Politics Plane

     The door creaked open and in flew a paper airplane with a giggle trailing behind it. David and I were sitting on our bed when we received this delightful surprise.  It accomplished two goals for Joseph, election advertisement and alert dad that they were ready for story time.

    You might be wondering about the election advertisement or you might not be seeing how tomorrow is election day. Well let me just fill you in anyways and invite you on a little Delimont journey with us.

    In our family council last week the kids thought it would be a great idea to do a mock election and establish a family government system. We actually did this once before a couple of years ago for a homeschool project. With the Presidential election coming up we thought this was a good time to play to the kids desires. Yesterday, David and I came up with what positions there would be and presented it in our weekly family council. We reminded everyone of the roles and responsibilities of the three branches of government. We handed them the pile of mailers we have collected over the past several weeks from local candidates and told them that they had basically 2 days to campaign for their position. 

    The boys took this way beyond what I imagined yet I should not be surprised. The posters are all over the house and they spent a good portion of time today creating power point presentations. I even walked in on Joseph and Eliot practicing presenting with each other.  When it came time for presentations earlier this evening they had us in some gut wrenching laughing. That wasn't all though, I was thoroughly impressed. I knew my kids were cool but I didn't actually know how cool they were until tonight. 

    Tomorrow, we will not only know the fate of our country for the next four years but the fate of the Delimont home for the next four weeks. 

    I want to keep a record of this experience so I thought this was a good way and if anyone wants to follow along and see how this goes, hop on the ride. 

    In the next post, I'll share more details on the structure, but for now, enjoy these presentations. Who would you vote for? I'm still undecided but I'm thinking the slapping might violate our family constitution.

Eliot for President   - I didn't think to start videoing untill the end

Jarom for President

Joseph for House  

Dance

  Today in our church meeting a brother shared a little life parable.

   As a kid he loved dancing at parties.  His mom revealed to him that when he got to middle school they would have school dances where he could show off all his cool moves. He was so excited and spent his days working on getting those Michael Jackson moves just right. 🕺  When the day came for his first middle school dance you can imagine the excitement when the first song came on "Billie Jean."  But no one danced and neither did he. 

   No one wants to relive the middle school dance. I don't want to look back and see all the joy I missed because I was afraid to dance alone.

   This brother shared that he has felt the power of Christ through the Holy Spirit testify to him throughout his life. He has felt the joy of the gospel of Jesus Christ and he has felt the pull from opposing forces. A tactic of the opposing force is soliciting our fear of man. 

   I too have had the Holy Spirit witness to me the reality of a savior, the Savior even Jesus Christ. I have felt the joy of his redeeming love. I have experienced his guiding hand. I have been wrapped in his protecting arms. 

   I don't want to dance alone. I don't want to fear man. I want to be fearless in my witness of Jesus Christ. He is the healing power in our lives, families, communities, country and world!! 

  My life is not without struggles or difficulties but it is without hopelessness. I have a guide to lead me up every mountain, through every trail and give me a surety of peace and joy at the summit. 

  Please, come and dance with me. Come and enjoy the fruits of the gospel of Jesus Christ!

Love,

Kina

   

Week 1: The Dark Ages

Week 1:  The Dark Ages



Can you imagine how that sounds to three little boys? The Dark Ages.  Their interest was peaked right away.  

If we are going to be talking about the preperation for  the retoration we should probably start wiith why did we needed a restoration?

Deffinition of Restoration: an act of restoring or the condition of being restored   Merraim-Webster

               

·         the act of restoring; renewal, revival, or reestablishment.

·         the state or fact of being restored.

·         a return of something to a former, original, normal, or unimpaired condition.

·         restitution of something taken away or lost.

·         something that is restored, as by renovating.     Dictionary.com

Ok Anyways so why a need for this.  Well in a small amount of words, Througout the Old Testament is was foretold that the Son of God would condescend and come down to earth to save to redeem the world. And just that happened but first He came and he taught the people and he called 12 men to be his apostles. He gave them keys to act in His name and to help him oraganize his Church on the earth. Just like a police oficer needs authority to act in his duties so did these apostles. Christ put his hands apon them and and gave him His authority.  As we know Christ and these apostles were rejected. First Christ then the rest. Slowly his teachings were lost and because his apostles were killed his keys, his authority was gone from the earth. There was a Great Apostacy.



David had great fun telling bedtime stories to the boys of such things as Rome being sacked, Genghis Khan and all the other wars and “exciting” things to little boys.     They love weird sounding names and get all excited and crack up laughing when names or words sound very unique.



To explore life in the Dark Dages we spent a day eating grains such as outmeal for breakfast and we had nothing but homemade bread and vegetable broth, and peas for dinner. The boys loved eating the peas with the hands! 

