April 2019

Apr 2, 2019:

The boys went to the dentist last Friday--everything checked out great!

Apr 5, 2019:

I got to attend the amazing UWHEN Conference this week for work and was moved to tears by the many, many examples of strong women in higher education and leadership. What a wonderful time to be a woman.

Apr 5, 2019:

The boys had spring break this week, and some great friends to play with. I packed a bag with an activity and treat for each morning with friends, and then they spent the afternoon with Bishka. Done highlights (some not pictured): decorating sugar cookies, making piñatas and smashing them, painting rocks, perler bead creations, and more!

On Wednesday morning Pace asked why this was the worst spring break ever, and I laughed and said,”Pace, you’ve had fun activities and treatswith friends everyday, none of your friends are out of town so you’ve been able to all play together all week, you’re home in the afternoons to chill out with Bishka—what do you mean it’s been the worst?! What were your expectations?!” After a few more probing questions, I discovered Pace meant it was so bad because he thought he’d be having screen time everyday all day. Right, buddy, riiiiight...🙄

Apr 6, 2019:

Distance + Elevation run, Take II. You guys. This one kicked my trash, big time. 😱😵😭🙈

18 miles on the BST with a double Y climb and double Slate Canyon climb totaling over 5400 feet of elevation is definitely my limit. I felt pretty strong til I came down Slate for the second time, and then somewhere between Slate and the Y I lost it. Before I began my second Y climb, my legs were pretty heavy and my stomach was nauseous and tight. I got passed on the way up by a handful of hikers, including a grandpa who had ridden his bike up to the trailhead and blazed his way up so fast I never saw him again. He must have kept on going up into Slide Canyon. 😂 I was going to take a picture of him, but I didn’t have enough energy, haha. When I got up to the rock outcropping just beyond the Y, I had to just sit and deep breathe for a bit...and do a lot of self-talk to get myself down off that mountain and back to the car. 😂

The final leg from the Y back to Rock Canyon involved more hiking than I’d like to admit 😶😒 Although this distance wasn’t new for me, I’ve never done this much elevation in one run, and it really knocked my socks off. Maybe one of these days I’ll be strong enough to add Squaw Peak into the mix with everything else, but not today.

Apr 11, 2019:

We played with friends at Coin Crazy while all the dads went to dinner and Priesthood session for General Conference.

Apr 13, 2019:

Homework in Español!

Apr 13, 2019:

Fun day rockhounding septarian nodules. We found a few good ones, but they were too close to the surface and the freezing had broken them apart. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the root beer colored crystals we get to add to our collection. I love that wide open places like Clawson still exist. At one point I’d been digging for a few hours and Pace said to me, “Daddy, you’re going to deserve a 2hr nap after this. #bestkidsever

Apr 13, 2019:

Sporting two injuries from being a klutz on my run yesterday (a mildly sprained left ankle and palm-sized road rash on my right knee), I decided today to throw out pace and distance and go out for a “let’s see how I feel” run. 

It was not my planned loop, and nowhere near the distance I needed for training, and my ankle got mad at me around mile 4, while my knee sort of bugged me the whole time, but I couldn’t leave St. George without hitting a trail. 

The photos do not do this landscape justice. *sigh*

 

 Apr 13, 2019:

Pace got his spacer put in on Friday. It was a little rough Friday afternoon and a little tender to chew on Friday night. By Saturday, Pace said, “I figured out how to eat with the spacer, mommy! Just eat with my mouth open!” Boy am I looking forward to these next few years!

Apr 13, 2019:

Our friends threw their annual Easter egg hunt tonight, and it was a blast!  So many fun games and prizes!

Apr 17, 2019:

Max has to write sentences for homework. He asked me if I thought his sentences were “juicy”. I laughed asking what he meant, and he said, “you know, good.” I wondered where in the world did he understand what juicy meant, and then later read his assignment: “Are your sentences detailed and juicy?” 😂😂😂

Apr 20, 2019:

Some runs you feel strong and some runs you just have to do. The out of today’s out and back was ok, but the back was kind of rough going. Residual fatigued muscles from climbing? Turned into weaksauce taking it easy this week from last week’s injury? A new canine companion who wanted to stop every so often diving after mice? 🤷🏼‍♀️ Thanks, Wendy, for sticking it out with me. 

