Jace - the budding author

So, Zachary, Andrew, and Abby were writing "books" in school today.  We cut out little pages (1/4 sheet of paper), they wrote and illustrated each page, and then we put covers on them and stapled them together.  Jace got home from seminary and decided to join in.  Here's his book.  (Make sure you read his back cover summary). 

The Dragon's Puppy
By Jace

Once upon a time there was a dragon
It was a mean dragon (dragon illustration)

The dragon ate men and frogs and cats and other dragons
cuz it was the biggest dragon.

Anyway, the dragon had the smallpox but that doesn't matter
cuz he can't die.

He also had malaria and a puppy.
His puppy was brown and had blue eyes.

One day the dragon was eating another dragon.
The other dragon coughed in his face so he got the
plague, but that doesn't matter cuz he can't die, remember?

CHAPTER 2 THE CASTLE (castle illustration)
The castle bugged the big dragon so he decided to destroy it.

He flowed to the castle and torched it.

CHAPTER 3 THE LIGHTNING (Lightning illustration)
The dragon was eating a lot of men and their frogs
and he got hit by lightning.

He was mad so he went and killed Zeus.

The End

(Back Cover Summary)
The dragon and his faithful puppy undertake a heroic journey to free the men and frogs and cats and other dragons from the tyranny of the evil God Zeus.  To do this they must destroy the evil castle that is ruled by Zeus' minion,  Apollo, God of horror.  During the battle the puppy is separated from the dragon.  
Will the dragon be able to find his puppy in time, or will he have to face Zeus alone?

Julie B. Beck

Recently I had the privilege of attending a meeting at BYU-Idaho where the general RS president, Julie B. Beck, spoke.  My testimony was strengthened, and I came away from that meeting wanting to study my scriptures more.  Sister Beck is a real scholar of the scriptures.  She took questions from members of the 10,000 women in the audience, and answered them using the scriptures.  She'd say "the answer is in..." and then go right to where the answer was in the scriptures (in all 4 of the standard works).  I want to be able to do that.

I wish her whole talk/presentation was available to read.  But here are some excerpts from it:
http://lds.org/church/news/relief-society-a-call-to-minister?lang=eng

Afterwards, some of my wonderful friends and I went out to lunch at Original Thai restaurant.  Yum!
I am so blessed to know and be friends with such amazing women.  I absolutely love them.

Worry

Sorry for this long post.  I've got to get my feelings down.  And I hope some of you will have words of wisdom for me.

Lately I feel just literally sick with worry about my children.  I’ve always kind of felt that if I did my very best to teach them, they would all turn out all right, and make good choices, and life would be great. 

I’ve always known about agency, but suddenly I’ve realized…my children are going to make some wrong choices.  I don’t want them to!  I want to teach them to be righteous, intelligent, kind, thoughtful, wise, obedient, clean, respectful, etc. etc.….and then have them be that way all the time.  But it has hit me this week that it can’t be that way.  They are going to make some mistakes (gasp!) and I’m having a really hard time with this realization in my life. 

I feel like this has suddenly taken some of the joy out of parenting, and I feel like I’m going to have to worry daily until every one of my children is married in the temple.  Probably even then I’ll worry…and then I’ll have grandchildren to worry about also!

Seeing how evil the world is around my children is the main cause of this worry.  I just feel so scared about the very serious temptations that are going to surround my children.  I feel like they are walking on a narrow path with sheer cliffs on either side.  One wrong step, and they could be lost spiritually. 

It doesn’t help that we’ve recently received several wedding announcements from kids who come from great LDS families, who have strong parents, and they aren’t getting married in the temple.   Looking at the engagement pictures (one with the bride to be in fishnet nylons and leather boots), and knowing the stories behind these wedding announcements is so saddening and confusing to me.  They knew better, and they still made wrong choices.

