World Wide Fast and Heaven on Earth

Today as a country we finished President Trums 15 days to stop the spread.  In his daily press conference, he extended the program for another 30 days.  Our governer put us on quarentine a week ago.  Through all of this, I have been enjoying being home so much with my kids.  Home has truly been a refuge from the storm for us.  I love that all my kids are home and we are all together as a family.  I feel like I am finally free from distractions and can focus on my own family and our homeschool.  We have been following our simple schedule and it is working great.  We make and eat great meals together and my favorite part of the day is our family devotionals.  Every day at 10:00 we gather together, sing our favorite primary songs, study Come Follow Me, and then something schooly like a read aloud.  I find that when I share what is mine, I have a lot to teach them.  We watch videos on YouTube a lot as well. We have been learning the Prophets and Apostles song with hand motions and it has been so cute to watch the kids sing it.  Luke especially likes to sing it.  Our Primary Chorister send us some beautiful newer songs that we love to sing every day called Believe and I will Be What I Believe.  I love how strong we can feel the spirit when we sing. If worry a lot about the future of this world, but feel a great sense of peace at the same time.

Today was fast and testimony meeting at home.  The boys prepared and passed the sacrament to us and we had a full meeting.  Everyone shared their testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was powerful. We also watched a Marco Polo of Lori and Larry sharing their testimony.  Then we knelt and Peter rededicated our home to the Lord.  Then we played a primary game with songs.  Our prophet asked us to join in a world wide day of fast and prayer.  We started our fast last night at 5:00 and went to 5:00 today.  We prayed many times for peace, comfort, guidance and relief in the world.  Peter and Eden requested our favorite German Apple Pancakes for dinner so I prepared that and everyone happily broke their fast with that yummy dinner.

I have been particulary focused on strengthening my relationship with the Lord during the last few weeks.  My spirit has yearned for more time at home and free from distraction.  I have been living in a state of overwhelm for so long that I felt like I was fighting chronic depression all the time.   I felt like I was going crazy.  As I began to focus on prayer and scriptures and listening to the spirit. About that time the world turned upside down and suddently my calendar went from too full to empty.  For me it was a dream come true, but in a very strange way.  I have continued to strengthen the spiritual side with the goal of having a very personal relationship with my Heavenly Father.  My mental health is so much better., all better really.  I hope I never again get so overwhelmed that it is so hard to funtion on a basic level.  The peace that comes from following the Savior and living the Gospel is overwhelming during this time of uncertainty.  I keep thinking of the song, "Home Can Be a Heaven on Earth."  Boy, it sure feels like it right now.

Having home church and daily devotional time has really helped Logan. He went from barely being in the room to being present with us most of the time.  He likes to be with us.  The other day we were watching a little video about the Allegory of the Olive Tree and Logan was having a hard time sitting still so I sat him facing me on my lap and rocked him and rubbed his back while we watched.  I stopped rubbing his back for a second and he said, "Keep doing that, you have magic hands!"  I sure did.

We are reading the book Gifted Hands about Ben Carson.  I chose this book because it tells about how he raised himself out of poverty by reading lots of books.  I am planning to move this into a challenge similar to what Ben's mom gave him which was to read a book a week and write 2 reports about what they learned about. I will roll that out this week. We are also listening to The Swiss Family Robinson on the house intercom system at nights together. 

Tonight I called all the family to the living room to write in our journals together.  The kids are writing great things about Covid19.  I hope to make this a weekly tradition.

We assigned the kids jurisdictions on the house a few weeks ago. They are in charge of one area all the time and keeping it in working order.  Tanner has dishes, Carter has the laundry, Eden the tables and counters, dalling the floors, lily the bathrooms.  It is going well and helping things to stay somewhat in order around here.  It still gets pretty backed up with so much happening at home all the time but it is getting better.  

Now that we have been given another month of staying home, I hope to work on one small section of the house each day organizing.  I look forward to having all the time to do it.  We are starting up our HGC homeschool classes again this week. That means the kids will be back to doing homework and I will be preparing for teaching Dallin's Quest class again, which takes a lot of time as well.  Amazing how busy life is.

Having baby Miriam in our home is the best.  She is a magical cherub.  Everyone loves her and she makes everyone happy.  In my opinion, everyone should have a baby to play with while quarentined, it is the best!

Before Carona Virus:

After Carona Virus:

 

Eden Made Cute St. Patrick cupcakes:

 Lily leading a Primary Singing time activity:

 Video messaging with my silly family:

Corona, gardening, and personal revelation

I have been feeling a need to get back to journaling.  This seems like a good place to wipe off the dust and get my thoughts and experiences. Right now we are living in an unprecidented time.  For me personally, despite the scary circumstances in our world, I am sitting in my little world within my home and feeling so content.  The Corona virus started making the news a couple of months ago and as time has gone by and every country and state has been infiltrated we began a "war" to fight this unseen enemy.  My heart is heavy for the elderly who are most vulnerable and for those who are not able to work because everyone is on lock down.  Peter is fortunate because construction is permitted to continue, however things do seem to be slowing a little. My calendar has gone from overwhelmingly full to completely empty.  As a mother, this is what I have been craving for quite some time.  I just haven't had the guts to make the big change.  No dance, no music class, dr. appointments, and on and on and on and on.

