Sunday devotional - scripture study

I started a new "thing" (as I have a tendency of doing).

I actually learned this from a favorite blogger: having a scripture journal. Ok, I'd heard of it before, but one post in particular really got me thinking about it. And then I read this recap of  a presentation about scripture study called "the battle in our brains" which essentially said that we need to create the same positive associations in our minds with the scriptures and gospel study as we have with say Facebook or anything else we do regularly -- there's nothing inherently wrong with checking email frequently, but we need to create that sort of dependency on the scriptures too.

So I thought to myself: I need to be a little more serious about this. And I started a scripture journal, and so far (day one) it's been pretty cool.

I only studied one chapter but I wrote out some thought processes, as questions came up. It was nice, and I felt very involved. I like this method.

And by the way, the sister who gave that presentation will be giving it again this Friday at the Mormon Women Project Salon, so if you're near Salt Lake you're one lucky lady! I so wish I could go :(

Otherwise, church was good today, and Andrew and I are making nice progress on a musical number for two weeks from now: I'm excited! It's such a beautiful piece. We'll record it when it's ready so our family (and friends who may be interested) can hear it too :)

Oh, and I unearthed this little gem: Guidelines for writng LDS hymns. I guess there was a big push for members to submit new hymns in the 70s, but frankly everything he says could apply to us. It's basically an exhortation to create new content -- what a cool way of being part of the process! I'm thinking Andrew and I should try our hand at it. We'll see what comes of that! And speaking of hymns, I may have sniffed out a really cool story on the origin of the "Souviens-toi" French hymn, and I'm in the process of verifying it with the woman who I believe wrote it. I'll keep you updated :)

Have a lovely Sunday evening!

Wow

It's been a while eh?

I've even started writing two or three posts in the past week, until I realized I had little to say. I'm kind of tired of school these days... and working on longer projects is tiring, so I've got no writing left in me. This weekend was great though. I am so grateful to be able to enter a grocery store and fill up a cart with food. All I have to do is grab it off the shelves and swipe a piece of plastic. Sometimes we don't realize how blessed we are. A girl in one of my classes made some comment about how she's a starving student and I was kind of annoyed. I mean yeah, she's probably not rolling in gold--neither am I--but she has nice clothes, a place to live, food to eat, a good EDUCATION, a brand new haircut... I hardly think we get to complain.

Sometimes I want to, but deep down I know how good I have it. My life is incredible. As stressful as it is to be in school and have a demanding schedule, as scary as it is to be making life-changing decisions for the future... what a wonderful life it is that I even get to make these choices. I have the awful dilemma of getting to chose between a career and having children. Or doing both.

In fact, we're living like kings right now. It really couldn't get much better. (Well, KSL could just decide to hire me straight out of school, that would be pretty awesome. Also, my dad could come for Christmas, that would be cool too. But hey, you can't have everything you dream of.)

Sigh.

But we did have a last hurrah barbecue last week:

aw, ketchup makes him happy

I have to take pictures of myself otherwise it's like I was never there

Look! A sunset!

Or I could make my husband take my picture.
And actually, this "pose" was totally accidental, believe it or not.
It must be my inner repressed fashion blogger.

On a completely unrelated note, I just watched a really good movie. Exam. The British accents probably don't hurt either... But in all seriousness, it's awesome. Go watch it.

Oh also, I learned in stake conference today that I was born to be a homemaker. Awesome. The worst part is that this came from a girl: all the members of the stake presidency gave spiritual, doctrinal talks, but this one girl went on and on about cleaning and decorating. Ugh.

And tomorrow I'm giving a mini presentation on euphemism and hyperbole. Because I NEVER use hyperbole inappropriately. Ever. Ha.

And for a last bit of Sunday night humor:

Best Birthday/weekend ever

"Birthday week" really felt like it started last weekend with the Relief Society general broadcast -- I went up to see it "live" with my former roommates and turned it into a girls' night out. It was great.

Sushi - mmmm

Then last week was a bit stressful, but by Friday it was good, classes were cancelled, a really awesome research paper is in the works, and we went out for dinner and dancing. And opening presents was quite nice :)

Saturday was awesome because of General Conference and then going out to dinner at Pizzeria 712 (Delicious. It's fantastic.) with everyone! And then all the girls came back home and we hung out while the men were at Priesthood. I'm so happy that we were able to get everybody together, and that Allie was in town and we got to meet Meghan's baby and cuddle them and talk and eat chocolate cake and just... be all together again. It had been SO long! Gosh and now I want babies because let's be honest they're just too cute and I didn't want to let either of them go. Oh dear.

And then today watching conference at Cassi's place and eating fantastic quiche and salad with real vinaigrette and homemade french bread made by Ashley. All kinds of good stuff. What a great weekend!

That dressing was fantastic by the way. A chopped shallot, a few mashed garlic cloves, grainy Dijon mustard, walnut oil, apple cider vinegar, sea salt and thick black pepper. No, I don't know quantities. You want to use quite a bit more oil than vinegar though.

St Ouen ward in Paris

Wow, I just took these pictures off my camera--completely forgot to download them.

Look, it's my relief society in Paris!

Last day at our ward:

This one time, we decided to go to the fun fair at the Tuileries... but it was pouring rain. We did it anyway.

I'm not joking when I say POURING rain

And the MPA demanded proof, so here it is:

Andrew was here!

I love Sundays

Especially the ones where Andrew stays awake the whole time (now that we have church at 10:30 instead of 8, it's a lot easier on both of us...) and we come home and rant about all the dumb/false doctrine/stereotypical/gender-unconscious things people say. It makes for very stimulating mealtime discussions. It's nice to have an intelligent husband.

On a completely unrelated note: I'm making Tunisian couscous for dinner, which I'm really excited about. And pretty nervous too. This is my first time making middle eastern cuisine not from a box (you can buy it everywhere in France, completely prepackaged and all you have to do is basically heat and dish up).

I'm also looking forward to the new school year, despite some apprehension. Oh hey, our home is finally pretty much settled in, complete with homemade pillows and frames on the walls. I guess that means it's time for a housewarming party! And did I mention there's a good chance my whole family will be coming at Christmastime? I'm pretty excited to host our first Christmas :) Unfortunately, I'm also working over Christmas break. Lame.

Anyway, as part of preparation for school we're trying to fit in all that stuff we said we'd do and still hadn't done. So yesterday we went tubing down Provo river with some new friends (hey, I've made new friends, aren't you so proud of me?!) and it was plenty of fun, but there was a bit of a freak out when a little snake got curious and swam up to us. He slithered onto one of the guys that was there and just sat there with his head up, flickering his tongue and looking straight into his face... Nobody knew what to do, but thank goodness he just swam off after a few seconds (although it felt like more of an eternity). So I'd say yesterday was pretty exciting. Oh wait, I forgot the other exciting part: I drove myself all the way to Walmart and back, and ran other errands all by myself. Yes, it's pathetic, but I'm so proud of myself. It's the biggest distance I've done by myself yet, so yeah, it's kind of a big deal. I love driving!

And how about a bit of a spiritual thought to end the post:


"I don't feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them."

Galileo

The "Mormon Moment"

You may or may not have been following the lame-stream media's (ha ha) coverage of Mormons lately. It's been interesting. I enjoyed some of the articles, others not so much. Now that Mitt is official, Mormonism is the big "could destroy his chances" issue. Not, say, healthcare or the economy...

Here are a few of the articles I've read--let me know if I'm missing any:

God's MBAs: Why Mormon Missions Produce Leaders

In Defense of Mormons

Mormons Rock!

(added later: Amos and Andy and The Book of Mormon)

And then there's this one which really irritated me: A Vote for Romney Is a Vote for the LDS Church

It drew many responses, from all sorts of different people, and several of them were not LDS I'd point out:
Evangelicals can (and should) support Mitt Romney
LDS Spokesman's response: Evangelicals, Mormons and the beliefs of the president
Mormons & Romney Presidency “Dangerous” According to Evangelical Author: A Conversation with Warren Smith

And there's also this interview with the original author, which is very interesting too (Incidentally, he keeps talking about how "dangerous" Mormon beliefs are, but he doesn't give a single reason why...). This particular article really irritated me for one reason: the author says Mormons aren't Christians. And he clarifies that point in his follow-up interview above, but I still disagree with him. I am fully aware of the fact that the LDS church does not have all of the same beliefs as other Christian churches (Much like other Christian churches differ in their beliefs too...). For example, we do not understand God or the Trinity in the same way as established by the Nicene creed. Specifically, we envision God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost as being three separate and distinct beings acting for one purpose, that God is the father of all our souls and that Jesus Christ is His Son, which logically makes him our brother. We also believe that God has a physical body, although an exalted one and perfect one, and that Jesus Christ also has a physical, resurrected body. "Normal" Christians believe that all three are three beings acting as one but that they are spirits and do not have distinct bodies.

That's all well and good, but... first of all, if we want to talk about true and pure Christianity, I'd like to point out that the Nicene creed not only happened several hundred years after Christ's life, but it was also revised several times. And evangelicals, for example, criticize our principle of continued revelation (the idea that we still receive revelation from God today, both personally and through His living prophet) but if they think "mainstream" Christianity hasn't changed in 2000 years... eh, I won't go down that road.

Perhaps we do not define Christianity in the same way... Because I thought being a Christian meant striving to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. Things like Compassion, Sacrifice, Charity, and a pursuit of the divine... I thought that my true test as a Christian is not what I am called but what I do. And above all, I imagine that you can call a Christian someone who understands that salvation is only possible because of God's plan for us, that salvation comes through Jesus Christ.

A person who believes that must be a disciple of Christ. Can we not agree on that?

Sunday excitement

Well today was.... entertaining to say the least. We really love our ward and we've felt very welcome here. The members are fantastic and lots of fun and I love being in this ward. That being said, there are always a few token crazies, and today was crazytown unleashed. Relief Society was great and we had a wonderful lesson on gratitude after I had finished butchering the hymns on the piano, and Andrew (who already has a calling in the young men's presidency) had a fun lesson on the law of chastity.

It all started going downhill in Sunday School. The teacher is nice enough, but he's a bit.... on a power trip? Which is so not my type of guy... Let's call him Brother A. Basically the lesson was "you guys shut up and let me be the teacher and I'll call on you if I decide to" and of course if you gave a "wrong" answer (read: not the answer he was expecting) you were promptly dismissed. So it didn't really start off all fluffy and happy to begin with and he was seriously getting on my nerves. Oh, also, the lesson was on hypocrisy, which made him doubly obnoxious.

So he gets started and at one point this one sister raises her hand. Now this sister, we'll call her Sister P, is the rambling type, but she's nice and I think the fact that her French is pretty bad probably contributes to her difficulty in expressing herself so I usually don't really mind. She raises her hand and says something vaguely related and Brother A decides she's preaching false doctrine and promptly shuts her up. He quite literally said "you are saying something that is false so I'll stop you right there" and moved on. And nobody SAYS anything!

At this point I'm fuming, but I'm not quite sure what I could possibly have said, especially since I didn't even understand what sister P had said... and then she keeps her hand up the whole time and he deliberately ignores her. Finally near the end he lets her speak as if to be so benevolent, and this is where it gets really awkward. She launches into some unintelligible tirade about evil spirits and casting out devils and whitened sepulchers... and everybody is trying to shut her up. She won't shut up. Then brother P. gets upset and leaves, asking the Sunday school counselor to have someone say a prayer. A really sweet sister gets up and says a 10 minute prayer, bawling the whole time and begging God to "forgive us for chasing you away from our congregation" etc. She was really sweet and actually did bring back a measure of Spirit, but it was so sad to see how heartbroken she was.

But unfortunately, today was fast and testimony meeting, aka get up on your soapbox Sunday for some people. I knew there was the potential for more drama, and I was right. Lots of women bore testimony of the temple (there had been a stake relief society temple trip that week) and one sister talked about her involvement in the UMP (center right political party), and there were a few more randoms. But of course, as soon as people start lining up, sister P gets in line with a smug expression on her face and I knew it was coming. She got up and talked about how we come to church to be healed, and addressing the congregation said "if you are sick you cannot preach to me" and other accusatory nonsense. She sits down and we all breathe in again, but then her husband gets in line and I'm thinking this could either be good or bad.

