My Part in His Plan

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf posted this on Facebook recently:

"April general conference is a time when seasons change. In the southern hemisphere, the leaves turn colors as autumn begins, and spring flowers bloom in the north. Conference provides an opportunity to gather together as friends and families to become more united in our faith in Jesus Christ and in our efforts to serve Him.

 As I have prepared for this conference, I have felt impressed that each one should ponder again about God's plan for our lives and consider our individual place in this divine plan as His children.

Please, always remember that each one of us matters to Him, wherever we may be. "

I've been thinking a lot about this question:

What is my role in Heavenly Father's plan?

The answer that I came up with:

I am my Heavenly Father's daughter.

My part in His plan is to learn and to return to live with Him again some day.

I don't need to do any BIG thing for Him.

I just need to learn who I am again (and again, and again).

He will tell me through the scriptures and prayer.

He will tell me through my obedience.
 
We are all on the same journey.

So, while I am walking this path back to my Heavenly Father I will help others on their path, too.  

It really is as simple as that.

Being Rooted (for)

When I was a kid, every Monday night when we would gather as a family, one of us would have the job to tell a story about one of our ancestors.

We had a drawer full of personal histories to choose from.

There were several stories that got repeated over and over again and became our favorite. And even though we had never met these ancestors we felt like we knew them through these stories.

When we got older, our parents compiled a notebook with these stories, and a few others from our pioneer history, and gave them to each of us to use in our Family Home Evening.

We love doing this in my family and now my kids have their own favorite stories that they share over and over again.

My parents have continued to put together histories of different ancestors and give us copies through the years.

A few years before my Grandpa died, my Dad put together his Dad's personal history in a book format.  It was a huge work of love and he had it published. 

It was so fun to learn new things about my grandpa and I felt so much closer to him.

Having caught the "book publishing" bug, my Dad decided he wanted to put together all of our old family history stories into a book format. 

He and my Mom gathered all of the old stories we used as children and found some new ones.  They even put stories from our own family growing up.

Each of my children just got their own copy as well as a copy of their great-grandfather's book!


For Christmas one year my father-in-law gave us a journal from his side of the family. As I was reading through some of his family's history, I thought that some of the stories sounded very familiar.

I wondered if our ancestors knew each other.

Then sometime around our second or third year of marriage my husband and I were taking a family history class and we came across a line that didn't branch like the others.  We realized that we shared a common ancestor.  (I believe it is our 5th great-grandparents.  Which, I think means we are 5th cousins.)

One of the histories that my mom put together actually included stories of this common ancestor. 

I was so thankful that I had been given information about these ancestors so that I felt like I knew them.

In fact, I had this vision of them in heaven; my ancestors and my husbands, looking down on us and celebrating that their descendants had gotten together. It seemed as if all of their work/history was being combined into our family. 

What a powerful thing to feel that we have our own (not so) little cheering section up in heaven rooting for us to honor their name and continue the work that they started here.

Dancing With My Star

I have this great memory from my childhood.

It's dancing with my Dad.

We had a daddy-daughter dance once and learned "The Minuet".

I can still remember some of the steps.

So, when I was put in charge of the activity for the girls (8-11yrs) at church, I thought of this.

It was a low key night. We just had punch and cookies.

Most of the dads who came with their daughters were very reluctant about dancing (including my own daughter's father) .

The girls, on the other hand, seemed to be beaming because they had their dads to themselves (I remember that feeling).

Anyway, I taught them the waltz. Just the basic box step. I also taught the Electric Slide; just to the girls (kind of to give the dad's a break). And then we ended with a final waltz to Journey's Open Arms.

It was fun, but I think my favorite part was listening to the girls giggle. They had so much fun.

I'm not sure if any memories were made for these girls, but it was nice for me to relive mine.

I love my Dad.