CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!

Wow another Christmas came and went so quickly! I swear this year just snuck right up on us!

Overall we had a good Christmas this year.
The girls got TWO secret santas this year which helped us out immensely! And thanks to family and friends who contributed to our Christmas otherwise Tyler and I would've gotten nothing, and we are soooooooo grateful to those who contributed to our Happy Christmas!

Christmas Eve we spent with my family like usual. It was fun. We missed my brother Glenn & his sweet wife, Andrea, and our little nephew Brayden. They were visitn her family this year in Georgia. She was happy to be home and I don't blame her. How wonderful!
Michael had to work all night at Dominos. That was very disappointing, made my mom cry. It's his last Christmas here before he leaves on his mission for 2 years to Japan in just 2-3 weeks!
It was probably our last Christmas Eve with my family, too, since Tyler's in the Army now and we'll most definitely be moved out of State.
We had a lot of fun, though! We had delicious dinner and a talent show. It was cute! The little girls are so fun to watch show off their little talents.
Then we opened presents from each other. It was great! Thanks to the love of family & friends my parents were able to get us all something. The little girls all had a blast! We held it at an LDS church and it's a big one so the girls had tonz of space to run around and play all night.

Christmas morning we did the usual. Open presents. We had a lot of fun seeing what the girls got from others.
They both got boots and church shoes and that was so wonderful because neither of them had either! They got PJ's, undies (the usual), an outfit each from grandma Pearson, a pair of cute shoes, some My Littlest Pet Shop toys, Sophie got a plush Tinkerbell, they got some art supplies and playdough, a doll and clothes for the doll, and some dollar store toys we got for their stockings. They had so much fun!

Then we went to my mom's for a little bit (30-60 min) and looked at their presents (they didn't get hardly anything. That goes with dad being without a job for about 1 1/2 years) and gave Benji one of his presents. Thanks to so many charitable people Benji and Mike Liu (like foster siblings) got donated a lot of clothes and gift cards and books and things. They had a good Christmas this year. I was very happy for them because Benji's mom died this year and he hasn't seen her for several years or been home to Mexico for many years and Mike's family is in Taiwan and don't have anything nor celebrate Christmas at all.

Then we went to Tyler's folk's house and had a delicious dinner of Tyler's amazing roast beef. WOW he's such a good cook! Go figure since he's going to be a cook in the Army. Lucky soldiers who get to eat his food!! Then the girls opened a couple presents and all the girls played and had a great time. Tyler and I got to play cards with his sis and mama and then we loaded up taking Tyler's youngest sis with us for the night.

I love Christmas! I used to be quit e the scrooge, but because of Tyler and ESPECIALLY because of having children, I LOVE it now. I don't think about myself during this time of year. It rotates around others and especially my children and I LOVE it! I love buying and getting and wrapping presents for family and friends and seeing their reactions to whatever they get. It's so much fun for me!

Tomorrow we are celebrating Lacie's 6th birthday!!! So far only ONE friend is coming and she doesn't even know it. She's such a social bug it's probably going to crush her, but hey one friend is better than no friends!! And she LOVES Isaac! (thank you Kristen!!!). Her young little aunt who's staying the night will be there, too, which I'm so glad for.

Christmastime just includes Lacie in it. It's her birthday on the 27th.

I gave Lacie the middle name of Marie for a few different reasons. 1. It's a major family name. My mom-in-law has it for a middle name, my grandma-in-law does too, and it's my aunt's name in my dad's family and I just idolize that amazing woman! 2. Then it's my great-grandmother's name (middle or first I'm not sure). My grandpa Pearson spoke so highly of her and I wanted her to be remembered through the ages so passed on her first and middle names to both of my daughters. 3. Mary = Marie. I thought of Jesus' mother and wanted to name my little precious daughter after the mother of Jesus and Marie is Mary and it fit perfectly.

Okay, that's it for now. My eyes are blurry, watery and burning (I really need glasses like something fierce now) and it's 3:15am and I need to get to bed so this is very rambling and probably slightly detached and I'm just so tired!

Merry Christmas everyone and THANK YOU SOOOOOOOO much to those of you and whoever the secret santas are that made our Christmas even fathomable this year!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you so much!!!

Pray for change or pray for strength?

So lately a realization hit me. Tyler and I have been through a lot since before we got married and are still going through some really hard times. I've always prayed that my problems would go away or change or something would make the problems better or something like that. I was always thinking, "God never answers my prayers!!!" I got mad and blamed God and even started to doubt him and even his existence.