There are other little things that make me worry.  Watching my oldest children with their friends, for instance.  My kids have great friends, and my kids are good kids, but sometimes they say or do dumb things.  When I see this, I think “you know better!”  and then I panic, thinking “what if they make dumb choices with the really important things that they know they should do?” 

Suddenly their immaturity seems so scary.  When I realize that some of my older children always forget to close their eyes during prayers, I'm scared that they don’t understand how important prayer is, or that they don’t really think about who they are praying to.  When I have to remind my daughter multiple times that her skirt is too short, or her shirt is too tight, I see that she really doesn’t understand the hows and whys of being modest.  And I want her to really get it.  And I know she will, with more maturity.

When my children were younger, I sometimes would get really worried about their physical safety.  I specifically remember worrying about Jace.  He was the sweetest, most angelic baby you could ask for, and I remember thinking that he was so perfect, and worrying “what if he died?” It scared me so much.  It didn’t help that in a couple of months, he was lost multiple times, was almost strangled, and almost drowned.  I was at my wits end. 

While I still am concerned for my children’s physical safety, my concern for their spiritual safety is so much greater. 

I know that living with constant worry and fear is not the way we are supposed to live.  We have to live with joy.  But I’m just not sure how to do that right now.  I know I will not be able to stand it if one of my children is ever lost spiritually.  I would love to hear comments from people who’ve learned how to live with joy while still being aware of the dangers surrounding our children.

One positive effect of all this worry is that I’ve become much more compassionate for parents whose children have gone astray.  I think in the past, I’ve occasionally been tempted to judge some of these parents, but with this shift in my thinking, now I can imagine how heart wrenching and humbling and agonizing it must be to have children make bad choices.  My heart aches for those parents.

I’ve been trying to look up scriptures about hope and joy, but even those haven’t helped to comfort me much because they all talk about how joy and hope comes through Christ, and through the gospel, and then I think “what if my children choose things that take them away from the gospel?” 

Luckily I have Bob.  When I shared my worries and fears with him, he commented about how perfect we both were growing up, and how nice it was that we never made any bad choices or got in any trouble, and why can’t our children be like that?!  He reminded me that I wasn’t perfect as a kid, but I have a strong testimony now.  So, he helps me keep it in perspective.  But the world just seems so much more evil than when we were children. 

Tonight I brought Taycie upstairs, and changed her out of her clothes.  I looked at her little knees that are pink and lightly calloused from crawling around all day.  I put her in the bath, and comforted her, since she is always a bit scared when she gets in the bath.  She splashed and played and every few moments looked up at me with her big beautiful blue eyes, just to make sure I was still near her. 

I sat by the tub, and thought of all my worries, thought of the people in Japan who are suffering from the tsunami, thought of children in the world who are in horrible situations, and thought about the fact that Taycie will have to face many trials and difficulties in her life. 

She tried crawling and slipped in the bath, and I was there to grab her.  I want to always be there to help her when she slips, and to comfort her in the times when she needs it.  Then I thought of the hard times I’ve faced in my life.  Most of those trials and hard experiences I would not change.  Some of them I would choose to change, but I wouldn’t want to give up the lessons I learned from them.

As I lotioned up Taycie’s adorable chubby little body, and put her in soft pajamas, I knew that I do want her to have a full and complete life – one with all the ups and downs and temptations and lessons of mortality. 

Tonight, though, I was grateful that I could nurse her, bathe her, put her in warm pajamas, and then cuddle her and sing to her as she sucked her thumb and drifted off to sleep.  I’m glad that she has a sheltered and happy world right now.  I hope these times where I make her feel loved and secure will be something she can hold on to and draw strength from later in life.

I guess that is all I can do – try each day to teach and snuggle and feed and comfort and love each of my children.  It is an overwhelming task that I can never do all on my own, so I’ll also keep doing another I’ve been doing a lot lately – praying fervently for each one of these precious little souls in my care. 

Lissa's new blog

Lissy lou has a new blog: http://monkeyshine101.blogspot.com/
Enjoy!