PROSPERITY, Do You Have It?

Was the question asked last Sunday by Sis. Annie Emmertson during her fabulous talk in sacrament meeting. Actually, she may have said, "Do you consider yourself prosperous?" (My memory is not that great and I did not start taking notes till about half way through). Her talk derived from Mosiah 2:22, "And behold, all that he requires of you is to keep his commandments; and he has promised you that if ye would keep his commandments ye should prosper in the land; and he never doth vary from that which he hath said; therefore, if ye do keep his commandments he doth bless you and prosper you."

Since she has given that talk, there has not been a day, sometimes hour, that has gone by that I have not thought about it. I will try to paraphrase it a little, but don't hold me to being word for word. Remember I was listening and people hear things differently, but this talk touched me. I told her so, and she jokingly said, "You say that to everyone."

But I meant it. It really did. Well, I should not say it touched me, but the spirit touched me as she spoke. So much so that I want to journal about it so that as my memory wavers, I can have something besides my little scribbled notes that I took to look back on.

Annie in doing so, I hope I don't embarrass or offend you. I am writing it on my blog, b/c I really believe everyone can benefit from it--and you are too humble to post it on your blog.
Having said that, if you are reading this, I could not remember your talk word for word, so, I hope I am not misquoting you in anyway, I'm just saying things the way they came to me. So please forgive me if it is not all 100% verbatim).

I never thought about prosperity in the way she spoke about it, but as I said, the Holy Ghost bore witness to me of the truths she spoke about. The crazy thing is, the more I ponder it, the more crazy I feel that I had never taken the time to look at it in that sense. Perhaps I'm the only one, and if so I'm grateful to the Lord for having her speak to me that day.

For those of you who are still reading, and were not able to hear the talk, you are probably thinking, "In what sense was she speaking of it?"

She asked us to think about what prosperity meant to each of us and do we consider ourselves prosperous. When she asked the question, I did honestly answer, "Yes, I am prosperous." to myself. After all, we have a nice home, our health, the gospel, Mike has a job, outside of our home loan, we are debt free (I want to stop and say right now, that every one of these blessings are only with us because of the Lord. Somehow, he sees fit at this time to bless us with them. Without Him, we would have and be nothing).

Then, Sis. Emmertson gave us the definition of prosperity: the condition of being successful or thriving (I could not remember the definition word for word, so I looked it up again).

She then asked us to stop and think of prosperity in a different light, not from a monetarily or temporal view, but a spiritual view. She went on to say that when we keep the commandments of the Lord we will be and are a prosperous people. It was at this point that I began to realize that I am much more prosperous than I had ever imagined---prosperous in a more important sense---a spiritual sense.

Here are some of the examples she gave of how we are prosperous when we keep the commandments. (She recited scriptures that backed up each of these, which I did not write down, but trust me if you start searching, you WILL find them---many of them. Plus, if you stop to think in your own life how these things come to play, you WILL realize that you have a greater prosperity than money can ever bring even during harsh economic times.)

What we receive when we Keep the commandments:

• Constant Companionship of the Holy Ghost
• Promise of Eternal Life
• Joy
• A Testimony (Mosiah 23:9-10 I did manage to get that one jotted down)
• Prayers answered
• Success in missionary work
• Peace

As I have stopped and pondered the above gifts from our lovingly Heavenly Father, I have come to realize even the poorest of the poor can be prosperous. The opportunity to be prosperous is in everyones reach. It all depends on our actions. Are we striving daily to keep the commandments?

The above gifts are wonderful, aren't they? When we have these things , aren't we a prosperous people? I definitely think so, and joy comes to me in knowing that. A feeling of contentment.

As I have reflected on this talk so many times this week (I even brought it into our V.T. lesson) I have come to realize that we can find many more things to add to our list. One that I have received is:

• Personal Revelation

OH, this talk was great. I know I did not do it justice, and I am very wordy. I wish everyone had the opportunity to hear this talk. It truly has been a blessing in my life.

Bro. Jones finished up the sacrament meeting on prosperity too, but he helped me to remember the things we have and to show gratitude for them. People with very little have been very happy and content in their lives b/c they are grateful and they look at the glass as half full instead of half empty.

