Twins

Due 17 January.

From the Mouth of Babes

Liam loves church. He loves nursery. He loves pointing to "Papa" Howard sleeping on the stand. He loves Jesus. He loves the temple. Pretty good for a 21 month-old.

Every night when we put him to bed, before we even ask he says "payrsss!" so we all pray together. Then we ask him if he wants to sing a song, and he says "song!" We ask him which song, and he says "Jesus!" Our "Jesus" song catalog consists of "I'm Trying to be Like Jesus," "Jesus Once Was a Little Child," and "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam."

I tried to mix it up the other night and began singing "I am like a star shining brightly..." when I was rudely interrupted with "JESUS!"

Together as a family, we read one column from his own copy Book of Mormon every day. He has one of the older light blue editions with the image of Angel Moroni on the cover. Every morning he gets his Book of Mormon from the shelf, says "Mo-no-ni" and gives it hugs. Lately he has started repeating some of the words that we say as we read. He usually picks out the words he knows like "water" or "tent," but he also says words that he doesn't know, usually if they're right before a comma and we pause in our recitation. Our favorite so far is "abomination."

Last week I took him to an art exhibit. We were looking at a painting called "Glimpsing Ponte Vecchio" by Cheryl Butterfield, and he said "Temple! Temple!"


Today we were particularly surprised and pleased and proud of him. Chelsie took him upstairs to get dressed before going on some errands. I was in the kitchen heating up some lunch when I heard "Mike, come quick!" - which means something cute is afoot!

I dashed upstairs to have Chelsie tell me that as they walked into his nursery, he took her over to a Lego sculpture he had designed, then explained to her what it was: "Temple! Temple!" I looked at the sculpture and was so proud of him, especially after Chelsie told me that he had made it all by himself.

I have always had strong feelings, even since before he was born, that he would be a mighty tool in his Lord's hands. When you are responsible to teach a child the ways of the Lord, your whole approach to everything changes, especially to your own scripture study. I study to teach and I study to become an example to my children. Being a parent has helped me immensely because of this incidental growth I am trying to do for the sake of my family.

And then my son comes along and teaches me a lesson about the temple, and Jesus, and singing hymns and saying prayers, and repeating scriptures. I couldn't be a prouder daddy, and I know Chelsie feels the same. He's such a good boy.

Here are pictures of the temple he made:


His inspiration looks like it was Ponte Vecchio a little, doesn't it? :)

His Hands

Shortly after I first arrived in the mission field in January 1999, the mission office, using technology much more rudimentary than that to which we are acclimated today, put together a 6-minute video presentation. Set to a recording of Kenneth Cope's "His Hands," the touching slide show was a collection of paintings of the Savior, each image providing an appropriate visual for the song lyrics.

As a missionary full of enthusiasm and spirit, I fell in love with the video immediately, along with the rest of my fellow 140 elders and sisters serving in Tokyo. We used the video to help investigators feel the spirit. We used it to help ward members feel the spirit. We watched it on preparation day to help ourselves feel the spirit! The music and lyrics combined with the images of our beloved Christ all worked together in a marvelous way that uplifted anybody who had eyes to see and ears to hear.



I remember still the day when Elder Tamanaha and I were riding our bikes out to do some tracting. I was singing "His Hands" in my head. We stopped at a red light, and Tama-chan turned to me and commented on what a great song it was. Yes, I had been singing out loud. Luckily we were biking through fields for most of the way.

Ah, to be a tenderfoot, idealistic green bean missionary, invincible, hopeful, unaware of so much in the world, able to cope with anything because of an "I can do anything if I have the Spirit!" attitude. That's how I was! And I accomplished a lot. I learned Japanese quite easily, I was always very optimistic, which helped aid my capabilities and God-given talents. I was going to serve the best mission ever, come home, marry within a year or two, teach at the MTC while studying education at Brigham Young University, have lots of kids, and eventually get hired by the Church Education System to be a full time seminary teacher.

Ah, His Hands. "Though I'm not yet as I would be // He has shown me how I could be // I will make my hands like those from Galilee." That was my theme song.

Reality hit.

I served an adequate mission. I worked extremely hard, but spent my energy mostly spinning my wheels. I was quite the "Law of Moses" kind of missionary, in that the rulebook dictated my actions and reactions, instead of allowing the spirit to rule my heart. I came home to freshly-divorced parents. My siblings and I all experienced trauma and hurt. One almost-bright spot was that I was nearly offered a job by the MTC. Yet as I was not accepted by BYU, the job went to somebody else. My dream of working for CES was dwindling. I pressed forward in my university studies at the University of Utah, but continued to run into money problems. It took me years of stop-and-go, part-time/full-time student work before I was able to work my way through college and get my degree in international studies.

