MaeLyn's Musings

I just got home from dropping Hannah off at the airport. She is flying to Salt Lake, where my sister Lindy will pick her up and take her to the MTC in Provo. She enters the MTC at 12:30 this afternoon, and will officially be Sister Hiatt, missionary. I don't know how I feel about this yet. It doesn't seem real that I'm not going to see her for eighteen months, that she'll spend most of that time *hopefully* on the other side of the world. I am grateful that she made the decision to serve a mission, and I think she will be amazing. She seems so self-confident and grown up - much more so than I felt when I left to serve, and I was a couple years older than she is now. Last Friday, we received an email from our stake president to inform us that Hannah's visa hadn't arrived yet, so she was being reassigned to the Provo MTC. It was a bit disappointing that she wasn't heading to Brazil immediately, but this gives her a little more time to learn some Portuguese...

I gave a talk in Sacrament Meeting on Easter Sunday. Here is my talk, as I wrote it out (which is always slightly different from how I actually give it): I. The Plan   Once upon a time, we lived with our loving Father in Heaven. There was nothing we wanted more than to be like our Father. Not only did he know everything there was to know, not only was he perfectly good, not only did he love all his children totally and unconditionally, but he also had a perfect body – one that would never get sick or injured, one that would live forever. And we, well, we didn’t have bodies at all yet. We were just little spirit children, and we didn’t have much experience yet. But we loved our wonderful Father dearly and we wanted to grow up to become like him. Father, being wise and loving, made it his work to help us obtain what we desired – bodies that would live forever, and also a chance to gain experience, to learn and grow so we could eventually have the kind of life that our F...

Have you ever had an "Aha moment" when something you had known your entire life suddenly took a deeper, clearer meaning? Maybe it isn't even one moment. Sometimes it kind of creeps along and you feel like you're grasping at straws for a little while, knowing there is something there, but being unable to catch onto it, and then suddenly you look at it and realize that it's what you knew all along, but now it makes total sense. It's kind of like putting together a puzzle, and I have the picture on the box, but as I discover and reach for each piece and figure out how it fits it in with the other pieces, I come to realize why each piece fits where and how it does, and the completed picture has a deeper significance. I've been having one of those grasping moments for the last several weeks. I think it started a couple months ago when I gave a lesson in Relief Society about charity , and realized that charity isn't simply loving others, but it's l...

Yesterday I taught lesson 22 of Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Fielding Smith, entitled, Prayer - A Commandment and a Blessing . Here is the outline I prepared to teach this lesson: Opening    Write "What is something I can do to make my prayers more effective?" on the chalkboard.     Read question on board. Ask sisters to think about this question during the lesson. Why we pray    Read Section 1, paragraph 3 (first half) I wonder if we ever stop to think why the Lord has asked us to pray. Did he ask us to pray because he wants us to bow down and worship him? Is that the main reason? I don’t think it is. He is our Heavenly Father, and we have been commanded to worship him and pray to him in the name of his Beloved Son, Jesus Christ. But the Lord can get along without our prayers. His work will go on just the same, whether we pray or whether we do not.    Ask "Why do you think the Lord has asked us to pray? "   ...

Last night was our Stake Auxiliary Training. (Is it just me or is the word 'auxiliary' really hard to pronounce?) As a teacher in Relief Society, I was invited to attend, and I'm really glad that I went. I learned a lot about how to be a better teacher. Here are some things that were taught. (These are from the notes I took during the meetings. I didn't always catch who said things because I was busy scribbling down what they said. Some of these are quotes by general authorities, etc. I apologize that I don't always give credit where credit is due.) "Who we are is not who we can become." "Lessons learned in the home last the longest." "Only the home can compare to the temple in sacredness." Learn together with our families and with one another. (As parents and teachers, we are not 'done' learning ourselves!) Focus on the covenants that each family member is working towards. What we learn in Relief Society (and other ch...

Yesterday I got to teach in Relief Society again. The lesson was chapter 19 of Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Fielding Smith, entitled, In the World but Not of the World . Before Relief Society began, Steven helped me set up our lap top and a projector we had borrowed from the library. On the table in front, I set out four visual aids I had brought: a calendar, a glass bottle, a barbie doll, and my missionary badge. On the chalk board, I wrote the title of the lesson, as well as the words: What? How? Why? Challenges? Blessings? I began my lesson by showing a movie, entitled Dare to Stand Alone. I felt like it set the tone for the lesson, and it helped to invite the Spirit. After the movie, we talked about it a little. We read John 17:15-17, and I asked what it means to be in the world but not of the world. Some of the answers that were shared were that we have the commandments, and that we have a responsibility to set a good example for those around us. Someone ...

I was asked to speak in sacrament meeting yesterday. I spoke using just a brief outline, but here is the draft that outline was created from: In a 1993 Conference talk , Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin quoted a woman who described her feelings about a winter storm in Canada. She said, ““I love a winter storm. … When the wind starts to blow and the snow begins to fall, a feeling of excitement starts to build. … When I can’t see the trees at the neighbor’s farmyard, … I phone my husband! … He then picks up the children who are at school. … It is hard to describe the feelings I experience as our family is gathered home, and the storm rages outside. … And I love it! Everyone is safe; we are together. We have lots of food and water. The longer it lasts, the better. … We are shut off from the world. … We bask in the warmth of our home and in the warmth of our love. My heart is full, and I am at peace. Sometimes, I wish I could just stay like that forever, with my family gathered around me, pro...

The more I learn about former President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Joseph Fielding Smith, the more I admire him. Yesterday, I got to teach lesson 8 of Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Fielding Smith, entitled, "The Church and Kingdom of God". In the first section about his life, we read one incredible story: A simple and unassuming man, Joseph Fielding Smith never sought these positions. But when the Lord called him to serve, he willingly and enthusiastically obeyed. He quietly exhibited this dedication one day when, at age 89, he went to a meeting. Walking from his home, he slipped and fell down a flight of steps. Although he hurt his leg, he walked about a quarter of a mile—“limping like an old man,” he said—so he could fulfill his responsibilities. After the meeting, he walked back home, where he finally allowed a doctor to examine him. The doctor found that President Smith’s leg was fractured in multiple places. President Sm...

Yesterday I taught Relief Society, Chapter 1 of Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Fielding Smith, entitled Our Father in Heaven . There is a lot of awesome stuff in this lesson, so I had to pick and choose which things I went over to make sure I would have enough time to get through to the end. I like the teaching help at the end of Chapter 2: "[Avoid] the temptation to cover too much material. . . . We are teaching people, not subject matter per se; and . . . every lesson outline that I have ever seen will inevitably have more in it than we can possibly cover in the allotted time" (Jeffrey R. Holland, "Teaching and Learning in the Church," Ensign , June 2007, 91). So my Relief Society got a condensed version. But here I don't have as many constraints (or discussion) so here are the thoughts I had on the lesson. Since this was the first lesson we had from this book, I began by showing a picture of the prophet Joseph Fielding Smith, and briefly...