MaeLyn's Musings

Tuesday, February 25, 2025 Journal entry: Yesterday I worked 9-1 at the register. The news came that all JoAnn stores are closing after all which is really disappointing... February 26 Yesterday work was as busy as the week before Christmas as people came to stock up on craft supplies and use their gift cards before the store closes. Many people expressed their sorrow about the closing. I came home exhausted... February 27 Yesterday I worked 9-1 and again it was like Black Friday with condolences. Already, with three cashiers the line wove back to the aisles - and the sales haven't really started yet!... February 28 Yesterday I worked again, starting with orders, but then at the register as it got busier. It wasn't quite as exhauting that way... March 1 Yesterday I worked 9-1 and came home cranky, frustrated with the vultures who are waiting for the store to die, disappointed with the sales and complaining - while I am facing the end of a job I have enjoyed the last two years a...

I have been a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints all my life. At first, I believed because that was what I was raised to believe. My parents believed it and taught it, and that was what I was used to. Last week , I wrote about personal experiences that I had which helped me to come to know for myself that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true. Is it important for people to figure out for themselves about what is true? If we just blindly obey what we are told is right, will we end up in the same place as those who search and struggle to learn for themselves? I don't believe so. I believe we must each find out for ourselves what is truth and right. In the Beginning... Before we came to this earth, we lived with our Heavenly Father and all our spiritual siblings. Our Father presented a plan that would give us experiences that would help us to progress and become more like him. He knew that we would make mistakes while we were learning, so he called for a volun...

For my personal scripture study the last several months, I've been going through Preach My Gospel, looking up the scriptures, marking scripture chains, writing down what I've learned, and the connections I made. It has helped me to study the gospel topic by topic, and review the basic truths that the missionaries teach about each subject. This morning, the topic I was studying was tithing.(pp78-79) I read Doctrine and Covenants sections 119 and 120, about what the Lord requires as tithing, and who decides how the tithing funds are used. I read about how Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek. (Heb 7:1-2, Genesis 14:18-20, also Alma 13:15) I read about the blessings that are promised to those who pay their tithing. (Malachi 3:7-12) After the tithing scriptures, there were two more scriptures listed under the subheading of faith: 3 Nephi 13:33: (I add v. 31-32 to add a bit of context) Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewitha...

Several months ago, I read Lectures on Faith, and my understanding of what faith is deepened. I wrote about it here . In Institute this morning, as we were reading Ether and Moroni's words about faith in Ether 12, I had another one of those "ah-ha" moments. Someone in class said that there was a time in her life that she was waking up at 4:30am fully alert, and she was able to use that time to really study the scriptures, and so she had the Spirit with her throughout the day, guiding her and teaching her. Someone else commented that a returned missionary complained that after returning home, he didn't feel the Spirit as powerfully as he had when he was a missionary. It was brought up that maybe we don't need to feel the Spirit so strongly all the time. Sometimes the Lord trusts us to make good decisions without his guidance shouting in our ears. Sometimes the rewards for us are greater when we are walking on our own, in faith. There have been times in the ...

Yesterday I got to go to an Adult Education Institute class. A sweet sister who loves nearby has offered to give me rides so I can go. I went last year and really enjoyed it, so I'm looking forward to this year, even though we have a new teacher. We're studying the Book of Mormon this year. Here are a few things that I came away with from yesterday's class: The Book of Mormon was written for our day, to convince us that the Jesus spoken of in the Bible really is the Christ, the son of God. (See my previous blog about Faith to see why it is so important that we know that God exists.) A major theme of the Book of Mormon is deliverance through God's mercy. 1 Nephi 1:20 says, "...But behold, I, Nephi, will show unto you that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance." Elder Bednar describes the Lord's tender mercies as "the very personal and ...

In my personal scripture reading the last few weeks, I've been studying faith. I began with the normal faith scriptures: And now, I, Moroni, would speak somewhat concerning these things; I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith. ( Ether 12:6 ) Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. ( Hebrews 11:1 ) At one point, however, I turned to the Bible Dictionary, and was there referred to the Lectures on Faith, and so I spent a few days reading these lectures, and I think it has broadened my understanding of what faith is and how it works. According to the Lectures, faith is a principle of action. It is the cause behind everything that we do. (We would never plant a seed if we didn't have some faith that it would grow, or ask a question if we had no hope that it might be answer...

I am, by nature, a skeptic. I don't believe everything I hear or see. When I get something in the mail saying, "You've Won!", the first thing I look at is the fine print. When I see a story in a forwarded email or Facebook post, Snopes is the first place I check. When my kids tell me a far-fetched sounding "fact" they learned somewhere, I have to Google it, check out Wikipedia, and a few other sources, before I will believe it to be true. On the other hand, there are a lot of incredible things that I do believe in - strongly. I believe in ghosts. I believe in miracles. I believe that in 1820, a 14 year old boy in New York state saw God and his son, Jesus Christ. I believe that boy, Joseph Smith, later translated an ancient record which was written by people living here in the Americas, and I believe that the words written in that record about Jesus Christ are true; I believe that the Book of Mormon is true. If I am a skeptic, why do I believe in these fa...