Sunday, September 27, 2015

"I know this church is true"


This boy, still three months away from his third birthday, decided he wanted to get up in front of the entire congregation at church and tell them how he felt. David went up with him and Carter. Carter was super excited “Is this the Sunday we get to go up and talk?” he asked in the very beginning. When it was his turn, David helped him climb the stool. “Brothers and sisters,” he began. Then he turned to David, gave him a little shove and said “I do it mine self!” He turned back and said “Brothers and sisters, I know this church is true. Name of Jesus Christ. Amen” and he got down. So confident. He may very well be the youngest member of our congregation to get up and bear his testimony.
In our church, we get the opportunity to express our belief in Jesus Christ every month. For me, it really helps us all to see that we are not perfect. We all struggle with things. Sometimes we forget that. We look at everyone around us, dressed in nice clean clothes, with their hair and makeup done, and we think we’re the only one whose kid chose to wear mismatched socks and backwards pants. We think our son is the only one who snuck a marker into church and colored a mustache on his face. We think our kids are fighting talking the loudest. We do not realize that everyone around us is feeling the same. Everyone is feeling inadequate. We are all in need of the saving grace of Jesus Christ.
“The Church is not an automobile showroom—a place to put ourselves on display so that others can admire our spirituality, capacity, or prosperity. It is more like a service center, where vehicles in need of repair come for maintenance and rehabilitation.
“And are we not, all of us, in need of repair, maintenance, and rehabilitation? We come to church not to hide our problems but to heal them.”
-Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Saturday, September 26, 2015

101

Flashcards aren’t my thing. I want to encourage learning through experience, not memorization. Now that Carter is in school, I realize a lot of things we know – we know because of memorization. Like “Sight Words”, those are words he needs to have memorized.

Someone gave us a pack of flashcards a while back. They are sight words, shapes, and colors. They are pretty cool. Carter lays them all out and pretends they are playing football. They each represent a person in the game or in the stands. Today, I picked them up off the floor and decided to see what he knew. 101 out of 108! I was not prepared for that, since we have not really talked about sight words yet.


As usual, I am realizing he is ready for things, after he is already there. I guess that just means we won’t frustrate each other by trying things he’s not ready for.