May I? Oh, thank you, you’re too kind.

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Happy Birthday Ephraim!

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? 3 “little old ladies” according to my Mom.
 
2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? Thursday evening

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? Most of the time
 
4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT? Brown Sugar Ham
 
5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS? No baby goats here  ;^)  6 children

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?  This is one of those paradoxical Star Trek situations, because if I’m someone else then there is no “me”, right? If the other me wasn’t disdainful of home education, larger families, dry humor, and was open to intelligent discussions, playing board/card/video games and generally respectful of humanity, the other me might want to get to know the real me. The real me has never had oodles of friends though, so odds are we’d just be pleasant acquaintances. 

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Emma Catharine was invited to give a talk in Primary today. She wrote her talk and I typed it up for her. On the way up to the front of the room, Elena cried out some encouragement for her big sister “You can do it Emma!”

There was a boy named James who wanted a Sandy Andy toy.

And his parents wanted to give him a ring to remember them and love them.

And when James got older, the Sandy Andy toy was broken.

He should have taken the ring to remember them.

James felt sad and he wished he was still a kid to pick the ring instead of the Sandy Andy.     

Anya is three months old today!!!

I have prepared a slideshow for the occasion, with pictures ranging from today back to her blessing in July. Frustratingly, the code to embed the slide show isn’t working for me yet, so I have to send you to the source. My apologies for the inconvenience.

Enjoy All Anya, All the Time, I know we do!

Upon turning 30 I had set out to write down 30 things I’d learned over the past 30 years.  This fell by the wayside with illness and chidbirth and general procrastination.

1-A child can cause a mother a great amount of pain, sometimes without even trying.

2-You can’t continue to feed off another person if you’re moving forward in other ways.

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And he openly shared with us many of his failures that we might learn and grow from them as well.

James Esdras Faust, second counselor to Gordon B. Hinckley in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, died very early this morning according to the Salt Lake Tribune. He was 87 years old. (more…)

BiV called me out this weekend and I must give the matter some attention, especially since I have no business asserting that I’m any more occupied than someone packing for an (as the crow flies) 12,396 km journey. My assignment?

Here are the rules:

So not only do I get to go back to the affirmative debating days of my youth, I can take this time to do my very own ranting talk-radio imitation! Excuse me while I pull out my special bombastic keyboard…

I had a few potential topics swirling around in my head as I pondered this meme. One of them is the power of dialogue, how clear communication goes a long way towards solving any problem.  I feel strongly that a woman should be able to breastfeed her baby whenever/wherever that may be. These will take their turns later.

Right now what I’m going to talk about my love for the 11th Article of Faith of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It reads:

 We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.

I’m passionate about preserving religious freedoms. Every one should understand the importance of protecting this right just as much as we safeguard freedom of speech. In particular, every LDS person who accepts the Articles of Faith as truth should defend the religious freedoms of all people. We should not deny this freedom to those “outside God’s true church” , theists and nontheists alike.

This defense must include extending the kind of respect we wish to receive for ourselves. Sadly, this not always the case. LDS Apostles have publicly rebuked Church members for unChristian behavior, and we should heed their words. Would that kind of a General Conference was completely unnecessary. But as examples pour in to Church HQ (eg, ripping another’s cross necklace off, telling a Catholic that s/he belongs to the Church of the Devil) we will continue to receive that correction. Shunning others who believe differently is something many Church members need to repent of as well.

These behaviors go against the very liberty that made the Restoration possible–so many people just don’t get it. All too often I see things that look like this garbage:

“It is said that 86% of Americans believe in God. Why don’t we just tell the 14% to Sit Down and SHUT UP!!!”

This horrifies me. If you agree with this sentiment you really really don’t get it. Democracy is not served by the trampling of minority rights. What if the numbers were reversed–would not those Americans who believe in God feel oppressed and persecuted? In fact there are many countries where such silencing is standard operating procedure. Do not our hearts ache, longing for them to practice religion as they please? Why then would we treat nontheists in this outrageous way?

If we will secure religious freedom for all, no matter what they do/don’t believe, we will serve our fellow men & women, and by doing so serve God’s purposes for His kingdom. We can claim this privilege for ourselves, just as Joseph Smith wrote. We need to put our actions where our mouths are, practice what we’ve been taught.

Our land of liberty must prolong the sound of freedom’s sweet song so it will ring true and clear so that other nations may follow. Our defense of religious freedom will make our nation to be as one set upon a hill, full of light that the world can see. Let us do all we can to stop anyone, including ourselves, from extinguishing that light.

Update–here’s a bumper sticker my husband saw that goes towards this:

Heath the Thesaurus stopped by today. We had a nice conversation.

We talked about ten small words, a great TV show, some of our favorite songs and video clips, oh, we went on and on and on.

We also talked about life in general, mine in specific. (more…)