skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Wendy and I have put a priority on having read all of the last general conferences addresses together before the next conference. We, of course, read from the conference issue of the ENSIGN. Generally we do this while traveling in the car, she driving and me reading out loud. We stop at any point to discuss or comment on what we have just read in order to digest the material a little better. While in NC, traveling a lot, we usually finished a couple of months ahead of time.
With a little less driving required of us now, we announce that we finished reading all of the addresses including those from the General Relief Society Meeting, this morning as we drove to attend a session at the Provo temple. The very last talk was one of the best. It was by President Monson, entitled “Charity Never Faileth.”
He concluded with a very insightful definition of charity--“true charity is love in action.”
“Needed is the charity which refuses to find satisfaction in hearing or in repeating the reports of misfortunes that come to others, unless by so doing, the unfortunate one may be benefited... Charity is having patience with someone who has let us down. It is resisting the impulse to become offended easily. It is accepting weaknesses and shortcomings. It is accepting people as they truly are. It is looking beyond physical appearances to attributes that will not dim through time. It is resisting the impulse to categorize others.”
So well stated. I hope I can live this commandment better.
We look forward to General Conference weekend. I wonder what the important themes and messages will be this time. We will be together as a family on Sunday evening at Matthew and Kim’s, to share our understandings of the things we heard. I hope that we can get some input, by phone, from Valerie’s and David’s families also.
The Soderquist remained here overnight, then in the morning, Alison and I worked on getting her started on taking over the computer files that contain our master family history records for the Evans side of our family.
JoAnn had worked quite a lot on this research and transferred her findings into a PAF database a few years ago, but this has not been updated since. Alison has the document file box that JoAnn left and now intends to go through that and make sure that all of the content of the source material it contains is incorporated into an Evans Master PAF file.
While we were together we added transcriptions of a couple of 1928 news articles about the death and funeral of Marion Keeth Benson which Valerie has just received from a Keeth relative, along with some other records I had found on these people in ancestry.com (census, burial).
There is really a lot that could be done to develop these records further as she and others get the time. Much of this would consist of gathering information already developed from other researchers, then sifting and incorporating it into our family master record. We know that there exist extensive additional records created by Jill Woodbury (on Keeth/Benson); a Barker lady (Averett/Mason). Apparently Chad Argyle has done some work on Evans family history. Ancestry.com is just full of family tree records on the Averett family and others, whose submitters could be contacted.
Another avenue that probably also should be pursued is generating (or gathering) biographies both for people long since gone and also for relatives currently living. Jill Woodbury has apparently created some extensive biographies in her work. Biographies really help to make family history live. Ideally the records for every person in our family history should include a biographical sketch, that contains something of the dynamics of a person’s life, what motivated them, what obstacles they overcame, what they accomplished, their strengths, etc. It sure is easier to write biographies on people that you know or knew personally. This would be the ideal time to write something about Grandma Gourley, Aunt Lois, Dan, Jane, etc.
A further objective might be to decide upon a course of action to coordinate and share information and findings. The time might be right to work jointly with Evans cousins on some of these things. Perhaps there might be some dividing up of responsibilities (research on specific lines, working on biographies, keeping records of current family members, gathering pictures, newsletter, publication, temple submissions,etc.)
We had lot of company last night and today. Most of the men and boys in the family here had gone for a hike-in overnighter to a yurt in the Uinta Mts. (I didn’t feel quite good enough to go to that.) Alison came down from South Weber with Rachel, Amy, and Christopher in the afternoon.
She helped me prune the little fruit trees we have in our back yard. Here is the nectarine tree after she finished. Doesn’t it look a little like a sheep after shearing?
For dinner we also had Emilie with Lindsey, Adam, Garrett, and Brandon, and Kimberly, with Alyssa, Megan, Erin, and Brianna with us. The guys were sure outnumbered.
