Many people say that technology shouldn’t change the way we study the scriptures and that these new things will never replace a good old pen and paper and a hard copy of the scriptures.  They may be right, but in my personal opinion, the way we use the scriptures will be, and ought to be, changed because of the technology we’ve been blessed with.  The church has provided us with countless incredible resources that allow us to make better use of the scriptures than ever before.  Even if you don’t ever intend to abandon your hard copies of the scriptures, you should be aware of the ways you can be using the electronic resources to help you in your scripture study.

What things can I use to help me with my study of the scriptures?

The technology that can help us with our scripture study is everywhere and on so many different platforms.  Your computer, cell phone, mp3 players, iPad, Kindle and many many other devices can all help make your scripture study more convenient and meaningful.

But all of this technology is too expensive!

It’s true that there are many technologies that are still cost prohibitive.  Kindles, iPads and other eBook readers are still emerging technologies and it will be a few years before they are at a price point that most people can afford.  Similarly while smart phones are becoming more affordable it will still be awhile before they are everywhere.  However, mp3 players can now be found for less than $20!  Most people already have a computer in their homes anyways.  If you have a computer you can make use of most of the resources out there.  Plus, with the exception of one program on this list every single one of the services I list below is absolutely free.  So don’t let perceived price restrictions keep you from making the best use of the resources available!

What’s a podcast and how do I use it?

Podcasts are like a radio programs that you can download and listen at any time.  They are updated on a regular basis with new content.  The advantage of a podcast is that you can set up a program like iTunes or Juice to automatically download new episodes when they become available.  You can then listen to the programs on your computer or load them onto an mp3 player so you can listen to them on the go.

What’s an RSS feed and how do I use it?

RSS feeds are similar to magazine articles, except in electronic format.  Instead of receiving a physical paper magazine however you will have to use what’s called a “feed reader” to receive the new articles.  My favorite feed reader is Google Reader because it seamlessly integrates with a lot of other services that I use.  To use Google Reader simply create an account with Google and then go to the Google Reader page.  You can then subscribe to feeds you wish to follow by clicking the “Subscribe” button and entering in the URL of the feed you wish to follow.  If you use Firefox you can also click the “add to google reader” button when you are at a feed you wish to follow.  Once you’ve done that you can read any updates to the sites you wish to follow by visiting Google Reader and all of the new articles will be there ready for you to read!

How do I create my own blog?

Depending on your level of comfort with computers I would recommend either Blogger or WordPress.  Blogger is extremely simple to use but has limited functionality, whereas WordPress is what this site is built on.  It is extraordinarily powerful and still very simple to use.  All you need to do is go to either one of those sites, create an account, and start writing!  You can then share the link to your new blog with friends, family or whoever you would like.  You can also mark your blog as private so that only you can view the things you write.  It’s totally up to you!

Study Resources

These are resources that will help you to study the gospel.  They range from the simple to the complex and everywhere in between.

• Scriptures online: All of the standard works are available online.  From here you can search the scriptures, read specific chapters, even use it to listen to chapters online!  – http://scriptures.lds.org/ (if you want to see the newer version of the online scriptures you can also see that here – https://beta.lds.org/scriptures?lang=eng)
• Scripture study helps – http://scriptures.lds.org/en/helps/contents
• General Conference: All of the general conference talks are available online, now within 4 hours of being broadcast!  You can get the text, audio or video from this website – https://beta.lds.org/general-conference?lang=eng
• Institute manuals: The Church has provided the manuals for the Institute classes online for you to read.  These are very helpful if you want to gain a deeper understanding of different gospel topics – http://institute.lds.org/courses/
• BYU Free Independent Study courses: BYU has provided a number of free online classes that you can take, and many of them are scripturally based.  While these won’t get you any credit towards a degree they can help you to have a more structured and deeper study of the scriptures. – http://ce.byu.edu/is/site/courses/personalenrichment.cfm
• Seminary website: This website contains many great resources for seminary students and their parents, including manuals, study guides, reading charts and even tools to help you learn the scripture masteries! (my mom has been a seminary teacher for the past several years and she is a huge proponent for the method that they use to help learn scripture masteries) – http://seminary.lds.org/
• Mobile Applications: If you have a mobile phone, iPad, Kindle etc this site will help you find the church created tools to put these technologies to use helping you study your scriptures.  – https://beta.lds.org/tools/mobile-apps?lang=eng
• Subscriptions: The church puts out many podcasts, RSS feeds and email newsletters that are uplifting and informative.  You can find a full list of them here  – http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?locale=0&vgnextoid=cdd1f9bd8b7d4110VgnVCM100000176f620aRCRD

Sharing and Note taking Resources

The best part about reading your scriptures is the cool insights you gain into the gospel.  But once you have those insights what do you do with them?  I personally don’t like marking scriptures with colors because I find it gives me a bias when I’m reading through the next time and I’m more likely to just remember old insights rather than gain new ones.  But everyone has their own style.  Here are some ways you can record and share the insights you gain with different tools.

