What I Want

What I Want

          This week is Spring Break, it is Friday morning which means it is almost over.  I have seen pictures of friends and family having wonderful vacations and doing what I would consider Spring Break Activities.  Me, I did what I do, stuff for school.  The only difference is I was able to stay in my lounge clothes.  I don’t mind doing those things in my jammies at all.   However, one of my favorite parts of Spring Break is getting caught up on politics. 

          If I could have lived a different life I would have been a political consultant.  I get flustered when I hear reporters or analyst tell me what I need to know instead of giving me both sides of the story.  I feel like both sides of the aisle are just talking and not giving me a straight answer, therefore, I need to go out and get the answers.  This is super frustrating to me because I know am an informed voter.  I know my stuff, not bragging just giving my opinion.  However, most the county could name the newest celebrity couple than name the President of Russia.  

          This is what I want in the coming up election next year.  I hope that candidates are listening or reading, I know I am not the only American that feels this way.  I want a leader!  I want someone that wants the best for the country that my ancestors fought for in 1776.  I think since WWII there have been 2 US Presidents that I feel like made a huge difference in our country and were leaders. 

First, John F. Kennedy:  He stood up to the USSR and wanted to do anything to stop communism from reaching Cuba.  Was he able to succeed?  No, but missiles did not reach Cuba.  The entire world watched to see what was going to happening in October 1962.    

Second, Ronald Reagan:  January 20, 1981 he is sworn and the hostages were released from Iran.  The same day, why?  The Iranian leaders knew that he would come after them.  He also would work with Tip O’Neill and the democrats to get things done.  He also was tough on foreign policy and helped bring about a huge change in the world when it came to Communism.  We needed that.

This is what I want.  I want a leader!  I want someone that won’t work with others, I want someone that  puts American’s first, and most importantly I want someone to be like Theodore Roosevelt that will speak softly and carry a big stick  I want our enemies to fear us or at least the consequences of hurting us or our allies.

Unfortunately this is not what we have now and it will take years to repair it.  If ISIS is the JV team then we are not even the freshman team.  We have decided to leave Israel in the wind.  This is not good foreign policy at all.  People from both parties will tell you this.  If you think having talks with Iran and telling them to stop enriching uranium is going to work you don’t know the facts.  The leaders of Iran don’t want to stop doing this and they will make it very hard for inspectors to come in and see what is really going on.

This week I read that President Obama wants to make it mandatory to vote.  While voting for me is the most important thing I can do for my country I hope this doesn’t come to be.   I don’t need people voting if they don’t know what they are voting for.  American’s need to be informed about who the candidates are and what they stand for, what the issues are and what their long term impact will be.  America do your homework, study things out, go to debates, watch them on TV, find out for yourself.  If you rely on SLN, John Stewart, and Stephen Colbert you aren’t getting the truth.  This would be like going to an NRA meeting to find out the problems with gun control or going to an ACLU meeting to find out why race issues in American aren’t working.  These comedians while very funny are not news anchors or journalist. 

          I really hope I get what I want in November 2016, I am not asking for a miracle just someone that is best for our country.  I want someone that will bring our country together, that is willing to work on both sides of the isle, and most importantly be tough on our enemies

Christmas Eve

 

                Christmas has never been my favorite time of year.  It is not because I do not believe in Christmas, it is just hard.  I know there are reasons and I am sure some of them are valid reasons.  However, tonight of all nights amazes me, it always has.  To think that tonight the Son of God was born over 2,000 years ago. 

                I have given birth 3 times.  There is nothing that feels as good as hearing your baby cry for the first time and holding them in your arms.  I am a wimp and I was happy to have as many drugs as I could.  I did not want to feel anything.  I have always thought that women that had children naturally were awesome, but that is not for me at all. 

                This night however, we focus on Mary, Joseph, and the new born babe.  I cannot imagine what that journey was like.  Riding and walking to pay taxes when you are 9 months pregnant.  Not just traveling to the mailbox, but many, many miles.  It had to be very uncomfortable.  Joseph, I imagine was doing everything he could do to keep Mary comfortable.  I do not know if we give Joseph the credit he deserves.  He truly loved Mary and our Father in Heaven.  It would have been very easy to walk away, yet he stayed.

                Finally, the come to a place to spend the night.  The inn keeper seems to always get the short end of the stick.  Yet, he did give them a place to stay.  They could not have stayed in the inn even if there was room.  Remember, Jesus’s birth was foretold by prophets and he had to be born in the poorest of circumstances. 

                Angels not an angel told of the birth.  Singing and praising God, singing hosannas to the Most High God.  I have heard a lot of choirs in my life and I am amazed by some of them.  I can imagine that this would have been the most awesome of them all. 

                Can you imagine if you were the shepherds watching their flocks?  Notice after they were told that the Savoir is born they did not just go about their business, it uses the word haste.   What a commotion that might have been as shepherds went as fast as they could to see the Christ child.  

                Today as we finish the last minute shopping, wrapping, etc…, I hope we take time to read, think, ponder, and pray about this holiest of nights.  I cannot imagine loving ALL of mankind enough to send down My Only Begotten Son, to save the world.  What a wonderful blessing this is in my life.  I know that He is the Savior and Redeemer of the world and me. 

Forgiveness

I hate that lesson in church where it talks about forgiveness.  I have always thought it odd that someone had to forgive someone else for something so silly as looking at them wrong or not speaking to them.  I have said in my brain and sometimes to the person I am sitting next to, “Wow that must be just horrible.”  Why do I feel that way?  Is it wrong to think that is silly?  Could I please borrow your shoes to walk in because I have had to work on forgiveness many times in my life?  

I know that Jesus suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane and died on the Cross at Calvary for me, but most of the time I feel unworthy to accept those gifts from our Father in Heaven.  Some might wonder why you can know something yet not feel like you are able to welcome it into your heart.  I guess the answer is forgiveness. 

The most important person you have to forgive is the person that looks back to you in the mirror.  It is not the person that gave you the stink eye, the person that offended you, or did not say hi.  This is not to say you should not forgive others, but I think that is easier to do than to forgive ourselves It is you!  Why because that person truly needs the forgiveness.   . 

 Yet somewhere in my brain I know this, but my heart falls short every time.  This has one issue has come up many times in the last few week.  I then start playing the, “if only I did this,” “if only I could have done that,” game.  I start blaming myself to decisions that I had no or little control of.  I know I could not or cannot change some of those circumstances yet the only person I blame is myself. 

This does not mean I am not at fault, because I am not close to being perfect, but I also cannot control outcomes to situations that I feel I need to.  Again the person that gets hurt in this situation is often myself because I don’t listen to my brain.  I know what to do and I do say in my out loud word, “Jesus, please help.”  However, as soon as those words are said and I lay my burdens at his door.  I quickly pick them up and move away from the door.   I won’t answer my door to let the Savior come in and give him my burdens. 

I would tell my friends that is what you have to do.  I know I have told my children that is what they need to do.   I know I have given lessons on letting the Savior into your life and help with those burdens.  Yet, I am not able to.  The reason is forgiveness.  Not forgiving others but myself and it is not for the huge mistakes I have made.  I was and still am able to do that.  It is for the little things, which now have turned big.  These are the things that are out of my control and yet I still want to control them.

So what I can do?  I think I am like most people where I understand the concept of the Atonement.  I just do not know how it works for me.  It is good enough for all of mankind except me.  This does not make sense in my head or my heart.   I am a daughter of a Heavenly Father, He created my soul, and He loves me.  Just plain Flo, someone who is not going to be anyone important but a normal person.  My older Brother loves me.  He did what He could to make sure I can live with Him. 

So my goal is to remember who I am and where I come from.  I will work on forgiving myself because I need to practice that for me.  I am worth it.  To knock on the door and wait for the Savior to open it, then actually hand Him my burdens and not take them back.  Not knocking and running away with my heavy load. 

           

 

My Grandma

 

            Today, eighteen years ago my Grandma Philpot died.  My Grandma was an awesome woman.   She is was the type of Grandma I want to be.  I do not remember an important event in my life that she did not come to.  Her last trip out of Utah, was because Katie had just been born and was getting blessed.  She was too sick to travel and I know she should not have come, but there was no way she was going to miss it. 

            There is an advantage of being the oldest.  The biggest one is time spent with loved ones.  When my Grandma got sick many of the younger grandchildren did not know the fun Grandma I knew.  I had an advantage of knowing Grandma Philpot because I spent close to my first two and half years of my life living on and off with my Grandparents.  This brought us closer together and I will always be grateful for that.

