She Was Able To Nurture Because She Was There.

My darling visiting teachers came over this evening. It was quite delightful. I LOVE having visiting teachers. Even if I'm not close friends with them or they come on the 2nd to last day of the month--I don't care; I'm just so happy they come! I know most of the time I don't know what to say when the question comes around, "What can we do for you?". And most of the time, your mind goes blank and you tell them "Nothing that I can think of." But there is such a quiet power that's present that they came. That they leave with a pray--praying for me. That they're there to just hear me talk (just saying--sometimes my closest family/friends tune me out when I'm rambling about my day or thoughts I'm having) that it's just so nice to have two girls wanting to hear me talk. Selfish, right? Yeah, I know.

But they asked me a question that got me ready for the spirit of November. They asked me to talk about my Mom. And I sure did talk about her! They were too kind and said that hopefully the words I said about my mother were recorded in heaven and she would be able to hear them some day. But I decided, why wait for her to die and then hear them? She might as well know now how I feel about her. :) After all, Stake Conference today we talked about Motherhood. And she has toiled over me for the last 20 1/2 years starting off in the womb, all the diapers, food, screaming from getting the hair combed, whining, crying, throw up, etc. Motherhood can be quite gross--let's face it.

But oh how I love this sweet woman! I love LOVE love her wrinkles. And her hands. Her skin is so soft. She is so beautiful. Mom got married late, 28 to be exact. I'm so amazed at who she is and has become. I'm 20 and wish I was married! I can't imagine 8 more years waiting, watching everyone else get married, wishing, dreaming, hoping. That would be torture for me. The loneliness itself would probably emotionally kill me. So she lived a pre-married life by doing what I think--are amazing things. Especially knowing how shy and reserved she had been as a young adult (or so she tells me--I'm occasionally skeptical). She served a mission, went back to Europe, graduated with her undergraduate degree, went to LAW SCHOOL, GRADUATED with her doctorate in law , moved away from Provo with no promise of employment or marriage, and started a lonely road of passing the bar after failing it the first time. Then she met Dad. :)

And through out all of that she kept true to her divine heritage to be a Mother. My Mother. And was she a Mother!? She lived in the world, but never of it. I think of so many woman who after the years of education and money would have easily justified that they were too qualified to stay at home and be a homemaker. That they would want to work 40 hours a week and "change the world" and be a mom. But can I say (without offending anyone whose a working mother--I won't judge your personal circumstances) that I am so so so grateful that she never worked. Especially when I was the last child at home for 4 years and was gone from 5:55am-5:00pm because of Seminary, School, and practice? Then with evening activities. I can't express the love and need that I craved as all children do to come home every day and know Mom was around. It was like I needed to know where she was everyday when I got home. It's the countless afternoons, walking through the side door and yelling her name. Or hearing a, "Is that a Beckyboo I hear?". Or seeing what she's busy making in the kitchen. Or heading straight to her room to see what book she's reading and then to promptly tell her EVERY detail about my day (including every talking encounter with certain boys). It's the countless times I forgot my lunch or homework and she would drive the 20 miles to the school and back to get it to me IMMEDIATELY. Or the times I got in an accident that I could call her and she came IMMEDIATELY. She knew her role as a mother. She was able to nurture because she was there. I know I've talked so many times about how much I wish I could have had a sister. But my mom was my best friend (sorry Dad--I know you think parents shouldn't be friends). And even though I didn't always treat her like a friend should, I've never discounted who she was to me. I love her spontaneity. Even if I had homework, she was ALWAYS down to go upstairs and watch a chick-flick. And the fact that she was always considerate to let me get by with a serious lack of chores was fabulous.

Most importantly, I knew she loved God. I can't really explain how many times I have walked into her room to tell her one more thing while Dad snores away on the other side of the bed and I would stumble into her on her knees. Or see her reading her scriptures. It never was a question to whether or not she read her scriptures and said her prayers on her knees everyday. Never. She never pressed me to do those things either.

I hope to be a good mother one day. I know how too, because of my mom. I love you Mom! Always and forever. To infinity and beyond. ;)

AND, any time I complain, she's super pronto at getting things done. I mentioned she never commented on my blog and voila! There's a comment on each post. I told her I wanted a rice bag and she sends it with sweet sticky notes of how to sew it up and a sweet love note. :)

And I LOVE giving her hugs.

I hope to be just like her.

A Nurturer Whose There.

Take Up The Cross

I remember several years ago wondering what this phrase meant. I had a really great scripture study that led me to the answer and I was able find it through a good search and mark it in my scriptures and I remember understanding it. I'm learning fast the saying, "The fadest ink is stronger than the brightest memory" is true. Which explains that I had some trouble remembering what it meant--even if I remembered finding the answer--because I never wrote it down. This is from the D&C Student Manuel.

