Thoughts and stories, by Pal

Worldwide Indexing Event has started today!  For one week the Church will monitor how many indexers do at least one batch this week.  Be a part of the excitement, and do even more indexing or arbitrating!

Is it time to review our Preparedness -- Food, water, etc.?  Here are some great ideas and references!  For those in other countries, you can modify these ideas to what is available in your own country.  Just think about it, and do what you can!     PREPAREDNESS The photo above came from this article in Meridian Magazine:http://ldsmag.com/getting-your-house-in-order-now/ Seventeen Ways to Sabotage Your Family Food Storage Plan By Carolyn Nicolaysen  · July 28, 2015, in Meridian Magazine In a real emergency, no one is going to ride in and rescue us if the calamity involves the whole community. Government, church leaders, prophets, and emergency response organizations all tell us to prepare – and to expect that in the aftermath of a disaster we will be on our own for 72 hours at least, and possibly for days or weeks after that. Coping with natural disasters is one thing – coping with a slow drain on our back-up reserves is a...

Although my child-raising days were long in the past, I observe daily those around me, including my own children and the raising of my grandchildren.   This article gives truly Christ-like ideas for dealing with problems with children.  I highly recommend it! How Do I Solve Those Chronic Parenting Problems? By Wallace Goddard  · August 2, 2015, in Meridian Magazine The following is a Problem Solving Guide for  Bringing Up Our Children in Light and Truth . We all feel frustrated and torn by specific parenting dilemmas at times. We feel an impulse to act in one way, but we have a nagging uncertainty: “Am I really doing (or planning to do) the right thing?” Other times, we simply don’t know what to do. That feeling of perplexity is one of the burdens of parenting. This guide is about those problems that keep recurring. I want to suggest a way to deal with those knotty difficulties according to the pattern described in previous articles about...

Help index!  Worldwide indexing event starts tomorrow!   (Actually I wrote this on Aug. 4th, and now on the 6th it really is tomorrow! I got mixed up on what date it was!)  Be a part of it!  My husband Wayne, 84 -- almost 85, has indexed 914 since August 1st, and he had an operation on his left arm last Friday and has been using just one hand!  He now is at 650,139 indexed, and 73,006 arbitrating.  His goal is 1,000,000 indexing! Help “Fuel the Find” by Joining Upcoming Worldwide Indexing Event By Family Search  · August 2, 2015  -- in Church News August 1, 2015 Become one of a record-setting 100,000 online volunteers expected to participate in the second annual  Worldwide Indexing Event , August 7–14, sponsored by FamilySearch.org. Indexing—the process of making information from historical documents easily searchable online—can be done by anyone with a computer and Internet connection. ( Learn how easy...

This is a great article for returned missionaries, with ideas on how to make the transition coming home from a mission, and utilize the skills and strengths you made while a missionary.  Also counsel on how to stay strong! How to Help Your  RM  to Adjust to Being Home by Clark and Kathleen Hinckley, Sunny Morton & LDS Living Staff  |  Mormon Life One moment a missionary is fully focused on the needs and concerns of investigators, new converts, and less-active members. They’ve worn a name tag and haven’t been without a companion for the last 18 or 24 months. Their life is so focused on inviting others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel that they cannot imagine doing anything else. The next moment they are sitting in front of the stake president, taking off the tag that has become a symbol of who they are. In the blink of an eye, they are no longer a full-time missionary; they are now a returned m...

Family History!  I have mentioned before my great interest in Genealogy -- as I first called it.  Now we refer to it as Family History, and I love the history part as much as the pedigree and family group charts.   One quote I read in my teen age years really stuck with me -- from the Prophet Joseph Smith: "The greatest responsibility in the world that God has laid upon us is to seek after our dead."  In D & C 128:15 is says: "Let me assure you that these are principles in relation to the dead and the living that cannot be lightly passed over, as pertaining to our salvation.  For their salvation is necessary and essential to our salvation, as ... they without us cannot be made perfect---neither can we without our dead be made perfect."  Each prophet since him have made many statements that say the same things.   "President Gordon B. Hinclkey stated that those who wait beyond the veil for the irdinances of the gospel are in desperate circum...