Don't walk home.

My daughter's friend shared this story that he learned from his mother in family night: Some turkeys were tired of walking and wanted to learn to fly like the eagles, so they embarked upon on a quest.  They climbed the highest mountain to the eagle's nest and asked the eagle to teach them to fly.  The eagle gladly shared his wisdom and skill until the turkeys could indeed fly.  And then the turkeys walked home.

This wonderful story of course caused me to ask myself, "What have I learned recently and has it changed me and am I flying or still walking?"

A couple of weeks ago, I (with hundreds of thousands of others) listened to the Prophet and the apostles testify of Christ.  I loved every minute of it and was taught to fly.  I want to revisit my new resolve and make sure I'm not walking again. All of the talks inspired me, but these comments resonated and gave me the desire to improve in specific ways.

Elder Richard G.Scott's talk was entitled, "Make the exercise of faith your first priority." He spoke about behaviors that we all know and recite in Sunday school every week, yet I was inspired to raise the level of my worship and daily habits. He said this:

"Prayer

The first tool is prayer. Choose to converse with your Father in Heaven often. Make time every day to share your thoughts and feelings with Him. Tell Him everything that concerns you. He is interested in the most important as well as the most mundane facets of your life. Share with Him your full range of feelings and experiences.

Because He respects your agency, Father in Heaven will never force you to pray to Him. But as you exercise that agency and include Him in every aspect of your daily life, your heart will begin to fill with peace, buoyant peace. That peace will focus an eternal light on your struggles. It will help you to manage those challenges from an eternal perspective.

Parents, help safeguard your children by arming them morning and night with the power of family prayer. Children are bombarded every day with the evils of lust, greed, pride, and a host of other sinful behaviors. Protect your children from daily worldly influences by fortifying them with the powerful blessings that result from family prayer. Family prayer should be a nonnegotiable priority in your daily life.

Scripture Study

The second tool is to study the word of God in the scriptures and the words of the living prophets. We talk to God through prayer. He most often communicates back to us through His written word. To know what the voice of the Divine sounds and feels like, read His words, study the scriptures, and ponder them.⁵ Make them an integral part of everyday life. If you want your children to recognize, understand, and act on the promptings of the Spirit, you must study the scriptures with them.

Don’t yield to Satan’s lie that you don’t have time to study the scriptures. Choose to take time to study them. Feasting on the word of God each day is more important than sleep, school, work, television shows, video games, or social media. You may need to reorganize your priorities to provide time for the study of the word of God. If so, do it!

There are many prophetic promises of the blessings of daily studying the scriptures.⁶

I add my voice with this promise: as you dedicate time every day, personally and with your family, to the study of God’s word, peace will prevail in your life. That peace won’t come from the outside world. It will come from within your home, from within your family, from within your own heart. It will be a gift of the Spirit. It will radiate out from you to influence others in the world around you. You will be doing something very significant to add to the cumulative peace in the world."

I have felt "buoyant peace" and it's exactly what I want more of.

Monday I went to Iowa to visit my sister, Susie. She took me to lunch and we ate delicious food, and we went to her house which she's lived in for a long time and I appreciate that. While I am moving hither and yon all over the country, she has remained stable. Her house is the same house where our children had dance parties and played dress-up and watched "Lilo and Stitch." The house is constantly being  improved upon while it sits firmly in it's place on 2nd avenue. 

While I was there she showed me her projects at my request.  She is a fabulous quilter, you see, I love observing the fruits of her daily- over time, labor. She has a fantastic hexagon quilt--all hand stitched.  She carried the little pieces in bags so she could stitch in the car, or while watching TV, all the times I am just sitting idle. When she first showed me this time consuming and tedious project, I thought to myself, "Kill me now," But now she has a beautiful quilt to show she lived, and I have liked 1 million Facebook posts. 

This is her current project. These are a combination of squares from a civil war collection and "The Austen family quilt." These just make me so happy.  I'm pretty sure I am incapable of completing a project as vast as an actual quilt, but I decided that I could probably manage table cloths and runners. Now all I need to do is fly with the knowledge that daily applied effort yields great results over time.

And Susie learned that you have to be flexible when someone flies standby to visit you.  You never know how many times you will have to take them to the airport.

This week in seminary I was impressed with this scripture: D&C 38:24-25 "And let every man esteem his brother as himself, and practice virtue and holiness before me." and how it relates to this clip:

I was feeling okay about this because I deliver "Meals on Wheels" once a month after all, and then I realized that considering my blessings, I wasn't really giving that much, and my heart needed an adjustment. I actually learned more about this on a food delivery.  My friend's daughter was having a bridal shower on the day of my turn.  I knew I could do both, but was anxious to finish my route to get to the party.  I was making good time until the last house.  The sweet lady was sitting on the porch in the nice weather waiting for me to come. The thought came to my mind that friendly conversation was as important to her as the food and my time was best invested on the steps, the shower would go on fine without me. I enjoyed our time together and still made it to the shower in time for food and presents-twice blessed

This week in seminary I asked the students to share times when they had blessed the poor and relieved the suffering of others and asked them how that helped them feel closer to Heavenly Father. I felt buoyant peace as they shared acts of service, comfort and love. Thanks for the lesson. I'll try not to walk home.