Simpson Home: The gift of family

Saturday, February 20, 2021

The gift of family

Before Christmas I mentioned that I really wanted new family "cousin" photo's. It had been 5 years and Sierra is 2 and not in any photos. Our sweet family made it happen. McCalvy's came up from Cedar City UT. Kristen made sure her girls could come up and Tucker made sure he could come. We picked Sunday afternoon December 27. Gil and I had gone driving to see if there was a spot with Bogus in the background but the weather didn't cooperate. It was socked in with hoar frost everywhere. We went to Eagle Island State Park by the equestrian barns instead. What a cool place. What great photos.

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Russell M. Nelson, Ensign May 2018

I am optimistic about the future. It will be filled with opportunities for each of us to progress, contribute, and take the gospel to every corner of the earth. But I am also not naive about the days ahead. We live in a world that is increasingly contentious. The constant availability of social media and a 24-hour news cycle bombard us with relentless messages. If we are to have any hope of sifting through the myriad of voices ad the philosophies of man that attack truth, we must learn to receive revelation.

Our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, will perform some of His mightiest works between now and when he comes again. We will see miraculous indications that God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ, preside over this Church in Majesty and glory. But in coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually with out the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost.

Revelation for the Church, Revelation for our Lives.

Words to Live By

People are often unreasonable and self-centered.
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.

If you are honest, people may cheat you.
Be honest anyway.

If you find happiness, people may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow.
Be good anyway.

Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough.
Give your best anyway.

For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It never was between you and them anyway.
-Mother Teresa

"No matter how serious the trial, how deep the distress, how great the affliction, [God] will never desert us. He never has, and He never will. He cannot do it. It is not His character [to do so]. He is an unchangeable being; the same yesterday, the same today, and He will be the same throughout the eternal ages to come. We have found that God. We have made Him our friend, by obeying His Gospel; and He will stand by us. We may pass through the fiery furnace; we may pass through deep waters; but we shall not be consumed nor overwhelmed. We shall emerge from all these trials and difficulties the better and purer for them, if we only trust in our God and keep His commandments"

President George Q. Cannon (Freedom of the Saints, in Collected Discourses, comp Brian H. Stuy, 5 vols. [1987-1982], 2:185).

"Happiness is the end and design of life. Happiness is a state of the spirit and an attitude of the mind. What a man is may largely be determined by his dominant quest. Man's success or failure, happiness or misery, depends upon what he seeks and what he chooses.
... The secret of happiness consists not of having, but of being; not of possessing, but of enjoying. It is a warm glow of a heart at peace with itself. A martyr at the stake might have happiness that a king on his throne might envy. Man is the creator of his own happiness. It is the aroma of life, lived in harmony with high ideals. For what a man has he may be dependent upon others; what he is rests with him alone. That which he obtaines in life is acquisition but what he attains is true growth."
David O McKay October 1973