This
Week in Review
This
week has definitely not turned out as planned—what a surprise—but it’s still been
rather successful. One of the goals we had set out was to do some landscaping
around our tree in the backyard. After the success of last week, and the cute “save
the tree” comments of Ben and Bekah, our hope was that weeding and mulching the
magnolia tree in the backyard would be just as easy. Unfortunately, as anyone
familiar with landscaping in Texas should know, with all the rain we’ve
received this past week, a colony of ants decided to set up shop around our
tree. This has complicated the process, since now we need to drive the ants out
first. We’ll keep you updated.
We
also volunteered this week to substitute teach for Benjamin’s Sunbeams class.
Jennifer has been working on developing crafts for the kids, while Robert gets
to work on the lesson.
Our
biggest success this week has been Jennifer’s expedition on Friday to JC Penney
for pictures. Benjamin tried really hard to keep Zachary happy and got some
great pictures. Rebekah Mae was her typically beautiful self. And Zachary did
his best to be as cute as possible. Make sure to stay tuned for more picture
updates.
Our
Cute Kids
With
all the rain we had this week; it was quite a task to keep the kids occupied. We tend to collect large boxes from all of
our Amazon deliveries and Ben and Bekah Mae tend to enjoy playing in them. This week we decided to turn them into
houses. Ben did a lot of the decorating
for his house. He wanted it to look like
ours and so he drew bricks and really wanted to color the ceiling white. Bekah mostly just dictated what she wanted
so, she got flowers and hearts and even a rainstorm drawn on one side, but
while I was helping on the outside Bekah did a lot of decorating in the
interior.
While
we were getting pictures done, the photographer offered Ben and Bekah a couple
of chocolate kisses if they would take good pictures. They did and I opened one for Bekah and she
happily ate it, then looked up at me and asked if she could have some more
castles. We bought a bag of them so she
could have some more.
Bekah
has become a big fan of Minnie Mouse over the last several months and due to
this new interest we’ve accumulated various Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
episodes. One of these is “Minnierella.” From the first time we watched it, she has
been Minnierella and Ben has been Prince Mickey. They have a little dance number in the show
Ben and Bekah enjoy singing the song and dancing to it.
Thought
This
week our Family Home Evening was on Agency and how it is a very special gift
from our Heavenly Father. Whenever I
think about agency, I am always reminded of the war in Heaven to get it. It reminds me of how important it was to
Heavenly Father for us to have the freedom to choose. In the scriptures we learn that one-third of
the hosts of heaven fought against the Father’s plan and in the end they were
sent away from the Father’s presence. I
can’t imagine how it must have hurt our Father in Heaven to lose even one of
his children, but one-third of all of them had to be devastating, but He did it
because He knew it was the only way to allow everyone else to fulfill their
destiny to become like Him.
I
can’t even imagine how much it must break the heart of our Father in Heaven
when we use this gift of agency to go against the Father’s plan. Our scripture reading this week has led us to
the people of Zeniff who left Zarahemla to reclaim their lands that had been
taken over by the Lamanites. Though a
righteous man, Zeniff admits that his pride led him to make treaty with the
king of the Lamanites that began their descent into bondage. They then spent the reminder of his life in
battles with the Lamanites to keep their independence. Zeniff appointed his son, Noah, to be king
and as it states that he did not follow after the ways of the Lord. In a matter of not many years, King Noah led
the people into to sin. This resulted in
the death of Abinadi, chasing off Alma the Elder and his people and eventually
significant deaths as the people tried to free themselves from the ever
worsening bondage of the Lamanites. In
the end, it was only the people being humbled through their trials and
repenting and then asking from help from the Lord that allowed their freedom.
To
us, the lesson from this how the decisions of one person can have so great an
effect on not just their own life, but on the lives of all those around
them. I wonder if we realize the impact
that our actions have on others. We
watch how Ben and Bekah copy what we do, mostly it’s pretty cute, but sometimes
it reminds of that we need to be careful about what we do and say in front of
them. We want to always be a good
example to them. We want the decisions
that we make to help them to learn to choose the right. It’s easy to get upset or disillusioned when
things don’t go how we hope they will and to take the advice of Job’s friends
who encouraged him to curse God and die, but like Job we want our kids to know
that we know that our Redeemer lives and no matter what trials we face in this
life, we will do everything we can to follow Him and be more like Him.
So,
I guess my thoughts on agency conclude with some of the things that King Mosiah
taught his people as he chose to appoint Judges verses Kings to rule in his
stead. “For behold, how much iniquity
doth one wicked king cause to be committed, yea, and what great destruction!” ~
Mosiah 29:17 ~
So,
remember that our actions impact more than just us and that impact can
influence the lives of those most important to us for generations.