The Prophet Joseph Smith / Happy Birthday on December 23rd

This is a part of a letter I wrote to my Landon last night on his misson and would like to share it with my blog readers. It is long but please take the time to read it sometime. Joseph Smith is an amazing person and I remember Dianne reminding me on the 23rd that it was his birthday and being so greatful for him again and again.
I would like to bear you my testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith and all he did for us. It is so comforting to me to know that even a person as "perfect" as Joseph Smith still needed the lords help at times and that he used the atonement so much knowing that the Lord had already suffered for him and he would need to just turn it over to the Lord but still had hard times and doubts at times. If that makes sense Basically it is just good to know that even our prophets and even Nephi as good as a man as he was still had to turn to the Lord and Christ and ask for forgiveness and ask for help and turn their lives over to him. I am sure you heard about the FHE lesson that Chris gave back in November about the atonement and it all started because of a letter you had sent home about finally being able to understand the atonement and the talk that Bednar gave about it. So Chris gave the most amazing lesson and that was the other turning point in pulling me out of my rut and wanting to die stage after I moved out of Aaron's. (thanks Chris I will never be the same person after that lesson. You litterally changed my life. Thank you so much) I decided that I had to turn my life over to him because He has already suffered what I am suffering and he know what I am going through and I can't do it without him. My life has been totally different since then and I am so much happier now that I don't do anything with out checking with the Lord first because he knows it all and sees the big picture. I just love my prophet Joseph Smith and can not wait for the day that I get to meet him and thank him for all he has done for me and the church. A patient gave us an amazing story / letter for christmas and I would like to share it with you. If you don't have time to read it now I understand but it is just amazing what this man did and endured and I love him so much.

Joseph had many stressful trails to deal with in his life. Let me relate some of those, and later tell you what I think was the most gut wrenching times of his life:
From lds.org:
Few have confronted more antagonism and trials than did Joseph Smith. He was desiged with dozens of unjustified lawsuits and was often in jeopardy of his life. He was poinsoned, beaten, tarred, unjustly impirsoned, and once sentenced to die by firing auad. He and Emma seldom had a home of thier own, and six of their children did in infancy. Financial difficulites continually plagued the family.
Legal Trials of the Prophet: Joseph Smith's life In courtn by Joseph I. Bentley
From my years of reserch and work on the Joseph Smith Papers project (which I cant wait to start reading they sound amazing. We will have to start sending them to you if you can read them) i have gained a deeper appreciation of Joseph's achievements, despite intense and unrelenting adversity. Among his other tribulations was the fact that his ministry was shadowed by many persistent legal prosercutions. Anyone who has been through even one lawsuit knows how all consuming it can be. (Yes I can attest to that. My dad is in another one right now because a patient overdosed and died and I am so scared for him, my job for everything and it is so consuming. It is hard not to think about it every moment. )It can demand your time assets, body and mind.
At best we can tell, he endured an average of one lawsuit per month during most of his ministry! (can you imagine How stressful that must have been. Just one every ten years or so is enough to damage me for life)
Joseph's court trials were a very stressful time in his life. Yet, in my opinion, that was not what caused him the most grief and sorrow.
Josph's Imprisonment:
Joseph was a prisoner in a number of jails, including Leberty Jail.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopdia: "Joseph SMith, Jr., and his companions were imprisoned in Liberty Jail for four and a falkf months during the coldest pat of Missouri winter.
No bedding was provided so the prisoners were forced to sleep on the stone floor with only a bit of loose straw for comfort. (the height of the Jail ceilin never permitted JOseph to stand fully erect, (remember we went there can you imagine not being able to stant up straight for four in a half months. we have no idea) which must have been frustrating experience).
Food was scanty, of poor quality.
Joseph's time spent as a prisoner was a very stressful and difficult time in his life. Yet, it was not what caused him the most grief and sorrow.
Zions Camp:
Zion's Camp must have been a very difficult time in the life of Joseph SMith. The journey itself was long and arduous. According to Map quest the distance from Kirkland to Indepencence Missour is 808 miles. Zio's camp particiapnats didn't sleep in deluxe motel or hotel rooms. They had to sleep in tents, which was not a very luxurious accommodation. Then to experience the sadness of seeing deaths occurred so rapidly that coffins could not be prepared, so the dead ere rolled up in blankets and put hurredly into their graves; and while part of the brethren were engaged in digging the graves, others had to stand gurard, musket in hand. In all about seventy suffered from the cholera, and out of that number thirteen died.
(Contributator, vol. 7( Cotober 1885 - September 1886), Vol. Vii March 1886. No. 6. 210.)
Zion's Camp was a very stressful and difficult time in the life of Joseph Smith. Yet, in my opinion, iw was not was caused him the most grief and sorrow.
Then what did cause Joseph the most gut wrenching sorrow of his life? His absence from his family, and the hardships he and they had to endure becuase of him not being able tot be with them.
I was deeply moved by an article in the September 2008 Ensign concerning "The letters of Joseph and Emma Smith." This article gave me a much greater appreciation for the many sacrifices Joseph made as God's first Prophet in these latter-days.
May I quote from that article:
"Joseph and Emma endured many hardships. Joseph traveled extensibely for the church and was often obliged to find safety amoung friends to avoid angry mobs or numerous legal harassments."
(omg it is two in the morning I got to go to bed I will finish tomorrow)

Elle Sleeps Over

Well Ciaran and Cabhan have found a new love in Elle. I think the thing that made them fall in love with her so much is her for singing and their love for singing. A couple of months ago I had gone over to Trudy's to have her help me with some "love and Logic" questions and the three of them went up to Elle's room and sang Mamma Mia to their little hearts content and as loud as they possibly could and they have been instant friends since. Not that they didn't like eachother before but that was really one of the first times that just the three of them had hung out. So Elle is off track right now so she got to come spend the night at our apartment on Tuesday and Wednesday night. We had so much fun and it really was not like babysitting and the best part for me was I had a little girl for two days. I got to do her hair in the morning I braided her hair in french braids wednesday night and got to do her hair again on Thursday morning but kind of ran out of time before it was done. Sorry Trude. Well Ciaran had a doctors appt on Wednesday for his eyes and they were all three so good we went to all a dollar. Then they came with me to work for a few hours and were so good there too and helped me put the Valentine decor up at the office like they had done at my apartment the night before. Then we went to Ikea and the best thing about having Elle with me is how polite and obidient she was. Good job Trudy and Lex on raising such a good girl. She is amazing and kept telling me thank you and just listening to everything I said and tried to get the boys to listen to me as well which they are getting a lot better at using Love and Logic. Its amazing stuff. So it was so fun to have a girl for two days and hopefully one day me (well and now Ciaran) will get our little girl that we want so badly. I actually think Ciaran might want one more than me and all who know me that is pretty bad so I guess I better have one pretty soon. The other day while taking care of Elyse he said that he loved her so much and that he would take care of her in the car while I drove and then he asked me if I thought she loved him too. I told him of course she loves him so much and that he is so good to her. I told him maybe one day maybe we could get a little girl just like her and he quickly answered "but mom you got to get married first." (oh my gosh can we say cute. and how did he know that. I must be teaching him better than I thought) So I said of course Ciaran who do you think I should marry. He quickly answered Jessica. I think he connected Jessica with Elyse and that she is pregnant again so we would quickly have two more babies in our family if I married her. I laughed and told him I couldn't marry her because she is my sis and she is a girl and in order for me to have a baby I have to marry a boy. Well the story went on from there but he just wouldn't give up on me Marrying Jessica so we will have to see. LOL I hope that one day both of our dream will come true.

New Apartment - An Answer To Ciaran's Prayer

My cute bathroom. Thanks mom for buying me all the decor for christmas. I love it so much. THanks dad for helping me put up all the towell racks and cleaning.

My washroom/salon. Thanks dad for getting me a washer and dryer. I love it so much. Thanks Kathleen for letting me borrow your chair. Yea Kimberly is going back to school in the summer with Shelby and maybe Caroline to finish Cosmotology school. I am so excited. Thanks Shelb for going with me.

My Cute Kitchen. My Colors will be red black and silver. THanks Laura for helping me decorate and thinking of doing red. Thanks dad for buying me all the stuff at IKEA the other day. I love it all.

My cute bedroom. Thanks Laura for letting me borrow your mattress. THanks mom for buying me the bedspread set for Christmas. I love it all so much. ALso Thanks Arch and Clay and lew and everyone that helped getting my bedroom put together last Sunday. I couldn't have done it without you.

As you can I am sure tell my family has been so giving and amazing to me as I have moved out eand into my moms and then into my apartment. I don't know where I would be without all of them. I can go down the list starting with Grandma and Grandpa all the way down to Kathleen and her kids and tell you something that all of them have done every last one of them to help or given me something or just been there to talk. Thanks family you are amazing and I will be explaining in more detail in my new years letter that you all should be getting soon.

Just Let Them Sleep With You

So this is the story Ciaran told me yesterday when he woke up. Okay so now I will let him sleep in my room because that is the saddest thing ever. So I let him sleep in my room for now. One day when he gets older I know the table will turn and I will want him to sleep with me and he wont want to anymore. The picture he is talking about is this one of me as Padme from Star Wars. They are so cute. They both carry it around and fight over it all the time. They think it is the coolest thing ever and that I am holding a real gun is a dream come true to them. THey just cant understand that it is only my face and I will just let them believe as long as possible for now that sure that is me and my body in the picture.

Happy New Year

So I finally got my own camera for christmas and my goal this year is to blog daily and have it be my journal so we will see how that Goes. I have a lot of catching up to do so I will start will now and go backwards. Hope everyone had a happy new year and hope 2009 is wonderful for everyone.