D&C 23:6. What Does It Mean to Take Up the
Cross?
“The term take up your cross is found in both ancient
and modern scripture, including at least three
references in the Doctrine and Covenants (23:6; 56:2;
112:14). In Matthew 16:24 the Savior says, ‘If any man
will come after me, let him deny himself, and take
up his cross, and follow me.’ The [Joseph Smith
Translation] of the Bible provides the meaning of
this term as given by Jesus Christ himself: ‘And now
for a man to take up his cross, is to deny himself all
ungodliness, and every worldly lust, and keep my
commandments.’ (Matt. 16:25–26.)” (Ludlow,
Companion, 2:56.)

Elder James E. Talmage wrote: “The cross to
be taken up may be heavy, perhaps to be dragged
because too burdensome to be borne. We are apt to
assume that self-denial is the sole material of our
cross; but this is true only as we regard self-denial
in its broadest sense, comprising both positive and
negative aspects. One man’s cross may consist mostly
in refraining from doings to which he is inclined,
another’s in doing what he would fain escape. One’s
besetting sin is evil indulgence; his neighbor’s a lazy
inattention to the activities required by the Gospel of
Jesus Christ, coupled perchance with puritanical rigor
in other observances.” (Vitality of Mormonism, p. 339;
see also Notes and Commentary on D&C 56:2.)

Quick thoughts: We all know that a question everyone asks at one point in life is why bad things happen to good people. Bad things do happen. They will happen. We live in an imperfect world and we're imperfect people, how can we expect a perfect life? Jesus, even told us that life would be hard. That we would have to occasionally "take up the cross". I think when things go wrong, we usually react in an "ungodly" or "natural man" sort of way. How the world would react, think, say, do. But to "deny ourselves of all ungodliness" (Moroni 10:32) is what we should remember. Everyone's way of being "ungodly" is different--from what Elder Talmage wrote. Part of returning to Heavenly Father is enduring to the end, which includes a lot. It includes denying ourselves of the weaknesses we indulge ourselves with. It's by doing what we can with what we're given. And always, always keeping our hearts and minds on the Savior. "For a man to take up his cross is to deny himself of all ungodliness, and every worldly lust, and keep my commandments". Of course, we know the help we'll receive to do those things and the reward, in itself, includes much more mercy than just satisfying the demands of justice. But God can do that, because of the Atonement and his love for us.

For The Beauty Of The Earth

M5 Invites You To Our Cafe Poetry Reading

[The following haiku's were read at our Ward Prayer on Sunday as we introduced our apartment. They have deep meaning and represent the individual very well. And is best read when wearing a scarf in a fashionable manner, while drinking hot cocoa, and concluding each haiku with snaps.]

Whitney

Teaches 5-Year-Olds

Runs A Lot, All Over Town

Domestic Goddess

Carolyn

Veracious Reader

Chocolate-Chip-Cookie-Master

Responsible One

Becky

EFY Crazy

When In Doubt--Don't Believe Her

Magical Fingers

Katherine

The Best Drum Major

Likes To Eat Popcorn A Lot

Caressable Arms

Dan [Honorary LivingRoomKitchenmate]

He Has A Sweet Tooth

Lover Of A Macey's Girl

Bombardment Society

Really Likes M5

And Her Nose Shall Tell Her...

That 'ze bathroom is clean.

Background: I had an AMAZING weekend minus one slight issue--I failed my cleaning check. I need to explain how it felt...like I had sat on a tack. Because my weekend was suppose to be refreshing after Rocky Mountain. Which it totally was until I got the little F,F,F,F on my portion of the cleaning check. See? My weekend was perfect:

Thursday Night: Fell asleep on Katherine''s bed. She awoke me once the Psych episode finished to go to my own bed across the room. And here's the best part, ya ready?! I got 10 1/2 hours of sleep! Yayawhoowhooyayawhowhoo! I felt like myself after that. Like dreaming of boys again, singing in my room to music as I got ready, happy, talkative, [typical becky-ness], etc.

Friday Night: After studying for hours and taking a test. I went to the Band Social Variety Show and nacho bar; which was hilarious. The Piccolos got together and did an interpretive dance. We got a standing ovation. :) Then I slaved over the bathroom for cleaning checks. I cleaned it super good. Or so I had thought. Dun. Dun. Dun!

Saturday: We woke up early at 6am and went into the Canyon (Rock Canyon Park...) and made a dutch oven breakfast. There was about 17 of us guys and girls. It was so much fun to watch the sunrise, cook, talk, and play! We found some ice blocks and some of us went ice blocking. Then we had a UP party to watch the football game at the Watts. I told Katherine she could come as long as she knew 3 things: the name of our city, University Place; the name of a ward, Sunset Ward [she biffed it and called it Sunshine Ward :)], and the high school, Curtis. Of course my Spirits were high when we won 38-28 against Oregon State--who we played two years ago for our Bowl Game. After messing around we decided to watch The Music Man.

Sunday: Church was great. I love my Ward. And my sweet Bishop who taught Relief Society and went 15 minutes over. :) But when we got home, we had left over breakfast from Saturday morning and then did the Sunday usual: visit with familia, nap, meetings, vt, etc. THEN. We went up to the mountains to see the fall colors. They were beautiful! I'll post pictures if I get the time.

