Church was good today. Neither Ben nor the kids were there. A dentist gave a talk about implementing the Come Follow Me curriculum, called the parable of the "Flosspel." I helped out in Primary and sat with a Sunbeam class. I had a good chat with Marilyn after church and then came home to finish listening to Tara Westover's Educated before my audiobook loan expired. I found myself identifying more than I would have expected with the necessity of forsaking her view of reality in order to maintain a relationship with her parents. I feel grateful that Ben had more constraints on his behavior than Tara's dad did in how he insisted on his own worldview.

I had an evening visit to the urgent care center because my thumb is more swollen and painful. They took x-rays to see whether there is infection in the bone and put me on an antibiotic.

I had a good day yesterday, too. I went to Nauvoo to do sealings. The ceremony language is improved, but still not fully parallel. I am left wondering what it really means to preside and how you're supposed to create a true partnership if one person is presiding.

Afterward I bumped into friends from our Davenport days and arranged a follow-up meeting. Then I drove back to Iowa City and ran some errands before a ministering appointment. That ended up being a good discussion that was nearly two hours long. Finally, Anna and I went to see Captain Marvel, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

I hope my hand hurts less tomorrow.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My daughter did not go to church today

We had a remarkable sacrament meeting today. The youth speaker did a lovely job talking about how prayer has brought her comfort and peace. Makayla, a woman who recently joined our ward, gave a beautiful talk about being of good cheer. It turns out, it isn't so much about being happy as having courage. She shared stories of her grandmothers and her mother that showed their different ways of having courage and the confidence that can come to us through faith in Jesus Christ. Then we sang, "I Am a Child of God." Isaac gave the last talk, with similar motifs. He made a point at the end to say that having challenges and feeling bad are not synonymous with being out of favor with God. The Relief Society discussion topic was on Becky Craven's talk "Careful vs. Casual" and Pr. Oaks's talk "Where Will This Lead?" It was good for me to revisit Sis. Craven's talk and find that it was less annoying than I perceived in its delivery the first time aro...
Read more

60-minute testimony meeting

Today was our first Sunday with 2-hour church. I went to church at 9:00 a.m. and got home before noon, even though I spent a long time chatting with people after the meetings. It was nice! Sacrament meeting went by quickly. I didn't miss those extra ten minutes. Our bishop has been practicing for going without them for the past couple of weeks. There were 6 males and 5 females who bore their testimonies, which is about as close to balanced as we get in our ward. One of the males was the bishop, who conducted the meeting. It bodes well as a start to the new year. About three years ago I noticed that it seemed like more men bore their testimony than women in our ward. I expressed on the ward sisters' Facebook group a desire to hear from more women, for myself and for my sons and daughters. Since we have a fair number of young families, and one parent is sometimes called away for work, I offered to hold children or take them out in the hall if that would help anyone out. Since...
Read more

A day late

I arrived a few minutes early for ward council. As the other people arrived, I felt a thrill at the four women in attendance: me (Self-Reliance Specialist) and the three female auxiliary presidents. We were a full third of the people in the room. We had sacrament meeting talks by a graduating senior, the stake patriarch, and a high council visitor. The youth talk was the best one. Relief Society made me a little nervous. The teacher told us how she is used to lecturing and being an authority, but that's not what we're meant to do in Relief Society. Often when people make such assertions, they disappoint. This one didn't. She actually entertained numerous comments, including responses to the comments of others. We spent a few minutes in groups discussing questions after the initial general discussion. She even wrapped up pretty close to on time, in spite of having the groups report a little on their discussions. We had a linger longer at the pavilion after church. A lo...
Read more