Dear Momma, You Are Appreciated

[myboynoah]

What my Mormon mother taught me about God

I see real divinity in the determination to do, whatever the opposition, or not to do, whatever the incentive. Because we surely can’t be our selves, our true and fully realized selves, if we bow to social pressure, follow convenient conventions, and do what we’re told. One of the things that makes God must be that his or her faith resides solely in himself. Or herself.

That’s another of those cheeky ideas of early Mormonism that keeps me Mormon and makes a great Mother’s Day message: there are lots of gods and at least half of them are women.

No doubt. One of them is my mom.

[Copelius]

I won the primary pool by having the nose picker and the microphone player both come from my family. Good times.

[smokymountainrain]

We went to hear my in-laws speak on mother's day.

My MIL shared 20 minutes worth of: I'm smart, talented, kind, thoughtful and hard working - the other 30 seconds were giving credit to her mom, g-ma, and great g-ma for passing those things down.

My FIL shared 20 minutes of telling how many times he has survived death (military service, etc) how he sacrificed to send money home while he was in the service, how he took care of his dad while he was dying, how many important callings he's had in the church, that he and my MIL have been on 5 missions - I think he mentioned his mom somewhere in all that, but I'm not sure. Oh yes, she paid tithing on the money he sent home.

In case any of you were still wondering, yes my in-laws are amazing. Just ask them.

[BigPiney]

The lady that supplies the flowers did not bring them 3 years ago and the Bishopric was left looking like heels. Luckily she came through this week and they looked great.

Youth Speaker: All women should be honored. Women who have not had kids, or have never married are still mothers in their own way.

Adult Speaker: mothers of 2000 stripling warriors

Primary: Grandmother song, Mother I love you

Adult speaker: Can't remember details but was very touching. Made a special note of those that have lost little ones or that have given their children up for adoption.

[Moliere]

Youth speaker: I love my mom (cried through most of it)
Youth speaker: Moms are great and so is seminary
Primary: Mother I Love you (complete with sign language)
Adult speaker: Motherhood is important, mothers make a difference in the world, be proud of being a mother
Adult speaker (stake patriarch): We have a Heavenly Mother who loves and cares for us (multiple BRM quotes to back this up as well as a reading of O My Father). Moms are great. All women are great.
Small box, which contained a large chocolate item, passed out to all women over 18.

As you can tell, it was a great program. No complaints yet, at least not that I know of. My bishop tends to strike the right cord with pretty much everyone.

[HBCoug]

Youth Speaker 1: Don't recall. Mom definitely mentioned.
Youth Speaker 2: Ditto
Departing Sister Missionary: My 3-year old said she "looks like Brave." Actually a spot-on doppleganger observation by my youngest. Going to Houston, TX. Amusingly started her talk mentioning she was all loaded up on ephedrine, "which is used for cooking meth."
Primary Kids: Love is Spoken Here
High Councilor: Read Boyd K. Packer's 1991 Conference Address, "Reverence Invites Revelation." Those who can't get enough BKP can find it here: http://www.lds.org/general-conferenc...ation?lang=eng. Some good insights into who should escort out a noisy child, using thee/thine instead of you/your, and psychedlic rock music!

[BigFatMeanie]

I made Mrs. Meanie an omelette for breakfast and did the dishes. That was it for my Mother's Day efforts. Oh yeah, I gave a foot rub and back rub at the end of the day.

Yesterday was High Council Sunday. The program went as follows:

• Primary - Sang "Mother I Love You" to the tune of "Teach Me To Walk In The Light". I hate how people feel like they need to do stupid schlock they find on Sugardoodle.net just to be different and "cute". Barf. What's wrong with the old standbys?
• Returning missionary from some other ward in the stake - talked about his mission. Did a pretty good job but talked for a long time.
• Young Women - Sang "Walk Tall, You're a Daughter of God" which the church says is a camp song. Not sure why it was on the program but it wasn't bad. My oldest accompanied.
• High Councillor - Wasn't left with much time. Started off talking about missionary work and then I quit paying attention once he started going over time.

The ladies got a cupcake at the end of the 3-hour block. Sacrament Mtg. comes first so all the "go home after Sacrament Mtg" types got screwed on the cupcake. Last year we did the "men take all the primary classes so women can attend Relief Society" thing but this year we didn't - it was business as usual.

[thesaint258]

We had testimony meeting yesterday (Stake Conference last week), and nothing was passed out since it's a singles ward.

[Dwight Schr-ute]

As usual, we missed Sacrament meeting, so I can't speak for topics. Not even sure if the primary yelled at everyone for a couple minutes and we have two kids in primary. For the third hour, all of the YM/YW covered the primary classes so that all were available to attend relief society. All sisters were greated at the RS door with an embrace from the RS President.

After Sacrament meeting, all moms and potential moms were given some sort of mediocre chocolate in a fancy box. In RS they were given a little bag of 5 Hershey's Kisses and a bar of fancy soap. Apparently for the RS lesson, they brought in a heavy hitter from Utah who has 6 kids to remind everyone how fantastic motherhood always is.

I fixed the Mrs. breakfast and dinner, provided her a nap, did all the dishes and pretty much everything. The highlight of the day was when we laid down at 10:30 and she tells me, "It would have been nice to at least gotten a little note from you."

Wait. What?! Now, leading up to Mom's Day, we had talked a lot about expectations. She has been conducting a fair amount of spending and we agreed that she was covered in the gift compartment. But the card was something that hadn't been discussed. But there's no way I'd ever screw that one up. And I hadn't. Apparently, she had been so distracted this morning when she was going through the stack of cards that the kids had made her by the fact that our five year old had addressed them all with my wife's name instead of "Mom" that she had never noticed my card at the bottom of the stack. Crisis averted.

[myboynoah]

As usual, we missed Sacrament meeting, so I can't speak for topics. Not even sure if the primary yelled at everyone for a couple minutes and we have two kids in primary. For the third hour, all of the YM/YW covered the primary classes so that all were available to attend relief society. All sisters were greated at the RS door with an embrace from the RS President.

After Sacrament meeting, all moms and potential moms were given some sort of mediocre chocolate in a fancy box. In RS they were given a little bag of 5 Hershey's Kisses and a bar of fancy soap. Apparently for the RS lesson, they brought in a heavy hitter from Utah who has 6 kids to remind everyone how fantastic motherhood always is.

I fixed the Mrs. breakfast and dinner, provided her a nap, did all the dishes and pretty much everything. The highlight of the day was when we laid down at 10:30 and she tells me, "It would have been nice to at least gotten a little note from you."

Wait. What?! Now, leading up to Mom's Day, we had talked a lot about expectations. She has been conducting a fair amount of spending and we agreed that she was covered in the gift compartment. But the card was something that hadn't been discussed. But there's no way I'd ever screw that one up. And I hadn't. Apparently, she had been so distracted this morning when she was going through the stack of cards that the kids had made her by the fact that our five year old had addressed them all with my wife's name instead of "Mom" that she had never noticed my card at the bottom of the stack. Crisis averted.

Whew. That last paragraph had me on the edge of my seat.

Is Schr-ute really that clueless? Did he sleep on the couch? Is a visit to the Dr. Phil show in his future?

What a great ending.

[Dwight Schr-ute]

[Northwestcoug]

Nice! I like that one.

[Dwight Schr-ute]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[BigPiney]

Thank you, that is awesome.

[Katy Lied]

I was surprised by how vocal some of the women in the ward are about how they dislike the mothers day celebrations at church. Someone told me "kids talking about how they have the perfect mother, meanwhile I only got one mothers day wish from my 4 kids." Used to be that the mothers would just try harder for perfection and take anti-depressants. Now its coming out in the open. It was great to see this article on LDS.org: The Idea of Mothers In Zion Made Me Mad Until I Learned what it Meant.

https://www.lds.org/blog/the-idea-of...LOG_xLIDyL2-2_