HANDCART TRIP!

BLOG CHURCH?

OUR HANDCART TRIP

We are going to Wyoming to all the handcart sights for the next 4 days with a group that does their own treck...not handcarts. We just drive to all the sights and tell the stories that happened there. A woman moving into my new Ward is part of this organization- Jolene Allphin. She has written a book called "Tell My Story Too". She works with an amazing oil pastel artist named Julie Rogers who will also be part of the group. Julie paints pictures of the stories that Jolene writes. I have seen Julie's work at the Mission Gallery in St. George (It's on St. George Blvd. near the downtown area. It is worth a look see if you are ever there). Julie's oils are the most powerful art I have every seen. http://www.tellmystorytoo.com/ If you go to the sight be sure to click on the pictures to enlarge and to see the marvelous colors that Julie uses in her paintings. I have a character, Elizabeth Horrocks Jackson of the painting "Vault of Heaven." I will portray her in a program on the sight where her husband died. I also have a new pioneer outfit. I will return with pictures and details next week.

STUNNING PHOTOS

Here are 50 feel good photos to brighten your day. The one with the cat and the deer was taken locally and appeared in the Desseret News a few weeks back.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/04/28/really-stunning-pictures-and-photos/

SALMON MOUSSE

This is a great way to use up a little leftover fish and it is a cool refreshing summer dish or meal starter with crackers. Maybe it is "chick" food but I love it.
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1 C. cold water
1 pkg. Gelatin
1 C. mayonnaise (you can use light if you’re counting calories)
2 C. broiled Salmon flaked or other flaky fish
1 C. minced celery
1 C. chopped peeled English cucumber
2 T. fresh dill or 2 tsp. Dried
1 T. fresh lemon juice
½ tsp. Sea salt
¼ tsp. Pepper


Sprinkle the gelatin over the cold water. Heat in microwave until hot. Stir until gelatin is dissolved. Cool until it barely starts to thicken. Add the mayonnaise and then the remaining ingredients and stir well. (Add the Salmon last and let it be in chunks not shreds) Pour into oiled mold or spray with Pam. Chill for about 3 hours. Unmold by submerging the mold in very hot water for 30 seconds or so. Serve with crackers or on a lettuce leaf as a salad.

BURNING IN HELL - MOTHER'S DAY

Last Mother's day Mike and I gave our farewell address at the Farmington 8th Ward. This is the talk I gave.

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My daughter Maren called me once last year concerned about a scripture in the 64 section of the D&C where the Lord promises that the proud and the wicked shall be as stubble; and I will burn them up…She said that bothered her to think about God like that. What did I think about the concept of burning in the gospel? So, I spent the day in the scriptures reading all I could about fire and burning in the scriptures.


I discovered that there are many scriptures about fire in heaven and hell. Two weeks ago Jean Evans talked about Joseph Smith’s vision of the Father and the Son in the Celestial kingdom and they were surrounded by Fire. Mike Miller talked about Elisha and the Chariots of Fire.


Isaiah said (33:14) Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? Then in verse 15 he goes on to answer: He that walketh righteously and speaketh uprightly...

D&C 137:2-3 I saw the transcendent beauty of the gate through which the heirs of the kingdom will enter, which was like unto circling flames of fire; Also the blazing throne of God whereon was seated the Father and the Son.


I think this scripture in Malach was the defining answer:
Malachi 3:2-3 - But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap; And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.

I have a story about a woman watching a silversmith refine silver:
As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest as to burn away all the impurities.


The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot; then she thought again about the verse that says:"He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver."


She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined. The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed.


The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, "How do you know when the silver is fully Refined?"


He smiled at her and answered, "Oh, that's easy -- when I see my image in it" Alma 5:14 Have ye received his image in your countenances?


So, I believe that these scriptures show that the burning of God is a refining fire. The refiner’s fire can be very painful but I do believe that it is loving in God’s infinite wisdom. He knows what we need to learn and the refiners fire will allow us become our highest and best self.


Carlfred Broderick a renowned family therapist told the following in his book "As Women of Faith". He was the Stake President and had just attended a program on Temple marriage put on by the Young Women. When it was over he was asked if there was anything he would like to add. He said: "Yes, there is," and I don’t think the woman has ever forgiven me. What I said was this, "Girls, this has been a beautiful program. I commend the gospel with all of its auxiliaries and the temple to you, but I do not want you to believe for one minute that if you keep all the commandments and live as close to the Lord as you can and do everything right and fight off the entire priests quorum one by one and wait chastely for your missionary to return and pay your tithing and attend your meetings, accept calls from the bishop, and have a temple marriage, I do not want you to believe that bad things will not happen to you. And when that happens, I do not want you to say that God was not true. Or, to say, ‘They promised me in Primary, they promised me when I was a Mia Maid, they promised me from the pulpit that if I were very, very good, I would be blessed. But the boy I want doesn’t know I exist, or the missionary I’ve waited for and kept chaste so we both could go to the temple turned out to be a flake,’ or far worse things than any of the above. Sad things—children who are sick or developmentally handicapped, husbands who are not faithful, illnesses that can cripple, or violence, betrayals, hurts, deaths, losses—when those things happen, do not say God is not keeping His promises to me. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not insurance against pain. It is resource in event of pain, and when that pain comes (and it will come because we came here on earth to have pain among other things), when it comes, rejoice that you have resource to deal with your pain."


"Now, I do not want to suggest for a moment, nor do I believe, that God visits us with all that pain. I think that may occur in individual cases, but I think we fought a war in heaven for the privilege of coming to a place that was unjust. That was the idea of coming to earth—that it was unjust, that there would be sorrow. As Eve so eloquently said, it is better that we should suffer….I am persuaded that she had rare insight, more than her husband, into the necessity of pain, although none of us welcome it."

I feel there is no greater Refiner’s Fire on this earth than motherhood. My mother made some bad choices in her younger days that put her in a very painful refiners fire. Some fires do come from our choices some come as part of life in a fallen world but we can be refined by both. When I was about 10 years old I saw my mother prayerfully quit smoking so she could go back to church. At this time she was married to an abusive alcoholic. I saw her develop so many amazing humble qualities as she attempted to create a home for her children in a very chaotic atmosphere with the help of the Lord. I saw the Gospel begin to purify her in the fire of her adversity. I wanted to be a part of this gospel that brought some hope and peace to our home life. Her fire was my salvation. She had to go into hiding in fear for her life when she finally left my dad after the children were gone. When she was 64 years old she died of a brain tumor that had caused her to suffer incredible pain for several years. This refined her even more. Carlfred Brodrerick told about the lingering suffering of his dad when he was dying. It made me think of my mother. He said: "…I know he was refined by his pain, by his adversity. He needed to go through that suffering. He could have been embittered, he could have been destroyed. His faith could have soured and left him, but he chose to learn from his pain. I do not want you to think that is was the pain that was good. It was the man that was good and that made the pain work for him, as indeed our Savior did.


This was so true of my mother. She was good and the pain worked for her.


So, I close asking how can we be good enough to endure our refiner’s fires? I have two scripture:
Moroni 7:48 …pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope that we may be purified even as he is pure.


When I pass on I hope to meet Jeremiah. His intense suffering, alone, trying to teach the rebellious Israelites never ceases to give me strength. I love the following scripture because it shows his discouragement but lets me know how he got through.


Jeremiah 20: 7-9 O Lord, thou has decieved me, and I was deceived: thou art stronger than I, and has prevailed: I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me. For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil; because the word of the Lord was made a reproach unto me, and a derision daily. Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forebearing, and I could not Stay.


So, are we all going to burn in a lake of fire and brimstone for all of our mistakes and sins? The pain of remorse and regret can be as painful as any fire. Hebrews 4:8 Though He were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered. We are here to learn as the Savior did and suffering must certainly be a part of our education. But, He has given us the tools to endure well. What a blessing! In the end we have two choices. Our pain can make us bitter or better. I pray for better.

BEING NATURALLY GOOD - C. S. Lewis

We must, therefore, not be surprised if we find among the Christians some people who are still nasty. There is even, when you come to think it over, a reason why nasty people might be expected to turn to Christ in greater numbers than nice ones. That was what people objected to about Christ during His life on earth: He seemed to attract "such awful people." That is what people still object to, and always will. Do you not see why? Christ said "Blessed are the poor" and "How hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom," and no doubt He primarily meant the economically rich and the economically poor. But do not His words also apply to another kind of riches and poverty? One of the dangers of having a lot of money is that you may be quite satisfied with the kinds of happiness money can give and so fail to realize your need for God. If everything seems to come simply by signing checks, you may forget that you are at every moment totally dependent on God. Now quite plainly, natural gifts carry with them a similar danger. If you have sound nerves and intelligence and health and popularity and a good upbringing, you are likely to be quite satisfied with your character as it is. "Why drag God into it?" you may ask. A certain level of good conduct comes fairly easily to you. You are not one of those wretched creatures who are always being tripped up by sex, or drinking, or nervousness, or bad temper. Everyone says you are a nice chap and (between ourselves) you agree with them. You are quite likely to believe that all this niceness is your own doing: and you may easily not feel the need for any better kind of goodness. Often people who have all these natural kinds of goodness cannot be brought to recognize their need for Christ at all until, one day, the natural goodness lets them down and their self-satisfaction is shattered. In other words, it is hard for those who are "rich" in this sense to enter the Kingdom. – Mere Christianity p. 180-181

HOLDING A GRUDGE

Holding a grudge is
Like taking poison
And hoping
The other man
Will
Die

1914 KENSINGTON - 29 YEARS

After reading this Mike said no one cared about the decorating cycle. I almost took it out to shorten the story but didn't. I care...that is enough for now.

Years before it really happened Mike told someone, while driving through Davis County, that he wanted to live in the eastern hills of Farmington someday. It was prophetic. Mike took the job with Logicon after Stanford graduate school because they had an office in Clearfield. We hoped somehow that an opportunity to move back to Utah might present itself. After 2 ½ years in San Pedro, California the offer came. Mike would spend his entire career with this company—in Utah. Not very happily as they made his scientist into a businessman with what he called "the golden handcuffs." Soon he will be able to retire and hopefully enjoy many years of contentment.
We traveled to Utah on a house-hunting trip in early 1977. Randy Mortenson, Mikes brother-in-law, was building homes in the Farmington hills. One look at Somerset Farm and we were smitten. There was a gurgling stream, old cherry and apricot trees, towering cottonwoods and hills behind our chosen lot for future adventures.

We started looking at house plans in magazines. We sent for a book of contemporary plans and then decided to get a group of farmhouse plans also. We were beginning to collect antiques—maybe a farmhouse would be a good compliment. In the farmhouse plans there was a wonderful house with a wrap around porch, a large entry with an open staircase, an open kitchen and family room and a nice size living room dining room. The nook was a large bay that went two stories to a sitting room in the master bedroom. It was perfect.

We moved to Utah in May and lived in Mike’s parent’s home in Brigham City. I enjoyed that summer. We had most of our "stuff" in storage and it was nice living simply for awhile. We moved to an apartment in Layton in September so Beau could start kindergarten and we could be closer to the building process.

The hole for the basement was dug in September of 1977. A special backhoe had to be brought in due to all the huge rocks—thus the beginning of the Rock Wall, but that story has been told already. This one is about the house
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I have lots of regrets about the things Mike did in the house to save money—a little extra on our mortgage wouldn’t have stressed our finances that much and it would have saved Mike many days and nights of toil. When your cheap your cheap, what can I say. The painting alone was an elephant of a job. Mike worked far into the night many days painting—then he tiled two bathroom showers, bathroom sink tops, and the kitchen counters. He did a nice job for someone with an instruction book in one hand and a tile in the other.

Mike was driving through Clearfield one day and saw a house being torn down that had an oval door—a must for our farmhouse. He got the name of the owners and talked them out of the door.

While still in California we purchased two antique stained glass tulip windows for the little alcoves in the entry. The alcoves were intended to be closets but they turned out to be just right for the windows. We found an old fireplace mantel in an antique shop in Lehi that had been painted black. We bought it for $350 but not before scraping a little paint to determine that it was oak as the black shiny paint made it look plastic. Mike stripped it and finished it. It turned out to be a gorgeous piece with delicate carvings of wreaths, garlands and an oval mirror. We never intended to leave this mantel if we ever sold the house. It now graces the greatroom of our new house. We actually purchased another antique mantel to replace it but in the end decided we wanted it for the new basement fireplace. We had a simple mantel made to fit the space in the Kensington house when we left.

In the beginning every room had a different color carpet—gold in the living room, rusty variegated in the family room, brown in Beau’s room, plain rust in our room, lime green in Maren’s and I honestly can’t remember what Ian’s room had. The tile on the kitchen counters was a deep rusty red and the linoleum was an orange brick color. It didn’t show dirt, and that’ about all I can say for it which is a lot with little boys running in and out all day.

We moved in on July 1, 1978 without permission from the building inspector. Our apartment notice had been given and the house wasn’t finished but we decided to get forgiveness instead of permission. We were still on temporary power so the air conditioner was not usable. Needless to say it was a miserable summer.