It was bad. He called "certain people in the ward" to repentance and chastened them for their lack of charity, etc etc citing from scripture and so forth. Ugh. Finally he sits down too and we have more testimonies. At the end of the meeting, the bishop got up and sweetly but very clearly reminded everybody 1) what the point of a testimony was and 2) that he and he alone has the prerogative to chasten/call to repentance the members of the ward as a whole, and that he saw no need to do so at this moment. Laying down the law!

Anyway. Some good mixed in with the bad. I am grateful for people who just get it and who are fantastic leaders. Our bishop is wonderful and carries such a burden. He's doing a wonderful job and there are many great members that move seamlessly from one calling to another to keep things running and running in the right direction. Ha, today our relief society president got released and in the same breath called as the primary president!

In other news... we spent a great long weekend (minus Sunday) with my uncle Charles' family. Unfortunately I've been working too much lately and I had some pretty ridiculous deadlines, but we still had a good time. We went to the local farmer's market, took a bike ride, visited the Val d'Europe (a very big shopping mall that has an outdoor portion with outlet designer boutiques) and spent time playing in their yard and braiding each other's hair while Andrew played Halo with the boys :)

Also, I found the nail polish colors I had been looking for for quite some time now. The only brand I could find that carried them was O.P.I. and I didn't really care to spend $20 on nail polish. I got two awesome colors for $5! I know, it's silly that I'm so excited about something so silly, but it made me very happy.

And for a touch of randomness: you find some interesting things when you're packing...

my dad in action

This is pretty neat: it's our old family bible, with lots of birth dates and wedding dates, etc. I wish my handwriting looked that good!

Have a happy Sunday!

Article of the week, or something like that

Just came across this article by Patricia T. Holland on becoming women of greater faith in Christ.

It's a good read :)

Good food, culture and laundry

It may not have been such a good idea to get a really stinky Camembert... because now the kitchen smells like feet every time I open the fridge. Anyway. Just looking at what's inside our fridge makes me happy enough to counteract the bad odor. Real yogurts. Grenadine syrup. Country bread. Lardons. Ahhhh life is good. I just about die every time we go grocery shopping because I have to force myself to not grab everything I see... it's all about pacing yourself, but self-restraint is just so hard!

Yesterday we slept in, then cleaned, then did our grocery shopping and bought fantastic food, came home and prepared a fantastic lunch, then went out on the town for a stop at Ladurée--my personal heaven on earth--although I vow never to return to the Champs-Elysées one because it was packed with tourists (I realize that sounds incredibly snooty of me... but hey! I have more of a claim to that place than them--so there! Eh, what am I talking about, I took a picture of myself with the fancy bag just like the Japanese girl before me... whatever). Anyway. Everything in there is not only absolutely delicious but also beautifully presented/packaged/wrapped. It's like the Cartier of sweets.

We got rose, lilly-of-the-valley, sea-salt caramel, pistachio and raspberry-flavored macarons that we ate on our way to the Musée d'Orsay that was open for free tonight. There was a section on impressionism, and plenty of Monet and Degas which of course was great, but my favorite part was actually an expo on the Opéra de Paris. They had 1/100 scale models of the stage and then the entire building in cross-section. It was fascinating to see the inner workings behind and underneath and above the stage--it's massive! And then they-had models of various stage decors from the past (often designed by famous artists) in little boxes cut out of the wall. It was like peering into a lilliputian stage. I hope we get another chance to go the opera while we're here, it's just magical.

In other news, this is how we dry our laundry here...

It's pretty "folklo" as they say here :) (folkloric)

PS: lest any american readers think after reading our adventures in France that it's a backwards country where people don't shower, I'd just like to point out that many homes are much more modern than ours; we just so happen to live in a nearly 100-year-old house!

Oh, and we went to our ward this morning, the people are really nice there and I think we'll really enjoy it. Looks like I'll have a VT assignment very soon, and Andrew's already signed us up for a talent show :)

Folk hymn

This is crazy.

I was doing some research for our ward's Easter program (yes, I need to plan that far in advance) and there's a French hymn that I like that talks about going to a garden to pray, etc. and I thought it was very fitting for easter right?

Favorite church quote of today: 'knowest thou the condensation of God?' The funniest part is the man didn't even blink...