As I have reflected many things have come to my mind. Such as with Spiritual Prosperity we can feel like we are FULL. I was reminded of a 20/20 show that I saw about millionaires who do not believe they are "prosperous" b/c they are wanting to be like the billionaires. They don't feel like they are rich at all. And for some reason it hit me, with money, most people are always seeking for more, but never get to where they want or need to be. However, with the gospel and spiritual prosperity--we can all attain the highest degree, we are all on equal standing.

I'm rambling b/c as you can see I am still pondering about this lesson. I hope perhaps it will touch you, and make you stop to ask yourself, "Are you Prosperous?" It is my hope that we can all answer with a resounding, "YES"!

Thanks again Annie for always being in tune with the Spirit!

International Food Festival With Ariel

The same day that Cecily got to meet Suzy Kline, Ariel's Pace class went on a field trip to the International Food Festival. It was a lot of fun. Many countries all over the world were represented. It was fun trying the yummy food, seeing all the booths of different cultures that can be found all within our wonderful country too. The children were given passports that could be stamped at each of the country.
Ariel bought this hat from China (she has a fascination for Asia and all its culture) or the Philippines can't remember as well as some chopsticks for Cecily. Can you believe what she really wanted was a flavored water bottle from China. Just because of it's cool shape. I was a mean mom and said, "No". Hey, in fairness to me, I gave her a budget and she already spent all of her money and we had tried lots of other yummy treats including candy from China and sweets from Germany and empanadas from South America. I could keep going, so don't feel too bad for her.

Here are some pictures of Ariel with some of her PACE friends. Ariels friend in the white shirt on the left is holding one of the infamous water bottles. LOL.

Ariel loves PACE, and will miss Mrs. Fox, her teacher, next year. She is awesome!

Horrible Harry and Cecily

For those of you with small children, and maybe even a few of you without, you probably know all about Horrible Harry.

For those of you who don't, "Horrible Harry" is a popular children's book series written by Suzy Kline. It is based on a 3rd grader named Harry, and his misadventures are told through the words of his best friend, Doug. Cecily didn't really know much about Horrible Harry either until this past November.

At the girls school, the library holds a "Reading For Fun" contest every year, in the fall, for grades 3-5th. However, this year the contest was for grades 2-4th. The premise of the contest is to get kids reading. During this time, children are encouraged to keep a log of how many pages they read every time they read. The log has to be signed by an adult. For every 50 pages read, and/or for every time they visit the public library, the child gets to put their name in a drawing to meet an author. Then at the end of the month, about 4 names from each grade level is drawn to meet the author. Some years the authors are very popular. For instance, last year Ariel got to meet Barbara Robinson author of "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever".

This year the author was Suzy Kline. Cecily is not our big reader, she will read, but she doesn't really enjoy it. She loves being read to, but just to go and read by herself for hours on end, not so much Cecily. That would be Ariel. Give Cecily a math problem and she's there.

Well, we always encourage reading in our home, like most parents. We buy lots of books, go to the library etc. So when the contest came around, I encouraged Cecily to do it. So she did. However, unlike Ariel who in the past had tons of pages read, Cecily probably had maybe 200. We did not think that she would win. However, luck of the draw, her name was selected.

Cecily was thrilled to win and meet the author . I got to attend as well. The assembly was held on Dec. 5th in our school gym. Suzy Kline was great! She told the kids to never stop trying to reach their dreams even if you get rejections along the way. She told the children that she got over 100 rejection letters (which she still has in a folder labeled as such--she showed it to us and even read a few) before she found someone to publish her first book. It was a lot of fun listening about how she received many of her ideas for the books she has written.

Cecily received a free Horrible Harry book along with an Suzy Kline's autograph. Mrs. Saleeby, the librarian also gave each of the children a really good picture of themselves with the author and a close-up of the author, but I don't have a scanner so my poor pictures will have to do.

Here is Cecily with the group of students who won the contest from our school. Our school actually host this contest every year, so all the other children are the children who won from other schools.

OH, and guess what? Cecily likes Horrible Harry, not as much as Junie B. Jones, but close, and she is reading a little more. So hats of to reading and Hats off to Horrible Harry!

Christmas with Oma

Christmas has come and gone and I have yet to mention any of it, well, except for my sofa set. Very materialistic of me.

I do want to capture Christmas 2008 before I lose memory of it, and trust me that happens fairly quick.

