Living my Religion

The Saints

I was at Wal-Mart doing my late night shopping last night.

I am known to hum or sing softly to myself while browsing down the aisles.

For some reason the song When The Saints Go Marching was stuck in my head.

While inspecting the breakfast cereal for the best deal, a woman stopped me in the middle of my measure. “It’s so nice to hear from a good Christian”, she declared.

I said, “Oh, excuse me, I just get a little carried away sometimes.”

She said, “Please don’t apologize. It’s wonderful.”

I was happy that she was happy. I was happy that she was a Christian too. I was happy that she took the time to tell me that she was glad that I was Christian. But, I was skeptical that she would still think so after finding out that I was a Mormon. Most protestant people in the South are taught by their clergymen that Mormons are not Christian.

I didn’t say anything to her. I didn’t want to burst her bubble. And, I was a little embarrassed that I was caught in my musical praise while dissecting the price per ounce of the Life cereal.

But, I would just like to take my Sunday post to declare. No matter what you have been taught by your pastor, please know this….I am true believer in Jesus Christ and his saving grace, and so are my other Mormon friends. We truly believe that we belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And so we try to be saints.


And, if you don’t think I am a Christian because I don’t put something so sacred like my testimony of Jesus Christ on my bumper, I will gladly give you my best rendition of any gospel song of praise in the cereal aisle: “Oh when the Saints go marching in, how I want to be in that number, when the Saints go marching in.”

Beer alternative.

We had a talk with our daughters last night about what it means to be worthy to go to the temple. (For those of you who aren’t Mormon and are curious as to what it means to be worthy to go to the temple, I suggest you read this.) Here’s the conversation.

Me: “So girls do you know what you have to do to be able to go to the temple someday?”

Abigail: “Yeah, we have to keep the commandments?”

Me: “So, what exactly are you not supposed to do if you want to be able to go in the temple someday?”

Abigail: “What?”

Me: “Well, dad is about to tell you.”

LG: “You have to keep the Word of Wisdom, The Law of Chastity, pay your tithing, have a testimony.”

Abigail: “What is the law of chastity again?”

LG: You know, it’s the law that says you can’t have sex until you get married.”

Abigail: (embarrassed) “Oh yeah.”

Later in the conversation. Thank me for sparing you the details of the sex talk.

LG: “So girls, just don’t have sex and no drinking Budweiser, and you’ll be worthy to go to the temple someday. Got it?”

Abigail: “What’s butt weiser?”

I guess we’ve been successful in indoctrinating our kids to not want that drink. Who wants to drink anything that originated from the butt plant?

LG: “And girls, trust me on this, it’s a lot easier to not have sex after you are married than before you are married.” (with a wink in my direction)

Abigail: “Yeah, that’s because you have all these kids now.”

Strength

Last Sunday was our Stake Conference.

Elder David A. Bednar was presiding. I felt so humbled and privileged to be in the presence of a modern day Apostle.

I wished I would have invited all of Knoxville to attend the meetings with me. I also wished that all of Knoxville was willing to believe that there really are modern day Apostles who speak as the prophets of old.

I cannot even begin to describe the feelings of my heart.

The message Elder Bednar delivered made me realize so strongly that the messages given by the leaders of the church are not about the man who is delivering the message. But, the messages are really about the Savior Jesus Christ, who Apostles are privileged to be a special witness for.

One of the most touching moments of the conference for me was the message of receiving power through the atonement of Christ.

Many people consider the atonement as only a sanctification through forgiveness of sins, but Elder Bednar instructed so profoundly that the atonement is also the way which each of us individually gains the strength of God.

With God, all things are possible.

I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. ~ Philipians 4:13

And, it’s Wednesday, so here is a video that I thought was inspiring.

It illustrates that we have got to push ourselves and trust in something beyond our limited vision and we can accomplish more than we ever thought was possible.

And, there should be no other perfect person to place that trust in except for God himself.

Church in the eyes of a comedian

We recently saw some friends that we haven’t seen in about six years. We used to go to church together in Utah. Marie reminded me of a funny thing that I did once. I’ve told you before that I am such an idiot. Marie says that the following is a story that she shares often about her crazy friend who worries people constantly…you never know what might come out of my mouth.