The next day (we only did one thing at a time, we discovered it was fun to pretend to be in the dark ages but only one thing at a time), We spent the day by candlelight.  Seriously, the boys woke up to candles, got ready for school by candles and we spent the evening together by candlelight.

They had so much fun with this one. My awesome mom had three little lanterns on hand of course, (have you seen her craft room!?) so the boys each had their own to carry around, CAREFULLY. 

I wish I would have gotten more pictures of the candles all around the house but the boys were taking this Dark Ages thing seriously, “they didn’t have phones!”

This has been a fun experience so far and I myself am learning a lot about history but I am also learning a lot about the Lord’s hand in our lives.  2,000 years ago people rejected his Son and brought darkness to the world as we sought power over one another, and pride, greed and envy overshadowed the spread of the word of God, but he did not give up on us. He right away started working through the good people that were still out there which were many. Inspiring them with their minds and hands. It would be a long time before people and the world would be ready to move out of the darkness and into the light but it would happen.

I know that God is in our daily lives. He is inspiring us and guiding us if we will but slow down and listen and then watch and see his hand in our lives in the little tender mercies of love.

Our 11 Week Journey-Following A Prophet's Voice

I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

 In the Spring of 1820, a young boy of 14, went to a grove of trees to pray and ask God which church he should join. His world and the rest of ours changed forever because of what occurred in that moment. The heavens weren’t closed, they never were. Just as in times of old God spoke to those who earnestly sought him and were called to do a special work. It was I this moment that God the Eternal Father and His Son Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith and restored the Gospel of Jesus Christ through him.

Well that was just the start. We call it Joseph Smith’s First Vision.

Why did there need to be a restoration? Well that is the first part of discovery in this journey my family has started.

If you noticed the year above it was 1820. We just started 2020. So, this Spring will be 200 years since Joseph Smith’s First Vision and the beginning of the Restoration.

Because of the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ we have a living prophet today (I’ll explain more about this later). His name is Russell M. Nelson. Last October in a general conference broadcast to the apx. 15 million members of the Church across the world he brought this 200 year mark to our attention and said “The year 2020 will be designated as a bicentennial year. General conference next April will be different from any previous conference.” He then gave this promise and invitation,

“In the next six months, I hope that every member and every family will prepare for a unique conference that will commemorate the very foundations of the restored gospel… Design your own plan. Immerse yourself in the glorious light of the Restoration. As you do, general conference next April will be not only memorable; it will be unforgettable.”

Unforgettable.   How do you get that out of your mind?!

I have always desired to follow the prophets voice because every ounce inside of me knows that he is called of God and he is hear to help us get through our time on earth during this time. But sometimes, like this time, I just don’t know quite how.

Well, it’s been a few months and it’s been on the back of my mind but the other week President Nelson reminded us and reinvited us to prepare for this bicentennial. Guess what? I did something else our prophet has been urging us to do. I sought for personal revelation for my family, and you know what, I got it! I got it!

I want to share my family’s journey with you not to show you how cool we are or to brag about how we follow the prophet but because I want to testify that when we desire to follow the counsel the Prophet of the Lord gives and we seek revelation how to personally do so, the Lord answers. He answers for me and my family. He told me what preparation would work best for me and my family. Maybe it would work for yours or maybe He has something that is better for your family. Maybe sharing our journey can help.

Here it is. For the 11 weeks leading up to General Conference, April 4-5, 2020 (we started last week), we are going to go through history discovering why we needed a restoration and how the Lord prepared the world for it. And the last three weeks we will be connecting with our ancestors and family and what role they played as well as reflecting on what The Restoration has brought to us and means for the world. Finishing with what role do we, my little family play in the ongoing restoration and the preparation of the Second Coming of our glorified Lord and Savior.

What does that look like you ask? Well I’m super excited to show you what it looks like so far.

I’m not a huge writer so most of the next posts on our journey will be pictures and brief descriptions. And I’ll do another one to catch you all up but for now enjoy a few pics from the Dark Ages and primitive record keeping.

All day we only ate things like oatmeal, and here we are eating bread and vegetable broth.

"Hot Lava" and "Chemicals"

This was written, but never posted, July 8, 2013 (Jarom age 2)

  Do you remember playing "Hot Lava?" The game where the floor or ground is hot lava and you can't touch it so you have to figure out how to get around without touching the ground. I loved that game!   So about a week or so ago my father-in-law put chemicals all over the back yard and we couldn't go out in it without shoes until it was all watered in. We had to explain it to Jarom and remind him several times why he couldn't go in some areas of the grass and such. Chemicals, chemicals, chemicals. Well today we were outside, barefoot. We were sitting down by this little portable slide just talking when all of a sudden he jumps onto the step of the slides and yells, "Chemicals!" I didn't get what he was saying at first so I had him repeat it. He frantically (in play) tells me chemicals and makes me get on the blanket. I quickly realized that he was playing "hot lava" but chemical style! It was so funny I quickly brought it to David and my mother-in-law's attention. So for the next 3o minutes we moved around the yard with the blanket and slide playing "don't touch the chemicals."   I am amazed at Jarom's level of play and communication.

