Valentine's Day 2009

Valentine's Day has been perfect. Not really in the sense of something huge and romantic - Darren and I are not Valentine's Day people. Maybe a small gift and card. I didn't really want anything but I gave Darren a card that looked like this:

I stole the idea from Oh Happy Day. My message said a little something different but that is personal. 

Our day was simple. Clean the house. Mostly cleaning up my messes. I literally stayed in my PJ's all day. We played a rocking game of Monopoly in which Lexi and I won (we were a team and we owned the orange and red properties - of course we won). Then Lexi and I made sugar cookies and went to the night session of Stake conference. Pretty sexy Valentine's Day, huh? Actually it was perfect. 

I love the night session of stake conference but this was needed. Elder Richard Hinckley was there and looks and talks quite a bit like his wonderful father.  He shared some stories about his Dad. He read from one of his father's notebooks and gave us the advice we needed. I am going to paraphrase his message but he mentioned that general authorities of the church are encouraged to not to write talks. They are supposed to show up and let the spirit guide them. 

He talked about how we are living in a time when it is not popular to be a member of the church. That standing up for what is right is sometimes very unpopular and the noise around proposition 8 has affected the church worldwide. He referred to it as a sifting process. He said that as time goes on, it will continue to be difficult but beautiful things can come from adversity (he was referring to Joseph Smith and his words from Liberty Jail). But that we as members of the church treat others with dignity and respect, no matter what their beliefs or their actions against us. We should embrace diversity. 

He said that missionary work is important, we were able to hear the testimony of a recent covert and he focused on us sharing the gospel. We have approx. 57,000 missionaries (he had the exact number but my memory is not as sharp as his). 

And one of his messages that resonated the most was me was something that Elder Uchdorf and his father said, "Do the best you can." Put your family first, serve diligently in your callings and do the best you can. Which is exactly what I needed to hear. Sometimes I seem to be overloaded and I am trying to do too much. Which results in a lot of things getting halfway done. Then I get more frustrated. It is just a simple nice reminder.  Elder Hinckley said that his father was the king of short answers. He shared the message "do the best you can" and one of the brethren told him afterwards that they needed to expect more from the saints, that doing "the best you can" simply wasn't enough. The next time President Hinckley met with the group he told them to do the "VERY best you can." Brilliant. 

So I am going to get back to our Valentine's Day. I think the All-Star dunk contest is tonight and we have it recorded. Don't ever think that married life isn't exciting ;) 

Happy Valentine's Day!