I married at age 28, five years after my self-imposed deadline, to the second girl to whom I had gotten engaged. I had secured a job with a software company, where my talents and ideas were valued, and I was doing okay at supporting myself and my wife. Our son, Liam, joined us in 2009.

Wow. 2009. And now 2011. It has been twelve years since I sat in the chapel adjacent to the Tokyo South Mission home in Kichijoji, Tokyo, in the dark, surrounded by missionaries and looking up at a video screen playing a sweet slide show, uplifting all of our spirits, making us feel invincible.

I have spent a lot of time in the dark in these intervening 12 years. Hurt, mostly. Hard on myself. Perfectionists do not do well in the gospel until they are able to reconcile the fact that it is not behavior that warrants God's love, but rather relationship. And since all of our relationship is "child of God," we all warrant His love. But I dare you to try to behave your way into Heaven, and then mess up along the way. You will beat yourself so much that you become jaded, bitter, and eventually masochistic. You feel unworthy all of the time. Everything you do--or fail to do--becomes yet another club with which to beat yourself over the head. All of this because--well, because why?

Because: I did not have a sufficient understanding of, or faith in the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

I recalled recently a story that a wonderful Institute teacher told once to our class. Brother S. Michael Wilcox, I hope I do this story some justice in this retelling. I think I recall that this was a daydream or a pondering that Brother Wilcox had. In any case, as you read it, you will see that it was a personal revelation to help Brother Wilcox, and through the retelling of it, he has helped many others. The story is about himself, and it goes something like this:

"A great man died and went to Heaven. He was always a great man, but in his own eyes, he was not a great man. He did his best, but was like the rest of us, and made mistakes along the way. He was hard on himself, which indeed proved to be his most enduring sin.

"As he approached heaven, he saw a desk and a chair, and it looked something like the set of the Tonight Show. The Savior sat behind the desk, and asked the man if he would please be seated as they perform an interview. The Savior asked the man questions like 'how was your relationship with your wife?' and 'how was your relationship with your children,' and so forth. For each question asked, the man, who was in reality a great man, could have answered confidently and at length of the great relationship he and his wife enjoyed. The same for his children, and the same for his neighbors and fellow man. Instead, this great man would state things like, 'Well, my wife and I loved each other very much. We had a loving relationship.' He then proceeded to make an accounting of all the times when he and his bride had argued, or a time when he put her down, or hurt her feelings. For each question asked of him, the great man would say something slightly positive, followed by a laundry list of the rotten things he had done.

"The Savior looked at him, puzzled and said 'Mike, I don't remember those things. I do not have any memory of you doing any of that!' 'But I did them, Savior, I did them all!' 'Mike,' Christ lovingly replied, 'I am the Lord, and even I do not remember you doing those things.' Before the man could protest again, the Lord said, 'Mike, let's take a look on the monitor to see exactly what happened.'

"Now remember, they are on the set of the Tonight Show, so a television monitor rose up out of the ground. The man was going to show the Savior that all of those arguments with his wife did actually happen, and that he did actually yell at his children. Not even the Lord would be able to refute the video evidence, and yes, then the Lord would remember all of those rotten things he did.

"The screen powered up and the monitor turned on. There, for them both to see, was a single image. What the man saw, however, was not a moving image of him losing his temper or failing in one of the million ways he claimed to have failed. What the man saw as he sat there with his Savior was a moving image of Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane suffering for his sins.

"Weeping now, the man turned to his Lord in awesome wonder and gratitude. 'Mike, I do not remember you doing any of what you described to me. No, Mike--I did them. You repented, and they became mine. I did them. Now repent of this last sin: stop being so hard on yourself. Forgive yourself.'"

So what about "His Hands"? Today is Easter Sunday. President Gordon B. Hinckley has said many times that the three most hope-filled words in the English language when spoken together are "He is risen." I just watched another video on YouTube set to the music of "His Hands." The slide show is now video clips taken from church movies. It's much slicker than its 1999 predecessor. The spirit is the same, and even stronger. I have grown much since then. I have many ways in which to mature. I listened to the words and music. I observed the moving images and hearkened back to the 19 year-old me. I felt that I would like to give some loving advice to Elder Brady about the future. "Hope is real!"



Twelve years later, I have been through a lot. But I have been so very blessed. My bride and baby are more than I had ever hoped for. They love me, and I love them. I am in an environment where love is freely expressed--it is my duty to receive it as it is given.

My Savior Jesus Christ rose from the grave. He is risen! He was resurrected, and so has my hope. Hope is real! Christ was not resurrected to the same body that his spirit previously occupied, but into a new and perfect body. He was not sent back to square one, physically. No, my hope hasn't been reset. It's not "back to the drawing board," but rather my hope is founded on the maturity, knowledge and testimony that I have acquired along the way. What has reset, though, is my attitude toward myself--yes, my very ability to love myself.