So, Marie and I were at church choir practice. And after the practice it was typical for everyone to visit and eat delicious refreshments provided by the perfect Mormon hostess/choir director, Nancy. After a perfect hour of music, Nancy asked me to say the closing prayer and to bless the refreshments. I gladly obliged.

During the middle of the prayer, I realized that the typical Mormon phrase of “bless this food to nourish and strengthen our bodies” wasn’t going to work…they were desserts for heaven sakes! So, I improvised with, “please bless the refreshments, that they”…..um…think fast, Alice!….no, you can’t say not make us fat!…that may really offend that fellow Weight Watcher friend….um….think…think…fast. “Please bless the refreshments, that they won’t make us …. sick!”

That’s the best I could come up with. Needless to say, after the Amens, and everyone lifted their chins and opened their eyes, all eyes were on me and all jaws were dropped. Nancy (being the perfect Mormon that she was) showed great restrain and didn’t kick me out of her house. She was perfectly composed and ignored me all together. I hadn’t even thought about offending her by alluding to the fact that I thought her food would make us sick.

I quickly tried to make it right, “Nancy, I am so sorry, you know I love your food…it’s some of the best ever….I just couldn’t think that fast…they’re refreshments, they aren’t going to nourish us and I thought sick was a better choice than fat.”

Nancy didn’t react at all. I don’t thinks she ever cared for me much after that. My Weight Watcher friend, on the other hand, said, “You should have said fat!”

And who knew that I had a comic routine on my hands. Here’s a clip to prove the point.

Ward Star Search

On Saturday evening,
the Gold family won the “Funniest” prize at our church talent show.

I think people just voted out of a sense of duty.
After all, I am the only ward member with a blog named imsofunny.
It really wasn’t that funny.
But isn’t Litte Miss Goldilocks so darling?
If I can ever get LG to actually finish the movie and download it,
I will share it at a later date.
It’s pretty entertaining, in a bad sort of way.
But, I have to say that for me the most entertaining part of the night was when the Bishop transformed from a daytime attorney to the SuperBishop at night.
He was wearing two suits….one over the top of the other.
He took his top one off.
Yeah, a Bishop taking his pants off in front of his whole congregation
is something that I hope to NEVER see again!
But, the shock factor worked. We all had to laugh out of pure horror.

Ten Virgins with Children

No, it wasn’t immaculate. It was a church play. It was fun.
Guess who was the one with the real Pashmina?
Yeah, that would be me.
A few years back, my sister, Shannon, brought it back for me from Italy.
I told her how beautiful it was and kindly thanked her.
I thought to myself, “When is simple old me ever going to wear something so elegant?”
“It’s a darn scarf. I am never going to wear a scarf!
Why couldn’t she bring me some wine?”
(not really, because you all know I can’t drink that)
So, I tucked the soft and pretty scarf away for a completely improbable day in the future when I would magically transform into a woman with some taste.
Shannon’s husband has schooled her in the ways of refinement.
I was not so lucky.
I had to teach my husband to match the color of his shoes to his belt.
And that there are some occasions besides church that it is appropriate to wear something other than jeans or basketball shorts, and a T-shirt.
I grew up in a beach town and LG grew up in a County school in Tennessee.
So, you can imagine that when it comes to the subject of fashion,
we are both somewhat challenged.
But, wow, last week,
I got to pretend that this mother of 3 was not only a virgin,
but that I was also the coolest woman in the play.
You see, I had a real Pashmina.
I felt like a million bucks as the other virgins salivated in envy.
On the way home, I promptly called my sister to give her the much delayed appropriate thanks. You know the kind where there is almost groveling involved.
I somehow had to make up for my lack of excitement from my first little thanks.
I told her, “There’s nothing like the jealousy of another woman to make you want to have a little more culture in your life.”
I have to tell you that, for me, the sense of belonging to the high life was fleeting.
As soon as I got home, the scarf went right back in the bottom of my drawer.
We wouldn’t want my kids to find it, would we?
It may somehow end up in their dress up box
with the fluffy elf costume and Styrofoam knight’s armor.
Now, all I can do is hope that our church Christmas party
will be the kind that we all dress up and go back to Jerusalem.
I would love to have a chance to NOT gloat.
Now that I know what a Pashmina is,
I may be able to sensor my pride and play it off,
instead of rubbing it in the face of commoners.

Youth Ministers

I recently read this post about some local youth ministers being charged with the sexual misconduct towards the girls they had been entrusted to minister.

I just couldn’t help but think about something our Bishop recently said.

He told us of a story where a church leader went to visit a Stake Conference far away. The Stake leaders showed up at the airport in jeans and t-shirts and it went downhill from there.

On the leaders way out the Stake President asked him why he obviously wasn’t impressed by his stake. The general church leader responded with, “I knew we were in trouble, the minute we got off the plane and couldn’t decipher you and the other leaders from the rest of the crowd. You don’t go down to the level of the youth to help them, you stand strong where you are at and they will want to reach up.” Something like that…don’t know if the story is even true; it was just repeated by our Bishop and things could have been added or taken away or tweaked along the way.

But, even if it wasn’t true. I am a believer now of the fictional or non-fictional story. Look at these two Youth ministers. And, I had typed a few more sentences here, but I will just leave the post at this. I pray for the victims and the perpetrators.

And, I also pray for the leaders who wear suit and ties in public yet still manage to hurt children behind closed doors. I believe strongly in following my gut as a parent and being very careful with whom I trust. And by golly, if I ever find out that any one of the people that I chose to trust has hurt my child for life, I hope they have a very very good pillow for their cell.

Love Pairs

Look mom, we put all of the Little Pet Shops in Love Pairs.

Oh yeah, what does it mean if you are in a love pair?

It means you are the same kind and you love each other.

What do you do if you love each other?
I don’t know. Mom, why do always have to talk about sex?
They are just pet shops.
They just stand by each other and love each other.
And we put the spider and the pig together because we only have one spider and one pig.
They just love each other like friends.
They can be Charlotte and Wilber.
So, we aren’t going to have any half pig/half spiders running around.
No.
What would we call that creation?
Piggers or spigs?

Mom, you think you are so funny.

You’re not.

I know I’m not funny. To you. Ha ha.

Dad thinks I’m funny.

That’s only because he’s your love pair.

(And I totally just took literary liberty here with this last sentence)

So, what kind of love pair is this?

Oh the butterfly and caterpillar aren’t a love pair.

The caterpillar is too little.

And, they aren’t married yet, right?

Right.

And, I would like to bare my testimony,
You can teach morals to your children at any given time.
The End.

Have It Your Way

Thanks to an old friend, Jen Guthrie, for a really funny piece of entertainment.

I was really happy to find Jen’s new blog.

I haven’t talked to her in years. And her and Paul are crazy funny.

I know that I am going to be in trouble for dissing on the South again, but I have to tell you something that I noticed on our vacation out west.

The customer service in Utah was just so much better than what we get here.

Do you think it’s because Mormons aim to please?

Or maybe because today’s kids just don’t really care?

Next time I am going to keep my order simple and see if I can get some service with a smile.

Our bounty

LG: “Alice, we have to have a garden this year so that we can teach the kids how to work. And we can put up (that’s what they call canning in the south) some stuff and build our food storage.”

Me: “But, I am going to have to do everything, and I am already babysitting two kids this summer. And you are starting your practice, and we are already so busy. Can’t we just buy some canned goods and call it good this year? We did just buy our wheat and our emergency water buckets, doesn’t that count for the Stake’s goal of building our supply by one more month this year?”

LG: “No way. C’mon it will be really good for the kids. I will get out there and weed with them every Saturday.”

Me: “Alright, if you promise that you’ll get out there with them. I don’t need one more thing right now.”

LG: “I promise.”

Score: LG – no weeding Me – 3 weedings The kids – 10 minutes of weeding
The Garden – growing amazingly without enough weeding

And, I must add. LG did all of the rototiller, so he’s not in the doghouse because of the weeding. But, he better help me put some of this stuff up or he will be.

The late beans and corn to work around our Utah vacation.

15 tomato plants
The raspberries are starting well.

It’s too bad we will probably move before they ever flower.

Pears
Apples