Great weekend! And I spent another couple of hours today cleaning up like crazy the bathroom for cleaning check re-check for us failures. I decided I would use so much smelly goodness that as soon as crazy lady opens the door, her nose shall tell her how clean it is!

And guess what? It worked.

76 Trombones

Last week Katherine showed me the media center within the walls of Harold. I had no clue [exaggeration--I had forgotten] that you could get movies from the library. I mean--I remember the days with Mom headed to the UP Library to pick up a few VHS's every now and then; but, I suddenly grew up and didn't get things from the library when they upgraded to DVDs. Needless to say, my generation thinks the best thing out there is Redbox and Netflix. Which takes all our limited college funds. Now that I found a decent collection at the library, I think I'll go old school for the time being.

And Fully Enjoy

Being Able

To Rent...Something Named:

THE MUSIC MAN

Over the summer after a few Music Man references (which I didn't get at all), Katherine just about freaked when she did more digging and found out I hadn't seen it even once in my 20 years. Then after I quoted it in my talk I gave in Sacrament Meeting a few weeks ago, Katherine put some action to her words and we brought home the DVD to The Dwelling to watch it on Saturday night. The roomies and I had already made our social quota [boy quota] for the day so we just curled up with blankets and used our flat screen TV for probably the 4th time ever to watch a movie.

And I loved it. About halfway through I began to get antsy that it would end not the way I wanted it too, sincerely warning Katherine she would be in some big trouble and feeling some pain if little-red-headed-lisp boy got hurt. Or if handsome professor hill would just leave town without falling for librarian woman.

One theme I loved was how people can change. That because librarian woman chose to see the good that fake teacher hill brought to the city (even while knowing his fraud), he was able to have a change of heart. What an example! And that no matter how bad someone can be, you can still love them and see the good.

Now I'm antsy to fall in love with all the other great musicals that are out there...maybe Singing In The Rain will be next?

I Just Wasted An Hour On My Latest Interest, Pinterest.

Mom, you should probably check that out. Because of some technical difficulties/mix-ups--I created an account for you. Sorry! But I figure now that it'd be a great mommy daughter bonding website. Anyways, so you have all these Facebook friends following you and you have nothing posted on any boards. I can give you a tutorial at Christmas--no worries! I need to figure out how to set one up for myself without needing a Facebook account.

But...I feel like I"m just discovering life sometimes (thus the wasted hour). All the cool ideas to do when I have the time one day. There's just the idea of simplicity, nicety of things. I mean communication and technology have sky-rocketed so much that I could probably find any answer to any question or tutorial through a good, serious google/blog search!

Needless to say, I can't wait to be a mom. My mom. Mmm. :) Love her!

Some quick reading in our new-awesome-Relief-Society-special-blue-book and I found this gem:

"The average woman today, I believe, would do well to appraise her interests, evaluate the activities in which she is engaged, and then take steps to simplify her life, putting things of first importance first, placing emphasis where the rewards will be greatest and most enduring, and ridding herself of the less rewarding activities." -Sis. Belle S. Spafford (don't freak out if you didn't recognize her name--she was the 9nth RS general president)

Basic, right? But I really do like this quote because I've thought about how many cool things there are for me to do! That I want to do. That I could do. I'm 20 and I have a whole life a head of me. But I obviously--can't do everything. So I'll regroup the most important and live life one heat beat at a time. In the mean time...

I decided I needed a new Bucket List. A "In The Millennium To-Do List" where I can put all the 'less rewarding activiites' that would still be awesome to do but I won't have time for in this life. Ya. It's a keeper list. :)

Lover of Righteousness

I'm not sure if this in the scriptures. But i think it is. Somewhere in the New Testament where we were studying in Sunday School. Someone made the comment that they wanted to be strive to love righteousness. Even though it was a few weeks ago, the simple idea has struck a spot in my mind and stuck.

I want to love righteousness. I think I"ve already began long ago. As I get older and have more experiences I grow more attached to purity, modesty, reading your scriptures and getting something out of them everyday. I just want to be better and love all goodness. Good music, good movies. It's not about what you can't do or see or watch and you're left with just the good. No, the good has depth. The farther you go, the closer I go to living your standards the more joy and happiness I feel. It's a simplicity and talent. The good has so much depth with even more amazing things than before.

In one of my classes, we were talking about how as parents you hope and pray that as you teach them about the gospel you look to see if they're internalizing any of it. And when they do, how happy you are they got it. That they're applying it into there life. I know my parents have always known when I've lived with them that I was internalizing. But I hope my parents know that right now--as I live away from them--I, Becky-Sue-Marie-Rhoden-Future-Mrs.Right, love righteousness. That I am so grateful that they kept their covenants and were worthy enough to be sealed in the temple. That they taught me about Jesus Christ. I love him. My heart grows fonder the more I learn and study Christ's life. When I spent all summer working with youth, hoping that they would see how everything fits together, I testified that Jesus Christ lives everyday. I heard their testimonies and I grew such a deep respect. I know that I am a daughter of God. I love this Church and the principles of the Gospel. That the Gospel can be explained and understood so simply yet studied for a lifetime. The Gospel is my life. It means everything to me. I don't ever want to let it go.