"Dearest Children God Is Near You"

Sunday April 13, 2008
Sunday was a pretty good day. Joaquin turned 4 months old. Crazy! Seriously... it's going by way too fast. This picture was actually taken yesterday when he was 4 months and a day old but it's close enough. Isn't he so cute you just wanna squeeze him?! Anyway, I know my blog is all out of order but since it'll take a long time for me to catch up you'll just have to bare with me. I figure I might as well keep up daily with what I can and backtrack when I get the chance. So there will still be new posts under the daily posts and hopefully soon it will be all in order. Anywho Sunday was a good day and there were steps taken to relieve a lot of stress and trials I'm going through at this time in my life. My niece and 4 nephews had spent the night the previous night so we were up pretty late the night before. So I woke up on Sunday pretty tired. I had an appointment with my Bishop and this was really the first time I got to talk to him and get to know him since we've moved out here. He's awesome. He's younger than other Bishops I've had but he's great. He's super knowledgeable and intelligent and I can tell he's very genuine and wants to help in any way he can. Anyway it was good to talk to him about a lot of things that needed to be discussed and he offered a lot of great advice and encouragement and said a lot of things I needed to hear. At the end of our discussion and my interview for my temple recommend (it got misplaced while I was up in Utah so I needed a new one) he asked if I wanted a blessing and I eagerly said yes. It was a beautiful blessing and exactly what I needed to hear. I know it came straight from my Heavenly Father and it confirmed to me what I wanted to know and gave me assurance and peace and comfort with a lot of things I've been worried about. How grateful I am for that blessing. After that I came home to a house filled with the smell of breakfast. My sweet nephew Isaac made some delicious chocolate chip pancakes. He is really interested in learning how to cook and I've agreed to give him and my niece Emely cooking lessons but I have to say he needed no help with these pancakes. They were sooo good. After I ate I got my kids ready for church and us and Robert went to church. It was good to be back to my home ward, even though it's so new to me, after being gone for over a month and then General Conference. I got my new Visiting Teaching partner and assignments and I'm so excited about that. I've really missed Visiting Teaching. I even met 2 of the 3 sisters I get to VT and saw who my partner is. So that's exciting. Sunday School was good with good discussion and Relief Society was good as well. But I'd have to say the highlight was the closing song, "Dearest Children God Is Near You" (#96 LDS Hymn Book). The words were exactly what I needed to hear and I just felt an outpouring of love from my Heavenly Father and another reassurance that He's mindful of my trials and that He will help us get through the hard times. I could not keep back the tears while we sang it. Here's the words:

"Dearest children, God is near you,

Watching o'er you day and night,

And delights to own and bless you,

If you strive to do what's right.

He will bless you,

He will bless you,

If you put your trust in Him.

Dearest children, holy angels

Watch your actions night and day,

And they keep a faithful record

Of the good and bad you say.

Cherish virtue!

Cherish virtue!

God will bless the pure in heart.

Children, God delights to teach you

By His Holy Spirit's voice.

Quickly heed its holy promptings.

Day by day you'll then rejoice.

Oh, prove faithful

Oh, prove faithful

To your God and Zion's cause."

Isn't that so awesome?! I loved it. After church we came home to a house cleaned by all our visitors. How sweet is that? I was thankful for that. We all got ready and then headed over to my SIL Loren and her husband Thomas's house for dinner- our combined FHE with Robert's family. They made chicken chimichangas, rice and banana splits for dinner. It was great. After we ate we just hung out, visited and then we all played the DVD game Scene It the Harry Potter version. It was pretty fun. Then we left, took Andre home and Emely came with us back home. After we got home Robert, Baily and I had family scriptures and prayer. It has been way too long since we've done this and it's way overdue to get back on the bandwagon. Our family cannot function without the blessings of the Spirit that these simple practices of family scripture reading and prayer provide. We know that for a fact unfortunately. So it felt so good to do these things and get that spiritual boost we so badly need in our home. After this we all watched the movie Facing The Giants. This is an awesome movie. It's a football movie but it's got the best message and Christian values in it- a perfect Sunday family movie. I highly recommend it even though I actually didn't see the end because I fell asleep. I was pooped. It was a very great Sabbath day though and I really needed that.

366 Blessings:

#104- The hymn "Dearest Children God Is Near You" (#96 LDS Hymn Book) ttp://www.lds.org/churchmusic/detailmusicPlayer/index.html?searchlanguage=1&searchcollection=1&searchseqstart=96&searchsubseqstart=%20&searchseqend=96&searchsubseqend=ZZZ