Jarom is getting older, and bigger, and smarter. It seems like every day is a new challenge to learn how to help him and teach him. It's a hard job but one that I love and take very seriously. Something that I learned from an influential woman in my life is that I must take an active and assertive role in my child's learning, especially spiritual development. Sometimes though I just don't know how. I don't know what the best way to do something is. Or one day I think I know and the next I feel clueless. What I do know though is that the children that are coming to earth in this generation are ready and eager to learn and are here for great purposes and we as parents can receive guidance from God on how to help them be prepared. To receive that guidance though we have to be that active and assertive parent. We have to pray earnestly and then do something with our answers. We have to be involved and informed and be willing to step in and speak up.

I say these things not because this is who I am but who I want to be. I want to look back and be able to say I did my best, not I did the best. Well it would be really nice to be able to say that but this is real life and how can I become Kina if I don't have challenges.

For anyone out there that reads this I want to give a challenge to you. When you see a parent taking their child to a doctor for something that seems petty, or asking a teacher questions about a primary lesson or school assignment don't give judgement that they are a paranoid parent give them the credit of being an involved parent wanting to learn and give their child the best. I understand that there are situations where parents are giving blame to teachers and such for work they should have done but that's not what I'm talking about. It's the ones that take their kids out of school to home school them and you look at them and start coming up with parenting flaws or paranoia. We give ourselves enough criticism and recognize plenty of our own daily flaws.

As each of us look at each other as each trying to become the best we can; the true people we were designed to become, we can focus on our own families growth rather than feeling embarrassed and inadequate.

In the morning I was playing "chemicals" with my two year old. In the evening that two year old was telling me, "mom when I older and older and older I get married in temple with girl."

Parenting and Discipline- "Well a few months back in extreme emotion I quit."

     I am a mother. I am Mom. Is this a mommy blog? Maybe, but I hope it is different than the others. I'm actually kind of tired of all the mommy blogs, but I think it is because for too long I have let guilt run my parenting and my life. What is the "and", parenting is my life. I love that though. I signed up for it and I believe it is my divine role and it will help me truly become the person I want to be.

    With that said, let's talk parenting. How many parenting posts did you see today? So I am kinda weird and as a teenager it was a hobby of mine to read "parenting books." I loved Love and Logic. As I got older I continued to dig into all the methods of discipline and child rearing but things started to change when I had my first precious little baby. I remember reading a book that someone suggested to me to help infants get on to a good pattern or schedule. The first half of the book told me everything I was doing wrong. The more I read the more horrible I felt. I thought I was a great mom but now I thought I was destroying my child. Of course the second half of the book told you how to do everything right and makes you feel a little better. Well It seems that just about every book after that did the same thing. Worse yet most books didn't agree on which things were ruining your child and which ones were creating great human beings. Man it has been confusing trying to figure out which one is right and which one is right for each kid. So many conflicting ideas and even studies!

    Well a few months back, in extreme emotion I quit. I decided I was never reading another parenting book. I was on my own and I was starting from scratch, erasing it all from my mind. I knew I wasn't completely alone. I have David and I have the greatest source of knowledge and the only perfect parent at my side, our Father in Heaven.

    It was just a few days later that I had a sacred experience. In that experience I received revelation on the Lord's way of parenting. Simple and clear. In that very moment all my guilt was gone. I didn't have to question everything I did. I didn't have to wonder if the Doctor or this Psychologist was right or "oh no what if the other guy was right an now Jarom is going to have post traumatic stress from this." I'm being totally serious here. It was so hard to be consistent in my discipline because so many people had so many different opinions. But now I felt free and confident.

     Now I feel free and confident. I don't know everything and by golly man do I not have all the skills I want but what I do have is the tools. I don't have to piece through books and anguish through trying to figure out what is right for me and for each of my children. I don't have to guess or work really hard studying big long-term professional studies only to find out that after all that effort those professionals were wrong. I have resources from thousands of years ago to present and yet to come parenting truths. I have parenting doctrine.

     Don't worry I'm not keeping this all to myself. It is available to everyone. The best part about all of this is that the creator of these truths, these parenting doctrines is also willing to give us FREE 24 hour CONSTANT consultation.  Also it applies to every child. He will help us know our individual children and teach us about who they were and who they are to be. He knows them and loves them. This discipline expert not only knows but He has experienced.

