Happy 100001th birthday to Ryan!

Ryan had a birthday in November. His cake has his age in binary. Can you figure out how old he is?

Usually Ryan makes the cakes. I decided I wanted to be ambitious and try making a nice cake from scratch. I made a four-layer chocolate cake with hazelnut cream frosting. I had a couple of tablespoons of sliced almonds in the cupboard, so I decided to sprinkle them over the top. It was delicious and I learned a lot in the process of making it. I'm not sure when I'll try making another one because I'm more of a pie/cookies/chocolate kind of a person, but now I know how to do it.

I got Ryan a new case with a keyboard for the tablet. Then a couple of days before Ryan's birthday it occurred to me that this wasn't as great of a present as I thought it would be because we started using our new smart phones and now we don't use the tablet as much. It will still be useful, just not quite as exciting as I was thinking it would be. Hopefully Ryan had a nice birthday.

Stuff that I wrote down in December

The medical term of the week was bullous myringitis. On Monday (11/30) a little after lunchtime Heidi was suddenly having a lot of ear pain and she couldn't hear well in that ear. She cried the entire way to pick Kevin up from the bus and for a long time after we got back, so I knew it was time to call the doctor. We got an appointment that evening and that was when we found out what bullous myringitis means. It means that Heidi had an ear infection and had developed a painful blister on her eardrum, which is why her ear was hurting so terribly. The good news is that it's not that big of a deal, even if the blister ruptures (apparently in the olden days they used to treat it by puncturing the blister with a lance), so we got an antibiotic and she's already doing much better. We met the new pediatrician and he was really good. He even had me look in Heidi's ears with the otoscope so I could see the difference between the good ear and the infected one, which I thought was cool because I've never had a doctor do that before.

Here's a Facebook post I wrote around 4:30 a.m. on Friday (12/4): "UGGGHH, Kevin burst into our room at 2:30 am and said in a panicked voice, 'MOM! You forgot to give Heidi her antibiotic!' which was true, but from his tone of voice you would have thought there was a burglar in the house. I was getting some seriously awesome sleep and it startled me so bad I'm still awake two hours later. I want to laugh and cry at the same time." I finally got up and did family history until it was time to get Kevin up for school. It was an interesting day. And I didn't get a nap. But I can laugh about it now that I've gotten a few nights of better rest.

In Mid-November or VoIP phone plan ended and we decided to switch to smart phones using Ting. We've just had a home phone up till now and this is the first time we've had cell phones other than a pay-as-you-go phone that we used when we were first married. Generally it's been nice to have a cell phone. I like that I can have my calendar on there and have it ring at me to remind me to do things, and I do feel a little more prepared for emergencies knowing that I have a phone with me when I'm out driving. The camera is fun. It's been a useful tool. I also deliberately didn't install the Facebook app on there and I think that's helped curb my Facebook use. I've been using an app called ColorNote to take notes or make to-do lists, which is nice because I can just add to my lists whenever I think of something instead of hoping I'll remember it when I can get on the computer. But I'm still getting used to having something ding at me all the time, even if I did tell it to do it. It kind of depends on how busy I am on any given day.

Heidi's preschool group sang at a nursing home (12/9). We practiced Christmas songs for several weeks so that the kids would actually sing and they all did a great job. For the most part the kids sang along and they knew all the words. After the singing we helped the kids pass around Christmas cards that they had helped make on Monday. The residents at the nursing home seemed to really enjoy it. They were so friendly and they clearly loved having the children around, which made the effort we had put into it so rewarding. They asked us to come back again, so we are probably going to go again around Easter.

Gospel Learning Takes Time.

Some gospel questions are really tough and can make us feel conflicted. You know, those topics. Plural marriage, gay marriage, blacks being denied the priesthood, the problem of evil, weird policies the church used to have, women not getting the priesthood. For many people topics like these are troublesome enough to shake people's faith and even lead to them leaving the church.

In Dieter F. Uchtdorf's October 2013 conference talk, he said, "Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters—my dear friends—please, first doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith. We must never allow doubt to hold us prisoner and keep us from the divine love, peace, and gifts that come through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ."

In the past year or so I have heard of some people who thought for a long time that they were supposed to just put these questions on the shelf, i.e. ignore them or forget about them. Eventually what happened was that they decided to take the questions off the shelf, didn't like what they saw, and left the church, often after looking at anti-Mormon literature. I think we have to be careful when we quote Elder Uchtdorf and say, "Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith," because after rereading his talk I don't think he was saying we should ignore our questions. (I won't pretend to understand what goes through someone's head when they decide to leave the church. That doesn't happen to be my trial and it's never been a temptation for me.)

Instead, I think what he means is that when we have doubts we should cling to our faith, the things we do know, and trust that God will help us increase in understanding if we keep working on our testimonies. If we become too fixated on our doubts we may miss out on the blessings of peace, love, joy, service, and righteous works that are the fruits of our faith.

When we rely on our faith (including spiritual experiences we have had), trust in God, and keep working on building our faith through study, prayer, and good works, we come to understand the tough questions better. It's important to remember that the answers to our questions can't always come at once. It might be that you need to learn more about humility, service, the Atonement, the priesthood, baptism, or other principles before getting understanding about the things you want to know. In some cases the answer won't make sense if you haven't had enough experience or developed certain virtues enough. If you just put your questions on the shelf and convince yourself to ignore them, you won't be any closer to the answer. But if instead you go to God in prayer and say, "I don't understand, and this bothers me, but please give me faith and help me to understand," the response might be to study about a specific topic, or work on developing a specific virtue, or get involved in some kind of church service. Then over time you will find that you are closer to understanding the hard questions.

I have never been completely easy with the idea of plural marriage in the LDS church. I don't think very many people are. I can definitely understand why Emma Smith had a hard time with Joseph practicing it. But I have found that I agree with Simon Peter in John 6:66-69:

66 From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.
67 Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?
68 Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.
69 And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.

If I left the church over the church's history of polygamy (not that this was ever a temptation for me), I know I would be missing all of the things in the gospel that I know are true. I believe in eternal families, proxy temple work for the dead, living prophets, the priesthood, the Atonement and the understanding of it that we get from modern revelation, and the Book of Mormon. There really is no other place I could go that would have these precious eternal doctrines. So instead I have stayed, acknowledging that I don't understand everything, and I have continued to work on my testimony.

A few years ago I started getting interested in doing my family history. At the time I started doing it because I was urged to get involved by the Holy Ghost, but what I didn't know was that my family history research would give me increased understanding of plural marriage.

I have some ancestors who practiced plural marriage. These include Stephen Chadwick Perry, Edwin Whiting, and Hans Peter Jensen. I transcribed life histories of them that had been passed down to me from family members and shared those on Family Search, and I also looked at the sources, stories, and pictures of them that were shared on Family Search by others.

What I have learned while doing this research is that when we learn about our ancestors they are with us. As I have learned more about these men, I have felt them near and I have become acquainted them and their families. And while there is much I don't know about plural marriage, what I do know is this: These were good and righteous men. I have felt this as I've learned about them. They had strong testimonies and faith in God, and they loved their wives and their children. They worked tirelessly to build Zion in Utah by serving in the church. So I feel that someday I will get an answer about plural marriage, and I will be okay with that answer, because I know that my ancestors who practiced plural marriage were in good standing with God. I didn't expect this understanding to come to me through doing family history, but I know that it came because I was willing to trust in my faith and in God and keep building my testimony by following the promptings of the Holy Ghost.

Each restless heart beats so imperfectly.

I was driving Kevin to school. There was no reason for us to be leaving so late. I just got distracted by something that should have waited. To get out of our neighborhood we have to do a U-turn on a road where traffic is thick and slow at this time of morning because everyone uses it to go to work. Sometimes when the cars are all stopped people are nice and leave some space for us to get in, but usually there is a wait.

On this morning no opportunities to make the U-turn were coming up. There was a bright yellow car waiting behind me. He took an opportunity when there was no traffic on the right to swerve around me and turn so that he was positioned to turn before me.

I was mad. This happens occasionally when there's rush hour traffic, and I hate it. I sat there fuming, thinking, "Oh, so you think wherever you're going is for some reason more important than me getting my son to school? Guess what? My son's in first grade, and any first grader knows that what you just did is called cutting, and it's very rude--and especially rude when you're in a car and could cause an accident with a stunt like that."

I finally got mad enough and frustrated enough with the traffic that I decided to take a different route even though I knew it would definitely make Kevin late for school. I also changed the radio from a depressing NPR story to a Men of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir CD, although I wasn't really listening because I was annoyed at the guy in the yellow car and frustrated that Kevin was going to be so late.

Then a gentle pressure from the Spirit urged me to actually listen to the music, and I heard, "Each restless heart beats so imperfectly," from their version of "You Raise Me Up."

Instantly I felt humbled. That guy in the yellow car is imperfect. But so am I. And wasn't I just pleading last night for forgiveness for giving in to a weakness I've been struggling with for years?

Still I resisted for a while. I was still annoyed. "Really, Heavenly Father? You mean I don't even get the luxury of staying mad at that jerk for cutting me off like that?"

"Uh, no."

And of course when I forced myself to calm down and work on forgiving, the absurdity of the situation hit me, because really, was it worth it to waste my morning being angry at some stranger who was in a hurry? Of course not. And when I came to that realization I felt grateful to God for changing my heart and raising me up so I wouldn't wallow in some petty annoyance.

On sharing

Here are a few hypothetical scenarios in an office environment:

1. You have a stapler that you bought for yourself to keep at your desk. An office mate asks to borrow your stapler and you let him. Two days later he returns it, but it has no staples left.
2. Two weeks later, the office mate asks to borrow your stapler again. You reply that you don't want to loan it to him again because last time he took a long time getting it back to you and you need the stapler. Your boss comes over and says, "You have to share!" When you protest that it's your stapler and you don't have to share it if you don't want to, he says, "No, you have to share," and makes you give it to your office mate. Over the next two days you make several efforts to get your stapler back, but each time your boss says, "You can't take! You have to share!" When you complain that the office mate is denting the stapler by banging it on his desk, your boss says you need to quit whining and find a different office tool to use until your office mate is done with your stapler.
3. You are at your desk stapling a large stack of documents. An office mate asks to borrow your stapler, but you refuse because you are using it and you need the documents ready in the next ten minutes. Your boss comes over and yanks the stapler out of your hand and says condescendingly, "You have to share!"
4. You are in the copy room and you just need to staple a couple of things. An office mate is stapling a large stack of papers and has the only stapler. You ask if you can use the stapler to staple just a couple of things since he's clearly going to be using it for a long time. He refuses to let you use it.
5. Same scenario as above, but there are five staplers. You reach for one of the unused staplers, but the office mate grabs all five staplers and says you can't use them because he's stapling right now and he wants to use all of them.
6. You are using the stapler in the copy room and an office mate takes it away even though there are five others, and says you can't use it because it's his favorite stapler. He holds the stapler for the next hour without ever using it, and throws furtive glances your way every minute or so.

Clearly several of these situations would be absurd in an office situation. And yet I have seen similar scenarios hundreds of times at the playground. In particular I frequently see moms who take toys away from their own children simply because another child wants the toy. The point I want to make is that as adults, sharing is not simple. Adults don't always have to share, and when they should share, the way they should share depends on the context. If you make your child give a toy to another child when they're not done playing with it just because the other child wants it, they're missing out on learning important social courtesies and expectations.

Now here I have to admit that I am not always the greatest at advocating for my kids in this regard, but I'm trying to do better. Sometimes it feels like if I don't make my kids "share" the other moms will think I'm letting my kids be selfish. But I try to make it my policy that if my children are playing with something they can play with it until they are done, and if another child tries to take it away I will say, "I'm sorry, but he's playing with it right now. Kevin/Heidi/Ann Marie, can you give this toy to so-and-so when you're done with it?" This policy is amended depending on the context, and of course it also applies in reverse. If the toy belongs to the other child or to my children or if my kids are hogging all of the shovels, that's a different scenario. It's also difficult when I didn't see the beginning of the exchange and I'm not sure who ought to have the toy.

By the way, I really dislike being the referee. I think it's one of the most unpleasant parts of parenting. Kids aren't generally very rational, so it's never easy to try to sit and reason with them to figure out who ought to have which toy, and when they're angry and emotional it's really hard to try to help them come up with a solution to the problem themselves, plus sometimes it's necessary to intervene quickly before it escalates too much. It takes some quick and clever thinking, which is hard for me when I'm tired or worn out. For this reason I really like Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood because there are several shows that talk about playing with other kids, and there's always a short little jingle to help the kids remember the lesson. So when my kids are playing I can sing, "You can take a turn, and then I'll get it back," or "Find a way to play together," or "Use your words, use your words!" and that helps them to understand better what they should do. And sometimes I just resort to putting a toy in timeout if the kids won't stop fighting over it.

So anyway, those are my thoughts on sharing.

Curious George

I have a love/hate relationship with the Curious George books. The stories are kind of fun and my kids love them (we have a big book that has six of the books in it, and it's one of the most worn-out/well-loved books in our collection), but I get tired of them really fast and I'm completely exasperated by them sometimes, mostly because they're absurd (which is why kids love them so much) and so many people mooch off of George, especially the man in the yellow hat. I will show you what I mean by summarizing a few of the books and giving them more appropriate titles. (P.S. Don't take this post too seriously, please.)

Curious George
aka The Man in the Yellow Hat Kidnaps a Monkey

In this book George is captured by the man in the yellow hat, who plans to sell him to the zoo. After they get on a boat, a very tearful George is allowed to freely roam the ship. (We won't go into how George's parents felt about their little monkey getting carried off since the book doesn't mention them.) He sees some gulls flying, and since he's apparently never seen birds before (despite having lived in a jungle his entire life) he thinks he can fly too, so he jumps off the ship and almost drowns. Fortunately, the sailors save him and he throws up four whole fish and about five gallons of water. At the man's house George smokes a pipe (!!!) and eats dinner, then goes to bed. The next day he plays with the phone and calls the fire department by dialing 123-4567. When the fire department discovers him, they put him in jail (which firemen are not legally allowed to do, not that anybody gets put in jail for making a prank call to the fire department, but you know . . .). George escapes through a window and then manages to get carried away by a large bunch of balloons, but when the wind dies down he begins to sink and unluckily gets recaptured by the man in the yellow hat, who is relieved that he can still get big bucks selling George to the zoo, but it's okay because a cage in a zoo is such a nice place for a monkey to live after he's spent his entire life in the jungle.

Curious George Takes a Job
aka George Escapes, but then a Lot of People Use him for Free Labor

In this book George escapes from the zoo by stealing the zookeeper's keys and hiding with the elephants until the zookeepers are all gone. After exploring the city, he sneaks into a kitchen to steal some food. Unfortunately, he makes a big mess and gets caught. The cook makes him clean up the kitchen, and then, realizing that this is a very intelligent and efficient monkey, takes George to work for free washing windows with no safety equipment on the outside of a 14 (or more) story skyscraper. Out of the goodness of his heart, George paints a beautiful jungle mural in the nursery of a woman's apartment, and for this act of service he is chased out of the building by five people. To escape from them he jumps off the fire escape and breaks his leg.

When the man in the yellow hat finds out what happened to George, he realizes he could make even more money off of George by making a movie about him, so he tells the hospital that he'll come pick George up after his leg has healed. (He doesn't mention any of this to the zoo, of course, since they would probably want their money back and he already spent it buying a new convertible and a helicopter [it's true--see Curious George Flies a Kite.)

Finally, George's leg is better and the man comes to pick him up. He is almost killed when he smells an open bottle of Ether that the nurse had left on the floor in his room (!?!?!?!?!?!), but fortunately they are able to revive him with a cold shower, and the man hurriedly takes George to the movie studio where George signs a contract he can't read while the man and the studio director smoke cigars (!!!). He plays in the fake jungle at the movie studio all day while the man sits back smugly, looking forward to all the money he's going to get when the movie comes out.

Curious George Rides a Bike
aka More People Use George for Free Labor

In this book George is given a new bike by the man in the yellow hat and then left at home by himself. The newsboy sees George playing with his new bike and convinces George to finish up his paper route so that he can go fishing with his friends at the nearby park (but still get paid for finishing his paper route, of course--it's not bad if George is having a good time, right?). George gets distracted and makes all of the newspapers into boats that float away down the stream (which is pretty incredible--I mean, have you ever tried to really float those things? They get soggy and sink in three seconds!) Then George starts riding his bike again, but unfortunately he hits a rock and the front wheel is ruined. That's okay, though, because George can ride on one wheel, so he heads home doing a wheelie. Then the owners of the animal show see him as they're riding down the street, and they decide to kidnap him and put him in their act (free labor, you know). They fix his bike, dress him up, and give him a trumpet. George almost kills the ostrich trying to feed it his trumpet, but it turns out okay because then he saves the baby bear. The man in the yellow hat shows up to the animal show and is thrilled to find his monkey because he had been worried sick at the thought that someone else was making money off of George instead of him.

Curious George gets a Medal
aka George Floods the Man's House and the Man in the Yellow Hat Thinks of Another Way to Make Money off of George

In this book George spills ink all over the carpet and tries to clean it up with soap and water, but he gets a little carried away and floods the house. He steals a cow and a water pump from a nearby farmer, but the farmer chases him and he has to make a getaway on a museum truck. George explores the museum and ruins a dinosaur exhibit, but it all works out okay because the museum director wants to do an experiment on him and the man in the yellow hat has agreed because the museum director will pay him big bucks for the use of his monkey. George is launched into space and then bails out of the space ship using a parachute. George gets a medal and the man in the yellow hat gets lots of money.

Curious George Goes to the Hospital

I don't really have any objections to this book, but I'm seriously grossed out by the fact that the doctor saved the puzzle piece George had swallowed, and that George and the man in the yellow hat went home and happily put it into the puzzle as if it was no big deal that it had been inside a monkey's BODY for three days. Oh, and everything my kids know about hospitals they learned from this book (and their minor surgeries), and they love to reenact scenes from the book using Ann Marie as their patient.

Behaving and Knowing

[Below I'm going to quote heavily from a BYU speech by Neal A. Maxwell called The Inexhaustible Gospel. I would highly encourage you to read the entire talk; it has really changed and enriched my perspective about knowledge and how it should take place in the gospel.]

Our knowledge of the gospel and the plan of salvation give us a unique perspective on the learning process. In the world so much of learning is focused on learning facts. We do often apply those facts in many contexts, but the world isn't great about using facts to change our behavior. In contrast, in the gospel of Jesus Christ, our behavior is an integral part of learning. We must develop virtues in order to gain knowledge of God, and if we are disobedient we limit our learning. And when we learn in the Lord's way, the possibilities are infinite!

"Multiple scriptures make it clear that knowledge is meant to be closely associated with other virtues such as patience, humility, charity, and kindness." (Neal A. Maxwell, The Inexhaustible Gospel)

One such scripture is Doctrine and Covenants 107:30-31:

30 The decisions of these quorums, or either of them, are to be made in all righteousness, in holiness, and lowliness of heart, meekness and long-suffering, and in faith, and virtue, and knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness and charity;
31 Because the promise is, if these things abound in them they shall not be unfruitful in the knowledge of the Lord.

The promise referred to in verse 31 can be found in 2 Peter 1:5-9:

 5 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
 6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
 7 And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.
 8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
 9 But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.

So we can see from these verses that in order to be rich in the knowledge of Jesus Christ we should be developing these and many other virtues and striving to follow Christ's example. It really makes sense--how can we have knowledge of Christ and the gospel if we aren't living a Christ-like life? How can we understand his life and mission if we aren't living a similar lifestyle?

When we focus on getting knowledge, even gospel knowledge, without being obedient to gospel truths, we actually limit the amount of knowledge and wisdom we can get: 

"Knowledge, if possessed for its own sake and unapplied, leaves one's life unadorned. A Church member, for instance might describe the Lord's doctrines but not qualify to enter the Lord's house. One could produce much brilliant commentary without being exemplary. One might be intellectually brilliant but Bohemian in behavior. One might use his knowledge to seek preeminence or dominion. Such are not Jesus' ways, for he asks that perception and implementation be part of the same spiritual process." (Neal A. Maxwell, The Inexhaustible Gospel)

Those who are brilliant but not obedient are missing out on precious truth and experiences. In the gospel so much of our knowledge can only be gained by obeying the commandments and by so doing learning for ourselves that they are true and right. We will really only understand the way the universe works if we have a relationship with our Savior and know that the entire purpose of all of God's creations is "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man" (Moses 1:39).

“Gaining knowledge and becoming more Christ-like ‘are two aspects of a single process.’ (Warner, Encyclopedia of Mormonism, vol. 4, p. 1490). This process is part of being ‘valiant’ in our testimony of Jesus. Thus, while we are saved no faster than we gain a certain type of knowledge, it is also the case, as Richard Bushman has observed, that we will gain knowledge no faster than we are saved (Teachings, p. 217). So we have a fundamentally different understanding of knowledge and truth—behaving and knowing are inseparably linked.

“So defined, the gospel is inexhaustible because there is not only so much to know, but also so much to become!” (Neal A. Maxwell, The Inexhaustible Gospel)

I love that last phrase. It's not just that there are a lot of facts to learn in the gospel. Our actions are part of our learning, and when we live the principles we have learned, we are then prepared to understand and live even more principles of the gospel. The potential is infinite when we couple what we know with how we behave.

On his Facebook page Elder Bednar recently said:

"In the scriptures, we are often taught about the principle of 'line upon line.' This principle is applicable in all facets of life. 

"When we attend church, do we expect to hear something new each time? The reality is that messages may be similar orally, but the Spirit will individually teach us in new ways. This is one reason why we should seek to always have His Spirit to be with us. It is up to us to hear with spiritual ears what is being said. Never discredit the central truths of the gospel simply because they are familiar or repeated often. 

"As we learn and apply the gospel in our lives, we will be strengthened to progress and overcome temptations. The world may grow more and more wicked, but our personal conversion will deepen and we will be able to press forward with faith in the Savior."

Once I read a blog post by a person who had lost her love of the scriptures. When she joined the church she devoured the scriptures and read through the standard works several times. But after reading them so many times she felt that she knew the stories very well and got bored, so she decided that the scriptures weren’t the only source of inspiration and took to replacing her scripture study with reading philosophy and other things she thought were inspiring. I felt confused by the post because I’ve read the Book of Mormon several times and I still learn from it every time. Then I realized based on her comments that she was mainly reading the scriptures on an intellectual level, and once she felt very familiar with the stories she wasn’t intellectually getting much out of them anymore. Don’t read the scriptures and the words of the prophet on just an intellectual level! Yes, we need to know the information, but as we apply it we become wise and are capable of learning even more because of our experiences. That’s why the gospel is “inexhaustible.” Even after we are very familiar with the scriptures, there is much to learn through the experience of applying the principles in the scriptures to our lives, and that experience changes as our circumstances change.

"Clearly, what we carry forward [to the world to come; see Doctrine and Covenants 130:18-19], brothers and sisters, involves developing our capacity for cognition as well as application. This sets us apart from the world . . . Certainly, what we will carry forward is more than what we now term as IQ or databases. It is the entire being of the individual." (Neal A. Maxwell, The Inexhaustible Gospel)

We know from Doctrine and Covenants 130:18-19 that it's important to seek knowledge and intelligence because what we learn will stay with us in the world to come and be an advantage. But based on the scriptures I think it's clear that here we're not just talking about facts. The only way our knowledge and intelligence will be an advantage to us in the Celestial Kingdom is if we have taken that knowledge and applied it to our behavior. Otherwise we won't be worthy to live there. But if our knowledge is coupled with application of that knowledge we will be prepared and worthy to be a part of the work of the Celestial Kingdom for all eternity. God's work is what makes knowledge worth having.

>>Gospel Learning Takes Time