Letter - Faith takes work

Friday, April 17, 2015

Happy Friday afternoon!  I hope you are happy.  I am.  I am looking forward to going out with Chad tonight.  We had hoped to get a group together to go to dinner and then to go bowling, but since I didn’t think about it until today everyone I’ve invited already has plans so I gave up trying to get a group.  Oh well, Chad and I do know how to have fun on our own so I am still happy.

The last two and a half weeks have been good.  Some of the highlights include:

·         Art (Grandpa Sanders) coming over for FHE

·         Spencer’s Soccer games

·         Chad’s Football games

·         Bryant’s and Chad’s basketball games

Playing at the park while Bryant's team practiced

·         Chad and my volleyball nights at the church

·         Chad’s work Christmas party - Yes it was WAY late, but I loved having it in April when life isn’t as busy as it is in December.  We went to a culinary restaurant/kitchen in Scottsdale that hosts groups who would like to come make their own dinner.  It was actually very fun.  I learned some good tips.

·         Swimming for the first time this year.

·         Conference and our conference store.  The kids seriously love the conference store so much and can’t wait for conference weekend.

While Chad and Spencer were at Priesthood we went to dinner at to walk around the Gilbert Temple.

Sometimes during general conference I put make up on the girls.  They love it,

·         Easter - Dying eggs, hunting eggs, new swim suits in the kids’ Easter Baskets, Easter Dinner at Jennie and Trever’s house.  The knowledge that death has been overcome and is not the end.

Instead of Easter dresses my girls wanted Easter boots.

·         Friends night – We ended up with about 20 kids.  They gobbled up 9 large pizzas!

Marlee and Katie

Karalee and Cambree

Lots of boys playing basketball

The carnage

chaperons 

Nash, Marlee, Katie and Tilly

·         Volunteering at the Special Olympics with our young women – This was a wonderful activity.  Our young women LOVED it.  I ended up meeting Chy Johnson.  As I was helping her get to her event and I started visiting with her and asked her what her name was.  She said “Chy”.  I said, “Chy Johnson?”  She said “yes”.   Then I said, “I know you!”  She was really cute.  She did well in softball throw.

·         Deserie, Heather, Hayley and Annalyn coming home to visit for a few weeks.

·         Witnessing Heather’s ultra sound to find out the gender of her baby.  She’s having a boy.

·         Doing family name sealings with Brenda, Deserie and Hayley in the Gilbert temple.

·         Mine and Chad’s Sanders family birthday dinner.

·         Annalyn getting engaged to Tyler Keith and knowing it was going to happen before she did!! (That’s the perks of having a good jeweler in your ward.  Ha ha.)

·         Spencer’s choir concert

I found Kayla's dopelganger!  The blond girl on the top row with her hair in a high pony, glasses and a plaid shirt.  Do you think it looks like Kayla?

·         Tilly’s first dentist visit.  Marlee had a visit too.  Neither of them had any cavities.  Hooray.

·         Grammy Days swim party

·         Lunch with Jennie, Hayley and Heather and kids

My last letter I shared my testimony and mentioned how general conference really helped me.  One of the things it really helped me with was to hear Sis. Wixom’s talk Returning to Faith.  Over the last few months I felt like my faith has been week.  It all started with a post one of my cousins made on Facebook. Then one of my other cousins who has left the church and is anti-Christ now, made several negative comments.  The comments kept going on and on and when I felt that they were affecting me I quit reading his comments.  But his comments that I had already read started making me to look at things skeptically.  I didn’t lose my testimony of the church, but instead of faith coming so easily to me like it has my whole life I had doubts.  I had to work a little harder and pray more fervently.  Scripture study was an anchor for me.  Going to church where I could have my faith renewed was a balm to my soul.  It’s not like I haven’t heard negative things about the church before, but for some reason this time it really had a bad effect on me.  It really scared me.  I didn’t tell anyone.  Not even Chad and I tell Chad everything.  I have prayed and prayed for my faith to be strengthened.  Sis. Wixom’s talk did that for me.  The night after she gave her talk I told Chad about how her talk helped me and how I had been struggling.  Telling Chad about it really helped me.  I realized that it was Satan who wanted me to be afraid to talk about it with anyone.  One of his tools is to make people feel afraid and all alone.  We don’t have to be afraid or alone!!  I am glad I didn’t pull away from the church and from the simple things that build faith, i.e., prayer, scriptures and church attendance, when I was struggling.  If I would have abandoned those things it would have been like jumping off a ship during a storm and my doubts and skepticism could have taken deeper roots.  I feel more like my old self now.  Doubts have been replaced by faith.  I have come to realized that there will be times when faith might take more work than it normally does. 

My quote for today is from Elder Ballard’s talk Stay in the Boat and hold On.  “President Brigham Young commonly employed ‘the Old Ship Zion’ as a metaphor for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  He said on one occasion: ‘We are in the midst of the ocean. A storm comes on, and, as sailors say, she labors very hard. ‘I am not going to stay here,’ says one; ‘I don’t believe this is the “Ship Zion.”’ ‘But we are in the midst of the ocean.’ ‘I don’t care, I am not going to stay here.’ Off goes the coat, and he jumps overboard. Will he not be drowned? Yes. So with those who leave this Church. It is the ‘Old Ship Zion,’ let us stay in it.’”

Love,

Mindy

Here are some misc pictures: