Do you want to buy a tent?

Dear family,

Here's to a relaxing (?) three-day weekend.  Mark, I hope the missionary work goes really well this weekend.  Family here at home, I look forward to doing some fun things together.  After the chores are done, of course! :)

Love to all,

Dad

Friday, February 12, 2021
9:21 pm

I woke today up with this song running through my head:

He said that he loved her
and took all his money
and told her he'd buy her a tent.

She added her money
together they bought it
and decided it was money well spent.

I have no idea where that came from or what it means.  Jessie suggested it might mean we're supposed to follow Lehi's example and depart for the wilderness.  Julie disagreed.  Regardless, it was a very strange dream.

Today was mostly good.  I made significant progress documenting and developing some improved security practices for our computer network.  This has been a long process, and today I succeeded in reaching the "baseline" level.  I feel good about what I accomplished.

Last night while I was reading scriptures to the kids we heard sirens in the neighborhood.  Because my office is right next to the hospital, I have become accustomed to sirens.  I didn't think much of it until Isaac announced that he could see lights flashing from his bedroom window.  I looked and realized that the emergency vehicles were two streets away in our ward.  I walked down to see if I could help.  The police couldn't give me much information other than to confirm that "everyone is okay."  After the death in the ward on Wednesday, I was grateful for that.  After talking to some family members we determined that there was a domestic violence situation fueled by alcoholism.  Bro. Kidd made an insightful observation: When you are studying your scriptures regularly, it is easy to see the difference they make in your life.  When you refuse to study them, you have no idea what you're missing.  Some suffering is avoidable only to the extent we are willing to make choices to follow Jesus Christ and invite the Holy Ghost into our lives.

Thankful: I'm thankful for the rain we received this morning, and hope it brought a lot of snow to the mountains.

Ministering: I had a really great experience yesterday.  I reached out to one of the families in the ward that I have felt a prompting to contact.  I sent a text to both the husband and wife, letting them know they had been on my mind and that I would like to meet with them.  Turns out I had the husband's number wrong, but the wife replied that she would like to meet, and asked me to resend the text to both her and her husband's correct phone number.  To me that sounds like she is ready to reengage in the Church and wants to find a good way to bring him along.  I don't know yet where this will lead, but I want to do my part to help.  To borrow a gardening analogy, they may be very close to bearing spiritual fruit, or this may simply be a time to add a little fertilizer and turn over the soil, waiting and preparing for a future harvest.

More later…

Photo credit: mom