Living After the Manner of Happiness

Photo by   Em bé khóc nhè  on  Unsplash It seems 2020 has been a year of mourning. The past few weeks I found myself once again mourning what was supposed to have been a time of family … all together at last. We’ve had a couple of these trips planned this year only to have them all canceled. I’m sure you have had similar experiences of anticipating and planning only to have them canceled.   I have seen such parallelism to the private and public battles we are dealing with this year woven throughout the war chapters as I’ve studied the last couple of weeks. Have you recognized them as well? I’ve had the overwhelming feeling the Nephites completely understood what it means to have a tough year (or years). Yet, tucked in the middle of their difficult years is this nugget:   “… there never was a happier time among the people of Nephi, since the days of Nephi, than the days of Moroni; yea even at this time, in the twenty and first year of the reign of the judges” (Al...

Eleanor Roosevelt's Book Of Common Sense Etiquette (1962) photo obtained from https://pin.it/2ui32Dj Five years ago, we gathered in a remote town in southern Texas to celebrate the latest group of Air Force officers to earn their wings. Our own pilot would head off in just a few short weeks to begin living his dream: flying an F-16. This dream began fourteen years earlier while working on a merit badge. All the preparation suddenly became very real that day, and we now find ourselves watching military news closely, especially fighter squadrons. This morning I awoke early to a text that simply said there’s been a crash on base. He was not involved and is safe at home right now. Following this text was a myriad of others from worried family members. I breathed a sigh of relief in hopes of calming my racing heart. My heart aches for the family and friends of this pilot – a feeling I have had several times over the last several weeks. Times like this bring reflection on why my so...