Come, Follow Me

This year marks a major change for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For my whole life our Sunday worship has consisted of three hours of church, with additional leadership meetings and choir practices and firesides as needed. I remember my friends at school commenting that that sounded like a lot of church. It was what I knew and was accustomed to, so it didn't seem like a lot to me.

This past October, during our worldwide General Conference, an adjustment was announced. We will now meet together as a congregation for two hours each Sunday (plus those additional meetings mentioned above) and as a family at home for the third hour.

To give you an idea of how things work at our house, we already have Family Home Evening (FHE) on Monday nights which consist of a song or two, opening and closing prayers, a lesson or testimonies, and sometimes (though not usually in our family) an activity. We also read the scriptures together everyday and pray together morning and evening. And we have lots of additional Gospel discussions throughout the week as inspiration dictates.

When I heard that I was now responsible for an additional hour of church in my home I freaked out. A lot. For several months. I felt the weight of responsibility. I felt that I was just barely hanging on to sanity and productivity. I felt that I was already doing so much, how could I possibly add this as well? Guys, I have three callings (roles, jobs, responsibilities) at church right now. I'm a cub scout den leader, a Sunday School teacher of teenagers, and the choir director. None of those scared me like this did. An hour of church at home every week. How much of that hour would consist of telling the kids to stop poking at each other/making weird noises/dancing/interrupting/arguing? Our Family Home Evenings last fifteen minutes tops because of these very concerns.

Please know that my testimony is strong and didn't waver. But I felt incredibly overwhelmed.

And so I prayed. A lot. For several months. I read and reread the announcement and the promises made to those that followed this new way of doing church. I talked with only a small handful of people about my concerns because I felt so on the periphery of how everyone else felt about the changes. Mostly I talked with Bryan about how we were going to make this work in our home.

The new course of study started yesterday. Since it was Monday, I planned our FHE lesson around this new plan. We held a family council. I told the kids that we're not going to have the parents teaching for an hour each Sunday, but instead that we would all take an active role in the discussions we'll have as a family. And I told them that this new change was scary for me and that I needed their help.

Then I asked what they each wanted to see happen in our hour of church at home. I pulled my brand new 2019 calendar off the wall and wrote the list on the back so we would know where to find it for future reference. I'm going to write it here as well. All six of us that can speak contributed to the list.

Come, Follow Me 2019 Family Goals

• sing songs
• snack time (a real suggestion from the always hungry oldest)
• pray together
• play games with/about the lesson
• have individual assignments to help with the lesson
• have a notebook for each person for notes/thoughts/impressions
• watch church movies
• meet in a clean room
• bear testimonies
• take turns leading family discussion
• role play
• color
• be reverent
• pay attention

We're two days in now. We were all home today and in the afternoon I realized we'd had a fairly calm, peaceful day, which is kind of an anomaly. Peace in our homes is one of the promises of this new way of doing church. I expect we'll have plenty of bumps to smooth out as we progress, but this small glimpse of the feeling we can have in our home is a tender mercy. 

It's going to be okay.

Taming the Beast

The laundry was growing unruly. The piles were reaching such heights I feared we might lose something important in them, like a shoe or a child. But between the hours spent feeding Sophie and the (much fewer) hours spent sleeping, I had lost hope of conquering the clothing.

Then I had an epiphany. In a short forty-minute period I had the laundry taken care of and the loft free of the offending material. What was my amazing solution, you ask? It's quite simple actually.

I didn't fold anything.

I sorted the clothes based on who they belonged to, put each person's clothing in their own laundry basket, and instructed them to put away their own stuff. Everything gets unfolded when small hands put it away in drawers, so why not save a step?

When Peter came for his basket he paused and asked, 'Um Mom, you know you forgot to fold this, right?"

What Are Your Strengths?

Last night I went to a class on being a leader. It was taught by one of the professors of the MBA program.

And it was amazing.

He taught that there are basically two ways to lead. You can focus on the areas that you need to improve and work hard to fill those gaps. Or you can focus on your strengths and use those to the best of your ability to lift and lead those around you. He was a proponent of the latter. He encouraged us to look at what we are naturally good at, then to evaluate whether or not we're using those skills on a daily basis.

He asked, "Are you an artist that doesn't paint? Are you a writer that doesn't write?" That resounded with me. Are there things that I should be doing on a daily basis that I'm not? Absolutely. I've got a mental list going that I keep adding to. I came home and asked Bryan if there's any real world application to being extremely social. I was half joking, I know I have other talents that I should really work on. But he looked at me seriously and said, "Yes, networking."

Networking is something that MBAs have had drilled into their heads. And it's true, I network naturally. I can remember details that people tell me about themselves so that when I see them again I can introduce them to new people and make new connections for them. In high school my mom called me "the Cruise Director" because at dances and social situations I was the one flitting from group to group, seeing that everyone was happy. I've never really thought of this as a serious talent. I thought the talent part was including people and making them feel wanted and welcome, and that's definitely part of it. But that's not all of it.

I also thought about my role as a leader in my home. Which leadership strategy do I employ? Sometimes it's the first, sometimes it's the second. I want to shift what I've been doing and focus more on strengths. I know that sometimes we have to point out what's missing, but I'm afraid I do that too much.

So tomorrow I'm going to actively search for my strengths and the strengths of my children. I'm going to highlight them and see if we can make time for them.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Chemists Wanted

I love the clean feeling of having just showered. I feel fresh and alert and ready for the day. My clothes feel softer, my hair flows freer, my disposition is sunnier.

And then I have to put on sunscreen.

The winter was sooooooo long this year that we're spending as much time outside as we can get away with. Today we went out to play in the morning AND the afternoon, twice as much as most days. Due to my pale skin (which isn't really pale, but does burn and freckle in the blink of an eye) I have to slather on the sunscreen. So do Peter and Phoebe. Cooper gets a coat too, but he doesn't burn, he browns.

Sunscreen is sticky and greasy. It cancels out that clean, fresh-from-the-shower feeling that I love so much. I still apply it, but I don't like it.

So here's my idea: I want someone to invent shampoo, conditioner, and body wash that all contain sunscreen. I realize that we wash those items off but want sunscreen to stay on. I don't know how to solve that problem, but I don't have to. I'm the idea person, not the scientist.

Seriously, are there any chemists out there that want to tackle this challenge?

Edit: I just did a quick Google search (which I should have done before I started typing this post) and discovered that body wash and shampoo sunscreen exist! The two body washes that I found were only SPF 15 though, which is better than nothing, but only by a little.

The shampoo comes from India and only costs $32 for 6.7 fluid onces. Hmmm. That's a wee bit more than I usually spend on shampoo. I also found this dog shampoo. It has sunscreen too and it's just $7.99 for four gallons. And come on, who wouldn't want to smell like their dog?