• Online markable scriptures: I haven’t used this personally but if you are looking for a way to have an electronic, markable set of scriptures I have seen this site come highly recommended – http://www.dearscriptures.com/
• Google Documents: One of my friends noted that she uses Google Documents to share thoughts on scriptural topics with her husband.  It helps them have a place to record their thoughts when they have scripture study so they have them for later without making their scriptures messy, and it lets them collaborate on their topics – http://docs.google.com
• Microsoft OneNote: If you want a great program to help you organize your notes I highly recommend OneNote.  It allows you to create different notebooks with sections for taking notes.  For example you could create a notebook that was called “Doctrine and Covenants” and then inside that notebook have a section for thoughts on Joseph Smith, and another section that had places the pioneers went.  Whatever helps you to keep things organized so you can find them later – http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/onenote/
• Blogging: My preferred method for taking notes on my scripture study is to post about them in my blog.  It makes it so that I can search for my thoughts later, and share them with other people.  It’s a great missionary tool and it can help other friends have things to ponder on.  My mom and I have had many many conversations about things I have posted in my blog that have helped her with seminary lessons or other things she’s dealing with.  Plus, I get feedback from her, and anyone else who chooses to comment on the things that I write. – http://blogger.com or http://wordpress.com or http://LDSJournal.com
• Facebook: Similar to writing a blog you could also post your thoughts as a note on Facebook.  Although, my preferred method is to write my thoughts in a blog and then import those blog posts as notes on facebook.  It just gives you another way to share with other people and get their input and insights as well – http://facebook.com
• Twitter: For those of you who are unfamiliar with twitter it is a relatively stupid service that allows you to post 140 character posts to your friends and the world on whatever topic you choose.  However, as stupid as it is, I really have fun using it.  One of the best uses I have found for twitter is to help me take notes during General Conference.  I like posting the quotes that I found and like with the tag #ldsconf and then follow the #ldsconf tag.  Anyone on twitter who is watching conference and wants to participate in the conversation can follow that tag and add their own input.  One of the really cool things during this last conference was that the #ldsconf tag was trending (meaning it was one of the top 10 topics on twitter at the time) which meant that there  were hundreds of people sharing their thoughts on conference with the world, and members and non-members alike had a chance to see what was being taught by our leaders. - http://twitter.com
• ScriptureLog for WordPress: This is a plugin that I found for WordPress that allows users to basically install the scriptures on their blog and then make notes as comments that they can share with others.  I really like the concept but it’s not quite what I’d like.  I’m hoping that a future modification will allow for me to make a separate blog post and then just associate that post with the scriptures that I choose.  Someday when I have more time (which is probably not for about 20 years or so) I’d really like to make that modification so that I could use this plugin myself.  It’s really well thought out and very cool. – http://scripturelog.com/download/

Multimedia Resources

These are all resources that you can either listen to or watch to help you with your gospel study.  The best part about listening to scriptures and scripture discussions is that you can do it while you do the dishes

• Audio scriptures, church magazines etc: The church has a HUGE number of audio programs that are available from their website.  This includes the full version of the scriptures, General Conference, the church magazines, Jesus the Christ, and some church music. – http://lds.org/mp3/newarchive/0,18615,5249-1,00.html
• The Mormon Channel: There are other uplifting programs that the church produces that are available to stream, download or subscribe to that are played on the Mormon Channel.  – http://radio.lds.org/eng/
• Scriptures as a Podcast: This is another service I have yet to use myself, but basically you can create your own customizable podcast that will send you the audio version of the scriptures you’d like to study each day so that you can listen to them without having to look them up or find what you’re looking for.  Very cool. - http://www.scripturespodcast.org/Main.asp
• BYU Broadcasting: Everything that is broadcast on any of the BYU TV or radio channels  is available on their website.  You can download a lot of the programs or watch them online – http://www.byub.org/
• Mormon Messages: Each week the church creates and posts an inspiring video on YouTube.  I have to be careful when I watch them because I always feel the Spirit and end up crying.  They are incredibly well done and very inspiring.  You can subscribe to their feed in a feed reader so that you see the updates automatically – http://www.youtube.com/user/MormonMessages

Lesson Preparation Helps

I’m not going to write something about each of these since they are all pretty similar in what they provide.  There are a lot of lesson ideas, crafts, handouts, art, reading charts, relief society activities, coloring pages, scripture games, fhe lessons… you name it on these websites.  They are incredible resources to have whether you’re a mom or a teacher or just a member of the church   A word of caution with them though, while they have fantastic lesson plans already put together they should be always used as supplements to your preparation with prayer and study, not as a replacement for the spiritual preparation.

• SugarDoodle – http://www.sugardoodle.net/joomla/
• MormonShare – http://www.mormonshare.com/
• The Idea Door – http://www.theideadoor.com/
• Latter-Day Village – http://www.latter-dayvillage.com/
• Scripture Art -http://lds.about.com/library/gallery/clipart/blclipart_gallery_subindex.htm

If you have any other resources that you think I should add to these lists or other information that you think would be helpful for people seeking to use technology to enhance their scripture study please leave me comments below!

So we need to jump back to the beginning of January 2007 – it was the beginning of a new semester, and (more importantly) just a few weeks after Eric and I had gotten engaged.  We were enjoying spending time together and getting to know each other even better every day.  We had decided to take one of our General Education classes together – MCOM 320: Written Business Communication.  I remember the first day we went to that class I was pretty excited because our teacher was Sue Boothe.  Sue was the wife of Randy Boothe – the director of the Young Ambassadors – and since I’d been on the YA tech crew for 3 1/2 years at that point I’d traveled all over the world with Sue and spent many evenings at her house for firesides.