(In all the times I’ve been out to Deer Creek, I have not once noticed the no dogs allowed sign. There’s a sign on both ends! I may have gotten a few stink eyes...that one’s for you, Kathleen 😉)

Ok...edit...I just checked out my splits on Strava and we carried an 11:50 average pace, and I had a bunch of PR segments...maybe it felt so hard bc Wendy the taskmaster was pushing me at a faster than my normal pokey pace 😂😂

Apr 20, 2019:

I had a chiropractor appointment yesterday and the boys came with me. We all brought books to read: Pace brought Book 1 of the BoxCar Children series, Max brought a Merlin Missions Book, and I brought an 850 page book. We all sat down on chairs in the waiting room, all lined up, and all with our books open. The receptionist thought it was the cutest picture. I wish I’d stood up to take a photo myself, but I didn’t. 

When it was my turn to head back to the room, the boys followed me like little ducklings, still holding their books and still reading as we walked down the hallway. They sat quietly in the room while the chiropractor adjusted me, and then followed me like little bookworm ducklings to the therapy room, and the little bookworm ducklings to the final room for e-stim. 

When we left, they kept right on reading, following behind me. Pace missed a turn down the hallway since his little nose was in a book, and when I told him to follow me, he looked up a little disoriented, because he had been so engrossed in the story. 

I felt a little spark of motherly pride—I definitely felt like I had succeeded as a mama watching my little ducklings follow me with their noses in their books. ❤️

Apr 20, 2019:

Utah Symphony with the Troupe Vertigo dancers. It was a fun show! The coolest part was being there in person and hearing the tiny acoustics, like the juggling yo yo guy whipping the string through the air, or the aerialists spinning on the pole.

Apr 21, 2019:

To me, there is nothing more important on Easter than remembering its covenant heritage through the Passover celebration. In The Hidden Christ by James L. Ferrell, he notes “Every element comprising the Passover points to a salvation far more important than the mere removal of Israel from Egypt. The combined elements point to the Savior—to his great and last sacrifice, to his power to save, to his infinite Atonement” (pg. 95).

When the Lord called Moses to free the Israelites from bondage in Egypt, it was only in part a physical rescuing. Having been in captivity for hundreds of years within the Egyptian culture, Moses’ true responsibility was to remind the Israelites of their sacred heritage through the Abrahamic Covenant, and the performance of sacred ordinances and sacrifices pertaining to that covenant. His true responsibility was to remind them of the freedom from sin and death they would receive through the Savior.

The first Passover occurred during the final, and worst, plague God sent when Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites free. This plague was the death of every firstborn in all the land. The Israelites were not exempt from this plague, as they had been the others. To protect His people, the Lord instructed them to sacrifice a lamb without blemish and to take the blood and mark the doorway of their houses (Ex. 11:3-6; 12:12-14). They then had a Passover Feast within their homes, each element of the feast symbolic of the escape they would make the following day.

Upon sacrificing the lamb, The Israelites were very specifically instructed to dip hyssop, an herb used for Temple purifications (Ensign, April 2014), in the blood from a sacrificial basin, and strike the lintel and the two side posts, or the doorframe, of their houses. The blood would be a token to the destroying angel to pass over that particular house, and the firstborn within would live. It is interesting to note they were to mark the doorframes “wherein they shall eat [the lamb]”, and none should leave through the door until the morning. (Ex. 12:7, 12-14, 22).

This was not random blood sprinkled on random doorways in protection from the destroyer. This was a token performed by those fully believing in and participating in the covenant and ordinance set forth by the Lord—these were homes in which dwelled those devoted to their Redeeming Messiah, and these doorways housed those who inside were participating in a covenant feast of the Lord.

James L. Ferrell gives further insight, “Perhaps the blood around the door signifies the absolute devotion to the Lord that is necessary for salvation. When we enter and leave our homes, we do so in the name of the Lord, whose blood will save the house. Perhaps it is significant in this regard that in commemoration of the Passover through the generations, the Israelites sprinkled the blood of the lamb on the altar of the temple—signifying that our homes are as altars and temples to the Lord. When we enter our homes, framed as they are by the blood of the Lamb, we are to understand that we are entering a holy place, a place that he has looked upon, set apart, and saved” (The Hidden Christ, pg. 94).