            My favorite memory of my Grandma is the day I ran away from home.  She took me to get a new dress and shoes.  We went to for lunch at Little America and she had the “roast baron of beef.”  She always ordered that.  I remember my Grandpa Philpot taking me home on my Uncle Paul’s bike.   That day was the fourth best day of my life.  (The other three were the days my children were born.)

            What did I learn from my Grandma?  I learned that loving God is the most important.  She loved serving the Lord and you could see that as she got older.  She promised the children in her primary class that if they got married in the temple she would attend.  She did just that and when we attended her funeral and saw many of those primary children grown up you could see the impact.  I remember her telling me that if the Lord asks you to do something you do it.

            Second, love of family.  Family is Heaven on Earth.  My Grandparents loved their children and grandchildren.  They would have done anything for them. This love was not always easy and I am sure my Dad and uncles will tell you that it came with a price, but people get softer when they older. 

            Third, how to work.   My Grandparents taught their children and they passed it down to their children, who have hopefully passed it down to their children. 

            There has not been a day that has gone by since my Grandma died, that I have not thought of her.  There are days that I wished she was still alive because I needed to call and talk to her, but instead I remember that she would have said, “Go talk to Heavenly Father.”  I am glad that I had such a wonderful Grandma, what a blessing this would has been.  Thank you Grandma for teaching me what it was is like to be a woman, mom, and some day grandma.  I love you more than you will know.  Which is not true because you loved us all more than we will ever know. 

"Where Were You on that September Morning"

 

 

          It is September 10, 2014 and thirteen years ago today final preparations I can assume were being made to make sure the attack on the USA was ready.  19 people we know for sure, in the USA that night knew what was going to happen, but the rest of us carried on like it was a normal Monday night.  It was Monday night football the New York Giants were playing the Denver Broncos.  It was a late game for those on the east coast. 

          September 11, 2001 started off like a normal day for the Fallis household.  I got up, got in the shower, turned on the Today Show.  (We had cable then) and woke up the kids. The first plane had already hit and Matt and Katie were talking about how it might have been a small plane that accidently hit the World Trade Center.  Then, like most of America, I watched in horror as the second plane crashed into the second World Trade Center. 

          I took the kids to school and rushed home to find out what was going on.  The third plane had hit the Pentagon and then we waited to see if any other buildings were going to be hit.  We mourned for those that had already died and silently cheered for those passengers that took down the last flight.  Hero is not a strong enough adjective to describe those passengers. 

          Americans were rushing to give blood, going to church, and hear from their families.   We all can remember where we were, but do we talk about it?  Do we talk to our children about the importance of that day?  Do we let them know about the importance of history?  Have we, ourselves, learned from history?  I wonder if my Grandparents thought something like this would happen.  They had been alive for the attack on Pearl Harbor.

          I am proud to live in this country!  I hope tomorrow we can take some time and think about how we felt that day thirteen years ago.  Tomorrow no matter what we should all try and remember what it was like to be an American.  Remember on that day sacred and holy, there were no democrats or republicans we were just one country standing together.   What a blessing it would be for our country if we could once again come together.   

Why Vacations Matter

                I never take vacations, the last time I left Lake Havasu for a vacation that was not a family reunion was 2009.  I did go to girls’ camp in 2010, but if you hate camping that is not a vacation.  I am not a believer in the importance of vacation, I get a breaks from school and those weeks (spring and fall) those are spent in bed reading or just having jammie days.  Oh, wait that is not true, I usually spend it in my jammies but grading papers or working on lesson plans. 

                Last week I was able to go to Nauvoo, Illinois.  I know this isn’t Disneyland or a cruise, and certainly it isn’t a huge vacation spot in the US.  In fact on our plane trip there were 5 people on the plane that knew where it was and we had a map.  It is a small town on the Mississippi River that has 1,100 people that live there.  That has to be close to the amount of people that Disneyland employees as cast members.  So why would that be a place I would have saved money to go?

                I needed my girls to know why we do the things we do and believe what we do.  I have been blessed to grow up in my faith unlike many others LDS people.   All of my friends know that missionaries are going out and talking about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  They talk about the mission of Christ and why His mission is just as important if not more as it was when He was on Earth.  My family listened to Joseph Smith himself.  They knew him and believed what he said.  They helped him with food, paper, and transportation.  This was just on my mother’s side.  On my father’s side of the family, those families left England to come to America to walk across the plains to come to Utah.  How and why could they do this?

