The Gospel Makes Me Happy

Living the Gospel of Jesus Christ, keeping the commandments, and spending time doing things of an eternal nature makes me happy.

The first time we attended our new ward, we felt like we were being given a lot of church homework. We were asked to read a chapter of scripture in preparation for the following week's meeting, we were asked to fast for a little boy in the ward afflicted with cancer, and we were asked to bring our own ancestor's names to the temple 25 April for Ward Temple Day. We were also asked to meet with the ward council directly after the block of meetings so they could get to know us and I was asked to be visited by a couple of sisters from the Relief Society in our new home after that. We don't always follow through on all such requests, but we answered to each one of those. And it feels great!

My husband is the best! He sits by my side at the computer while we watch tutorial videos for Family Search. We started a week ago yesterday and attended the temple yesterday to complete his grandmother's work (some stranger seems to have already done his grandfather's work) and to have his grandparents sealed together for time and all eternity! We called K's dad to ask for permission to do temple ordinances. His words were, "Thank you, Jody! Of course you can do those things. I'm honored that you would even think about and remember my ancestors." Big Smiley Face about that! I just hope that we can keep going with family history research, but when you live deep in Yellowstone National Park all summer with no internet access, it's really tough.

This morning I attended stake council. Our training focused on Sabbath Day Observance. It was a revelatory experience for me! Throughout the meeting while the stake presidency instructed, I kept feeling the Holy Ghost reminding me of things. I started making a list. The list is a list of the things that we are doing or that my husband is especially good at doing to help us keep the Sabbath Day a Holy Day. We are far from perfect, but the spiritual promptings are still making me so happy that I thought I would share them here with the whole world:

My husband always asks me about the Relief Society lesson. We attend Sacrament Meeting and Gospel Doctrine together, but then he goes to Priesthood and I go to RS. Another sister in the stake council meeting said her family calls it "Sunday Breakdown" as they discuss things with their children at the dinner table. I am so pleased that my husband even cares and I am also pleased that he shares the many wonderful things he learns during Priesthood Meeting.

Another thing that came to mind was the Crockpot. Ken does most of the cooking on Sundays and we do a lot of Crockpot meals because it's so easy to throw the food in and let it do the work for us. We don't have huge, elaborate dinners on Sunday. It's something simple that's ready for us when we return from Church. Dishes are minimal. Easy peasy.

Another thing K is good at is sharing Church videos and Mormon Messages with me from lds.org. He finds a good one to share "just because" or he uses them for Family Home Evening lessons. For some reason, I never watch those so I love it when he teaches me in this way!

We have always avoided shopping and eating out on the Sabbath Day. However, once I wanted to order something on the internet (clothing or something) and K said, "On Sunday?!?" Wow. It hadn't even crossed my radar that buying something on the internet on Sunday is really no different than buying something at the mall on Sunday. He's such a good guy and I cherish his perspective on things. That's why we are Team Kyburz.

Sleep. We sleep in on Sunday (unless I have a 7:00 a.m. stake council meeting which only happens once every three months). The Sabbath really is a day of rest--physically and mentally. K encourages it. Sometimes he says, "Just rest." Because he is not a demanding soul and believes in doing things for me, I get naps and relaxation time. He is so mindful of those things when it comes to me. I can also thank his parents for raising him right to allow for things like this in our marriage.

We prepare for the Sabbath Day and K is especially mindful of this. After the temple last night, we went out to dinner rationalizing that if Grandma and Grandpa were still alive and got sealed in the temple, there would be a dinner celebration afterward, so why not? :) After dinner, we went to the grocery store (so we don't have to buy food on Sunday) and then we filled up his tank with gas. These are just our normal habits and of course, they are the habits of many, many people (not trying to pat ourselves on the back for originality), but how grateful I am for these good habits to help keep us on the straight and narrow. If we needed to jump in the car right now and drive to Idaho, we could with no stops!

Family History Research is more fun with K! He is interested and more intuitive with the computer software than I am, so together we are able to make things work. I am so pleased that he really doesn't want me doing his family's research without his involvement. He is a GEM, I tell ya.

Another thing we do well is attend all three meetings in the church block of meetings. And we do this while traveling also. We can be in some podunk branch in the middle of nowhere and we stay for all of the meetings. The locals are usually surprised, but we've been enriched so much by doing this. Whether it's struggling folks in Colorado or the Navajo members down on the res, or the aloha saints of Hawai'i, we go to Church! I feel so grateful that I am married to someone that believes in doing this.
.
K helps out when he can. He's not the loudest volunteer in the group, but he quietly serves on a steady basis. He often passes the Sacrament when it looks like nobody's headed that way. He's been a great home teacher, ward librarian, finance clerk, and Sunday School president. He's really good about listening to church stuff he downloads on his phone and/or iPod. No, it's nothing fanatical, but he quietly moves forward with a lot of balance in his life.

The Sabbath has been a Delight (Isaiah) in our home and I hope we can possibly do some one thing better to improve further. I believe that Sabbath Day Observance is like getting a vaccination to ward off disease. It is medicine by which we can be inoculated.