Well, in the last few weeks, or months I guess, actually, I changed my prayers for the most part to include something like this instead: "Please bless me with the strength, faith and encouragement to withstand these hard times"... etc. I don't repeat all my prayers. They're not memorized. I pray with my heart and mean every word I say.

So instead of praying for something to go away or change, I prayed for strength to deal with what I had to go through. Well, I shouldn't have to say this but I will anyway, it worked!
I have been at more peace and a lot happier since I've started praying like this.

I recently lost one of my best friends. I feel completely used by her and taken advantage of. I cried myself to sleep a few nights and couldn't sleep the rest of the time, even woke up super early and couldn't get back to sleep cuz I was just so upset over the entire ordeal.

I was super upset about all of this. So finally I prayed and asked Heavenly Father if he would help me shoulder this heartache. I knew I couldn't change any of it. I did the absolute best thing I could do to rectify and clear things up, but relationships never work if both people aren't willing to give their all to it. So I knew I had to go through this. And also to learn a lesson or two, or twenty, so instead I prayed for strength to go through it. Well, the next morning I woke up happy, refreshed, and not feeling all depressed or feeling any despair! I felt good!

I've found that instead of trying to get God to feel sorry for me and change my circumstances and praying for strength and faith to withstand or remain strong then my prayers are answered!!!
It makes me happy to know God IS THERE!!!!!! He DOES listen!!!!!

He CANNOT take choices away from people. So people will always be bad and mean, people will always be selfish and hurtful, people will always lie and steal, kill and abuse. People will always have their own choices to do whatever the heck they want!! So that will always directly or indirectly affect us.

Our own choices determine to an enormous extent the situations in which we find ourselves on a daily basis and they change the course of our lifetime all the time! So... God CANNOT take these choices away from us or anyone else. But what he CAN do is give us the strength to get through them!

He can "carry our crosses", so to speak, through all the hard times we have.
I mean, that's one of the blessings WE ALL HAVE thanks to the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
I love my Heavenly Father.... but I'm sure not even close as much as he loves me!!!!

Genius: His name is Obama (And a WEIRD dream I had about him and Michelle)

With Time magazine comparing Obama to Jesus, I guess we should be relieved that, this week, liberals are only comparing him to Abraham Lincoln.The one thing every liberal on TV seems to know about Lincoln is that he put rivals in his cabinet, as subtly indicated in the title to historian and plagiarist Doris Kearns Goodwin's book: "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln." Like Lincoln, Goodwin is always open to contributions from her rivals, although Lincoln was better at crediting their words.And hasn't Obama talked to former rival Hillary about becoming his secretary of state? Hasn't he had a sit-down with Sen.John McCain? Did I imagine this, or is he even now brokering peace talks between Joy Behar and Elisabeth Hasselbeck?Ergo: Obama is a genius.Indeed, historians have just named Obama the best president-elect ever.I don't recall the media swooning when President George W. Bush reached out to rivals, such as Sen. Teddy Kennedy, who was asked to co-write Bush's education bill. In fact, the way I remember it, Bush is liberals' most hated president ever (only because they can't remember George Washington or they'd hate him, too).And yet no modern president has ever done more to bridge partisan divides and show respect to his opponents than George W. Bush. I do not say this with admiration; it is simply a fact.Throughout the year and again in his convention speech during the 2000 presidential campaign, Gov. Bush bragged that he had "no stake in the bitter arguments of the last few years. I want to change the tone of Washington to one of civility and respect."(As a side note: Bush would never have been elected president if not for the "bitter arguments of the last few years," in which Republicans exposed and impeached Bill Clinton, which then killed Al Gore's presidential ambitions. So you're welcome.)But the point is: Bush was massively chummy with his enemies -- Democrats, communists and the Congressional Black Caucus. So chummy that even they began to wonder if he was a little daft.In his first few weeks in office, Bush met with more than 150 members of Congress, half of them Democrats -- including five events with America's leading liberal menace, Sen. Teddy Kennedy.Bush's very first social event at the White House was movie night with the Kennedy family to watch "Thirteen Days," a falsely heroic portrayal of JFK's disastrous handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis. This suggests to me that Obama's first social move as president will have to be to invite Lindsey Graham over to a screening of "Larry the Cable Guy Saves Christmas."Naturally, Bush also had primary rival John McCain and his wife, Cindy, over to dinner at the White House.Bush was the first president in memory to attend the congressional retreats of the opposing party. After two weeks in office, a Wall Street Journal column noted that Bush's charm offensive was "disorienting the local Hatfields and McCoys." (Again: You're welcome.)Bush even made a special point to meet with the Congressional Black Caucus upon taking office, which -- given their feelings toward Bush -- would be the equivalent of Obama holding a special meet-and-greet session with the upper management of the Ku Klux Klan.Bush invited the Democratic black mayor of the District of Columbia to the White House, attended a majority black District church service and appointed the first black secretary of state.And that was all before Feb. 1, 2001. (By the end of his presidency, he would have appointed the first two black secretaries of state.)Though it was small potatoes after all that palling around with Teddy Kennedy, this is the same George W. Bush who had Muslim "spiritual leaders" to the White House a week after 9/11.Bush also famously said of then-Russian president, former KGB agent Vladimir Putin, that he looked him in the eye and "was able to get a sense of his soul."(This made Bush's critics almost as apoplectic as if he had said, "I looked into Putin's eyes and, frankly, I just don't trust the guy." No matter what Bush did, liberals were incensed.)As president, Bush scuttled the playing of "Hail to the Chief" in his honor and repeatedly reminded his staff to act humbly.This is as opposed to Obama, who I believe is the first president-elect in history to have his own "Office of the President-elect" seal commissioned.Like I always say, even if you don't like the current president-elect, you should still have some respect for the office of the presidency-elect.

-Ann Coulter

Now for my dream!!!

So the night before last I had the oddest dream. I'll skip all the really weird stuff, but I was in Argentina where I served my LDS mission for about 18 months and I was with a mob of people who were all American's an on foot going to protest some dude's wife who had been cheating on him. Anyway, on the way there we stopped at one of the slummy parks to rest for a bit. It was a park that was loaded with bums and homeless families, major crime and danger, filth and disease and sewage. So, I go to sit down on a curb and I look to my right and see Barack and Michelle standing amongst a HUGE pile of trash! Most of the park was like this, mind you, but this area was especially messy. They were picking up this trash and throwing it into a huge dumpster. There was a big, black cadilac, I think is what it was, parked next to them. And get this, this is the funniest and oddest part, they were dressed like Adam & Eve!! Only they had cardboard covering their private parts instead of leaves. So I walk up to them and tear up and say, "thank you for doing this! I didn't realize you cared about other people so much!" Then I shook Barak's hand. I was really impressed with their charity. Nobody else seemed to be paying them any mind at all. It was like I was the only one that noticed. Anyway, as I walked away thinking about it something hit me. They were helping a 3rd world country, NOT OUR COUNTRY. They were being so nice and charitable FOR SOMEONE ELSE. I was like, WOW.

So that was my dream. You can take from it what you want.

Who, And What, Is God

I've been wanting and thinking and feeling that I should write about God. So I'll do that today, being Sunday, and I feel that it's appropriate for the Sabbath.

The first and most important thing we must come to learn, understand, believe in and accept is the knowledge of God, who he is, how he is, and how that relates to and affects us as individuals and as a whole.

Over time God has had many different names and identities to all people. Everybody sees him in a different light and level of belief.

Where did God come from? When and where did the idea of God first come from anyway?

There are many different books of scripture (Holy Word) that come from "the beginning of time" or the "beginning of all things" or just the "beginning of this world".

History books and stories, legends and ghost stories all take us back to the belief of a God, or gods, and Lucifer, or Satan, the Devil, the Adversary, the Fallen Star, etc.

These are the most ancient and legendary stories of all.

Men throughout time have changed, made up, written, told, believed and dreamed up stories about God and the Adversary.

So which books are true?

Well, that's for you to decide, based on two things: Logic & Feeling.

Now, the most basic and logical beliefs of God, from my personal opinion and based on scripture, are as follows:

God Lives; he is live and living (Gen 1:27; Ex 31:18; Luke 24:39; John 14:9; D&C 130:1; D&C 130:22; Mosiah 7:27).

God is Immortal and does not change (Psa 102:27; Heb 13:8; Moroni 10:7; D&C 20:11-12; D&C 76:4).

God knows all things (Jer 1:5; Acts 2:23; 1 Nephi 9:6; 2 Nephi 2:24; W of M 1:7; Abr 2:8).

God is glorious (Ex 24:7; Num 14:21; Ps 19:1; Isa 40:5; Matt 6:13; Luke 2:9; Luke 9:32; John 1:14; Philip 4:20; Titus 2:13; 2 Nephi 12:19; Mosiah 4:12; D&C 4:5; Moses 1:5).

God is intelligent (Isa 55:8; D&C 88:41; Abr 3:19).

God loves (Deut 7:8; Isa 63:7; Jer 31:3; Mal 1:2; John 3:16; John 13:1; 1 Jn 3:1; 2 Nephi 1:15; Alma 13:29; 4 Nephi 1:15; D&C 95:1; D&C 138:3).

God is merciful (Ex 34:6; Deut 4:31; 2 Sam 24:14; Ps 69:16; Ps 116:5; Isa 49:15; Eph 2:4; Titus 3:5; James 5:11; 2 Nephi 4:26; 2 Nephi 9:8; Alma 9:26; Alma 42:15; Moroni 8:19; D&C 84:102).

God is perfect (Deut 32:4; 2 Sam 22:31; Matt 5:48; Heb 5:9; Heb 6:18; James 1:13).

God is powerful (Gen 17:1; 1 Sam 14:6; Jer 32:17; Jer 51:15; Matt 8:26; Matt 19:26; Matt 28:18; John 10:18; Heb 1:3; 1 Nephi 4:1; Mosiah 4:9; Alma 26:35; Hel 12:11; D&C 61:1).

God is wise (Job 36:5; Ps 136:5; 1 Cor 3:19; 2 Nephi 9:8; Jacob 4:10; Mosiah 4:9; Alma 26:35; D&C 9:3; D&C 10:43; D&C 76:2).

So we've been taught and shown that God knows all things, comprehends all things, loves, has mercy and justice, is wise intelligent, all-powerful, perfect, immortal and created all things and commands all things.

Pretty much, everything is up to God. Everything depends on GOD. God gives all life, all understanding, all intelligence, all things, and is the only way we can obtain salvation.

God does not make mistakes. God cannot lie (Num 23:19; Titus 1:2; Enos 1:6). God is not a God of confusion (1 Cor 14:33). God would not lead his children away, or tempt them to do that which is wrong and evil. God does not create evil. God does not waver or change, and is the creator of all things good, even all the commandments and the only way to salvation and Eternal life, peace, happiness and joy.

God is our father. We are his children.

If we love God, we will keep ALL his commandments, not just what suits us. We cannot assume that anything God says can be how we want to take it. If God says to do one thing or another or anything it is a commandment, logically speaking.

God also does not force. He has given us "free will", or free agency. He cannot make a good man do that which is bad or good, and cannot make a bad man do that which is bad or good. He cannot stop a murderer from murdering if it has to be stopped by force. God has power over all things BUT OUR WILLS. Our wills are the only thing we have complete control over. It is the ONLY thing we can give God. He cannot take it away. Man may try, the Adversary may try, but God will not try.

This is why bad things happen to good people. God has to allow wicked people to do what they want because he cannot force them otherwise. What they do in this life will be held against them in the next (at Judgement Day). Bad things that people do stand as a witness against them on Judgement Day. And those of us who witness or are victims to another's wicked behavior will stand as witnesses against them as well.

Because God cannot lie he will not teach false doctrine to anyone. He will not tell one man to do one thing and another man to do another. That is contradictory, and that which contradicts is a lying thing by nature.

God knows all things. He has all truth. And only through God can we obtain all truth. God will give it, because he has to in order to save us. AFter all, we cannot be saved in ignorance (Eph 4:18; D&C 131:6), and God knowing this has provided ways and means for us to obtain all that we need in this life to return to Him and live with Him for all Eternity, and with our families. God will not save a man who is willfully ignorant (3 Nephi 6:18). When we know the will and teachings of God and do them not then we are being willfully ignorant, rebelliously ignorant. God will not have mercy on us when we are like this. He would be a liar if he did. He will not save everyone just through his mercies, because there is justice that must be satisfied (Ex 23:7; Prov 17:15; James 2:21). We have to be proven in our works and in our faith, not just our faith in His mercies.

We cannot just live our life in ignorance, willfully disobeying God's commands, and suppose that we will be saved because of our faith in his mercy. That is not how God is or works.

I know what I have shared here to be true. May God's Spirit speak the truth of it to you. I pray you will understand, or want to understand and search these scriptures yourself, pray about it, and believe it.

This is the first and most important thing we all must come to know at some time in our life. And we must live our life in accordance with this knowledge if we wish to be saved in the Kingdom of God forever.