tremendously L.O.N.G. and difficult week at work - extremely long hours each day doing a job for Whittaker construction and he's been having to do quite a bit of hard, manual labor (which hasn't helped his torn hamstring to heal).
* Another great week for homeschooling and we're getting ahead so we can take off during the holidays later this year :)
* On Friday evening, Mom and the girls went and helped set up the church for Brandon Perry and Sheridan's wedding reception. we worked the most on putting the chair covers and tying ribbons around them.
* Saturday evening was the actual reception. Mom and Aubrie went early as mom was going to photograph the event and wanted to get some family pictures (of Stephanie's side of the family) before it started. It was a really nice evening, everything looked beautiful and it seemed like everyone enjoyed themselves.
* Seth purchased a new car last month - a 2008 Toyota Prius. He then fixed up his previous car (a 2002 Volkswagon Jetta) and put it up for sale on the Facebook Marketplace. It was sold within about 12 hours. He was hoping to get at least $1500 for it but settled on $1450 as he just wanted to be done with it!
* Seth also finished up his summer classes and kept his grades up enough to continue on with a scholarship for next semester. He is signed up to take the GRE at the end of the month (as he has plans to continue on to get his Masters) and so he's been studying for that.
* After about 5 months at the shop, the old '79 Chevy Truck (affectionately named "Josephina" as a tribute to it's original owners) was finished and brought home! Dad is over the moon happy with how she looks and even drove her to church today. There's still some things that need to be done (lining the bed, installing new door panels, getting new carpet interior, a new dash and installing a tow hitch). Here's a list of things that have been done to it:
- New wheels and tires
- 2.5" suspension Lift
- New engine
- New bed
- Cab Corners and Rocker Panels replaced
- Bench seat reupholstered
- All new Paint (dad originally was going to paint it a solid Dark Carmine but in the end realized he liked how the two-toned colors looked with the chrome trim so went with that)
- New Rear Bumper
- All new trim
- New Rear Slider Window
- New Windshield
- New Body Mounts
- Plus another 50 miscellaneous parts and pieces
Spiritually Speaking...
* On Wednesday while I (mom) was putting some final prep on the Enrichment lesson about Temples, I had the thought to check to see if I could perhaps get an appointment set for dad and I to go do an Endowment Session. Upon checking, we were able to get one for Saturday morning! Dad had to quickly get his Temple Recommend renewed (which he did) and so we were able to take some of our family names to the Meridian Temple. There were a few tweaks made for COVID but it was so refreshing to our spirits to be back in the House of the Lord! We were able to revel in the peace in the Celestial room and I know it was great for dad after the week he'd had a work! I'm sooo thrilled that we are able to get back into the Temple (even it's not 100% back to how it was pre-Covid). Of course we had to commemorate with a picture out front!
* Mom spoke in church today. Last week during my fast, I was asking Heavenly Father what topic I should speak on and I felt like talking on Proverbs 3: 5-6 (about Trusting the Lord and Leaning not unto our own understanding) was the direction I should take. I also had an experience come to mind that I should share. Here's a copy of the talk I gave:
Good Morning!
As most of you know, I’m Shandy Vogt and our family has been in the ward just under 2 years now - as we moved in October 2019.
What an exciting day to be able to hear from Elder Mortensen! It’s always so fun to hear newly returning missionaries
share their love for the gospel,
the experiences they’ve had
And their touching testimonies of Christ
so I’ll try not to take up too much time to ensure he has plenty!
I wanted to start off with a scripture that we’re all probably familiar with.. It’s
Proverbs 3: 5-6 which reads:
“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In All thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”
Back in the April 2017 Conference Sister Bonnie Cordon expounded on these 2 verses and I loved what she said and it has stayed with me! She pointed out how this scripture comes with 2 admonitions, a warning and finishes up with a promise!
The Admonitions (or Counsel) are:
Trust in the Lord with all our hearts
In all ways acknowledge him (the Lord)
The Warning:
Lean Not unto our own understanding
The beautiful promise:
The Lord WILL direct our paths
I wanted to talk about that warning of Leaning not on our own understanding. I’m sure many of you are like me and when I hear the work “Lean” I think of something physically leaning or moving to one side.
When we physically lean toward one side or another, we move off center, we are out of balance, and we tip.
When we spiritually lean to our own understanding,
we lean away from our Savior.
If we lean, we are not centered;
we are not balanced;
we are not focused on Christ.
Now here’s the part of the talk when one would normally share an experience where they followed this counsel, they trusted in the Lord and leaned not on their own understanding BUT... not today. I’m actually going to share a time when I did the complete opposite!
