There and Back Again: Week 32 Bye Bye Love! Bye Bye McConeghey Family!!!

Tomorrow my daughter, Autumn and her sweet husband, Aaron, and kids (Emmet and Taran) will be moving to Tennessee. Heavenly Father has been SO kind to give us this 6 month overlap so we can enjoy each other and strengthen our relationships and be so close (just a 2 hour drive!). We came up to help them pack, but they were pretty much super organized and just needed us to keep the boys busy. We will MISS them immensley!

As I played with the boys at the park I was soaking up every minute of pushing on the swings, throwing the ball, climbing, oooing and ahhing at their skills. I was also thinking, they are never going to remember this time,they are too young, but I hope they remember that we love them very very much!

Then I thought of our "Earth Life School". We ALSO do not remember moments of sitting on Heavenly Father's knee while he sang to us or working in a flower garden with Heavenly Mother or doing whatever we did up there. We have a veil over our minds for this blind test, BUT I do know that they love us very much. THAT fact has carried me through a lot. Just as we are relegated to video chat and phone with McConegheys again, we are still able to talk through prayer and our spiritual experiences with Heavenly Father. So the time spent loving each other is not for nothing. This small contact reminds us, we are loved.

We drove home from Iowa City and got back in time to attend a missionary fireside in Nauvoo about God's Plan of Happiness. Specifically how Zion fits into the great plan. It was WONDERFUL! Basically since the Fall of Adam and Eve, we have been separated from God (he's the glowing creation figure we're the gray figure). Jesus Christ provided the way to repent and be sanctified by his Atonement which will bring us back into God's presence. Establishing Zion will help us learn how to live in Heaven! One heart, one mind, no poor among them, everyone doing their best, everyone caring about each other. Not all the same,(look around at all the diversity of beauty and skill in God's creations...God is diverse) but all with the same intent...to be like Christ in thought and behavior. When we've learned that, we will be sanctified and able to withstand the presence of God again.

In OTHER news, last week we survived our first Tornado. We were driving from Carthage to Nauvoo for a choir rehearsal (I am accompanying the choir) and our phones and car went LOUDLY on Alert, "WARNING!!! Tornado is heading your way, go immediately to shelter. If you are in your car, get out and lay face down in a ditch!" It was raining hard and the wind was blowing, but it didn't seem dangerous. Elder Cullen said, "We're ten minutes away, let's get to the visitor's center where we can shelter in the basement. That sounded better than a ditch to me. I floored it and we got there in 5 minutes. By that time the wind was blowing SIDEWAYS and people from all over were running to the Visitor's Center, drenched and excited and scared. Down in the basement were guests, senior missionaries, and a bunch of young performing missionaries. That was a party...piano, guitar, ukele, card games, singing in glorious harmonies, the perfect place to wait out a storm. No one I know of got hurt. Many trees down, LOTS of clean up. It made me think again of life. There are dangerous storms in all of our lives that can physically and spiritually and emotionally harm us...lethally. HOWEVER we can shelter in Christ together...all ages, all ablilites, all walks of life and it can still be a party. Next time I shelter I'm bringing pizza! LOL I know God could have provided that too. tee hee Great Quote:" ‘I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise.’ (Doc. and Cov. 82:10.) He operates by law and not by arbitrariness or caprice.” (In Conference Report, Apr. 1930, p. 96.) Everyone is capable of all the promised blessings. Just follow the rules. Have a great week! Check your 72 hour kits.