I have had such a good day today and I'm feeling very
invigorated for the new year. Church was really amazing. I had such a spiritual feast and was blessed by so many comments and friendly gestures. We are starting the Book of Mormon in Sunday school and we sat and had a discussion with our teacher (rather than the usual lecture format) about why we are all excited to study it again. We talked about how bold it is to call it the "keystone" of our religion, noting that if it weren't true the rest of the church would simply crumble, so much depends on our knowing that it comes from God... and no one asks us to believe it without asking God for ourselves and receiving our own personal revelation from Him. I felt the same kind of excitement about this today that I did when I first started reading the book and feeling the Spirit for the first time when I was young. It is so wonderful to feel this renewal as I have been begun to get comfortable and take some things for granted. Relief Society was equally touching for me as we read the first lesson from the new manual for the year. I've never seen a lesson that was straight from the scriptures like that before, with no commentary or explanations or side notes. We read straight through it... another teaching method that would normally not be effective, pausing just a few times to reflect on what we were reading about.
After church I started my first official day of Seminary preparations. We've worked out a system that I will go to my parents house to do all of my reading on Sunday afternoons, where I can be assured that I won't be interrupted every five minutes. I did that today and reading all of my manuals and scriptures and as a bonus getting to spend a few minutes with my parents.
I came home and played with the kids and cleaned for a little while until Jeff's family came over for dinner. We had a wonderful evening and I am just full and happy.
Here are a few nice pictures from our afternoon outside a few days ago. It was nice and warm and great for the kids to enjoy running around outside. We all had a really nice time. Nothing extaordinary, but one of those moments you could live forever in and just be content.