                The Knight family knew Joseph Smith they talked to him and worked with him.  They were the first members of this new church in the 1830’s.  My family in England read the Book of Mormon and knew it was true.  They heard the call about gathering the ‘Saints’ and went.  Sold most everything to come across the Atlantic Ocean and then walked across most of the US to be with those people that believed what they did.

                In Nauvoo, we were able to walk those streets that the early Mormons walked.  I was able to go into the Prophet’s home, see and go into the temple, and walk where my family walked.  I read, researched, and felt like my family was blessed to be where I felt we needed to be.  How did this help my daughters’ faith?

                The stories learned and told there helped them answer some of those questions I wanted answered.  We came home and journal writing became important.  In fact Katie spent a great deal of time looking for a journal with the Nauvoo Temple on it. 

During this trip prayers were asked and answered, I felt closer to my grandparents that have gone before me.  I realized that because I had forefathers that walked the US, that I can overcome some of my problems.  Yes, my problems are different from theirs but, I didn’t have my homes torn down, I didn’t have to give up my worldly possessions, or I haven’t been ridiculed because of my beliefs.  There might be people talking behind my back about those things, but it hasn’t cost me anything. 

I think like many Catholics it would be like going to Rome.   For Jews it would be like going to Jerusalem.   I grew up in the Salt Lake valley so seeing church headquarters was not a big deal.  I wanted to go someplace that was special to my ancestors.  To be in the last place they were truly hurt by mobs and really ridiculed by the people in surrounding areas.   

                I will never regret going to Nauvoo.  I am grateful to Brett and Marie Allen for housing my family so I could afford to go.  I am thankful to Maureen Harshman for letting me crash her vacation.  I forgot how much I missed traveling with Mo.  I am happy that my girls were not upset that we didn’t go to a fun place for a vacation. 

                So why are vacations important?  Sometimes you just need to get out of Dodge and do something you want to do.  I might not be able to go on another vacation for many more years, but I am happy that I got to do something for myself and for my family. 

               

His Tender Mercies

This week has been very hard for me emotionally.  I have been to be on an errand for the Lord.  There are no other ways to describe it.  There are people that you will meet in your life that just by meeting them your life has been changed for the good.  I have been able to help someone that is a dear friend and more importantly than helping her I have been able to help those that love her.

I have a friend that is dying from cancer.  She is and the fight is over and now those that love her are just helping her cross the finish line.  This sweet friend is someone that everyone knows.  People have hosted car washes, garage sales, and even selling tamales at Christmas.  If you mention her name only good things are said.  I have never heard one person say anything bad about her.  How many of us can say that about ourselves?

As this week has progressed things have gotten worse as it is at the end of life but miracles I have seen.  I think sometimes we think the miracle has to be parting the Red Sea, bringing down the walls of Jericho, or saving all the animals as God sent down a flood to clean the entire Earth.  I however, think miracles are small and usually people will not even know they have happened until years down the road.   

My favorite scripture has always been in the parable of the separating the lambs and the goats.  The people are confused when the king asks questions about helping those that are sick, afflicted, and in prison.   The king says, “In as much as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”  This parable is profound to me, because those that are the least are so grateful for those miracles of meals, a friendship, and a listening ear.  Those are all miracles to them, tender mercies from the Lord.

This week I have felt the presence of the Lord as I say things, do things, and try my best to be one of those that he has called to help.  I have also felt my dear Grandmother sit next me to me as I witnessed small miracles.  I know to people not of faith they would say I am crazy and if there was a God, He would not let this sweet lady suffer.  I however, see it this way, I learned from this week.  I learned that sometimes the Lord expects you to remember who you are and step up to the plate.  I learned that you need to be prepared.  I was able to remember that life goes on.   I held a brand new baby and marveled at how wonderful God’s plan is for us.  He truly loves us!  He knows each of us individually.  He wants the best for us.  He will work miracles and even though it might not be big, it will bless those that need it.

I have learned more than anything that a personal relationship with the Savior is more important than anything on this earth.  You might think that your are just a tiny drop of sand and your life will not mean anything but it does.  As I have witnessed as this humble cleaning lady make a huge impact on those around her.  What a blessing it has been to be on the Lord’s errand.  I can honestly say that today as we celebrate her life, I am blessed and will be a better person for knowing her.  Thank you Benny for sharing this with me.  I know that you have your mansion prepared for you in the next life.