Mom and Dad,
I just wanted to say "Thank You" for the lessons you have taught me. Without your steady example of right living I would not be the person, or the mother, I am today.
You might look at the choices I have made in my life and wonder how my life has led me where I am, but most of the major decisions that have brought me to this point in my life are a direct result of either your counsel or your example. Here are a few examples:
~I married my best friend.
~Each Sunday our family attends church.
~We read scriptures together as a family, and the kids all have habits of personal prayer and scripture study.
~I believe it is my responsibility to care for my own children and be home when they are.
~I support them in developing the talents they desire.
~I am involved in their education.
~I know without a doubt that children come from heaven and God has a hand in our family composition (large or small).
~Moms can "have it all" (job, spending money, travel, new cars, etc,) but they can't have it all NOW- there will be opportunities for anything I want or need if I put first things first and nurture my children when they still need me full-time.
~We moved to Snowflake.
~Big families might be hard sometimes, but they also have their advantages.
I am sure there are many more that I will think of, but I hope you see what I am seeing. The lessons I needed to know so that I could be where I am - doing what I do - were instilled in me day by day. I don't even blink when someone comments on my family size. Its a piece of cake having a big family where we are now compared to living in Las Vegas in the 1980s.
During conference yesterday I was taken back that Elder Nelson would say, "Seldom in the future will it be easy or popular to be a faithful Latter-day Saint." As I have thought about this more today, I realize that its like anything else. If you already know what to do, the decision is easy. We do what we do because we are who we are. It wasn't easy or popular for you to live with the choices you made in your family. I know that the future will be challenging for my family as well. I don't know the trials we will have to face individually, or as a family before the world settles into the place it is intended to become. I just know that my safety is in keeping the commandments of God and teaching my children to do the same.
As I have pondered my life mission and the influences that have led me to it, I realize that right now the most important thing I can do is to teach my children and prepare them for their place in the world, not knowing the world they will be asked to live in. I welcome all the children to my family the Lord chooses to send because He knows me, and He knows them. I teach my children at home because there isn't time in the periphery of the day for me to instill the examples of faith and family love that I feel so urgent about. My life isn't perfect, but I have faith that it is perfect for me. My trials are refining me into a person with more compassion, humility, and faith than I could have known otherwise. On the other hand, my family provides a continuous source of joy beyond what I knew was possible.
I love you. I know the Lord will continue to bless you on your mission.
By the way, in case you haven't read the previous blog posts yet (I never told anyone I was writing one) we are expecting an addition to our family in October. I am so excited!
