We had a funny experience in the
Log School in which we had 6 wasps joining us....I was screaming and having
guests kill them for us. It was terrible.
I hope you all are well
and enjoy Father's Day this Sunday! I have been asked to speak in church, and
will be sharing my talk with you next week. 
(I have no time, so I will mostly be using the words of others instead of my own.)
Here is an amazing article that was recently
added to LDS.org:
https://www.lds.org/blog/finding-self-worth-in-a-selfie-world?lang=eng
"I was 11 years old when I realized I had no friends. It was the beginning of 5th grade in a new school, and, besides, everybody probably feels similar when they’re that young anyway. But even if that’s true, it didn’t soften the blow when the Val-O-Grams—those special valentines students purchased and had sent to their best friends—were delivered to all the classrooms and everyone seemed to get ten and I only got one—and it was from my mom.
https://www.lds.org/blog/finding-self-worth-in-a-selfie-world?lang=eng
"I was 11 years old when I realized I had no friends. It was the beginning of 5th grade in a new school, and, besides, everybody probably feels similar when they’re that young anyway. But even if that’s true, it didn’t soften the blow when the Val-O-Grams—those special valentines students purchased and had sent to their best friends—were delivered to all the classrooms and everyone seemed to get ten and I only got one—and it was from my mom.
I was 17 years old when I experimented with the harshest of hair products
because the statement I was making with my ripped jeans and worn boots wasn’t
getting enough of the attention I wanted from my high school peers. If they
weren’t looking at or talking about me, it was as if I didn’t exist.
I was 21 years old when I knew I was the worst missionary in the history of
the Church. I wasn’t baptizing as much as others, I wasn’t called to leadership
positions when younger missionaries were, and I simply didn’t feel the
persistent, all-encompassing glow I once associated with missionary work and
righteousness and following the rules.
I was 26 years old when I finally graduated from college and was offered a
job I felt I had to accept to feel like a contributing adult. And soon after I
took the job, I silently wished that I could go back and start over again.
Because, at the time, I wasn’t brave enough to say no to a job I knew wouldn’t
fulfill me even though it would pay my bills. Because I wasn’t traveling the
world or interning at Universal Studios or playing in the NFL or publishing
bestsellers or making the kind of money that would ensure an early and
prosperous retirement. I was at a desk. And it appeared everyone else was living
their dream.
And I was 28 years old when my wife was diagnosed with a terminal lung
disease. And beyond how many friends I had, how good-looking I felt I was, how
respected I was by my peers, how glamorous or rich I was or wasn’t, my
understanding of self-worth became how I used my new pain and past experiences
to acquire the compassion necessary to truly love someone other than myself. And
what if that’s the secret? What if pouring yourself—the good and the
hidden—into those around and beyond you afforded you the kind of self-worth you
can’t get from social media or one of the thousands of self-help books crowding
our shelves? What if outward compassion rather than inward reflection is the
barometer with which God measures our intended purpose and value? Well, I think
it might be. Or at least it’s a strong component. Because I’ve never felt more
worthy as a son of God than when I first started washing my wife’s hair because
lifting her own arms to shampoo her hair became too much for her lungs to
handle. I’ve never felt so purposeful and satisfied than when I made the obvious
choice of disappearing into the full-time care and round-the-clock concern of a
most precious and delicate daughter of God.
Maybe not having friends in 5th grade meant I wasn’t being a friend
to my classmates. Maybe not feeling attractive in high school meant I needed to
step away from my mirror and look out my window. Maybe not receiving the
leadership roles I felt I needed in order to really make a difference
as a missionary meant that I wasn’t fully serving those closest to me—my
missionary companions and the families who were looking to us for gospel
understanding. Maybe feeling enslaved to a job that wasn’t the coolest or most
lucrative meant that I didn’t yet understand that it would be outside
the hours of 9 to 5 where my happiest, hardest, and most sacred work would be
done. And maybe feeling cheated by 78 “likes” on a posted picture that I thought
deserved a million means I’ve swung too far from what I once understood about
self-worth and have parlayed my divine identity into an idea of someone
I’m not quite and perhaps never will be.
I’m now 29 years old. And maybe that’s too young to know exactly who or what
I am. But being 29 is probably old enough to know what I’m not. I know
I’m not merely a resume or a cultural demographic or a body type or a tax
bracket or a profile picture. And I know I’m not reduced to those arbitrary
things because I know I am more than simply myself.
I am what I am to my wife and to my friends and family and to my neighbors
and coworkers and fellow freeway drivers. I am what I am to the 54-year-old
server who cleans up after me and thanks me for coming in even though I
under-tipped. I am what I am to the person who doesn’t like me and especially to
the person I’m not too fond of either. I am what I am to those I should be
serving more, to those I should be reaching out to more, to those I should be
writing to instead of writing this. I am how I love others because that’s one of
the few things I can actually control in this life, and it’s possibly the only
way I can tangibly measure my true self-worth. But mostly, I am how I love
others because that’s all God asks of me—and because that’s all I can give Him.
And maybe that’s good enough."
And also, 1 Corinthians 13:
1 Though
I speak with the tongues
of men and
of angels, and have not
charity, I am become
as sounding
brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
2 And
though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all
knowledge; and
though I have all faith, so that I could
remove mountains,
and have not charity, I am nothing.
3 And
though I bestow all my goods to
feed the
poor, and though I give my
body to be burned, and have not
charity, it profiteth me nothing.
4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
8 Charity
never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I
put away childish things.
12 For
now we see through a glass,
darkly; but then face to face: now I know in
part; but then shall I know even as also I am
known.
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| we're cute |
  |
our reaction the the six wasps...
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| Sister Farrel and I being serious pioneers |
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