Alison and Kimberly and all their girls (except for Brianna) then left us to attend a play at BYU (a version of Jane Austen’s PERSUASION). Emilie stayed until about 10 pm and the remaining grandkids played together. We had the luxury of having Emilie play the piano for us for a while. Also, part of the time she played accompaniment while I sang some solo pieces that I had worked on while taking voice lessons from Ralph Woodward while a young BYU student. I probably haven't these pieces for more than 50 years. There were some dramatic pieces like "Edward" and the Shubert's "The Erl King" and religious pieces, Chopin's "Christ Be With Me" and Gounod's "There Is A Green Hill". I was surprised that I still could sing most of them.
Look at the buds on the apricot tree starting to show "popcorn." We hope that the tree bides its time in coming to full blossom, to wait until these next storm systems pass, so that we will have some fruit from it this summer.
On Tuesday, Wendy and I took a trip to the Manti temple along with (Sister) Charlene Bloomgren, who was a records preservation missionary in Raleigh NC at the same time we were there on our mission. She was living in the Charlotte NC area when called on her mission, but has since come to Utah to help take care of a sister who was ill and is currently living in Orem.
It seems to us that the Manti temple is one of the jewels of all the temples, and is certainly one of our favorites. It is so extraordinarily pretty inside and out. The interior seems fresh and lovely yet has a pioneer flavor to it. I love the room with the Minerva Teichert mural.
After finishing our endowment session, we were able to have a temple worker take us to see some of the sealing rooms and also the two spiral staircases on the west end of the temple. These were constructed by pioneer craftsmen and circle up for six stories without center support.
Wendy and I were appalled to read a Deseret News article that reported a seeming unanimity among “scientific experts” that having children make persons less happy. (Studies say children subtract from happiness, so what do we really feel? Michael De Groote, Deseret News, Friday, March 18, 2011)
Statements by the author in the article included “Scientific studies have found that having children does not increase happiness. In fact, experts say it has the opposite effect. The more children you have the less happy you are” and “These results are confirmed across decades of research, with results published in 1957, 1970, 1975, 1978 and so on.” Several studies in scientific journals were summarized with none reported that contradicted these findings.
How could this be? Our experience in having our greatest joys come from our posterity seems so opposite.
We puzzled, “Is this conclusion really representative of all of the family research that has been conducted?” “Is this newsman really qualified to interpret the totality of research on this subject?” (In fairness to the author, he uses personal experiences with a sick child to perhaps raise doubts about the above study conclusions.) “How did the researchers define happiness?” “How did the average respondents define happiness?” Finally, “If these studies really validly describe attitudes in our society, what does this say about our society?”
This article has generated lots of reader comments (which I usually avoid), mostly along these lines:
“Marriage and family magnifies life. Before we had children, we were happy. Then children came along and my intense joy was higher than I ever thought it would be; but also, worry and sorrow were greater than I had ever known before. Being a parent is a tough job but after six children and 14 grandchildren, I'd do it again--just try to do a better job of it! The most intense joy I ever feel is with my children and grandchildren. Nothing else compares.”
“I will never regret having had children, only that I was not a better parent. My greatest joys and my greatest sorrows have revolved around my children. Maybe the problem is that the researchers are asking the wrong questions. Should they not be asking whether the joy has balanced with the sorrow; whether parents have become whole by giving life to and guiding another along in life?”
“Studies can be wrong - dead wrong. The first fallacy in these so-called studies is the presumption that the scientists can even "measure" happiness. Without a baseline, they can only pontificate on whether or not children "subtract" from our happiness. Happiness is a subjective thing, it is a sublime emotion, and it is rarely attributable to the moment in which we "feel" happy.”
“The people in this study don't know the difference between "happiness" and "joy".”
“If your definition of happiness only encompasses a selfish desire to satisfy yourself (have more money, spend more time on yourself, buy yourself nicer things, etc.), then I would agree that children definitely make you less happy. But if your definition of happiness is more unselfish, then children will bring you immense happiness.”
