Friday Letters

Dear Children, another week full of gymnastics, cheer, ballet, basketball, scouts, mutual, appointments, homework and on and on. We all need a break. Dear Parenting, you are hard. I have a rough time knowing what consequences are most effective for so many different personalities and different offenses. Kids keep you busy and thinking and praying and worrying. They also make you mad and sad and frustrated and humble, but happy. Dear Ranell, I hope you had the best Birthday. I hate not getting to be with you to celebrate. I am missing everyone's b-day lunches;( You should feel very good about all that you have accomplished in the last year. I admire you. I Love You Sis! Happy Birthday! Dear 2015, so far I am not a fan. Dear Will, it's your long stretch of closing everyday. Although I am sure it is more fun to be at work than a house full of kids at times. Dear Self, sometimes life is just really hard and I would like to be able to turn off my heart for awhile. That is not a talent that I have. Trying to make my brain remember things and be able to be tested on them is also not a talent that I have. I am really bad at timed tests cause...I run out of time. I would like to turn my brain and heart off for awhile and take a nap. Naps are special. And that is the kind of week I have had.

“Petitioning in prayer has taught me, again and again, that the vault of heaven with all its blessings is to be opened only by a combination lock.

 One tumbler falls when there is faith, a second when there is personal righteousness; and the third and final tumbler falls only when what is sought is, in God’s judgment – not ours – right for us.

Sometimes we pound on the vault door for something we want very much and wonder why the door does not open. We would be very spoiled children if that vault door opened any more easily than it does.

 I can tell, looking back, that God truly loves me by inventorying the petitions He has refused to grant me. Our rejected petitions tell us much about ourselves but also much about our flawless Father”

Elder Neal A. Maxwell