This year, Christmas was different than the usual Odom family Christmas. When Mike and I had Ariel, we had decided that we would stop travelling for Christmas. We would just stay at home with our little family and anyone who wanted to join us was more than welcome.

It was just easier. The thought of packing up all the gifts, then unpacking the gifts, just to re-pack them up again seemed a little tiresome. Plus, I thought this would be a great time for us to start some of our own traditions. We have tried many different ones over the years. Some we've held on to and some we have let go.

In the past, my mom usually comes up for a few hours and has Christmas dinner and visits, which is always nice.

This year was to be no different, except something happened.

What?

The First Presidency Christmas Devotional. Well, that's not new. Just the words spoken during it. It is always held the first Sunday in December and as usual, it was very good. We ALWAYS go to the church to watch this. I know, we can watch it from home, but for me, there is always something special about watching it in the chapel and hearing Silent Night at the end with other members (even though every year fewer members come together to watch it. This year, we were grateful to watch it with the missionary couple from our ward along with the Emmertson's and the Campbell's.)

On our way home, we were all reflecting aloud, as a family, what we had learned from the Prophet and apostles. I love doing this because we always hear something different, but at the same time it helps our family to start the Christmas season with the Savior in our hearts and mind, and reminds us that we need to keep Him at the center at all times. Our dear prophet gave me food for thought with his words, "Are we making room in our "inn" for the Savior?"

This year, we all felt a greater need to serve, but for me this year, I learned that service does not have to be something grand as long as it is "drawing hearts to the Savior or an act of kindness" as Pres. Eyring mentioned in his talk. I often think service needs to pointed outward away from our family, but this year, our family was reminded that sometimes the greatest service is needed within our own families, and with that the greatest lessons can be learned.

After hearing Pres. Monson's talk, Mike said all he could think of was his mom. Mike's mom lives alone with Mike invalid grandmother about 3 hours away. Because she is the sole care giver of Mike's grandmother, she seldom gets away and is lucky to be able to get away long enough to attend church. Due to this, she would be alone for Christmas.

Mike said he could not shake the fact that we needed to be with his mom on Christmas. That we should take Christmas to her. That we needed to break our "tradition" of staying at home and render service. Yes, service, not the kind we normally think of, but service just the same. He has never asked this of me, and I felt that if he felt that strong about it after hearing the words of the prophet, then we should listen.

So, that is just what we did, and we managed to keep it a secret from her.

It was our thought to leave early (5am) Christmas morning (we wanted the girls to open up the gifts from Santa at home since our car would not be able to hold all the stuff for Christmas dinner and Mike's mom's gifts along with the gifts she sent to us back so we could open them there with her), and arrive at Mike's mom at 8 am. We brought the entire dinner. I did not want Mike's mom to have to cook for us, so I preped all the food aside from the turkey the day before and put everything in throw away dishes and that way all that would need to be done was cook the food when we got there.

The girls were up early (Ariel at 2 am, but we managed to get her to go back to bed until 4am). We got the coolers and gifts loaded up and ended up on schedule. The funny thing is, with all the excitement, we forgot to get the camera out--so we have no pictures of Christmas morning except those engraved in our mind.

As we drove up to Oma's house, we were all excited and giddy. It was really fun. We decided to go up and ring the door bell and start singing Christmas carols. When she opened the door, she was very surprised!

We had a great Christmas. Once again, I am thankful for a prophets voice. I know that talk was inspired and I'm grateful that Mike felt prompted to not just listen to those words spoken by Pres. Monson, but to take them to heart and put action behind them.

I know it was one of the best Christmas' ever for our family. I know that we do need to reach out in the community and serve, but sometimes in our efforts of reaching out to the community, I forget to serve those right in my own family or home. I need to remember to balance it. I hope this year that our family can reach out together all year to those in need--whether it be those close to our hearts or those we don't know-- to be of more service to each other and to all of our neighbors. For when we do this the spirit of Christmas---the light of the Savior-- is not only felt in December, but all the year through.

***Here are a couple of pictures we took just before taking down the decorations. LOL. This first one seems to be our generic Christmas picture pose. I guess we will be able to see how we change over the years.

Here is a picture of our house. I tried to get Mike to put up the lights along the roof, but he wouldn't. So we didn't.