Zone Conference: Having the Faith to Find

Zone Conferences seem a bazillion years ago, I do remember they were going on when school started and that, my friends, has taken over my life.  But I shall try and give you the gist of the message. 

Presidente Hall took the New Testament  story of Cornelius to illustrate that the Lord is preparing people to hear the gospel just as He is preparing us to teach the gospel.  There are so many people who the Lord has placed in our path so that we can bring them the fulness of the gospel. 

The Lord knows who is ready but we don't--it is a mystery to us.  But the mysteries of God can be revealed to us and then we will know where to go and what to say.  This takes a miracle.  Miracles come by faith.  More faith=more miracles.  So how do we get more faith? Glad you asked.

Preach My Gospel (page 116 for those of you playing at home) states:

          Your faith will increase through diligent study, prayer, dedicated service, and obedience
           to the promptings of the Holy Ghost and the commandments.

So there you have it--who doesn't need miracles in his or her life?  Five things you can do everyday to increase your faith and increase your miracles.

1. diligent study
2. prayer
3. service
4. obedience to promptings
5. obedience to the commandments

Of course the zone conference focused on these things in a missionary context, but it is just as applicable in non-mission life.  Sometimes we think faith is something that just happens or maybe is given to us.  The concept that we can take specific steps to increase our faith is powerful. 

The real fun has been post-conference.  Missionaries are calling and texting to say that they have put the faith building to the test and, "President, we found our Cornelius."  My favorite was the missionaries who felt directed to go down a street and found a man sitting on his front lawn reading the Book of Mormon.  Or maybe the sisters who knocked on the door and the man said, "what took you so long to find us--we've been reading the Book of Mormon, we're in Alma and we want to know how to be baptized."  It is so exciting to see all these miracles!

Again from page 116: Faith leads to action...When you have faith in Jesus Christ you trust the Lord enough to follow His commandments--even when you do not completely understand the reasons for them.  You accomplish what the Lord wants you to accomplish...You are able to do miracles...

So get moving, people!  The Church is true, miracles still happen and God loves all His children.  Even you :)

Happy Birthday to Me and Thank Heaven for Mr Nowak



Awesome cupcake posted on my facebook wall from my friend, Renon

Today is my birthday--woohoo!  We are celebrating by taking Thomas to the doctor, waiting for a package (not a birthday package).  Ken is really whooping it up with missionaries by interviewing from dawn to way past dusk.

What can I say, we're party animals.

The real present is that Thomas's school schedule is finally, finally settled.  Which is great since I think next week is mid-terms...  But we shall persevere.  Now if we could get him healthy so he can go back to school...

I keep trying to write about Zone Conferences, which were great, but that involves brain power so I am still working on that.

In the meantime, cake!

School, California Style

School has started and boy howdy it is complicated.  We had already determined that California has, well, issues, but good grief.  School started on the 16th of August and they are still messing about with Thomas's schedule. 

The bus system is the city bus and there is a bus stop at the bottom of our hill--Yay! HOWEVER, it doens't go to the high school we are supposed to go to, it goes to a different high school.  I realize that doesn't make sense and I am sure there must have been a reason sometime.  When I called the bus company they didn't know either. 

So I drive Rebecca to the other bus stop (the one a mile and a half from the house) so she can take the bus, which keeps me out of drop-off/pick-up traffic so I can get Matthew to school on time.  Thomas is coming from seminary which is another complication but there is a carpool schedule (don't you love organized people who make up a schedule and hand it to you? I do).

The upshot is that I spend almost two hours a day in the car pondering all the things I should be doing instead of battling the logic that is the school districts. (Yes, districts, elementary has its own district, which would be fine except their calendar doesn't exactly match the jr/high calendar. )  I'm thinking home school is probably out...

Star Struck

I've been trying to get time to write a post on Zone Conferences (great) and the start of school (not so great).  But even more pressing is that they are filming NCIS at the bottom of the street.  I guess we are in California, after all.

Mice!

Okay, okay, not mice.  Mouse!  To be specific, Mickey Mouse!  And Rebecca's mouse ears.

The biggest advantage to having your college sibling home is that she can drive you to Disneyland!

Katie and the kids wanted one last adventure, and to be fair, the Cars Land billboards are everywhere mocking them.  So the day before Matthew started 2nd grade they hopped on the freeway and, two hours later, hopped off at Disneyland.  Ken was at a Spanish zone conference and I was home working on revising the new missionary notebook.  Though actually I was home obsessively tracking my old phone (Katie's new phone) to see where the kids (and my car) were.

They made it to Anaheim, and like everyone else wanted to goto Cars Land.  They waited in a long, long line for fast passes only to find out that the fast passes were already for 10:30 pm.    Since they had to be home by 10 (school night, hee hee) they ditched that idea and waited for almost two hours in the actual line.  They had a great time.

They had fun hanging out together, riding the rides and eating frozen lemonade.  Unfortunately, it was really hot and Becky wasn't feeling very well.  But they had fun, had and adventure and survived 4 hours of LA traffic (in my car--did I mention they were in my car? My non-scratched, non-wrecked car?  Katie drove like a pro--and because she wasn't tailgating had enough time to stop--unlike the the car two behind her that rear-ended the car behind her.  Whew)

The kids determined that Disneyland felt more like home than the house did...We're hoping to get permission to go as a family sometime during the mission (it is out of the boundaries so Ken and I have to live vicariously). 

I'm glad they got to have an adventure.  Although Katie reports that being the one in charge was a lot more stressful than she had anticipated.  :)

Tender Mercy Alert

This very nice man was one of the first missionaries in San Fernando back in the 1940's.  He was visiting his grandson who lives here and has just returned from a mission.  They came to a fireside tonight and he introduced himself and told us about the old days in the mission.  We could have talked to him all night.

This by itself is awesome, but even more awesome than that, his mission president was my Great-grandfather, Oscar W. McConkie.  I am beside myself with the amazing "co-incidence" of it all.  Tender mercies are awesome.

For the record, he reported that Oscar was an amazing mission president--large in stature and power like Nephi. 

Wii Would Like to Play

Katie is here! Hooray!  There is much amusement and happiness in the family room as the kids re-bond over New Super Mario Brothers Wii.

It's good to have everyone back together couch potatoing again.