Anyways, because Eric and I had dated for… less than an exceptionally long time… Sue hadn’t yet met Eric and I was really excited to introduce her to the wonderful man I had chosen to marry.  Unfortunately, that first day of class Eric was sick.  He had a sore throat and a headache, and wasn’t exactly his most cheerful and charming self.  Not to say that he wasn’t pleasant, just tired, sick and not really wanting to be in class that night.  So, it wasn’t quite the first impression I was hoping for, but there are worse things than that.  Of course, since I was around Eric every so often (read: every possible second we could manage) I came down with the same thing in very little time.  It didn’t bother me too much since my main symptom was a sore throat and I get sore throats fairly frequently as a result of allergies.  So, it wasn’t pleasant, but nothing that I couldn’t handle.

Of course, the end of that week also happened to be when we had scheduled to do our engagement pictures with Rhett Olson (Eric’s brother-in law), and we were both sick.  It also happened to be THE coldest day ever… and we were taking our pictures outside.  But since we knew that the semester was only going to get busier, and we didn’t want to reschedule, we decided to do it that Saturday anyways.  So, if you’ve ever thought that we looked less than entirely our best in those pictures, that’s why.  It was freezing cold, and we were both pretty sick.  I think though that Rhett did an awesome job with the subjects we gave him

A couple weeks went by and Eric was doing well, but I still hadn’t been able to kick this sickness.  In fact, I’d gotten worse and the glands under my neck were pretty swollen.  So I finally decided it was time to head to the Student Health Center and get myself checked out.  I went in on a Tuesday morning without making an appointment, which was probably a mistake.  I think I waited for at least a couple hours.    Finally the doctor called me in and checked me out.  After listening to my descriptions and feeling my glands and generally checking things out, she decided that she wanted me to go get tested for mono and gave me the paperwork to take to the lab.  This meant that I had to walk out of the clinic, down the hall to the lab and voluntarily get stuck with a needle.  Oh. Yeah. Right.  If you aren’t already aware I have a severe phobia of needles, so I don’t exactly have the capacity to walk myself into a lab to get blood work done.  I tried to be obedient and walked right down to the lab…. and past it, out the door and back to my car.

From there I called my mom and explained to her my situation.  She’d been through this many times with me and understood exactly how severe the problem was.  I really wanted to call Eric up to come with me, but I felt like a complete wuss to make him come watch me have a tiny prick.  It took me swallowing a bit of pride before I actually called him and explained what was going on and asked him to come help me.  Of course, being the awesome guy he is, Eric came up to go with me, even though he was in the middle of a busy day.  Unfortunately, by the time he came up, the Health Center was closed for devotional.  Dang it!  And Eric had class immediately after devotional.  However, he decided that we could go back to his place, watch devotional, and then he’d take me up to the clinic and be late to his next class.  Any wonder I decided once again that he was a keeper?

So, that’s what we did.  Luckily having Eric there gave me the courage I needed to actually walk into the lab this time, and between him holding my hand and the nurse being super awesome at trying to distract me from the needle I was able to narrowly avoid passing out!  We got me back to full consciousness (I did say narrowly avoid passing out, I still came pretty close which takes a little bit of recovery) and Eric went on his way to his class and I went back to the doctor’s office for the follow up with the test results.

When the doctor called me back in she said they’d wondered what had happened to me since the test was supposed to be super quick, and I didn’t come back.  I felt bad about leaving, but I hadn’t had the guts to tell them what was going on at the time because… well I’m a big fat chicken and I didn’t want to do it.  If I’d told her she’d have probably just had some one march me into the lab and get the work done, which would have been effective, but not something I was going to make happen.

Anyways, the test results had come back negative for mono.  So I was expecting the doctor to say that she suspected it was something else, but basically she just said that she thought the test was a false negative and that she thought I had mono anyways.  She instructed me to take lots of ibuprofen and get as much sleep as possible.  I left the health center a bit dumbfounded at the whole experience.  So… the test said I don’t have mono, but we’re going to pretend that I do anyways?  Why did I even have to go through that whole ordeal of being stuck with a needle if we were going to ignore the test results anyways?!  * grumble *

I decided the doctor was basically a hack.  But, since she hadn’t found anything really wrong with me I didn’t pursue it any further and took her advice of taking ibuprofen and getting more sleep.  After a week or so the swelling in my glands had gone down and my other symptoms had pretty well subsided so I figured it was just a cold that took me awhile to kick.

However as the semester continued I kept feeling really tired all the time.  I wasn’t taking a very intensive class load – 12 credit hours, only 3 of which were taking me much effort. I’d attempted 21 credits in a previous semester, so 12 was nothing.  Furthermore, it wasn’t that I was feeling really tired after long weeks where we’d had YA shows or midterms or anything intensive – I felt tired after getting 10 hours of sleep at night consistently.  It was really weird.

So I brought it up to my mom and she said that I was probably just under emotional stress from being engaged.  That this was a pretty huge transition and that because it was emotionally stressful it transferred to the physical side of me as well making me super tired.  That made sense, except that I wasn’t feeling emotionally stressed at all.  In fact, I knew without a doubt that marrying Eric was the right decision and I only wished that it was June so that we could be married already.  I didn’t *feel* emotionally stressed, but decided maybe it was a more subconscious thing, and it was the best explanation I had at my disposal so I decided to go with it.