    We can put aside all the worldy experts and put our time and energy into studying and receiving revelation through truths that have been given through the Lord's servants.

It is one of the best feelings in tho world to feel good about my parenting. I definitely still make mistakes and am figuring it out but so this doesn't bring immediate fixes or perfection but it brings confidence. It seems like every couple days or every day even that I have to reevaluate or find the next step but I know how to know. I feel good and there is NO GUILT.

So here are some resources:
Home and Family Site
The Family: A Proclamation to the World
Strengthening the Family    (Manual)
A Parents Guide     (Currently studying this one. LOVE IT)
Courageous Parenting (specifically for parenting teenagers)
 Search Results--  https://www.lds.org/search?lang=eng&query=parenting
Alma 42

And guess what! Next weekend there will be brand new fresh parenting truths! General Conference. GC 2015 Look for it. Prayer for it. Make time for it. He will reveal to us what we need. Do we trust him? He has trusted us with the parenting of His most precious souls.
                                             
I love being a mom. It is so hard. So all consuming. But, it just got a little easier and with the hope and confidence of letting go of the world and putting my efforts to the Lord, it is truly helping me become Kina.

Love and Conversion

   I was reading scriptures with J #2 this morning and we were reading Alma chapter 20. I have always loved the People of Ammon and have received much from their story. Today though, I got something more that struck my soul. I knew instantly I wanted to share, interestingly the people I wanted to share it with was my Relief Society sisters. I'm not sure why but anyways here are my thoughts and I hope my sisters read.

   King Lamoni, a Lamanite king who governs over a portion of the Lamanite land is converted quickly. This was always fascinating to me considering his history. Each time going into this whole story I make a point to think about who these people are, what do we know about them? They have been taught for generations how they were cheated out of their inheritance, land, everything from the Nephites. They were taught to hate them. They were taught to fight, to steal, and to murder. The Lord calls them a blood thirsty people. I'm sure they were filled with anger, and pain and had very little trust or confidence in anything or anyone.
   
     With that being said it was amazing to me that King Lamoni had the experience he had and the dramatic change his people and him had. It gives me so much strength and hope. But the experience I had today was with his encounter with his father...

     Starting in verse eight they meet, and his father, the King of all the Lamanite Land, asks why he did not attend the feast he had prepared for his sons and people. You could imagine he was probably pretty offended. Then he asks him where he is going with this Nephite, one of the children of a liar.  Then Lamoni told him everything. He just told him his conversion story. Surely the Spirit was there. I believe Ammon and Lamoni felt it strongly and thought surely it could not be missed by Lamoni's father. Verse 13 says, that Lamoni was astonished that his father was angry. So angry that he rehearsed Nephite history and their present conspiracy to rob them of their lands. He then commanded Lamoni to slay Ammon and not continue their mission to free Ammon's brethren. Of course Lamoni refused but he refused with his testimony, which must have been so powerful.  Again his father felt nothing of the Spirit but was so furious that he drew his sword to kill his own son. Then Ammon stepped in.

     Ammon opened his mouth to defend King Lamoni. He testified of Lamoni's innocence and righteousness. King Lamoni's father heard this and agreed with Ammon but it just turned his anger to Ammon. After raising his sword to kill Ammon he received his own wound as his blow was defended. This put fear in him and he pleaded for his life. He offered up to half of his kingdom for his life. That there gives a little insight into the Lamanites, all they have is their life. Anyways, Ammon responds with his request to free his brethren and for Lamoni to keep his kingdom, receive no repercussions from this incident and to do as he pleases in his kingdom, otherwise Ammon would smite the Lamonite King to the earth.  What happened next is the miracle.

    After all the testimonies which had been born, the act of love is what broke the hardened heart, the bloodthirsty soul. King Lamoni's father, saw the great love Ammon had for his son and INSTANTLY all barriers were broken and he even was able to reflect upon the words that were spoken earlier. He could not feel the Spirit before but some how still having heard it the Spirit brought back those words to his remembrance and the Spirit that was there then made its way into his heart now. How again did this dramatic instantaneous thing happen? One moment he was raising his sword to kill these men and his heart was full of hate for the Nephites, and now he was asking them to return to him and teach him? Love, love did it.

   We recently heard a few things in conference of how when we have loved ones that have strayed from the gospel we need to just keep loving them. Sometimes it is all we can do. After this experience it didn't become, "just all I can do," it became, what I can do. How can I bring them back? I can love them! These beloved sisters that I visit teach, that I want so badly to feel the joy of conversion, how can I help them? I can love them. They must see it and feel it though.   Do we understand that LOVE can truly change a heart, can truly change a culture, a tradition, a whole people, it can break down prison walls? LOVE can do this. Our acts of true love.

Today I became a little more of the Kina my Heavenly Father wants me to be.