Being home has been bliss.  I love having all my chicks gathered and all to myself.  I have been feeling selfish with my family as I feel my older children slowly slipping away from childhood and toward adulthood.  I want to savor these next couple of years.  The timing of this "Shelter at Home" seems to just fine to me.  It is my silver lining during this unsure and scary time in the world. President Nelson has put out a video that said that this will pass.  I have faith that it will and that everything will be okay. 

4 days ago we decided to pull the trigger on building our dream garden on the north side of our yard.  This is a rather large area that we have never put to any use.  It is a hill and has mostly been home to overgrown blackberries or a favorite grassy area for the dog to do his business on. 

First of all, we rented a rotatiller and tilled the ground and dug and dug until our hill was flat on top.  We made 2 huge piles of dirt off to the side.  Peter and I and our older 5 kids worked hard to till and dig and dig some more.  We had to shape the little hill out a little farther to make enough room for everything.  Then we built 4 large 4x12 boxes that were 12 inches high. We also had a old 4x4 box that we will use for strawberries and in the very corner of we have loose soil for a pumpkin patch. After laying weed clothe we filled the boxes half full each with the left over dirt from all the digging.  We then purchased 5 yards of topsoil and finished filling the boxes.  That was so much work to wheel the dirt push it up the little hill and dump it. We sprinkles some fertilizer on top to make it healthy for growing.  My upper body is so sore!  Today we purchased pea gravel and Peter and the kids spread that all around the garden. Carter and I made square foot grids on the large boxes with nylon string and a staple gun. Peter and Dallin got started on making a fence to keep the dog and little ones out.  They are hoping to finish it tomorrow so that we can plant. 

Everyone has been involved in this huge untertaking.  It has been hard work and a good family project.  It has also kept us busy and happy.  The kids are so eager to get to planting.  They are all feeling a great amount of pride and ownership.

I lost Peter's new work truck keys, or so I thought.  I had driven his truck home yesterday when we borrowed a friend's truck for moving dirt.  Out of habit I put the keys on the piano.  A while later, I realized I had set them there and moved them to the hook next to the front door so that Peter would easily find them.  I didn't think about it much after that until Peter needed to go to work this morning. They were gone gone gone.  We scoured the house and Peter put out a 5 dollar reward to recruit the kid's help.  After a while we said a prayer and continued the search.  I started to feel that I wasn't listening for an answer.  I went into the garage to see if I could find them and took the opportunity to pray again.  This time I kept praying and LISTENING, instead of moving on.  I instantly felt the warmth of the Holy Ghost enter my heart.  I went through every room in my mind and felt a stuper of thought each time.  Then the thought came to check the cars.  I thought Peter had done that, but immediatly stopped praying and went outside.  I first checked the truck that we had borrowed and our gray van that I was sure we hadn't driven in a couple of days.  Then I realized the work truck that had missing keys had been moved to the street parking along with Dallin's car to make room for the truck full of dirt.  I immediatley knew that someone had taken the keys from the hook and used them to move that truck.  I walked toward the cars and looked into Dallin's car.  Sure enough, Peter's keys were sitting right there in the cup holder.  Dallin had used them to move Peter's truck and then moved his car, leaving the truck keys there.  What a powerful lesson in seeking answers to prayer.  I have been praying more diligently and reading the scriptures more lately.  I have been seeking to keep the spirit with me and learning to listen to promptings.  That warm feeling is so real and so comforting.  that stupor of thought is also real and a powerful tool.

At the start of this year, Peter and I expressed a desire to begin traveling more as a family.  I came up with a whole page of options and full intentions to do many of them.  Each time we talked about a trip, we couldn't come to any decisions.  It just never felt right.  I became very frustrated that I could just set some dates or begin the process of planning anything at all.  Not even a small trip.  Well, here we are 3 months later and the whole world is shut down.  There is no flying or even driving anywhere unless necessary.  We never could have imagined that we would be having such a strange time.  One for the history books.  This was a powerful lesson to me of a stupor of thought.  What a blessing.

This also happened last week.  I started feeling anxious for the kids to have a schedule, being home all the time now.  Every time I sat down to create one, I drew a complete blank.  It was so weird.  I even sat down with a blank page and absolutely nothing came.  I finally realized that the spirit was teaching me to just be.  Life is organic, and more enjoyable and full of creative learning just as we were.  It wasn't until this reminder came that I was finally able to receive somewhat of a "schedule" It turned out to really be more of a core phase habit training schedule, with most of the day unscheduled.  What a gift! It is so freeing.