So I spent that semester trying to allow myself to get as much rest as I needed and kept things low-stress.  Most weeks this meant (unfortunately for Eric) that at the end of the week when we were ready to watch a movie I didn’t have the brain power to really watch anything other than chick flicks or other low-brain power movies.  Luckily Eric was awesome and agreed to watch these inane movies with me to keep me happy.  Since we got married I think he’s been pleasantly surprised to find that I actually enjoy shows like Firefly, or movies like Sherlock Holmes.  When I’m not too tired I can really get into a good action film or a show with a mind bending plot line.  I remember feeling so bad at the time that I was making Eric acquiesce to my movie choices each week, but I really just felt so drained that I just thinking about watching an intensive movie at the time made me tired.

So, that’s how the semester continued, low stress, lots of sleep, taking the best care of myself I could manage.  Finally the end of the semester came and it was time for me to head on tour with the Young Ambassadors to China!  I wasn’t thrilled to be leaving Eric but I was really excited for tour.  I’d worked hard for 3 years to become the YAs Stage Manager and I was really looking forward to giving that role my all while we were in China and really proving that I could handle it.

Unfortunately… I didn’t handle it as well as I would have liked to.  As the tour went on I really was trying to push myself and give it 100% but I felt like I was in a fog.  I was super tired (not unexpected on tour, but in retrospect, I was probably more tired than I should have been) and just not able to get through things real clearly.  I don’t think I caused any catastrophes, but I just wasn’t completely there, and Matt Schetselaar (our former stage manager and a technical advisor/resident Chinese translator for the tech crew on this tour) definitely had to pick up a lot of my slack.  I thought that it was probably because I was missing Eric and kept trying to tell myself to pull it together and make the most of the experience.  The worst moment was when everything wasn’t going really well and I finally snapped at our costumer after she’d been late getting back to the bus.  I don’t even remember what I said now, but I just remember that I was pretty nasty in what I said.  I still feel really bad to this day that I snapped at her.  I don’t think it was entirely her fault, but I think I was feeling like I was doing a lousy job and I took it out on her that day.  Becca, if you’re reading this, I’m pretty sure I apologized before, but I’m really sorry I lost my cool with you.  It’s one of the moments that I truly regret.

Finally towards the last week of tour I noticed that the glands on my neck were getting swollen again.  As the end of tour grew closer they were getting bigger and bigger.  It was weird, but since it had happened earlier in the semester I wasn’t too worried and I was pretty sure it wasn’t mono.  It was just something that my body apparently did to fight off infection.

Well, the end of tour came and my mom picked me up at the airport in Los Angeles.  We gave each other hugs and packed my suitcase in the car and started back home.  While we were driving I mentioned my swollen glands again and my mom reached over to feel them.  Her response was something to the effect of “holy cow!”  She was a little bit stunned that I’d been writing them off as no big deal since they were about the size of golf balls and hard as could be.  She made an appointment for me to go in to the doctor’s the next day.  Of course, the only doctor I had back home was the pediatrician that I’d had since I was 10, but they agreed to see me anyways.

The doctor ordered me to go get tested for mono again.  Ick.  But, I’d made it through that ok before and so off I went with my mom to the lab to get tested.  I didn’t really like the lab much to begin with, and I can’t really say exactly why.  The nurse there didn’t exactly make me feel comfortable either, but I really was trying to tell myself it would be no big deal and that I’d be out of there in no time.  It was finally my turn and the nurse got one of those big rubber band things to tie on my arm to help her find my veins.  I don’t know why but those things really creep me out big time.  I think I made it through her cleaning my arm and probably pulling out the needle… and then I was gone.  Like, really gone.  I passed out worse than I had ever passed out before or than I have ever passed out since.  I really wasn’t sure if I was dead, it was not a good experience at all.

When I came back to (after several smelling salts) I thought that at least it was all over and I didn’t have to do that again.  Then they revealed to me that they hadn’t taken my blood yet because I passed out before the needle had really gone in and I was shaking so bad while I was passed out that they couldn’t get a needle in me while I was out.  When I heard that I lost it.  I just broke down crying because that passing out experience had been so awful… and it had been for nothing.  They still had to do it again.  My mom took me back out to the waiting room to get a grip on myself.  I just sobbed uncontrollably for awhile before she decided that we’d just go home and try again some other time.  Apparently she could tell from how I looked while I was passed out that it had been a particularly bad episode and she wasn’t keen on going through that again either.

The next day we pulled out all the stops.  My doctor prescribed some Xanax for me, we made sure that when I went into the lab there was no waiting time for me to psych myself out and Eric was on the phone with me the whole time.  Finally I was able to make it through the whole process without passing out.

When the doctor called me with the results I was actually surprised to find that they had come back positive for mono.  So that hack doctor at the Student Health Center had been right all along!  She wasn’t a hack, the test really did come back as a false negative, but she’d known better than to make me go through being tested again.  Since I had pretty well followed her prescription of resting all semester the sickness hadn’t really reared its ugly head again until I didn’t have time to take care of myself on tour.  Who’d have thought?

Sidenote: In case you were wondering, I figured out a year or so later why my passing out episode was so bad that time.  Because the mono had taken over my system pretty well at that point I wasn’t getting as much oxygen to my system as I needed.  This made it so I was much more susceptible to passing out in the first place, and didn’t help me recover quickly either.  It’s good that I figured that out because the experience tripped me out pretty bad and made it exceptionally difficult for me to go in and get any bloodwork done the next time it was necessary

So the next couple weeks leading up to the wedding I spent mostly sleeping.  This really bugged me at the time.  I’d never wanted to be the kind of bride that left everyone else to do everything and just showed up at the last minute expecting it to be perfect.  But I didn’t have much choice.  My mom was so awesome to plan most of the wedding since we were getting married in California and I was in Utah or China up until just the two weeks before the wedding.  Then when I finally was physically there to help, I slept while people ran circles around me downstairs.  I cried over my lack of participation more than once, but in the end I mostly just felt super loved.  It was amazing to me to see all the friends and family that I had that were willing to put their time and energy into my wedding, while I just laid around and slept.  Like when I’d come down because I wanted to help chop vegetables instead of nap, Sister Smith would shoo me right back upstairs to get more sleep.  There were countless people there that I could name who pitched in to make that day wonderful for me, while I slept that whole week away.  I can’t even describe how grateful I feel for the selflessness and caring of all those wonderful people I have in my life.

So the wedding day came and it really was a beautiful and perfect day, I couldn’t possibly have asked for anything more.  My glands were swollen up ginormously, but we never did get a picture of just how bad they were.  Rhett once again did an incredible job of taking pictures that didn’t make me look like Frankenstein.  I’m not sure if it was just the positioning he had us in or if he did some magic with Photoshop but you really can’t tell.  I should have taken a picture though for posterity, oh well

So, from there on out I at least knew what was going on with me.  Eric and I had a wonderfully relaxing honeymoon.  He unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) got sick right after our wedding as well so we spent the first week just hanging out at the hotel and being bums.  We watched movies and just laid around all day, which was pretty wonderful to just be able to spend time together with nothing pressing to do and a good excuse to stay put.  From there we went to a Hansen Family reunion, which was really fun.  We were able to still take it pretty easy and get plenty of sleep and I finally got a chance to really know all the wonderful people in Eric’s family.

After the reunion we completed our honeymoon in Paris.  After taking 5 years of French going to France was definitely a dream of mine and I was super excited to go.  I don’t know that we really took the best advantage of our time there however.  We never even truly changed to their timezone since I was still so dependant on my sleep.  We would sleep in until the afternoon and then go out and see some of the city and then come back to our hotel and stay up until late at night.  But I thought it was awesome.  It was so freeing to be that far away from everything with my husband and just have that time together.  We were able to see all the things that we really wanted to, and we had some really cool experiences that I’ll never forget.

Then it was home and back to real life.  After about a couple weeks of being home I was feeling pretty good, but probably not up for what I had in store next.  I’d been casually searching for jobs, knowing that I was going to be a counselor for YASE for two weeks out of July and didn’t really want to be working two jobs that week.  However, on the first day of YASE I had an interview at Axis41 and they wanted me to start immediately.  So I spent two weeks of waking up in the morning, getting my girls up and ready for breakfast, sending them to their activities for the day, racing home to Eric to quickly shower and dressing in more professional attire, driving to Salt Lake City, working at Axis41 until 3:30pm, hopping back in the car, driving home again, changing back into camp counselor-ing attire, going to all of the evening activities with my girls, and then staying up all night doing camp stuff (and by camp stuff I think I mean talking to Lexie).  Yeah, with mono.  It was an insane couple of weeks.  But somehow at the end of it I wasn’t dead and I had even secured the position at Axis41, where I still work to this day.

After that, life was more manageable.  I kept myself on as low key of a schedule as I could to avoid any flare ups of mono.  I’m not entirely sure when I really “got better” from having mono.  I was taking a birth control at the time that also made me tired, and when I finally got off that I started to feel better.  But of course, then I got pregnant and now I don’t know that I will ever not feel tired until we’re done having kids, and those kids are out of the house.  Maybe having mono was just supposed to get me in the practice of simplifying my life, taking care of myself, and just being tired

This month’s message is about the sacrament.  I love this topic because it’s something we do every single week, but sometimes we might miss the importance of what we’re doing.  The most pointed part of the message to me was the scripture in 3 Nephi 18:10, the beginning of the chapter talks about the institution of the sacrament among the Nephites.  After they’ve taken the sacrament for the first time Jesus explains to them what they’ve done -

And when the Disciples had done this, Jesus said unto them: Blessed are ye for this thing which ye have done, for this is fulfilling my commandments, and this doth witness unto the Father that ye are willing to do that which I have commanded you. (emphasis added)

I really liked that it says that by taking the sacrament we show that we are willing to keep the commandments.  It doesn’t mean that we will perfectly keep them 100% of the time; in fact that’s the whole point of taking the sacrament every single week.  We won’t be perfect from week to week, but each week we have the chance to sit down and say “I know I’m not perfect, but I want to be and I’m going to work my hardest and try my best to be like Christ in all that I do and say.”  By partaking of the sacrament and accepting the Atonement our shortcomings are made up for.  What a great blessing!

I’ve heard a lot of people talk about the sacrament as being for things that have already passed.  Like in the Catholic Church where they talk about requiring their “last sacrament” to wipe away any sins that they might have committed since the last time they’d been in church.  I don’t think that’s the way God works.  I can’t imagine that if you were to die suddenly on a Saturday night you’re so much worse off than if you’d died on Sunday right after church – that doesn’t seem like the loving and just Heavenly Father that we have.  Instead I like to think of the sacrament as being a forward facing event.  Repentance and the atonement makes up for our past transgressions, the sacrament is for us to recommit ourselves to doing better in the time we have ahead of us.

I look at the time while the sacrament is being passed as a chance to re-commit myself to doing everything in my power to be serving the Lord.  My favorite thing to do is to think through the week ahead and find ways that I can be doing the best things.  Whether it’s being more diligent in my scripture study or attending the temple, I try to look through my calendar and task list and find specific ways I can make improvements. Perhaps I should just be sitting and pondering the Atonement, but for me I’ve found it most effective if I can actually find concrete ways to make myself a better person.

I am so grateful for the Atonement in my life and the way that it makes up for all of my many shortcomings.  I’m grateful for the sacrament and the opportunity it gives me each week to improve myself and to put the Atonement into effect in my life.  I know the gospel of Jesus Christ is true.

High: My ward is awesome! After posting on facebook that Sam was sick I got two offers from people to pick stuff up for me at the grocery store and another offer to bring me some diapers in Sam’s size (especially helpful since Sam was also spewing out the other end). I was so touched by these wonderful examples of Christlike service. I’m really going to be sad to leave this ward.

High: Eric brought Sam into our bed when he first woke up and let him sleep with us for a couple hours. As glad as I am to have Sam sleeping in his own bed, I’ve missed having our whole family snuggling together at night. Also I’ve almost got my new website put together which will be great to have finished

Low: Uhm, it’s the 24th of May and it’s snowing outside. Yeah, that was the view from out our study window this morning. Ew gross yuck. I keep wanting to box up all of our coats and snow gear as a start to preparing for our move… guess I’ll have to wait a little longer for that still. (Yes mom, I’m sure it is beautiful in California right now and we should move there. )

High: Sam is doing better at sleeping through the night, hurrah! Also, we ran the roomba last night so our front room is all vacuumed. Of course, when we run the roomba we move our furniture to be off the carpet so that we can get all the things that Sam has hidden under the coffee table, rocking chair etc as well. So usually when I wake up the morning after running the roomba I have to bring Sam out (while he’s still sleepy and cranky and hungry) and put him down for a minute while I take down the coffee table from the couch. But this morning the coffee table was already down when I got up! I was a little bit confused but very grateful that I didn’t have to make Sam mad and we could go straight to feeding him. I found out later this morning that Eric had woken up in the middle of the night needing a drink of water. While he was out in the kitchen he noticed that the roomba was done and thought of me trying to get the coffee table down while holding Sam and took it down for us. It may seem like a really small thing, but the fact that he thought of us in the middle of the night when he was half asleep really touched me. Best. husband. ever. Thank you Eric! I love you!

• I built and launched this website and also this website as freelance projects. The designs were done by a guy I work with and both had relatively quick turn-around times from start to finish. I’m really excited to be able to put them on my resume though because most of the sites that I’ve built personally aren’t as reflective of my skills as I would like.
• Put together this video for Marie (Pearson) Tarbet. Marie and her brother do LDS music and this is my favorite song that they do. I also created their website for them – don’t judge the design, this is one of those sites that shows my skills as a designer (read: no designer skills), I’m in the process of a redesign right now. Marie had put this slideshow together in Powerpoint but didn’t have a good way to get it up on the web. It took a lot of back and forth just to get the right files to us but we finally got them… right as I was in the middle of all my other projects. Originally we’d thought Eric could do it but he’s been busy as well so I finally was able to take it on. It’s my first foray into video editing and I’m pleased with the results. It definitely took me way more time than it would have for Eric, but it was a fun project and although time consuming wasn’t as complicated as anticipated.
• Sleep training.  See this post for details.
• Trying to figure out where we want to be come August.  Our lease for our condo ends in August and it looks like our current path will not be taking us to China in the imminent future so we will be needing somewhere to live.  As much as we’ve loved where we’re living and our ward, we really think it’s time for us to put down roots somewhere and buy a home.  So when our lease ends here we’ll be somewhere else.  Hopefully another post in the near future will reveal where that somewhere will be
• Eric was called to be our ward mission leader and I was called to be a ward missionary.  Even though we’d each had significant callings previously (and Eric had two callings!) these callings have proved more time consuming than our other callings.  But we’re really enjoying our new callings and the work that we get to participate in.
• We’ve also been setting new family schedules and rules.  This has meant that we’re to bed earlier and up earlier (but don’t get “earlier” confused with “early”, bedtime for Sam is 10pm and for us is midnight, and we’re all supposed to be up by 10am).  It’s also limited the amount of media that we’re partaking in which has been such a blessing since it gives us more time to be a family and do other worthwhile things!
• Watching the funnest one year old on the planet grow into a rambunctious toddler.  There’s a lot to post about this though so I’m going to start a separate post about Sam so that I can get this one up before the end of the night (but I promise I’ll start the Sam post immediately so that should be coming some time this week!)
• Enjoying my new Motorola Droid!  Eric got a Droid in February and I’ve been jealous ever since.  It only took about a month (during which my phone had been failing anyways) before I gave in and needed to get one as well.  I *love* it.  It’s so great to be able to be connected to everything I need even if I’m away from the house.  This is definitely a blessing since it makes it so that I can go places with Sam without worrying that I’m going to miss an important work email or something like that. 

  However, one of the best things about my new phone is that it’s been easier to take more photos and videos of Sam during the day.  Unfortunately I had some settings wrong or something so the focus has been really off.  So sorry that these are really low quality pictures but hopefully you can enjoy them anyway.  They’re all located in a photo album on Picasa that you can get to by clicking below
  

  Samuel

  Cute pictures of Sam

Anyways, sorry for the lack of posts of late, but at least you hopefully now understand what’s been keeping us so busy!  If you can’t get enough of us there are other places we tend to update when we don’t have enough time to write posts here.  You can check out our posts on my family’s highs and lows blog or follow Eric or Sam or me on Twitter.  Or become a fan of Sam on Facebook or read Eric’s tech blog or Brittny’s personal blog.  Even when we’re not updating here, there’s generally still a fair amount to read about what we’re doing

As a young woman you are blessed with divine feminine qualities. Increase your understanding of and appreciation for womanhood. Read Proverbs 31:10–31 and two talks on womanhood from a conference issue of the Church magazines. Review what “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” (see page 101) says about being a wife and a mother. Then ask your mother or another mother you admire what she thinks are important attributes for being a mother. List the attributes in your journal. Then choose one of those attributes and strive to develop it. After two weeks report your success to a parent or leader.

So I’ve been pondering for a few weeks about attributes of a good mother. As I thought about it, you can’t be a good mother without being a good wife first, so I’ve somewhat expanded my advice to be things that are both attributes of a good wife and good mother, and some of these things might not fit as “attributes” but more as “things you ought to do”, but I’ll try to get them to fit into attribute categories if I can.

Anyways, I thought before I sent this on to this young woman that I should post the things here and see if I could get some good feedback on other items I should add or modify before sending it on. After all, one of my best parenting secrets so far has been to ask for help when I need it! I’ve gotten so much good advice from Facebook friends and blog commenters that I’m sure has influenced what I’m posting here, and I’m hoping I might even get a few more good ideas for myself

So, without further ado -

• Put the Lord first – Some people will say that your marriage goes before all else, and this is true for everything except the Lord. As you draw closer to the Lord you will grow closer to your husband and children. Heavenly Father knows better than we do how we should be parenting our children. Find a man who is willing to do the same. Look for a man who is willing to be faithful to the Lord above all else and you know that he will also be faithful to you.

  I believe this is one of the reasons the church requires all young men to serve missions. It shows their dedication to the Lord and they gain such an incredible amount of experience that helps them in their marriages. They learn to deal with companions, even if they annoy them. They learn how to work hard (and trust me, marriage is hard work!).  They learn how to seek the guidance of the Spirit and follow it. Most importantly, I believe they are blessed in ways you can’t see in their marriages for their faithfulness.  Be willing to make this kind of sacrifice to the Lord, and expect the same in any man who wants to marry you.

• Obedient – Your children will pick up on things you don’t even realize. Even at one year old I’m FLOORED by the things that Sam picks up on and mimics. If you want your kids to be obedient to you the best thing to show them is how you are obedient to the leaders you say you sustain. If you hear them give you counsel, just do it! Even if it doesn’t make sense to you have faith that the Lord wouldn’t be giving it to us if it wasn’t for our benefit. If you are willing to obey church leaders you will find the blessings of obedience in abundance in your life, and usually you will best understand why they give the counsel they do when you live it. It is such a strong example to your children and it will ALWAYS bless your life.
• Constructive – Never criticize your spouse or children in mean ways.  Even if it is in joking, don’t call people names or belittle them. This is something I’ve had to work on.  I am sarcastic by nature, but whenever you say something in sarcasm, generally you mean some part of it, and people know that and it hurts.However, this isn’t to say that you need to always be sunshine and rainbows towards others.  One of the things that I learned in institute was the meaning of the word “betimes”.  It means often and immediately.  So when you read in D&C 121:43 – “Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy; ” it means that we need to correct people quickly, immediately, and clearly.  You don’t do someone any favors by allowing them to continue doing things that hurt others. But it also points out that afterwards you need to show increased love.  Be sure that whenever you point out someone’s shortcomings you do it in the spirit of love because you want to help them, not because you want to tear them down.

