Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Give, Not Take

Give, Not Take
October 2012

To lift or lean, to give or take
What of our lives are we to make?
Is it to tackle or cheerlead?
What is it that our world doth need?
To make all others carry us
Or allow us to carry them, yes?

At the judgment day, God will call
Did you love me or take it all?
Did you bless another’s life?
Or did you just give others strife?

If we love God, we choose to give
Have neighbors to bless, poor to give
Children to protect, truth to defend,
Wrongs to make right, a hand to lend.

Total love to Him we present
Keeping every commandment
Giving to Him our thanks and our will
Devoted discipleship fills that bill

Make your mind now from the bottom of your soul
Lift not lean is what will make you whole.
We cannot make any mistake
When “we give more than what we take”.

--Vern Richardson, inspired by Jeffrey R. Hollands conference talk, October 2012

Friday, October 5, 2012

3 short family history stories

3 short family history stories:
1.  Edmund and Mary Ann Richardson were asked by Brigham Young to settle in Manti.  Crops had been eaten by grasshoppers.  One day Walter Cox (friend) was so hungry and saw a new weed growing.  He tasted it and it was good!  He knew it must be an answer to their prayers to feed the people of Manti.  What did they call it?  "Manna weed".  Everyone in town carefully picked this manna weed every day and by the enxt day there was just enough more that had grown.  In the spring the weed was gone.  It was no more needed.  It was the miracle of the manna weed. 

2.  In the winter of 1859, there was a heavy snowstorm--18 inches!  William Jordan Flake couldn't find his oxen.  He'd been looking for 10 days and couldn't find them.  He saw a man who pointed toward a hill and said he'd find them in a clump of trees.  He thanks him and started along the back tracks from which the man had come, but to his surprise there were no tracks beyond where he first saw the man!  Also the man disappeared and he realized he had seen one of the three Nephites!  He walked on, soon found his oxen, and returned to camp. 

3.  Green Flake was an African American and was a member of the advance pioneer company who first arrived in Salt Lake City.  He was given as a gift (as a slave) to James Madison and Agnes Flake when he was 10 years old.  The James Flake family got baptized in North Carolina and moved to Nauvoo with the Flake family when they joined the Mormon church.  He was baptized in the Mississippi river in 1844.  From the memory of a grandson and from family diaries (verified in the Church news!), it is believed that Green drove the carriage that Brigham Young rode in when he entered the Salt Lake Valley.  (see blackids.org/flake)  He is one of 3 blacks immortalized on the back of the Brigham Young monument in Salt Lake City. 

Joseph Smith's Letter to Silas Smith


Silas Smith, Joseph Smith’s uncle then living in Stockholm, New York, knew of his nephew’s claims of visions and revelations. Joseph Smith wrote this letter to express his own belief in the biblical record and to persuade his uncle to consider God’s work of the “New Covenant.” He also invited him to come to Kirtland, Ohio.
 Silas’s son, Jesse Nathaniel Smith, included a copy of the letter in his autobiography.

Respected Uncle Silas
It is with feelings of deep interest for the well fare of mankind which fills my mind on the reflection that all  were formed by the hand of him who will call the same to give  an impartial account of all their works on that great day to  which you and myself in common with them are bound, that I  take up my pen and seat myself in an attitude to address a few though imperfect lines to you for your perusal.
I have no doubt but that you will agree with me that  men will be held accountable for the things which they have and  not for the things they have not or that all the light and intell igence communicated to them from their benifficen [beneficent] creator wh ether it is much or little by the same they in justice will be  judged, and that they are required to yield obedience and  improve upon that and that only which is given for man is  not to live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds

Monday, October 1, 2012

MY Snowflake Home, by Minnie Stratton

MY SNOWFLAKE HOME

Oh, home beloved where'ere you wander,
On foreign land or distant sea,
As time rolls by, my heart grows fonder
And yearns more lovingly for thee,
Thou fair be nature's scenes around me,
And friends are ever kind and true,
Thou joyous mirth and song surround me,
My heart, my soul still yearns for you.

Ye valleys fair and snowcapped mountains,
Ye peaceful hamlet mid the trees,
Ye murmuring streams and crystal fountains,
Kissed by the cool, soft balmy breeze.
Words cannot tell how well I love thee
Nor speak my longing when I roam.
My heart alone can cry to heaven,
God bless my own dear Snowflake home.
                 --1953 by Minnie K. Stratton, paraphrased from "God
                 Bless Our Mountain Home"