This
Week in Review
This
week, we looked forward to a visit from Nana and some of our cousins. We had a play date with Clara, Baby Bradford
and Henry on Wednesday. It was fun to
watch Bekah and Clara play together with the dolls.
The
4th of July was busy. We made
a trip down to Bryan to visit with Grandma.
We had a great lunch and spent some quality time with family. We came back home that afternoon to get ready
for to see a fireworks show with one of Robert’s home teaching families. About 15 minutes before we were planning to
leave, it started raining, a lot, but the fireworks went on and the kids
absolutely loved them, even Zachary handled them pretty well.
Saturday
we made a fun discovery. The tree in the
front yard that we worked so hard to save a few weeks ago is now the home to a
bird family. I can’t say that it was our
save the tree efforts that brought them there, but maybe it helped. We put out some birdseed and hope that we’ll
be able to watch them for awhile.
Our
Cute Kids
So,
I was pretty worried about how the kids would handle the fireworks, they acted
excited, but I had memories of my little brothers screaming through fireworks
shows when they were younger. Not so
with these kids. Zachary was the most
apprehensive, so I covered his ears, but he seemed to enjoy the colors. Ben and Bekah were in awe. Ben clapped and cheered. His favorite color was the blue ones. Bekah had the biggest smile on her face and
kept asking to make sure that I was seeing them too. I guess it means that we’ll have to make sure
that we make it to more shows in the future.
Ben
has enjoyed playing one of the Lego Batman games and so last night we watched
the movie. Ben was so excited, but did
have to run out of the room when the Batmobile got destroyed saying that he
couldn’t watch.
Thought
We
have continued to learn about Abinadi this week and his teachings to King
Noah. For Family Home Evening we told a
simple version of the story, so the kids would understand just a little bit
about we were reading this week for scripture time. I think their favorite part was the Gospel
Art picture of Abinadi in King Noah’s court.
We heard a lot about the animals.
As
I was getting everything thing prepared for Family Home Evening, I saw this
message on the Church the website. Maybe
since I was already thinking about Abinadi and his willingness to make the
ultimate sacrifice for his witness of Jesus Christ, this thought really stuck
with me.
How
often do we give up on something because it’s simply too hard, while fighting
for things that don’t really matter? The
most important things that we have are the things that we can take with us into
eternity. First, I think of my
family. I would do anything and
sacrifice anything to guarantee that we can have a shot at eternity. That is why we try through the occasional kicking
and screaming and other various types of protests to have a meaningful Family
Home Evening Lesson and scripture time, making sure that we say prayers and going
to Church even when we know we’ll be so busy trying to keep the kids quiet and
occupied that we won’t even hear the speakers.
It’s why we willingly sacrifice the things we want to do in order to
maximize the time we spend with our kids.
We do these things not because they are always fun, but because in the
end, the example that we set for our children and the opportunity to help them
build a strong testimony of the gospel are more valuable than so many other
options for how to spend our time.
There
is of course growing our own testimony, so it’s important to ask what we are doing
for ourselves. Do we make the time to
truly communicate with our Father in Heaven, to seek His guidance and then
listen for His answers? Do we make
temple attendance a priority? Are we
willing to serve? I must admit in some
of these areas, I’m not as good as in others, but the point is that we have to
keep trying. We are not asked to run
faster than we are able, simply to run.
We should seek to continually improve and press forward in faith,
knowing that we will have Heavenly aid if we seek it.
One
of the lessons we work to learn in this life is where our priorities lie. If we focus on eternity and are willing to
sacrifice some of the rest, than we are working on the things that will mean
the most.