About 15 years ago we had just moved into a new home. It was the middle of the night and I could not fall asleep! The website - Craigslist was fairly new and I so I thought I’d go check to see if there was any furniture for sale that we needed for the new house. While I was searching through the different ads I felt like I should look through the Wanted ads (which wasn’t something I typically did)... But I clicked on that section and one of the first ads I saw was from a single mom asking for clothes for her 2 boys.
I remember thinking:
I have boys those exact same size (and I had just unpacked their rooms and had thought to myself how they had too many clothes and probably wouldn’t wear half of them!
I thought I’d just log back on in the morning and message her that I had some things she could have
I clicked off that listing but couldn’t get it out of my mind and the thought that I had to DO IT NOW!
So I messaged her and told her we could meet the next day and then I was so excited that I snuck into my boys’ room and started gathering things for her.
I had only made a pile of about 10 things when the thought came “Include a Book of Mormon” - and I immediately thought “No way! This lady will only think I’m helping her to push my religion on her” -- but the thought came again so I figured I’d include one.
The next morning I was going through more clothes when the thought came that I needed to go get a Book of Mormon to put in the box AND that I needed to include a letter with it - I was worried about what she would think but knew I couldn’t ignore the prompting and so this time I went and found a soft cover Book of Mormon and then went and prayed to know what to write
I wrote that HF was very aware of her and of her needs and that he knew how difficult life had been for her
After an impression came to me several times, I wrote that her boys had to come to her specifically ad if she would rely on the writings found in the book, she would be blessed
After I’d written it, I started to lean on my own understanding and thoughts that kept saying “What if this gal hasn’t had a difficult life and is perfectly happy?”
I’m ashamed to say that I did not put my trust in the Lord and re-wrote the letter
They were not Heavenly Father’s words anymore - they were just the words of a generic testimony
I met her that afternoon at the parking lot of a BK and gave her the items she needed for her little boys. The book of Mormon was tucked halfway down the box - as I was still didn’t want that to be the first things she saw when opening the box
The next day I received an email from her and my heart kind of stopped as I didn’t know what to expect
She told me of her difficult, neglected childhood. It was one that no one should ever have to experience. She told me that she had been baptized in her youth but after a traumatic experience, she questioned why HF would let something like that happen to her and fell away from the church
She was in the process of finding her way back to the Lord and profusely thanked me for the Book fo Mormon
It was like I had been hit with a ton of bricks!
Why had I doubted what Heavenly Father wanted his daughter to hear? She needed to hear those exact words but I didn’t trust in the Lord to be his mouthpiece.
I immediately wrote back and told her what the original letter had said and conveyed how those truly were the words that HF wanted her to hear. I also told her how I was so very sorry that I let my own fears and doubts stop me from including that original letter
Looking back on this it’s obvious to see that I leaned unto my own understanding and not the Lord’s!
How much better would the outcome of my story be if I had trusted in the Lord? But that’s the thing - it’s sometimes scary and hard and uncomfortable to trust in the Lord with all of our heart!
That leads us to a 2nd question we can ask ourselves:
How do we put our trust in God?
What does that even look like?
If we reference back to Sister Cordon’s talk, ,she actually gives us 3 suggestions on how to do exactly this: Before she shares her suggestions, she comments how we will find that these principle are not new, but they are foundational. How they are sung in every Primary, echoes in YW lessons and are responses to many RS and EQ questions.
First, we can come to know the Lord and trust Him as we diligently read the scriptures.
2 Nephi 32 tells us: “feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do.”2
Second, we can come to know the Lord and trust Him through prayer. What a blessing to be able to pray to our God!
The scriptures are full of counsel on praying always and always having a prayer in our hearts.
Third, we can come to know the Lord and trust Him as we serve others.
Henry B Eyring gave a talk on Trusting the Lord and wanted to share a quote from that Conference in 2010. He said:
“You show your trust in Him when you listen with the intent to learn and repent and then you go and do whatever He asks. If you trust God enough to listen for His message in every sermon, song, and prayer in this conference, you will find it. And if you then go and do what He would have you do, your power to trust Him will grow, and in time you will be overwhelmed with gratitude to find that He has come to trust you.”
So from that quote we learn that Trust isn’t a thought or feeling. It’s an act and practice that we use in our daily life. It’s a muscle that needs to be exercised and If we’ve never used this muscle, it’s going to be weak and wobbly at first. But That’s okay! Over time, the more we exercise this muscle, the easier it will become.
So, the next time
We get a prompting that takes us out of comfort zone
Or we’re in the midst of a trial or something goes wrong and we feel like the rug feels pulled out from under us
or we have a big decision to make
We can practice trusting the Lord.
We can:
Feast Upon the Scriptures
We can pause and pray.
We can take the time to serve others
We can seek God for the solution before you make your next move.
Each of us can:
Trust in the Lord and Lean not
We can center our lives on the Savior by Coming to know Him
And he will direct our paths
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment