home church (and why)

today we had church at home for the first time ever... we have received email after email this week from the church headquarters as things were cancelled or changed one by one. first was the email stating that the general conference meeting normally held in our church conference centre in salt lake city, utah would be closed to the public. this was shattering news to members of our church. all of sudden this was major. never in history has general conference been closed off. thankfully due to modern technology, it will still be able to be viewed around the world, live, then be available for download not long after - which is a wonderful blessing. we still get to be a part of it! at the end of last month the church sent out a media release asking that anyone outside of the united states not travel to attend the conference due to the coronavirus issue - which has now lead to this digital only conference. 

the very next day, this announcement was made... and it all got even harder to get our heads around. all church meetings suspended. everything. our sacrament services, our stake conference scheduled for next weekend, our relief society activity that would have happened the very next day. wow. looks like home church was a go. 

in the final months of 2018, the president of our church, russell m nelson made the announcement that we would be moving from our long time 3 hour schedule to 2, a huge change for us. we originally had our sacrament meeting, followed by sunday school and then our appropriate classes (priesthood/ relief society, young men/women & primary) but changed to sacrament followed by alternate weeks of the old second and third hours of the schedule. along with that, a home centred, church supported learning program was introduced, to allow us to learn ourselves and teach our children during the week to make up for that other hour we once had.

president nelson was obviously preparing us for a time like this. how blessed we are for the revelation he received to prepare us for this sudden and unexpected situation we find ourselves in. he truly is an inspired and amazing man, perfect to lead our church in these days.

and then, if that all wasn't enough... temple sessions were suspended the day after... all leading us into this first sunday, of at home church. it was a lovely morning... dougs mother came too and we ran our own sacrament meeting like we would have at church - we sang hymns, doug blessed the sacrament, we listened to a conference talk online and read another aloud and it was surprisingly nice. i feel so lucky to have a faithful priesthood holder in my home, to have allowed us to still have a normal sunday and partake of the sacrament.

i haven't been feeling good about this all week though. it's been hard. the uncertainty of it all, the difficulty of getting any groceries that we need and more than anything the anxiety i have felt. i have been constantly stressed. it's always playing on my mind and i have prayed over and over to just feel better about it because i don't know how much longer i can handle feeling this way. i had been trying so hard to prepare myself and our family for any situation and to make sure we had anything that we might need - getting more food, thinking of what we could do to shield ourselves, the possibility of being home and quarantined - and the list goes on. it was stressing me out.

in the end, i asked my husband to give me a blessing of comfort. in our church we can have a priesthood administration for many things. people mainly recognise them as being used for those who are sick in some way, but often they are used for direction and comfort. i felt a million times better afterwards as i was given the direction i needed. i feel certain that i have done what needs to be done to prepare my family and i also feel assured that my family will remain safe and protected throughout all of this. and just from that, my whole perspective has changed. i no longer feel anxiety and stress, just a hope for an end and for things to eventually return to normal in time. 

the final paragraph of the email regarding the temples gave me hope, "we look forward with great anticipation to the time when temples can again operate at full capacity and extend the blessings of temple work to members and their ancestors." things will get back to normal. of that we can be assured.

to cement how much better i was felt afterwards, i came across this on the internet and i truly felt peace. i know our church is lead by a man inspired to give us the lords word. we will be okay. it will all be okay. it will just take time. and we will have to be patient. but i know we are all known and loved and will make it through this with faith. i am so grateful for a prophet of god, who knew what we needed, before the world even knew. ❤

train up a child

"train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." - proverbs 22:6

we just finished watching the october 2013 general conference sunday morning session, and i was blown away by the talk given by bonnie l. oscarson - the young womens general president. she spoke with great passion of her great grandmother and her dedication to keeping the gospel light burning bright within her home and family. (to read the full talk - click here)

"...I would like to share a conversion story from my family history about another of my heroes. Her name is Agnes Hoggan, and she and her husband joined the Church in Scotland in 1861. Suffering great persecution in their homeland, they immigrated to America with their children. Several years later, Agnes became a widow with eight children to support and worked hard to keep them fed and clothed. Her 12-year-old daughter, Isabelle, was lucky enough to find employment as a servant to a wealthy, non-LDS family.

Isabelle lived in their large home and helped look after their younger children. In exchange for her services, a small wage was paid each week to her mother. Isabelle was soon accepted as a member of the family and began to enjoy many of the same privileges, such as taking dance lessons, wearing beautiful clothing, and attending the theater. This arrangement continued for four years, until the family for whom Isabelle worked was transferred to another state. They had grown so fond of Isabelle that they approached her mother, Agnes, and asked for permission to legally adopt her. They promised they would provide her with a good education, see that she married well, and make her an heir to their estate with their own children. They would also continue to make payments to Agnes.

This struggling widow and mother had a hard decision to make, but she did not hesitate for a moment. Listen to the words of her granddaughter, written many years later: “If her love had not compelled [her] to say no, she had an even better reason—she had come all the way from Scotland and had gone through tribulations and trials for the Gospel, and she did not intend, if humanly possible, to let a child of hers lose what she had come so far to gain.” The wealthy family used every possible argument, and Isabelle herself cried and begged to be allowed to go, but Agnes remained firm. As you can imagine, 16-year-old Isabelle felt as if her life was ruined.

Isabelle Hoggan is my great-grandmother, and I am most grateful for the testimony and conviction that burned so brightly in her mother’s heart, which did not allow her to trade her daughter’s membership in the Church for worldly promises. Today, hundreds of her descendants who enjoy the blessings of membership in the Church are the beneficiaries of Agnes’s deep-seated faith and conversion to the gospel..."

i could only imagine the pain suffered by this courageous woman as she stood firm in her convictions and told her daughter the one word so hard to say - no. it was a reminder to me of all the times my own mother said no to me, for one reason or another, always with my best interests at heart, to keep me safe, to keep me close - and most of all to keep the fire of the gospel burning within my heart. i am forever grateful to that beautiful woman who encouraged me to keep walking the straight and narrow path, to walk it, not to just allow me to cross it on the odd occasion. 

it is without a doubt her influence that helped me remain active in the gospel throughout my life, seek a companion who shared my desire to be married in the temple and bring up my own children in the gospel. 

i only hope i can be the kind of mother to madeline that she has been to me and to have the strength to say no when my mother radar goes off... no matter how hard that may be.