  Also, if you have criticisms of someone tell it to them and not to someone else.  Gossiping doesn’t help anyone.  The person at fault doesn’t know your feelings so they can’t do anything about it and it just makes you feel worse.  However, if you’re going to give praise to someone I believe you should do it where others can hear.  It will build their self-confidence and make them want to be even better. Praise publicly, criticize confidentially

• Prayerful – Pray to the Lord for your family. In April General Conference just before I married Eric I came into conference with the question of what I needed to do to be a good wife. I listened intently to the speakers for things that I should be doing as a wife and didn’t really come up with anything. Then in the very last talk by President Hinckley he gave this advice – “May there be peace and harmony in your homes. Husbands, love and treasure your wives. They are your most precious possessions. Wives, encourage and pray for your husbands. They need all the help they can get. Parents, treat your children with great kindness. They are the coming generation who will bring honor to your name.” (full text here). It was the most powerful advice I’ve heard. Pray for your husband in everything he does. Whether it’s big things or small things. The Lord is so mindful of our families and children and want the best for them. Pray for guidance with your children. You will need it every single step of the way. Children are such an incredible adventure and most of the time there’s no way you could know what you ought to be doing without the guidance of the Lord. Remember that He loves them more than you do (although as a mother, it’s hard to fathom how that’s even possible) and He is willing and wanting to help you guide them through this life. You absolutely cannot raise your children without His guidance, so seek it out constantly.
• Consistent – If you say you’ll do it – do it. This was something I was shown is in the scriptures as the way the Lord deals with us (and what better example could we have as parents than our Heavenly Father?). In the book of Mosiah we read about the story of Alma and Abinadi. When Abinadi comes to the people he tells them – if you don’t repent now you will be put into bondage. No one listens to him and he is finally burned at the stake. However, after Abinadi is burned Alma realizes that the words Abinadi spoke were true and is converted. He then goes about preaching the gospel and baptizing and converting others. They get a whole bunch of people together that are now followers of the gospel and they leave. And what happens to them? They’re put in bondage, just like Abinadi said they would be. (see Mosiah 11 – 18, 23-24 for full account)When you read this at first it doesn’t seem fair. I mean, these are the good guys! They’ve repented and got baptized, why are they now put in bondage?!? It’s because they didn’t obey the commandments when they were told to and now they have to suffer the consequences. This is very important to realize when raising kids as well. If you give them instructions and affix a punishment with their failure to comply, if they fail to comply then you need to follow through with that punishment. This is HARD to do. You may have said that they would be grounded for a week, but then they’re really good during that week and there’s a big party that they want to go to that weekend – you need to stand firm. If your kids don’t expect that you will follow through on what you say then they can’t trust you. The other thing to realize with this is to be careful with what you say. Don’t dole out punishments in anger that you don’t really want to follow through on.
• Peacemaking – Contention can destroy your home. Don’t raise your voice or say unkind things. Don’t fight in front of your kids. Show a united front with your husband, even if you have to wait to answer a child’s question until you have discussed the solution and come to an agreement on a course of action.
• Treat kids according to their needs – Every child comes in their own way and you can’t expect each of them to have the same needs. When I was in high school I was shy and a bit of a homebody. I was MORE than happy to stay at home on Friday nights with my family and play games and just be with them. So my mom had to encourage me to do the things that were hard for me and encourage me to go out to football games and to parties. On the other hand, my sister Taylor is a self-proclaimed (and rightly so) party in a box. She is outgoing and fun and naturally wanted to be out with friends all the time. My mom had to limit her amount of going out so that she would have time at home with the family. This can apply to everyone, each person you meet will have different needs so be sure to treat them according to those needs.
• Assume best intentions – Before you get married make sure your spouse isn’t someone that would say mean things or do mean things towards you. So, if you are hurt by something he does or says assume that he doesn’t intend to hurt you and approach him that way. Don’t attack him for missteps he might take, but approach him with kindness and explain why his actions hurt you so that you can work together to fix the problems. I’ve found this to be a good way to approach most situations. Generally, people aren’t going out of their way to do mean things towards you. So if they do something that hurts you approach it calmly and peacefully – attacking the other person only makes things worse.
• Read scriptures and pray daily – All of the answers that you will need as a parent, spouse and person are in the scriptures and available as we have the Holy Ghost with us. Be sure you are always in a position to feel His promptings and obey them.
• Bear testimony often – Find ways to teach your children through everything you do. Make sure they see you supporting church leaders, paying your tithing, saying your prayers, going to church, reading the scriptures, attending the temple etc. It will be a vital part of their own testimony. Teach them the principles of the gospel as you come across any situation that presents itself.
• Humble – Realize that you don’t know everything. There are so many people around us who want to help you be successful. Listen to their guidance and try to act on it.
• Remember and keep covenants – Don’t settle for less than a temple marriage, it’s not worth it. Children have a right to be born into a family that has been sealed together forever. The covenants that you will make in the temple will strengthen you against all the evils in the world and help you become the best you can be. I can’t imagine trying to be a mother without the protection and guidance I have received through my temple covenants.  Marriage and parenthood is hard enough even with these blessings, you deserve nothing less than marriage in the temple to a young man who is worthy to take you there.
• Forgiving – Be willing to apologize and forgive quickly, especially with your kids. If you realize you are in the wrong don’t just try to hide it, apologize and let them know it. You will gain their respect and trust as you show them how to apologize and forgive.
• Patient – Motherhood requires immense patience. Your kids will undo all of your housekeeping the moment you do it. Everything you will want to do will take twice as long just by taking your kids along. You will even need patience just to keep from decking the lady at church who states that she “can’t understand parents who can’t get their kids to sleep through the night, just put them to bed and let them sleep!” when your own 14-month old *still* won’t sleep through the night… or anything like unto through the night (not that this happened to me… last week… at church ).