Dear Glo,
Hola! Qué tal? Espero que todo esté bien! Me alegro que Evert está mejor y espero que él pueda lograr ser bautizado!
We had a good week. We visited Ethan and Rebecca last weekend for Ethan's marathon. Then we came home had a few days here and then Rebecca, Baby, Brother, the Johannah and then Ethan and then Mark and Allison came in that order to visit.
On Thursday night after we picked up Johannah we went to the temple and I was the coordinator. That means that I scheduled all the workers and thankfully there were lots of workers so all the positions were filled and some training was done and everyone seemed pleased with how it turned out. One of the officiators said a funny thing in the prayer circle: he mentioned Marxism during the prayer, I think in reference to protecting freedom and keeping the world safe from Marxism but it was kind of a funny thing for him to say. Thankfully, I had scheduled a very experienced brother in the session as a patron to have him observe this newer brother as an officiator and he gave the new guy some good feedback. I have to admit, after the fact I think it was inspired that I had the more experienced brother in the session to check and watch the new guy because he needed some tips, but it all turned out good in the end.
Then after the session we went and picked up Cheese from the airport and went home. Friday we had a laid back day with a lunch at Toñitos and that night Mark and Allison came home. The next morning we ran the Martian half marathon in Dearborn and I ran a 5k, waited 20 minutes and then ran a half marathon with Ethan and Mark. You know all this I am just reminding you. I was so proud of coming in 2nd in my age group in the 5k. 7 min 11 seconds per mile for 3 miles. Unfortunately I was hurting in the half marathon but Ethan got his goal of less than 2 hours at 1:55 and Mark and I had a good time together till the painful end. Plus I got 3 medals and a cool green glass medal for winning my age group. Then yesterday we had Celebration of the Egg with the missionaries and it was fun as usual. Today was church which was ok. Some days for me are better than others at church. Testimony meeting was great as 3 Kennedys bore their testimonies, and not one was me. Mark, Mommy and Rebecca bore their testimonies and they were all sweet and heartfelt. I told them if they would, I would not and I guess they felt pretty motivated. HaHa. Unfortunately they all had to leave this afternoon and that is sad, but we all had a good time. I was just happy everyone was here and we all got along great! I am always stressed out because of what is happening, but I tried to be happy and present during all of our activities.
Some thoughts I had of a more spiritual nature. So, priesthood was a little hard for me today because I gave some personal comments and they were kind of disregarded. I am not sure if they were too long, or what but I will tell you my thoughts and you can at least read them.
So, the lesson was on Pres Nelson's talk about Repentance from conference in priesthood session. During the half marathon I listened to talks in the recent conference. Funny thing that happened in relation to my air pods, my wireless headphones: I had them in during the 5k and when I got done, I went to the bathroom and the toilet paper was not coming out so I looked sideways at the paper dispenser my air pod fell out and into the port a potty pit. Not sure if this was better or worse, but the ear part landed first in fluid - urine plus the chemical and did not sink, so I reached in and grabbed it. It did not land in poop so that was a bonus. Anyway, I wiped it off good, wiped with some of the alcohol stuff and it still worked. When I got home I wiped it with alcohol and sprayed it out so I think it is good, but kind of funny and gross at the same time. Anyway, the questions that were asked were: Why do we have to repent? What actions should we take to repent? What does repentance mean? So, if you read the talk, it talks about the fact that in Greek, repentance is the word Metanoe (spelling may be wrong). This word in Greek means to change your mind not just to change your behavior. So when the teacher asked why we need to repent, I brought up the fact that in summary, I have been going through a hard time, I have always tried to live the gospel, but the last 6 months have been very hard on me and it has changed me even more then I thought was needed or necessary. I feel very differently now than I did before. I did not go into detail but I did say, we have been attending the temple a lot more and it has been very meaningful for us to do so, and this came about because of the trials we have faced. I also compared it to Pres Nelson's talk he gave when he said, he had studied all the references in the topical guide about Jesus and how when his wife asked him how it affected him, a man who is an apostle; he said it "changed him". So, in these circumstances the word repentance would mean more "changing our mind" rather than stopping some serious problem or not sinning. The other thing I said was that I felt like, part of repentance has to do with what we tend to turn to when our lives are hard or bad. If we make it a habit of turning to God, then when things are hard that is the direction we will turn to and that will change us more into who we should be in relation to God. If we tend to other sources of escape or comfort, which may be less wholesome, we can change into something worse. My answers weren't much to the liking of the teacher and he kind of passed on them, and it kind of hurt my feelings because I am so sensitive right now. What is funny, is after I said them, and he kind of disregarded them, to move on to the text of the talk, he literally read the section that I had just referenced and I just wished he would have given me some positive feedback when I said my comments.
I am not trying to be a downer but it was a little hard on me. The rest of the day with the kids was good until they left.
So, I read some good articles last week in the Ensign that I also wanted to reference. There were some sections on faith unto deliverance, personal revelation and then finally on faith unto deliverance, that meant a lot to me. These are the messages I got from the articles: one of them is what I had told you last week, I feel like I was meant to be an ob/gyn. I feel like Heavenly Father directed me to that and he helped me make the decision to do that for residency, he helped me make it through residency, he helped me pass my boards and has helped me all these years take care of my patients and function in life. I don't feel like I am a mistake or a fluke. So, as I said before, I feel like, what Heavenly Father has made of me is not to be destroyed or deterred by some creepy people in Chelsea.
The other thing I thought of was in an article about faith and the Brother of Jared. So, in the story of the brother of Jared, he prays to the Lord and asks Him some questions and each time he is given a direct answer. He asks Him to preserve their language as a family, then with their friends, then he asks God to lead them to a promised land, then he asks how to build a boat that can traverse the ocean and he asks him how he can have air in the boats and each time the Lord answered his question directly with a direct answer. The Lord preserved their language and that of their friends, he directed them by a cloud and fire through the wilderness, he helped him build boats, he told him to cut a hole in the top and bottom and stop it up if water came in and leave it open for air. But then, he asked what to do about light in the boats. Now the Lord could have answered directly again, but in this circumstance he put the brother of Jared to the test. He said, "what will ye that I do for you?". So with a test of his faith and ingenuity the brother of Jared thinks about the rocks he has seen, he realizes he can melt some of it into clear stones and then he on his own comes up with the plan and asks the Lord to touch them. And in this situation, due to the fact that the brother of Jared has to come up with the plan on his own and have faith in the Lord, he first sees his finger and then his spirit body and then is shown the history and the inhabitants of the world. Basically, with a test of his faith and diligence much greater than he had previously, his blessings and his knowledge of God was magnified infinitely more than before.
I guess it gives me hope, because I have had my path in life directed much more clearly and more comfortably for some time. Life has not been easy for us but we have seen the path, especially after the fact and we have accepted the path. But now, our whole lives are up in the air, the path is not clear and is fraught with danger and peril and it is not comfortable or easy. Even with doing everything we can do to follow God and his Son and the Gospel, our path is unclear and unsure and we have had to come up with a plan on our own and ask God for help with it. I have to go through my hearing and it could go well or not, we put the house on the market and have to trust that it will sell or not. We have done our part, we have done everything we can to prepare and do what we can do, but we have to leave the lighting of our boat to Jesus.
This is why I love the scripture so much lately. With what I am going through now so much more than before, they give me hope and make clear the expectation that we will be saved and delivered from our trials not because we have earned it, but because He can and we are doing our best. By his grace we are saved after all that we can do.
I love you Glo! I hope you are doing great! Please know how thankful we are that you are doing a good job on your mission. I hope that it is going so well for you! I have been praying for Evert and I hope he is ready for his new baptismal date.
con amor,
Papá
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