Doing the dirty work!

Check out the amount of dishes on the counter. There's lots to be done! Craig was really nice to volunteer and help me out. Apparently in his family the guys do the dishes after mealtime. I am all for that, but I felt bad since these were like all the dishes we had piled up from the whole week. So we ended up doing them together before we headed off to the fireside with Jack R. Christiansen. It was there that we found out that President Hinckley passed away. It was a devastating moment. I just sat there and cried. But what a great life he lived. No regrets and he's with his wife now. I watched the news that night and it was crazy, because so many people were out crying and yet so many people were happy, becuase it was a rich life of no regrets. He gave his all and lived the life he knew he should, every step of the way. And now, he's with Heavenly Father. He's home meeting all the prophets that came before him and something tells me it's not the first time. As I have read the scriptures lately I have seen how the Lord works in mysterious ways and how those mysteries in the moment seem weird or foriegn, but when all is said and done, it works out like clockwork. He is amazing like that.

Today I was reading in Ether 4 and to be honest with you, I never really understood the whole book of Ether and where it came from, I always wondered why it was just thrown in there at the end, when it really took place long before Lehi came in 600 B.C. but i was talking to the history teacher at school today and she explained how it came before, yet Moroni's job was to abridge it and...and i thought, it is so rich in profesies about the latter-days, yet it was written long before 600 B.C. even and it mentions John the Revelator's name and just so many small, yet important details about the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and the Bible that it is mind boggling. I have just enjoyed my scripture study so much these last couple of weeks as i have searched for answers to my life's questions and it is essentially like what President Hinckley said, "Having a love affair with the scriptures." Loving them that much. I love to read the scriptures. Lately I feel like i felt when i was in the MTC and couldn't wake to wake up each morning to see what was going to happen in the BOM. I feel like that now. And now that i'm so close to the end and have traveled with these prophets through all of their afflictions and have been listening to "Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites" along side and everything is coming to life for me, I am that much more excited to study by topic when I get done this next month. I should be finished by mid February or sooner. I have enjoyed it. I haven't read the Book of Mormon all the way through in quite some time and I think it's good to just read and get the chronology and figure out who's who and what's going on and when. I'm grateful for time set aside to study.

This week my goal has been to be grateful. Well, it's Wed and i've written in my journal each night, fallen asleep in the process, but I am grateful for life. Though untelling at times, it is quite an adventure i would never give up for anything in a 1,ooo years. I am grateful for an understanding Father who loves me no matter what. That, in all of it means the most to me. Without that knowledge and the knowledge of a Savior who returns me to him, I couldn't do it. I don' t know how so many do do it.

When I first heard that President Hinckley died, i thought to myself, he is with my dad. He can say hi to him for me! Yet, the veil is so thin sometimes, that I can say Hi to him myself and if i feel closely, i know he's there saying hi back...and words aren't even needed to be exchanged, because thoughts are so powerful. It is dumbfounding, but so real. I know it's real. I know it's true! I just finished the conference ensign last night. How good it was to read from President Fauste. I know he knows Heavenly Father and i truly believe that men saw God back in the Bible days. That Joseph Smith saw Him in his day and that our Prophet, even Gordon B. Hinckley and President Faust and Thomas S. Monson saw and communed with him too. The heavens are not closed, but i believe more open now than ever.

What wonderful things to know! I am more than blessed!