Everybody: Happiest of Easters to you all. Hope is real!

Especial thanks to my wife Chelsie, our son Liam, my parents, Chelsie's parents, all of our siblings and family members, Bishop Howard and his family, and Bishop Nielson and his family. We love you all!

U2 and John Mayer and Tina Fey

Hi. Do you ever have those really random chains of thought, and when you realize you're thinking of that something random that you've arrived at, it takes you a few minutes to trace your thoughts back?

A series of events (as opposed to thoughts) have led me to this place. Here is where I ended up:


Now, let's trace things backward how I got there:

• "Waiting on the World to Change" (Mayer) sounds like "Stuck In a Moment" (U2)


• "Heartbreak Warfare" (Mayer) sounds like "Bad" (U2)


• Gee, that John Mayer song in the movie "Date Night" was pretty good.


• Hmm, "Date Night" looked fun. And it's better than the rest of the stuff in this kiosk...


• Hey, I got a free video rental code from Blockbuster!


• Wow, this "heyitsfree.net" blog is pretty cool! Think I'll subscribe to its feed.


• "You should check out 'heyitsfree.net' if you like getting free stuff! --Reed Richards


• "Chelsie, I invited that new family in the ward over for dinner. They're the Richardses."

And finally:


Granted, "Bad" and "Heartbreak Warfare" both use the same extremely simple chord progression (Asus/Dsus) you have to admit that the delay, synth and overall feel resemble one another greatly. Ripoff? Nah. Inspired by? Most definitely. Both songs are great.

Liam's Mission Fund

I posted this on our family blog, but thought it would be worth a posting here as well:

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HELLO! Liam got so many wonderful toys and clothes from his family members and friends. He even got a little bit of cash! Today, he and I went to Wells Fargo to open his first savings account. He has $60 dollars! We won't have him pay tithing until he turns 8, but he will know by then what tithing is. This money is going toward his mission fund, anyway, so in the end, the Church gets it all, and Liam will get blessings.

Liam, and of course his parents, are grateful for everything you all have done for us for our entire lifetimes. We love you all. We are grateful for every last little thing you have done for us, and we realize that we probably don't even know the half of it. The more time we spend as parents, the more we appreciate what our parents have done.

We truly don't want to be presumptuous or act like we are entitled. We do not want to appear to be looking for handouts or the like, but we thought it might be convenient for some to create a Paypal account for Liam's mission fund as well. We realize that nothing can really replace the thrill of getting a birthday card in the mail, with the added bonus of a note signed by the U.S. Treasurer. But to help Liam save for his mission, college, and everything else, we thought that it couldn't hurt to open some more avenues or ways for him to save.

You will find his "donate" link near the top of our blog, and here it is in large-scale as well:

Again, we are grateful for all the jammies, toys, shoes, outfits, cards, messages, emails, visits and love that you have all shown our big one year-old. It will carry him far and serve him well.

Have you ever held a baby and kissed his little hands and wondered: how many priesthood blessings will these little hands give? How many people will they reach out to in Christlike service, offering comfort, friendship and love? Have you ever wondered that?

Or his feet: how many miles will these feet walk in rushing to the aid of a friend in need?

You know, it makes me think of a poem written by a master mason, Five Points of Fellowship, by Robert Morris. This poem outlines the good that our bodies can do, and paints the picture of an embrace that can only be described as sacred. This mason discusses the following things we can do with the bodies we have been given. The full poem won't be given here, but the basis is as follows:

• Feet: hasten to the needs of our plaintive brethren.


• Knees: pray to Almighty God for our brethren


• Breasts: keep in our breasts a strong faith that can never be touched, where our heart holds a love for God and our brethren.


• Hands: stretch out our arms and hold up the backs of our feeble and weakened brethren.


• Cheek: whisper in the ears of our brethren words of strength and encouragement when the tempter comes.

I suggest reading the entire poem. Younger members of the church who have not studied will not appreciate the full significance of this poem.

(There is also the poem The Five Points Symbolism by N. A. McAulay.)

Anyway, this entry was initially intended to thank you all for the great gifts and the love that Liam received. Thanks to you all--we love you!!

2010: 911

I came across the image above while scanning CNN.com. Please don't stop reading because you may dislike Ted Turner's politics. Try reading the article yourself first.

As I read the article and studied the image of a man rushing toward death for the sake of others, I was touched. I see no apparent fear in his face, but I'll bet it's there--courage is not courage if there is no fear. I thought on this and became a little emotional.

With the belief set that I have, how could I not take the next step. How could I not think of the Savior rushing toward death for the sake of others.

Liam

Know why I love Photoshop? Here is the original: