Thoughts and stories, by Pal

Again I'm posting some true family Christmas stories.  I hope you enjoy them! More family Christmas stories is a blog I repeat each Christmas.   It was published last year as entry # 304, and I have added more pictures this year.  More Family Christmas Stories, first published Dec. 3, 2013. This was posted last year on December 3, 2013, as blog # 24.  I hope you enjoy these family Christmas stories. The "Pull Out The Rug" story down a bit, is about our son Allen when he was about 8 years old.  The picture above is when he was a navigator in the Air Force, and his wife, Holli.  He served for almost 7 years, also in Desert Storm. There are several stories about Christmas in our family, and you may enjoy these: ----  (The photos are different from last year.) My mother, Ruth, was just 6 years old when her father passed away.   In the summer of 1914, her father, John Butler Allen, got a sliver in his eye.  Later...

I'm reposting a story that I've mentioned each year since I've done my blog! This true story about my Christmas when I was 5 years old, is truly a favorite.  Reposted from:  #  555. A Child's Christmas Prayer Answered -- first written on December 1, 2013, on blog # 21. This a true Christmas story, from my childhood. The Christmas of 1939, here in St. George, Utah, was going to be quite humble at our house. My father had been in World War I and had suffered off and on with "shell shock", which now is called Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. He had been in the Veteran's hospital in Salt Lake City during the year, and my mother, Ruth, had given birth to my sister, Mavis, on December 1st. In those days, mothers stayed down much longer with a difficult birth. My mother had been allowed to turn over in bed on the 10th day, and got up on the 17th day, so Christmas found her very weak. My grandmother, Ruth’s mother, was living with our small family, and...

Why Obsessing Over the Second Coming Can Be Problematic by Robert L. Millet, Excerpted from "Living in the Eleventh Hour"  | Nov. 30, 2019 Makes You Think Mormon Life While as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints we are taught to prepare for the second coming of Jesus Christ, we don't have to anxiously obsess over it. In his book,  Living in the Eleventh Hour ,  Robert L. Millet explains how members can still look forward to the second coming without cataloging every event between then and now.  How should we as members of the Church of Jesus Christ feel about the fact that we do indeed live in the eleventh hour, the Saturday night of time? How does it make us feel to know that we are living through an era when more and more of the prophecies are being fulfilled? The Savior declared to Sidney Rigdon: “The poor and the meek shall have the gospel preached unto them, and they shall be looking forth for the tim...