Enriched

These past few weeks have just been a whirlwind for us. The semester ended, and the Mister officially has a whole YEAR of school behind him (thanks to the trimester program here) with pitch perfect grades!  Say HALLELUJAH with me! This journey has been one wild and crazy ride and it is such a huge milestone for us. He is positively amazing!

Then, with the end of the semester and the summer break, the apartments we manage cleared out; much paperwork and many meetings accompanied the girls' departure, and I am only just emerging from that.

Additionally, my fabulous family came to visit during that last week of the semester and we played and played and played. I'm sure I'll be posting lots of photos from our fun.

Finally, I am so blessed to have such an awesome spouse who gave me what amounted to a three day vacation to attend BYU-Idaho Education Week. It was such an incredibly uplifting experience. The amount of light and understanding that came into my mind and heart over those three days was astounding.

One of the highlights was getting to hear Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles speak. He gave a beautiful talk about being on the Lord's side. One of the things he spent considerable time talking about was the trial of wealth. He quoted Brigham Young and Ezra Taft Benson as it relates to this trial.

Pres. Young:
“The worst fear I have about this people is that they will get rich in this country, forget God and His people, wax fat, and kick themselves out of the Church and go to hell. This people will stand mobbing, robbing, poverty, and all manner of persecution and be true. But my greatest fear is that they cannot stand wealth.” 

Pres. Benson:

"This particular test [the test of wealth] seems like no test at all . . . and so could be the most deceiving of all tests.
Do you know what peace and prosperity can do to a people--it can put them to sleep. . . .
The Lord has on the earth some potential spiritual giants whom He saved for some six thousand years to help bear off the Kingdom triumphantly, and the devil is trying to put them to sleep.


Throughout Education Week, I was struck again and again about the need we have to dedicate our time and our talents and our means to the kingdom, of our responsibility to save the literal seed of Abraham and bring all God's children into the covenant. The Mister is ultimately on a course that he hopes will lead to medical school, and we talk often of how we want to use the means from a medical career to serve others, both temporally and spiritually, and not to live the "good life" for ourselves. Even now though, it is so easy to fall into the trap of the "I wannas." Because of the lifestyle change we have undergone in the last year, there is much we deny ourselves, usually out of necessity. While we often talk about remembering to live well within our means as our circumstances change in the future, Elder Bednar's talk was a good reminder to be grateful for what we have now.

After listening to Elder Bednar, I am reminded that one of the surprising blessings we find ourselves in possession of is our considerable lack of wealth. I am grateful that in this time of busyness and a significant NEED to have constant help from the Savior--help we rely on for my work with the girls we watch over and the Mister's help in his schoolwork--we don't have to face the trial of wealth. We don't run the risk of relying on the earthly blessings and forgetting who they come from. Our humble circumstances bless us because they keep us in a position close to the Lord and keep us from falling asleep when we so desperately need the guidance of the Lord.

I may not have fancy clothes or a big screen television, but we have enough. In fact, we have enough for our needs, enough to share a little with those who have less, and some left over. And in this I find myself full of gratitude, my Spirit fed, and my life rich.