This morning, I was listening to Elder Holland's talk from the past General Conference (check it out here). This talk was really powerful for me when I heard it the first time, and the same message came through clear for me again today. There are a lot of things I'm unsure of, and unsurety frustrates me. I am a planner through and through and not knowing what's going on or what will happen makes me crazy. That's part of why I love the Gospel - the Lord has made it crystal clear what we need to do in order to get the outcome that we want. There's no need to be guessing about our eternal fate- we can feel sure and confident in the sight of God when we keep His commandments and repent daily.

Unfortunately, mixed into those absolute truths and spiritual confirmations is a lot of unknown, and that's where faith comes in. The Lord gives us commandments and guidelines to help us keep ourselves on the right path, but on that path we will still be faced with a lot of opportunities to trust His will and timing and accept that He is the one who can see the end from the beginning. That's the part I struggle with.

Elder Holland's talk highlighted the need we have in those times of trial and unsurety to assert our faith and trust by focusing on the things we know, the things we've learned, and rely on the power of the Atonement to make up for the things we don't know. I felt impressed that this was something I needed to work on, since so much of my thoughts and feelings are tied up in focusing on what I don't know, which is definitely not the way to increase faith. In order to help myself in that effort, I made a list of things I know and posted it on my wall right by my door so I can reread it often.

These are some things that I know:

-Miracles have not ceased.
-Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, called to restore Christ's church.
-Thomas S. Monson is a living prophet, and he is God's mouthpiece on the earth today.
-Jesus Christ performed the ultimate sacrifice, not only so I could be resurrected but so that I could be comforted and strengthened in my times of need.
-Complaining and feeling sorry for myself help nothing.
-The family is a divine institution and in our families we feel the closest thing possible to God-like love that we can in this life.
-I'm supposed to be in Indiana.
-I'm supposed to be teaching.
-I'm temple-worthy.
-God loves me.
-God knows my desires and efforts.
-God knows how hard certain trials are for me.
-God wants the best for me.
-The Lord's way is the best way.
-God keeps his promises.
-God has heard and answered my prayers in the past.
-I need to the Lord to accomplish my goals.
-God has not forgotten me.

Elder Holland said, "In moments of fear or doubt or troubling times, hold the ground you have already won, even if that ground is limited....When those moments come and issues surface, the resolution of which is not immediately forthcoming, hold fast to what you already know and stand strong until additional knowledge comes."

I'll hold on to the things I know.

I haven't posted in forever, because I haven't felt like I had anything to post about. I haven't had any huge spiritual or personal epiphanies to write about, and I haven't done anything cool. I have been learning a few things, but I'm not sure I'm ready to share them yet, mostly because I'm not sure I've learned them yet. I feel an obligation to keep up on journaling, though, so I decided to look through the pictures on my phone to see if I'd forgotten anything. Umm...oops. Turns out I forgot a lot of things. So what was initially going to be a super lame post of me rambing will instead of a montage of the Top 10 things from my last 6 weeks.

 

1. These kids continue to be the highlight of my days. They make me laugh and feel loved, and I look forward to coming home to see them every day. My mom bought some DVDs that have entire Family Home Evenings on them - they have a song, prayer, little video illustrating some gospel principle, a tie-in to a scripture story, then a pause for testimonies. The twins are obsessed  with them and they will watch them over and over and over again. This picture is from a Sunday night when we were watching them for the billionth time, waiting for their mom to come home from work.

2. Work. This is where I spend most of my normally 10-11 hour days. It's amazing how much work goes into teaching for 88 minutes. I'm almost always the last one to leave school every day, but I assume that's because I refuse to take work home with me.

3. I was in charge of our middle school spelling bee this year, which wasn't a big deal, mostly because I didn't put that much effort into it. We did take the winners up to Chicago for the regional spelling bee, though. I was pretty pumped because I got out of teaching that day, and I thought it would be way better than my normal day. What a joke. We realized halfway there that Chicago's an hour behind us, so we were about 2 hours early. We took the kids to Navy Pier to blow off some steam, but it was crazy cold out still so it wasn't too pleasant. Then when we actually got to the bee, the judges used the easiest words ever, so what was supposed to be an hour-and-a-half-long spelling bee took about 3 hours. And that was only 1 out of 2. Fortunately, they wised up and made the words harder for the second one so people got out faster, but we didn't get home until 11:30 that night, and that was after spending 3 hours in a van with 12 loud, obnoxious, and insane 3-8 graders. I don't know why I thought it would be better than my normal 7-hour teaching day.

4. Sushi. Since Jaime came and helped me scope out some good sushi restaurants, I've been able to go back a few times - with my sister and with some friends. Sushi has hands-down become my favorite food. I could eat it every day and not get sick of it.

5. I was so excited for Spring Break - both my students and I needed a serious break from school and from each other. The first few days of my break I went down to my parents' house and hung out with my parents, siblings, and nephew. I love being there with them. I also had a chance to have lunch with some friends from high school, which was so much fun.

 
6. Did I mention how cute these ones are? One day over the break I spent the day with them while my sister worked. My niece and I were watching one of the Twilight movies while the twins napped (Don't worry, I watched all 5 over the break and loved every second of it). When Cooper came down, he went straight to the corner of the room, laid down, and went right back to sleep. Apparently he wasn't quite done with his nap yet.

 

 7. Also over Spring Break, I gave my niece and nephew a game-ucation. I don't know what family they've grown up in because they didn't know how to play hardly any of the games I had. I taught them Farkle (kaput), Bananagrams, Pick-up Sticks, and Pit. I schooled them in every single one. I'm not about to take it easy on them just because they're beginners. I also had to help both of them finish their Bananagrams boards, but that's fine. I'm a wordsmith. (Lest you feel bad for them, we played Pit again last night and I came in last. I had to enjoy my winning streak while it lasted).

8. I know, right?! Their mom wasn't too thrilled that they'd picked the daffodils from the backyard, but they were awfully sweet when they were giving them to me.

9. This lovely lady turned 16 last week. Blows.My.Mind. I'm pretty sure she'll be going on a lot more dates than I ever did in high school. Shoot. She'll probably go on a lot more dates than I ever have period.

10. Sibling love. They're kids, so they fight a lot, but every once in a while the older two will come and really engage and play with the younger two and it melts my heart every time. Love, love, love them.

Scary Cheery Faces

Today at church I had to fill out a questionnaire and one of the questions asked what simple thing could make me happy every time I saw it.

Answer:

I promise Cooper actually does have pupils. He's into hiding them recently...

In our church, we believe that the same authority Christ and His apostles used to organize the church, heal the sick, and do other miracles has been restored on the earth today. We have a prophet, much like Moses, who receives direct revelation from Jesus Christ himself to direct and guide the Church, as well as the whole world. The prophet today is Thomas S. Monson, and he is an incredibly kind, thoughtful, and selfless man. More than that, he is a man who was chosen by God to be His mouthpiece on earth. I know that's true, and I know that God has called him so that we can always feel sure that we can do the things we need to, in the proper way, in order to return to Him.

We also have twelve apostles, much like Jesus' twelve apostles, who are called as special witnesses for Christ and who we also sustain as prophets. They are inspired men of God, and I also know that all twelve of them have been chosen by God to help lead us and to testify of Christ and His divine role as our Savior.

One of these apostles is named M. Russell Ballard. Last week he came to visit my parents' stake, so I went to the conference with them. This is him:

The talks given by him, as well as the other visiting authority and the stake president, were uplifting, and through their words I received personal revelation for some things I needed to do in order to improve myself and be happier. I know that what they said was true because I have seen changes and blessings in my life in the week that I have been trying to apply their teachings. I also know that Elder Ballard is a servant of God, called by God, because as soon as he walked in the room I felt the Spirit testify to my heart of his goodness and righteousness.

My mom had been asked to play the piano to accompany a musical number during the meeting. Because the pages of her music would have obviously fallen down if she'd tried to turn them herself, I volunteered to sit on the stand with her and turn her pages. Translation: I volunteered to be closer to Elder Ballard. He sat about two rows in front of me through the whole meeting - about 6 feet - then after the meeting was over my mom and I moved down towards the part of the stand where he was exiting and we were able to shake his hand. I know that it seems simple - we shook his hand - but it is not a simple thing to shake the hand of a man who has been called by God to be one of fifteen special witnesses of Christ on the earth today. It was as if I had shaken the hand of Peter or James or John from the New Testament. He is just as much a servant of Christ as they were and I am confident that He works as closely with Christ as they did then, though Christ is not physically present in our day. It was a simple experience, but I am grateful to have had it. It strengthened my testimony of the apostles' role, mission, and divine call.

To learn more about prophets, apostles, and the priesthood in our church, click here.

Her Star's So Bright, She's Gotta Wear Shades

 

After some coaxing from my mom and me (and I'm sure her friends, who were probably more influential), Micah decided to audition for the spring musical at Columbus North High School. They did "The Drowsy Chaperone," and she made it into the core ensemble as a maid. Emerson and I went down last weekend to see the show, and we had a lot of fun.

 

I'd like to think that Micah joined show choir and theater as a result of my influence. You know - she just wants to follow in my footsteps. Truth be told, I think she does it just because she loves performing. And that's reason enough. This girl glitters on stage and that's a shine that's all her own. She's absolutely magnetic and a lot of fun to watch. I'm still proud that she's chosen to do things that were so important to me in high school, but I'm also thrilled to see her absolutely owning it.

 

She's a star.

My Grandpa Shoaf died last week, and the viewing and funeral were last weekend. He died from cancer and suffered only a few weeks before passing away. It was all very quick and somewhat of a shock, though I was glad that he had time to say goodbye and get things taken care of without having to suffer for months or years on end. When I first heard that he was sick, I was surprised and a bit emotional, which actually surprised me. I've never had a very close relationship with my grandpa. I'm 1 of 69 grandchildren, and I never considered him a very social or affectionate guy anyway. It wasn't until the last few years that I think I even had a one-on-one conversation with him. He was definitely entertaining, but I never felt any kind of endearment to him. I chalked it up to our huge family and him not being "that kind of grandpa," which was fine.

So when he died, I was obviously sad but not devastated. I was more sad for my dad, who was losing his dad, and for my grandma who would lose her partner of over 60 years. I was surprised, then, to see such an outpouring of emotion on facebook from cousins who seemed to be legitimately devastated by his death. I felt like it competely shook my whole reasoning that he just wasn't "that kind of grandpa." Apparently, for some of my cousins he was. The next few days I really struggled with this, feeling guilty for not being more upset, wondering if I was maybe just more private than others, or if they really did have better relationships with him.

My only conclusion was that maybe the reason I didn't have a closer relationship was because I didn't try to. I only lived in Hope (where my grandparents live) until I was in 7th grade, then I moved away from Indiana right after high school. Since I was 13, I've visited my grandparents' farm maybe once a year or so. I would always see my grandma at church, but since my grandpa wasn't a member, he wasn't there. As a result, I probably only saw him a handful of times in the last few years. My two strongest memories of him actually come from two visits I made out there in the last few years, and both came because Jaime was here visiting and I was showing her around while he was here. Both times that I was there, though, he was more than willing to come wherever we were to chat. Maybe if I'd gone out there more often, I would have had a stronger relationship with him.

Going into this funeral, I was carrying a significant amount of regret over not having made the effort to have a closer relationship with my grandpa. Fortunately, the whole weekend left me with a feeling of gratitude and hope. I felt like I got to know my grandfather better those few days, just from everyone else's stories, than I ever knew him while he was here. It was such a pleasant experience to hear about what a respected and hard-working man he was.

As we drove in the processional to the cemetery, I was overcome at the respect and honor that was shown by people who did and some who maybe didn't even know him - the old, weak pallbearers who struggled to carry his casket to the hearse, the policemen who blocked the road so we could get through, the cars who pulled over on the side of the road as we passed, the men from the navy who came to honor him graveside, and the men and women from my parents' ward who showed up to help with the funeral and put on a luncheon for our 120+ family members.

 

Almost everyone who spoke at the funeral focused on how hard of a worker my grandpa was and how honest, generous, and diligent he was. The stake president spoke, and he shared a quote about how you can judge the character of a man based on how he responds to hard work: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all. He explained that my grandpa was the kind who would turn up his sleeves, no matter what was asked of him. I was struck by this legacy that he'd left behind - a legacy of hard work - and I wondered if I'm continuing that legacy. When things get hard, do I work harder or do I just give up? I've thought so much about my job and how difficult it is, and I've been looking forward to when I can quit. I'm ashamed to admit that a lot of the time, I feel like just showing up to work at all is good enough. The Shoaf legacy, though - the legacy that I should be living up to - is not about good enough. It's about the best possible. It's my privilege to be a Shoaf, and after hearing about my grandpa's life, I'm resolved to be a better representative of what he stood for.

Nalon started playing basketball for the first time this year at a local community league. I made it down to watch his last game this weekend. All the players were first-graders which made it pretty fun to watch. Nalon even made a basket! Afterwards they got some pretty legit trophies for their participation. As you can tell, Nalon was overcome with emotion.