“I was single until I was 36, and then got an instant family--three stepchildren, and we had two more in two years. It has been hard work, but it has been worth it... The most serious problem I had when I was single was worrying about whether Captain Picard would be rescued from the Borg. Now I have a life. That's something these ivory-tower researchers don't seem to understand.”
“I wonder if the degree of satisfaction we derive from raising children is a function of the amount of real sacrifice of time and one-on one effort we make for our children.”
It is Sunday evening. We went to all of our Church meetings today, plus choir, plus I attended ward scouting committee. I think I am feeling a little better, and could take deep breaths without it hurting. I even made a joke today and teased Ross, a priest age young man who sits beside me in ward choir, about something. I think it was the first time I have felt like making a joke since about January.
Today was branch conference day in Mount Zion. We knew because of something June Owen had said in her Facebook. This was one of the highlight Sundays of the year, the day when the branch would put on a big feast for their stake visitors. (We were there for the last two branch conferences.) We got really homesick for Mount Zion today. This evening, we finally reached somebody from the branch by phone, the Shepards, and got a full report of the day’s activities. They had 140 in attendance (when will they become a ward?). Bro. Jeff had felt good enough to barbecue a pig for the conference meal (him feeling good enough to cook a pig is also good news). They have a new Stake President that the branch is “breaking in”, to quote Bro. Theron. Pres. Glue (spelling??) was just sustained last week and this is his first ward conference. We enjoyed hearing about the new Relief Society Presidency with wonderful counselors, Sister Judy and Sister Nancy, Bro. Daryl’s wedding, and also little update about Todd and Tabatha and the boys they may adopt.
I looked for the Chandlers in TV shots of the stands for the BYU-New Mexico game but never spotted them. They sure saw the game of a life time with Jimmer’s 52 point performance. I loved his intensity and that of the rest of the team. It was like they just willed the win. Lets hope for another game of a life time in the finals against San Diego State this evening.
I think that Jimmer is changing the face of local basketball. We watched three state high school basketball games and also saw a game of Joshua’s little team a few days ago. Relentless dribbling by little guards, in which they charge up the floor before the defense is set, penetrate, and try to score with a scoop shot lay-up. Sometimes they pass back out for a teammate three-pointer. Even in Joshua’s league, teammates were setting high picks to free their point guard to penetrate to the basket. It’s a different game. Fast-paced. It would have been fun to play this way.
We had two nice family home evenings Monday night. We did a Skype visit with David and family early in the evening. The highlight was getting a visual tour of their new house. It looks like it will be a nice place to live, also a blessing to the boys as a place with some space to grow in.
Speaking of Boston, the D-News has started to carry a weekly column in its car section by the PBS car repair personalities Click and Clack-the Magliozzi brothers. Today they were talking about how to get around the winter-time disadvantages of low profile times to a respondent from Boston. They recommended a second set of wheels with snow tires for winter driving, which he could wear on his car until the Boston Spring comes (in late June?? they said).
Later in the evening, we went to Matthew and Kim’s for their family home evening. They gave us a chance to report on our mission. It was fun to be there and feel the good spirit in their home.
In the aftermath of the pneumonia and flu I have had for the last few weeks, now I have a fun condition called pleurisy. For the uninitiated, this is an inflammation of the PLEURA, which is a double sac around the lungs and inside the rib cage. I got this diagnosis when I went back to the doctor Wednesday because I didn’t seem to be getting any better from my bout with the flu, etc., and my lungs felt like there was sandpaper in the linings. And coughing, which I was doing a lot of, and even breathing deeply, hurt to do. I am now back on high dosages of Ibuprofen for a week to reduce the inflammation and being real inactive, taking cough medicine when needed. I think I overdid my activity by going to our double temple shift Thursday and sure was sore that night. I have been mostly comfortable since then but have been doing everything at a very slow pace, taking more naps, mostly sitting or lying down. I can work at the computer, so I have continued to work on family research much of the day.
Here is the view as we left the Provo temple last Thursday afternoon, looking out over Utah Lake.
The family temple session on Saturday, Feb 26th was very sweet. (We have tried to do this each year near Michael’s birthday.) We went to the Ogden temple. Wendy and I went to the 2 pm endowment session. I saw Bruce as I came in, as he was working a mid-day temple shift. The family gathered for a 4 o’clock sealing session, Bruce and Angela, Quin and Alison, Matthew and Kim, along with Dorothy. We were able to do over 50 sealings–quite a few couples and some children to parents.
At one point, I felt quite a spiritual rush as we were doing sealings for some members of the Lewis family who had moved to the Palouse country of eastern Washington State. Significantly, as Wendy pointed out later, these same families (Robert Myra Lewis, Jay or Jenty King Lewis, Thomas Edward Lewis) were the subject of what I called “An Unusual temple experience” in our mission book, on 15 May 2009 (p. 152).
After the temple, we went back to Angela and Bruce’s place, where quite a few of the grandkids were. We had the usual menu. Alison had ordered a bunch of pizza from Domino’s. Wendy had made four cherry pies, and in the absence of Daniel and Paul, one was left over.
Sunday evening we took the leftover pie to the Blakes and then two pieces to Nathan and Gloria, so that they too could share in the remembrance.
I finished reading the Christmas present book Ka
rl Rove autobiography, COURAGE AND CONSEQUENCE. It was a long read with a lot of detail. It was quite interesting and enlightening, but also a little 
discouraging as it documented the history of many of our current political problems and the opportunism and lack of values in many prominant political figures. The book tended to reinforce my impressions that Pres Bush was a man of principle, that he told the truth about the presence of or attempts to acquire weapons of mass destruction by Iraq, that there was a lack of integrity on the part of many Democrat legislators who supported going into Iraq and then abandoned their positions for political advantage. There was also a chapter in which Rove did an assessment of Pres. Obama based upon the Bush administration’s dealings with him while he was a senator, that does not show Obama to an advantage.
I got back to our Thursday temple assignment the last two weeks and
also to church meetings. The pneumonia seemed to have cleared up, but I still have a leftover cough and still don’t feel 100%.
This past week was cabin week for us. We took it real easy, and had as many naps as we wanted. We came down Wednesday evening to prepare for our day at the temple Thursday and then went back up on Friday until Saturday night. I read a lot in the President Monson biography, did Sudokus, and we watched a lot of basketball (Jazz, BYU, state 4A and 5A playoffs). I got one more Guy Lewis family history file indexed.
Post high school college education has at least two purposes 1) to broaden us, make us better citizens and decision-makers, to live more meaningfully, etc., and 2) prepare us for working careers. For our young men, this education is crucial for their preparing to successfully fill their major Family Proclamation role of family provider, thereby contributing mightily to their own future happiness, the happiness of their spouse, and the growth and development of their children. For our young women, this education is equally significant, both to enable them to be a provider if circumstances require, and also as a partner in the family enterprise, homemaker, and nurturer of children.
There are many choices to be made regarding this post-high school preparation. Here are some things I have learned that might be helpful to the young people in this family:
1) Career preparation does not only occur in the college setting you receive as a young person. It is a life-long requirement. Most careers and professions are changing so fast (technological advancements, explosion of knowledge, etc.), that a person must be constantly renewing their knowledge to stay current in the field, let alone excel. Therefore most career learning takes place AFTER a person leaves higher education. A related truth is that many of us will not discover what we really want to do and what we will best best at until we have experienced a career for a number of years.
2) The majors and classes offered by universities and colleges are driven by what classes students choose, not necessarily by what will lead to good future employment or careers. Therefore, for their own protection and future, students need to have their own personal awareness and strategy, as they enroll in classes and commit to a major, as to what would be a useful career direction for themselves.
3) It seems to me that in selecting a field of study, persons need to get answers to two questions:
a) The current availability of jobs to graduates with this major, and
b) The range of options that the field has for a person to grow into a niche that might match their interests and capabilities. Hence, a critical objective for a student is to find a field of study, first, that has JOBS AVAILABLE and, second, that is BROAD ENOUGH TO ALLOW FLEXIBILITY FOR A PERSON TO GROW INTO THEIR POTENTIAL.
4) Many fields of college study simply do not offer very good prospects for future long-term remunerative employment. And, some are narrow and offer only limited options for a person to grow into a niche that matches their interests/capabilities.
5) One of the strengths of broader career paths, such as, business, education, nursing, medicine, law, social work, engineering, computer science, is that they each contain a variety of jobs that possess widely differing options for a range of worker interests, preferences, and capabilities.
For me, a useful concept is that both person interests/capabilities and job/career tasks can be represented on three dimensions that each scale from simple to complex. These dimensions are People (that, is interpersonal), Data (mental), and Things (physical). Some persons have a preference for working with people, others to analyze and conceptualize, others to work with their hands. For some it is a combination of these three focuses. Likewise, job tasks tend to emphasize one of these or to combine work with these in a variety of ways. Additionally, tasks and the skills to perform them range in complexity. In addition to personal preferences for the type and level of work, some people seem to have greater capacity to develop the highest level of skills in these various dimensions of work
For example, many jobs in the education field involve classroom teaching which requires a fairly high degree of both People and Data skills. Yet there is room in the field for persons who wants a greater emphasis on Data, as librarians, curriculum writers, researchers, etc. School administrative jobs balance People and Data skills slightly differently than for classroom instructors.
The field of law has court room lawyers on one end of the continuum (high People skill) and other jobs involving reading and analyzing case histories or writing opinions (high Data), and others balancing these dimensions.
I found a nice niche in social work, in program evaluation, strategic panning, research, and information system development that required Data skills that most social workers did not have, could not develop, and did not even want. Over time, I found that I had the ability to develop a set of skills unique for a social worker, that made my services be in demand and enabled me to work at interesting tasks and provide a secure and acceptable living for my family.
THE GOOD NEWS FROM THIS IS THAT MOST OF THE MAJOR, BROAD CAREER PATHS HAVE AMPLE OPPORTUNITY TO ACCOMMODATE PERSONS WITH ALMOST ANY SET OF INTERESTS/CAPABILITIES. In retrospect, I believe I could have found an interesting and successful niche for myself in several of the above fields.
Therefore, the challenge of choosing a direction in college work may not be so much in finding the perfect fit for your major–it is how to prepare to be able TO GET IN A DOOR TO START on a career path, in which options will be available that will become a good fit for you, your interests, abilities and needs. Which field you choose may not be so important.
When the spirit sons and daughters of God shouted for joy, because the earth was finished and ready to be inhabited, who shouted the loudest? Who was most excited?
Wendy and I were discussing the pre-mortal existence this morning as she worked on a lesson for this Sunday’s Relief Society, and we think we might know the answer. The daughters. Here is our reasoning.
Young men who have an understanding of the gospel generally look forward to having a family. I am recalling the many boards of review I have attended. The best-put-together boys, when asked about their life goals will typically say, in a matter-of-fact way, something like “I hope to be able to serve a mission, and attend college, and get a good job, and have a family.” On the other hand, many girls will say, with great feeling (like both JoAnn and Wendy have said): “All I ever wanted to be was a mother.”
We can imagine when preparing to come to this world, that the best of the sons of God might have said, “I would like to be a leader for the Lord and help him with his work.” The daughters would cry, “Now I can be a mother!”
Wendy and I have put a priority on having read all of the last general conferences addresses together before the next conference. We, of course, read from the conference issue of the ENSIGN. Generally we do this while traveling in the car, she driving and me reading out loud. We stop at any point to discuss or comment on what we have just read in order to digest the material a little better. While in NC, traveling a lot, we usually finished a couple of months ahead of time. 