The Israelites were additionally commanded to observe Passover as a sacred ordinance forever, and to teach their children about the importance of the Lord’s sacrifice in delivering their houses and families from the destroying angel (Ex. 12:24-27). Covenants are two-way promises: the Israelites promised to look forward to the Messiah by performing this sacred ordinance with the blood of the lamb, and the Lord promised to

· “bring [them] out from under the burdens of the Egyptians”

· “rid [them] out of their bondage”

· “redeem [them] with a stretched out arm”

· “take [them] unto [Him] for a people”

· would “not suffer the destroyer to come in unto [their] houses to smite [them]” (Ex. 6:6-7; 12:23)

· and, ultimately, lead them to inherit a promised land.

For generations the Passover tradition was passed down and observed as a sacred Israelite holy day. Being raised as a faithful Israelite and Jew, Jesus participated in many Passover feasts. It was the Final Passover, or the “Last Supper”, in which He fulfilled the symbols of the preparatory Passover and established the new covenant.

Imagine this very intimate Last Supper. Jesus and His Apostles were gathered together, behind a doorway, participating in the covenant Passover Feast. Before beginning, Jesus bent and washed His follower’s feet, ensuring purity and holiness for the coming ordinance. They quietly conversed, lit candles, sang hymns, and broke bread.

The Apostles may not have understood the full implications of this Last Supper, but we know the Savior did. He knew in preparing this Final Passover Feast, he was preparing and offering the New Covenant to all the children of God, that He would be the sacrificial Lamb covering our doorway, forcing the angel of darkness to pass us by.

Through this new covenant, Christ knew He was offering His name as the token that would effectively cover us, the only name through which light, life, and salvation is offered, through which the children of men are made literally, figuratively, physically, and spiritually free, and by whose name are led to inherit the promised land (2 Ne 31:21; Mosiah 3:17; 4:8; 5:8).

“And as they did eat, Jesus took bread and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them, and said, Take it, and eat. Behold, this is for you to do in remembrance of my body; for as oft as ye do this ye will remember this hour that I was with you. And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them; and they all drank of it. And he said unto them, This is in remembrance of my blood which is shed for many, and the new testament which I give unto you; for of me ye shall bear record unto all the world. And as oft as ye do this ordinance, ye will remember me in this hour that I was with you and drank with you of this cup, even the last time in my ministry” (JST Mark 14:20-24).

David R. Seely reminds us “Within twenty-four hours, Jesus would offer His life as a sacrifice for the sins of the world and would literally fulfill what had been symbolically celebrated through the law of sacrifice for millennia and meticulously observed through the law of Moses for centuries. The symbols of His atoning sacrifice, the bread and wine, would replace many of the symbols in the law of Moses and would be partaken by His followers as the sacrament in remembrance of Him” (From the Last Supper Through the Resurrection, Eds. Holzapfel & Wayment, pp. 101-102).

Just as the old covenant was sealed with blood, this new covenant would be sealed with blood, as well. Christ sweat “as it were great drops of blood” (Luke 22:44, JST) through every pore while suffering in Gethsemane. His suffering was so great on the cross, he “cried with a loud voice…My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). When His sacrificial mission was accepted by the Father, He cried, “Father, it is finished, thy will is done” (Matthew 27:50, JST).

Andrew C. Skinner recognizes, “It is profoundly sobering to think of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, “two of Jerusalem’s most distinguished leaders laboring in the darkening twilight to loosen the shattered remains of the Master from the horrible spikes” (The Garden Tomb, pg. 17). Imagine yourself assisting Joseph and Nicodemus in this task; tenderly handling the Lord’s crucified body, wrapping Him in clean linens and carrying Him to the Garden Tomb.

As you pass His body through the doorway of the garden tomb, instead of lamb’s blood covering the doorway, it is now the Lamb of God, offering His final sealing mark, fulfilling the old Passover Order and establishing the new Sacramental Covenant.

With His sacred, holy, and pure blood, Jesus covered the doorway of that garden tomb, effectively covering all those who enter into the new covenant, unabashedly declaring to the adversary that He has a people He has looked upon, set apart, and saved.

What joy and rejoicing and strength the angels must have had in rolling the stone away from the door of the tomb that bright Sunday morning, declaring the tomb empty, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ resurrected, having conquered death.

