A couple of weeks ago, I went down to Salt Lake to attend the Relief Society Conference. It was so good. I loved it. The seats were so amazing. Right by the stairs going up to the podium. We were sitting among apostle's wives and daughters. So much fun. Got to shake Sister Dew's hand and chat just for a brief second.
The general relief society presidency all spoke and really liked each of their talks. Then President Eyring spoke. He told such a touching story about his daughter that had a baby 15 weeks early obviously unexpected. As they were at the hospital which was 20 minutes away, the Bishop came to visit them. His first encouraging words to the couple were "My team has it under control". I thought that was a funny statement. Yet as I thought more about it, it is true. What he meant by that was, there was a sister arranged for meals to be brought in, and others had arranged to drive the mother back and forth to the hospital, and others to watch the older two girls while the mother was gone and so forth. All of these little arrangements had been made out of service. As I thought about this, wondering if something like that happened in my own ward, what would have happened. I pondered and decided it would have been the same thing. "My team has it under control." My ward would have gone above and beyond to make similiar arrangements to accomodate any situation. The church is amazing. It is all these people that have the same common belief system all working to grow closer to Christ. And it is such a true example of Sister Dibbs statement. I am a Mormon, I know it, I live it, I love it.
The other thing that I have thought about since that time. As we walked through Temple Square, it was beautiful weather and scenery. As we got closer to the conference center, directly across the street actually, there was a lady dressed in a nice dress with a basket full of tissues wrapped in a ribbon. She would hand them out to people saying "this meeting is going to be a tear jerker". Most people thought it was a little weird but maybe she knew. As we got closer to the conference, we found out that inside that nicely wrapped tissue package, was some literature against the church. My sister made the statement that it was like "a wolf wearing lamb's skin". I have thought a lot about that. The world makes it so easy to find things that initially looks okay and after examining may not be. It can be found on the internet, at school, and sadly enough among friends. This is how Satan works. Little by little he can eek into our lives if we are not prepared spiritually. Sometimes the sin starts small and you may think it is harmless but can quickly expand to destroy lives. Just like that little piece of paper stuffed into the tissue. You didn't know it was there at first glance.
Over the past couple of months, we have had neighborhood children constantly over at our house. My kids are overly friendly , which can be good and bad. As a mother, I am always trying to protect them from harm. After a day when some older kids were using language that I didn't like and punching each other, we left and I talked with my kids about the friends that make. I just told them that we get to choose our friends and we want to choose friends who lift us up and are good examples to us. As we were talking about it Jaxon says, "but Mom, they were nice". Isn't that the same? They are nice but yet they swear and wear immodest clothes and do naughty things, but they are nice. On the outside they may seem nice, but what is on the inside is sneaking slowly into our lives. I hope you see the parallel, it is hard to explain. Let us always be caution as to what we let in, you never know where Satan is lurking.
Good Things
1. Choosing the Right
2. Recognizing the lure
3. Having the gospel and knowing what is right
