Fred's Musings

Crys is always asking me to contribute to our blog so this is my first post!

Over Thanksgiving, Crys and I stayed at her parents house. While there, I took some time to work on my car. While I was working, I happened to step in a big mud hole and got one of my shoes dirty. I then spent the next 5 minutes or so trying to clean my shoe and it got me thinking. Have you ever noticed that once something is dirty, it takes considerable effort to get it clean again?
The same goes for water. Once something gets wet, it takes a lot of time and energy to get it completely dry, and for things like paper, the object is never the same again. It's the same with mud and dirt. It completely ruins certain objects and they never get completely clean again. It's odd how we can spend all of our time, effort an energies trying to keep something dry and clean, and one little mistake, one moment of carelessness when we are not paying attention where we are laying a precious book, or photo or not watching where we step, and instantly, the mud seeps up or the water permeates the entire page/book and we are stuck with a ruined book or at the very least, a book that every time we look at it, it will remind us of our carelessness.
I have often wondered why water/mud was so persistent. Why is it that water will instantly, in a matter of a second, 2 at the most, seep into anything that's dry, our clothes, paper, even our own skin! And yet, for as easy as it is to get muddy or wet, it can be ridiculously hard to get those stains out.
While I was cleaning my shoe off on Thursday, it hit me. This is just like the gospel! We go months, years even a lifetime taking every precaution, doing our absolute best and then one moment of carelessness or not watching where we step, and instantly we are changed forever. All it takes is one instant on the wrong TV show, or movie or hearing the wrong conversation at work, and we are stuck with that "dirty" spot on our souls. And it is SO hard to get them out of our minds once it is there. It is only with the help of the Atonement that we can remove those spots and get rid of the stain.
Fortunately for us, unlike water spots/stains, the Atonement, if used properly leaves no spot and it's like the incident never happened! How lucky are we to have an elder brother in Jesus Christ, who loves us so much that he came down and took upon him all of our pains, sorrows and sins. I don't know how he did it. I'm absolutely disgusted with the world we live in at times to the point of tears.
As Crys will tell you, I am very sensitive to other people's spirits, even if they are not around me. I won't watch certain shows like CSI because they have such an awful spirit around them. All that horrible evil in the world. I don't like to be reminded of it. In that way, Crys and I are a lot alike, she can sense falseness in people and if they are having an emotion strong enough, it will bleed over into her, but she has to be near them. Not so with me. It will even come through books or TV as I mentioned above. I am SO grateful to Jesus for doing what he did for us. I'm not sure I could have done it. I think I would have been willing to try, but I don't think I could stand all that evil. Crys will also tease me because I won't watch certain movies. I love scary movies, but only ones that could never happen. Ghost stories and such. It is possible it could happen, I don't like watching them because again, I can feel the evil of those people. I don't like to be reminded that there are evil people in the world who kill for the enjoyment of it, or who quite literally worship the devil. I much prefer the good things in life.
Sorry, I've gotten quite off topic and seem to be rambling. I will end with my testimony so that all of you may know my love of the Savior and know that I know he is the Christ. I know that Jesus lives. I know he performed the atonement and that through his sacrifice we can overcome our natural man inside each of us. I know that Thomas S. Monson is his prophet here on the earth. I know God loves us and is reaching out to us and all we need to do is accept His help. I leave that testimony with you in His name, amen.

Sorry if this is disjointed and hard to follow, but then again, it is my musings so deal with it! :) - Fred

Early Christmas

I am usually the first to complain about people playing Christmas music too early but with Thanksgiving being so late in the month I've decided to conform. Also since I had to fix the base code of the page I decided to go ahead and put up a Christmas page. So enjoy!!!

Stever and Shawna's Wedding

This is why my life has been super nuts lately. With a little less than two weeks notice I helped put together a wedding and reception. Which took place at our house, and I was Matron of Honor and Fred was Best Man.
Steven (Who we call Stever) used to live here at the house with Fred and they have been friends for a few years now. Stever started dating Shawna since early this year and Shawna and I became good friends. In July they became engaged and shortly after found out they were expecting twins (which we now know are boys). So they pushed the wedding up to this Fall so they would be married before the boys were born.
So this past week was spent putting together this wedding. I made Shawna's and my dresses, a full Thanksgiving type dinner (with help from the mothers), cleaned house and setup a formal dinner for 16 people. Oh yeah and I made a wedding cake. Yeah I think that covers the major points.
Between, Brandon moving up, Time Out for Women and the wedding I'm wiped. This week is going to be my down week with only doing my bare minimums. So if you don't hear from me that's why.
PS: I did not take the pictures, so don't blame me for that 'iffy' quality.

Time Out For Women

Well, Lacy beat me to posting about Time Out For Women but I have had a lot on my plate. But that is another blog. But this will be a special blog. Normally I write my blogs and then paste them into my journal for a hard copy to pass on. This time around I'm typing out the journal entry I've already written. So it's a little more personal and probably contains more grammar errors. But sit back and enjoy.
Saturday, November 15th,2008 So at this moment I have decided that this entry needs to be written by hand before I put it on the blog. Hopefully I won't fall asleep while I'm writing, which I've done before. Anyway I just got home from "Time Out For Women" in Nashville, TN. What a wonderful experience to have. It is an event put together by Deseret Book so it is very spiritual but very fun. Mom, Kara (a sister in Mom's ward) and I went down yesterday afternoon. After a three hour drive we arrived at the conference center just as things were starting. Last night was two musical performers- Hilary Weeks and Kenneth Cope. The wonderful thing I have found to LDS artists is they don't just sing song after song without pausing like a lot of artists. They take time and tell you stories behind the inspiration of the song. And the meaning it has taken since it's writting. Hilary Weeks is a great writer and a good singer but she has a bit of country twang to her voice that I'm not found of. It was nice to hear her there but I'm not willing to get her CD. Kenneth Cop on the other hand, I did come home with one of this CDs. But he also wrote and preforms the song that got me through my mission. Anytime us sisters were down, discouraged, sick, or tired we played this song and we would all feel better instantly. (Thanks Janelle for finding it for my blog) Here are the words:

More steady, more sure

More trusted, more pure

Some say doesn’t matter

More trained and more aware

More aim to get me there

I climbed this far

You raised the bar

You want my heart

Chorus:

More fierce desire

To stand against the wind

More blazing fire

When dark is closing in

More love-inspired change within

So there’s more and more of me to give

More words to learn and know

More etched upon my soul

Some say it doesn’t matter

More tired, more true

Less me and much more You

I stretched this tall

You sound the call

You want my all

Chorus:

More fierce desire

To stand against the wind

More blazing fire

When dark is closing in

More love-inspired change within

So there’s more and more of me to give

You keep reaching out- Your calling out to me

More strengthened shoulders

To face the war with sin

More wise and bolder

To save the souls of men

A more faithful soldier to the end

You want more and more of me to give

More and more of me to give

More love, more purpose, more serve with all my might

I need more hope, more faith, more patience each day I pray for more

More and more of me to give

More fire, more zeal, more spirit to know what’s real

More courage, more joy, more and more of me to give

More grateful, more true, more humble to trust and do

You call, I hear

I’ll walk the path that’s set in stone

My heart is fixed on getting home

And what on earth could ever matter more?

More and more of me to give

More

And now that I'm having problems with my health again it was wonderful to have that song reintroduced into my life. So Kenneth Cope is kind of my musical hero. What was really cool was I got to meet him, take a picture with him, and he signed my CD.

We spent the at a hotel and went back this morning for the rest of the conference. Honestly I don't remember much of the morning session. It was a rough week, and night, and sitting on hard chairs. So I found a row of empty chairs and laid down. Of course I found asleep. I did hear a few good points that I wrote down but my notebook is over on the other side of the room.
First thing after lunch was a Q&A with the speakers. Earlier in the day people submitted for this part. What they (the presenters) did was they picked one question that all five of them answered and then each presenter picked a second question they wanted to answer personally. And would you believe it my question was picked for all of them to answer. It was "Besides the obvious of marriage and children what was the most joyous moment in your life?" The two that really stuck with me were Chris Stuart's and Emily Watts' answers. Emily Watts said it was a moment where she found peace with something and joy just rushed in. Chris Stuart's answer was about how every time he got back to the ground after flying with a certain Captain he was joyous he was alive.
There were a couple more speakers and we hall headed home. It was a good weekend.

Sorry it wasn't better but as you will read in the next blog there was something else on my mind.

Halloween

We had a fun Halloween. We didn't really have anything planned until we called a friend randomly. Our friend (Dan) told us that he was building a Haunted House in his backyard. So we went over to be a part of it. I dressed up in my orange scrubs that I used for a jail costume a few years ago. With that on I played the mad scientist. In my room we had a fog machine, black lights, and a screaming patient in there. Fred as you can see was dress up as a nightmare clown. He was at the very end with a chain saw in the dark and ran the people out of the yard. We probably had a couple of dozen of kids come through before we had to leave. What was annoying was that it was actually cold out. The last cold night that we had in two weeks. Oh well. It was worth it. We'll probably be back there next year.