We soon discovered the hills behind the house and Mike and I would walk and run in them for the next 29 years. The boys enjoyed many adventures in the hills also. They built "huts", caught lizards, played in the Creek and generally explored it all. We had birthday parties and Easter egg hunts in a little clearing by the creek on many occasions. In the last 10 years the developers began building on our trails and we were forever trying to find new places to walk. Our new home gives us access to many of the same trails if our aging bodies we will allow us to continue to walk uphill.

Wallpaper was in when we moved in and I proceeded to wallpaper every bedroom above the chair rail and the main floor family room. I made curtains and roman shades. The many windows in this house were a delight. The first thing I would do when coming down stairs in the morning was open the blinds. The view of Evans orchards from my stove was wonderful. I thought I owned everything around me and in the evening the sunset was a panorama in the windows. I eventually lost it all as houses began to fill up the lots across the street and next door to the north. The last view was the hills from the kitchen window and it was being built on the last year we lived in Somerset. The road going by our lot to this property finally was closed off for this subdivision and we had a year of grass on the road area before we left.

We planted a garden every year when the yard was finished in the garden plot we created on the North side of the house. Fresh tomatoes were always a favorite. We will miss them the most.

Mike rocked the fireplace in the basement and built a bookcase after we had lived there about five years. We discovered that a full-size couch would not fit down the turn in the basement stairs so we bought a sectional. The only TV in the house was in the basement family room so it was used a lot.

The next decorating round would bring in white tile counter tops in the kitchen, peach walls in the living room, pastel peach and blue flower basket wallpaper in the family room and main floor bathroom, and off white balloon curtains with blue dotted roman shades (that I actually had someone make) and linoleum with blue squares. This was my blue phase. I even painted the entry walls blue. The living room had lace curtains. About this time Mike put up oak crown mold, wide oak baseboards and had the arch for the living room made of oak. There were plint blocks and bulls-eye pieces on the door corners. Mike worked very hard on this project and it was eye-popping spectacular when finished. We had collected many antique pieces by now so everything fit to make the house look like a real Victorian farmhouse. We even had gingerbread made for the front porch.

The last 10 years we changed things once more. We updated all the bathrooms with new tile. We had tile put in all the main floor areas that had linoleum previously. (We never liked this tile. I wasn’t very good at choosing from a small sample). A decorator in the neighborhood was using a lot of vinyl textured wallpaper so I decided to do it too. I chose a variety of off white textures and wallpapered everything. In our bedroom, basement and main floor family I wallpapered over existing wallpaper. I loved it. The walls were all neutral and indestructible. But the 30-year-old that bought our house didn’t like it and had to pay someone a lot of money to get it off and paint. It ripped the sheet rock in a lot of places. The big tragedy is that she painted the oak molding in the living room. It made me kinda sick for a week or so. I did try to talk her out of doing it. What could I say, it’s her house now.

About the last 10 years we got a porch swing. I can’t imagine why it took me so long to get the swing because we loved it. It was the one thing that the new owner requested that we leave. One year we put an arbor over the rock wall and the first couple of years I had a lace plant growing over it with a profusion of white lacy flowers. When the roses started to grow the lace plant died out. This rose bush had an amazing profusion of deep red blooms.

Before we left we put in granite counter tops and hardwood floors in the main floor family room. Maren was working for a granite company and we got a good deal on the granite or we probably wouldn’t have done it but we loved it. We put in the wood floors ourselves from some cabin grade oak flooring that Mike found somewhere for $1 a foot—here we go, doing things ourselves again the cheap way.

I always liked 1914 Kensington but it had its bugs. The master bedroom didn’t have a good closet—the other bedrooms had better ones. I needed more kitchen cupboards. Not being able to get a couch down the basement was irritating. The basement was dark. The hot water caused a pop in the kitchen that we never figured out. That’s not too many things to dislike about a house is it? So, why did we move?

People shouldn’t stay in houses that long—not if you are a pack rat. I did things for the new owner I never did for myself. I sanded and finished all the kitchen and bathroom cabinet drawers. I painted the shelves in the food storage room. We painted the garage floor. We finished the deck. I cleaned and sorted things that hadn’t been done from the beginning. Moving motivates one to clean and sort. Maybe instead of redecorating we should have moved earlier. The fact is there were a hundred more things that needed done and we were tired. We love our new house but 1914 Kensington will forever have a sweet place in my heart. It was the homestead.

1914 Kensington Slide Show