A dream come true

On November 21 Glen caught his hawk, she is a red tailed hawk and her name is Nike, named after the Greek Goddess of Victory.  Here is the story:

Because it is getting cold we have started going to Goshen canyon each week for our forest school.  On the way there we saw this beautiful juvenile red tailed hawk sitting on a stack of baled hay.  Two and a half hours later, on our way out she was still there.  We needed to stop and get gas, but when we got to the gas station my bank cards were gone.  We rushed back to our site in the canyon and searched everywhere for my cards, but we couldn't find them.  After praying I felt prompted to look in my wallet again and there they were!  As we got back into the car I noticed the weakness, exhaustion, and pain I had been having all morning from a fibromyalgia flare was gone.  I was frustrated that I had driven all the way back only to find my cards and asked why the Lord couldn't have had me look earlier, He said "Wait"

Glen said if that bird was still there he was going to try and catch it, and I felt God saying "This is why."  Abigail suggested we say a prayer and she asked that Heavenly Father help Glen to be stealthy enough to sneak up and catch the bird.  She was still there as we pulled around the bend in the road and she was facing away from the road.  I parked across the street and Glen took my jacket and climbed the fence.  The girls and I prayed the entire time.  Abigail prayed that he would get the bird and promised to stop eating sugar until Christmas if the Lord would help him.  I prayed and said "Please make him invisible, I know you can do it.  You did it for Jesus in the crowd, please do it for Glen."  Over and over, "Please please please, I know you can do this.  It means so much to him, he's worked so hard to get here, it will mean so much to him."  Every time I started to doubt I prayed even harder.

Meanwhile, Glen hopped over the fence and snuck up to the stack of hay.  Now and then the bird would look up and look around, but never at Glen, always at us or at cars passing on the road.  Glen was struggling to climb the hay, it was sharp and there wasn't really anywhere to hold onto.  At one point he squatted down and stayed there.  He told me he was ready to give up, but instead he prayed.  He felt doubt, "There's no way this is going to work, it's going to fly away."  But he said He felt Heavenly Father asking him to have faith in Him.  So he prayed to know what to do and felt the Lord guide him to throw my jacket up onto the little ledge below the bird and jump for it.  I thought for sure, throwing the jacket would scare the bird away, but she didn't even notice.  Glen kept looking at me to make sure she was still there, giving me a thumbs up to ask and getting a big thumbs up to answer.  After he jumped for the ledge and gotten his footing, he asked again, she still hadn't noticed, but Glen didn't believe that all the noise hadn't bumped her, so he took a peek and sure enough, there she was.  He reached up and grabbed her, she footed him a tiny bit before he got full control of her and wrapped my jacket around her.  I ran out to help him at that point, I couldn't help jumping and yelling, doing a happy dance and squealing!  I helped Glen down from the hay and we went back to the car where it was hard to be quiet so we didn't overwhelm his bird.  We were all so happy we kept spontaneously giggling, yelling, and squealing and then reminding each other to be quiet.

I think I said the most heartfelt prayer of gratitude I have ever said.  Tears literally dripped down my face the entire time.  My heart was overflowing right out of my eyes! 

Glen named her Nike and she is beautiful!  She is the most beautiful bird I have ever seen.  She is in great health, very strong, well fed, and she already likes Glen.  The first person he called was his falconry mentor.  We didn't tell John what had happened, Glen wanted to tell him in person so we called ahead and asked John to get everyone who was home outside in the garage so they could meet Nike when we got home. Then Glen and John rushed up to Craig's house to get anklets and jesses put on, to weigh and examine Nike, and to hold her properly for the first time.  Glen is headed back to the hay as I type this us, so he can retrieve whatever she was eating yesterday.  Hopefully there is enough there to feed her for a day or two until he can get her something else.  The next steps are to man her, which means to get her used to him, and to make her eat out of his hand.  She doesn't eat until she eats from his hand.  Once that has been accomplished he will start training her to respond to his call, and hunt when she hears it.  Then he can take her out and hunt with her.  He thinks it will take no more than a few days to man and feed her because she already seems to like him, but the rest of the training will take a few months at least.

Glen has wanted to be a falconer since he was 6 years old, this is a dream come true for him.

You are enough

 Last week I had a wonderful spiritual experience. I was worried, yet again, that I was not doing well enough teaching my children.  I was worried they weren't earning enough, they weren't moving fast enough, they didn't dig deep enough, their handwriting, spelling...you get the picture.  I feel inadequate so often, and when it just concerns me I can usually ignore it, but what if I'm totally messing up my kids!?  I was really stressing out about it so I knelt down to say a prayer and ask Heavenly Father what more I should be doing to prepare them well for their role as husband and father, and to fulfill their mission on Earth.  Instead of a laundry list of all the subjects I need to teach and all the areas I need to improve I immediately felt an overwhelming sense of peace!  Even before I finished asking my question I felt wrapped in His loving embrace.  Through a mixture of feelings, images, and something I can't quite describe I got this message.

Joseph Smith was considered uneducated, he only had a few years of formal schooling, yet he went on to change the world.  He continued his own education and even started a school, called the school of the prophets, where they learned politics, world events, science, languages, history, geography, and so many other things alongside scriptural learning and learning more about the priesthood.  

The Lord told me that Joseph's most important education was given to him by his mother, who taught him to love God and to follow Him.  He told me that the most important

 education I can give my kids is to know God.  If they know God all else will fall into place. I am doing everything I need to to do prepare them to fulfill their mission in life and to prepare them to lead, support, and protect their future families. They will continue learning all their life.

    I was so overcome with peace I was moved to tears.  I have never in my life felt so powerfully the Lord's love and acceptance of me.  Writing it all down does not, cannot, do justice to this powerful sacred experience. I hesitated to share it at first, but I know I am not the only one who feels inadequate and I'm not the only one who feels like I am not doing well enough homeschooling my kids.  I pray that my experience can help to bring peace to someone else who needs to feel peace.

I'm choosing faith over fear

 

I've had something on my mind for months.  It's deep and this is the place for my deep thoughts.  I'm not quite sure where to begin...  I guess the beginning would be about 9 years ago.

I took my kids to get a flu shot, Glen was 4 and Benjamin was 3, I was pregnant at the time.  By the time we got home from the clinic Benjamin was screaming, "He must be tired, it's nap time."  I got him out of the car and he wouldn't walk.  He wouldn't even put pressure on his legs so I carried him inside.  When we got in I checked his leg and it was swollen, red, hot, and so very sore.  We rushed back to the Dr.  When I told them what was going on this was the response "Oh, he's allergic to eggs?  Ok, that can happen."  Wait, there's eggs in a flu shot?  I looked up what else in in the flu shot.  Cow protein, another allergy, milk protein, another HUGE allergy, the list went on, each ingredient more horrifying then the next.  He was allergic to so many of them and some were just plain poison!  Why was there mercury in it!?  Long story short, I stopped getting the flu shot for anyone in my family.  I never wanted that to happen again.  The more I researched the more convinced I was that vaccines were not safe, so we stopped getting them all together.  Years later I found out that I have a family history of adverse reactions, some genetic marker, that makes them more dangerous for us then for most people.  Definitely not getting any more vaccines.

And then March 2020.  Covid.  Everything shut down.  People were afraid to leave their houses.  Two people in my family have respiratory issues, that makes it even scarier for us so we were careful, but I refuse to live in a bubble.  When the vaccine was announced I had no intention of getting it.  It's a vaccine and they are dangerous for my family. "But this one is different."  It doesn't matter.  I'm not doing it. I didn't even entertain the thought...until the Prophet asked us to get vaccinated and wear a mask.  It's been on my mind for months.  Now that everyone in my family can get one...I'm not sure I can put into words the internal struggle I have had.  The inner turmoil of this decision, it's been one of the hardest choices I have ever had to make.  The fear, what if...We've all heard the stories.  "It will make you sterile."  "Think of the people that died."  "It protects you the first time you get sick, but the second time you will die."  "The government is trying to figure out who they can control, this is a test to see who will obey so they know who will die when they make a more deadly virus and release it."  Maybe you haven't heard all that, but I have.  The truth is that even if non of that is true, this is still so new, there could be so many unintended consequences.  Am I willing to risk my family for an experiment?  I have spent months and months pouring my heart and my fears out to God, asking for direction.  That's what the prophet asked, he said to council with your doctor and pray about it.  So I did.  Again and again.  But when it really came down to it I had to make the choice.  Faith or fear?

I know God loves me, He KNOWS ME, down to every strand of DNA.  He knows me now and he knows future me. I know that the prophet speaks the word of God. I don't believe for a minute that he asked us to vaccinate and mask up because he's listening to the government.  I don't believe for a fraction of a second that he is part of the new world order.  I don't believe God would ask his children, through his prophet, to get vaccinated if it would hurt, sterilize, or kill us.  I don't believe he would ask us to wear masks if they hurt us or didn't work.  But he is.  The prophet of God is asking us to get vaccinated against covid, he is asking us to wear masks. No it's not a commandment.  He didn't say "Thus saith God, ye must repent and also get vaccinated and wear a mask."  You can call it a suggestion, but a suggestion from God?  I'll follow that.
I choose to have faith. I choose to ignore my fears.  I choose to listen to the prophet of God over the voice of the world and the voice of facebook.  I will listen to the prophet over my own thoughts and ideas because "personal revelation" doesn't always come from the right source.  I've been led astray, following what I thought was personal revelation, only to find out it was the wrong voice I listened to.  Sometimes it's hard to hear what God is saying because I've already decided what I want Him to say.  But I know the prophet will never lead me astray.  I know I can trust him.  I know I can trust God and he speaks the words of God.

I have surrendered my will to God. It's not a failure, it's a victory!  A glorious victory!