When Jesus finished His mortal ministry, He fulfilled the Passover Covenant through His sacrifice and resurrection, and in its place He established the Sacrament as the New Covenant. Today, as a body of saints we take the sacrament in remembrance of his life and atonement. Elder Holland calls sacrament “the most sacred, the most holy, of all the meetings of the Church…Do we see it as our Passover, remembrance of oursafety and deliverance and redemption? With so very much at stake, this ordinance commemorating our escape from the angel of darkness should be taken more seriously than it sometimes is” (This Do in Remembrance of Me, Ensign Nov. 1995, pg. 68).

When we partake of the sacrament, we are making a covenant to remember.

· Remember the Savior’s body and blood which He sacrificed on our behalf.

· Remember we are willingly taking His name upon us, to be witnesses of Him, at all times and in all places.

· Remember to keep His commandments.

· Remember whom we are placing as the priority of our lives. As President Eyring taught, through the sacrament, “We see ourselves as His. We put Him first in our lives. We want what He wants rather than what we want or what the world teaches us to want” (Henry B. Eyring, That We May Be One).

In exchange The Lord promises to bless and sanctify the bread and water for our souls and give us His Spirit to be with us. Elder Holland notes taking on the name of Christ offers “Purity. Holiness. Character and conscience without blemish. All these through the grace of Christ, which cleanses our garments, sanctifies our souls, saves us from death, and restores us to our divine origins” (Christ and the New Covenant, pg. 339).

With the Passover the Israelites had taken on them the name of Christ. But they were not yet ready for the Promised Land. For forty years they wandered, experienced difficulties and trials, and were refined in preparation for their entry into their land of promise. Similarly, we have taken on us the name of Christ at baptism but are not yet ready for our promised land. We are covenant members of the Lord’s Gospel. We have the opportunity each week to partake of the sacrament and declare allegiance to the Lord and unite ourselves to His precepts. Although we may at times feel our imperfections as wandering in the wilderness, we recognize the healing and cleansing nature of the sacrament that is refining and preparing us to receive our eternal inheritance.

Elder Holland reminds us “The wounds in his hands, feet, and side are signs that in mortality painful things happen even to the pure and the perfect, signs that tribulation is notevidence that God does not love us. It is a significant and hopeful fact that it is the woundedChrist who comes to our rescue. He who bears the scars of sacrifice, the lesions of love, the emblems of humility and forgiveness is the Captain of our Soul. That evidence of pain in mortality is undoubtedly intended to give courage to others who are also hurt and wounded by life” (Christ and the New Covenant, pg. 259).

The Israelites looked forward to the great triumph of Jesus’ life with the Passover. Jesus’ death and burial fulfilled the old law. On Sunday morning at the now empty garden tomb angels declared “Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen” (Luke 24:5-6), and the resurrected Christ established the new law.

David R. Seely recognizes “Just as the children of Israel celebrated the Passover in the Old Testament by looking back at the decisive act of God,…so would future Christians continue to celebrate the sacrament by looking back and remembering the power of God in the Atonement” (From the Last Supper Through the Resurrection, Eds. Holzapfel & Wayment, pp. 96-97).

Through the sacrament we remember the Lord promises

· an escape from burdens

· deliverance from bondage and captivity

· a remission of sins

· redemption from our human natures

· a rescuing from heartache and sorrow

· He promises we can come closer to God’s presence through the condition of repentance; He promises life beyond the grave through the resurrection; He promises more love, peace, joy, knowledge, and light because of Him.

Christ stood in our place and bore our sins in the Garden of Gethsemane so that we could have mercy beyond justice; He gave His life on the cross so that we could experience redemption and be brought before the presence of God; He rose again the third day and through Him we also can tread beyond the border of physical death and be resurrected.

Knowing Christ lives, I know he guides a living Prophet. Knowing Christ lives, I know He heads a living Priesthood we utilize to perform the covenants and ordinances necessary for salvation and eternal life. Knowing Christ lives, I know the living Atonement covers and heals all our faults, flaws, imperfections, doubts, fears, heartaches, and sorrows—and, most importantly, offers hope.

Apr 27, 2019:

Did some of the Timp Trails course this morning and it was great to not have a post holing nightmare this time around! 😂 Had to cut it a little shorter than I was shooting for, hoping for some good mileage next week 👍🏻

 A couple extra happy gnomes: