Hope for the New Year

I was blessed to be asked to teach the Relief Society lesson in my ward this last week. It was the fourth Sunday and the conference talk that my bishop picked to be taught was "The Infinite Power of Hope" by President Dieter Uchtdorf. It was a really difficult talk for me to work into a lesson, there is a lot of information and honestly in parts of the talk I had a very hard time differentiating between hope (as it is defined in the talk) and faith. However, I did finally get through it and I gave a lesson, my mom helped me with part of the lesson, she suggested that I have each person in the class share their hopes for the coming year. It was neat to hear all of the different things that the women in my ward are hoping for, from "running fast" to completing to genealogy projects, from hope for the conversion of a husband to hope that the hearts of siblings fallen away would be softened, the span of hopes was interesting to hear and it was a neat way to get to know the women in the ward a little better. The idea got me thinking about my hopes for the new year...

I hope that Bobby and I are able to continue preparing to go to the temple so that our family can be sealed together. I hope that Bobby returns home safely to me and Punk from his deployemnt. I hope that I continue to work on becoming a better wife and mother everyday and that I never loose sight of the things that are most important in my life.

One of the things that we discussed in my lesson was that hope must lead us to action. I hope that I don't forget that and that I remember to take action to make positive things happen in my life and in the lives of those people I love everyday.

What do you hope for the new year?

My baby...

"Children are the anchors that hold a mother to life." ~ Sophocles

I don't remember ever having a favorite sound before in my life. Favorite smells, yes, I love the smell of chocolate chip cookies baking, or cinnamon rolls, or pretty much any yummy baked goody. Favorite sights, yep I've got those too, the lights on top of South Mountain letting me know that I'm almost home, my wonderful husband in uniform on the day they returned from deployment last year. My son has brought me a new favorite...a favorite sound, the sound of his laughter. We were in Discount Tire today (the Subaru needs a new tire which they of course didn't have and have to order), and my baby just laughed and laughed and laughed while we waited in line and played with him. Laughing, it seems so simple, but the sound of laughter from my baby boy does something to me that is seriously physical, a kind of internal happiness that I never even imagined was possible before I became a parent. That leads me to what I think is probably the actual point of this entry...

This year has been full of wonderful things for me. Bobby was baptised, Punk was born, Bobby was ordained to the Priesthood, Punk and I were able to spend quite a bit of time with our family in Phoenix (that means that Bobby was gone, but we are pretty good at dealing with Bobby being gone), Bobby was able to bless Punk and will be able to perform all of the most important ordinances for Punk and all of our future children and we are preparing to go to the temple sometime next year to be sealed together as a family. My family is amazing to me, being a wife and a mother is so much more than I ever dreamed it could be and it takes more of me than I knew I had to give, and yet it invigorates me and fulfills me in a way that amazes me everyday.

I highly recommend the experience of motherhood, it changed me, made me better and made me want to be better everyday.