Ed, Lia and Lauren

 The Sabbath Day.  It was a beautiful day, and passed leisurely yet steadily, as it slipped into the past.  We participated (Zoom one and all) in our Oxford 1st Ward Sacrament Meeting, the meeting for new members and investigators with our young missionaries and finally Lia and Ed's Sacrament Meeting where they were the speakers.

Every meeting was inspiring.  Two our our YSAs spoke in our meeting here. They spoke about "COVID and the Gospel" - of all topics. They both took a different perspective, yet each was thought-provoking.  Adam compared our time right now with Moroni's, beginning with listing the trials Moroni endured  - before revealing that he was speaking about him.  His wife Madeline began with the Hoffman painting "Christ and the Rich Young Ruler."  She said at one point "Jesus's journey through mortal life was riddled with loneliness, quoting from Isaiah 53. 

3 He is ^adespised and rejected of men; a man of ^bsorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we ^cesteemed him not.

4 ¶ Surely he hath ^aborne our ^bgriefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

5 But he was ^awounded for our ^btransgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his ^cstripes we are ^dhealed.

Lia and Ed were perfect.  Ed gave a little information about their family - without making it sound at all like he was introducing them.  He mentioned the odd (maybe he said crazy) house they have moved into and the remodeling they are working on, his passion for the mountains, mountain biking and hiking, and his engineering vocation.  In a very humble way he talked about the pursuit of wealth and how we all seem to want just a little more, a little better.  It wasn't so much about condemning our desires for more, as a thoughtful reminder for us to examine our priorities and our goals.  He has a gentle understated sense of humor and tossed in a few things that made us laugh.

Lia spoke about gratitude, and explained my desire to leave something as a reminder when we left for Denmark.  That is when SK and I gathered them all together and introduced the "Gratitude is the Key to Happiness" motto.  The way she described it was so nice!  We both got a little broken up.  She had presented that to her family for Family Home Evening recently and gave each one a little decorative key.  Dallin, their youngest son lamented 'I've lost my key to happiness!"  He is such a cute little boy, I can imagine him saying that. 

She used that as a jumping point to thoughts on agency, using Viktor Frankl as an example of one whose agency was completely destroyed by the Nazis, yet bore a powerful witness throughout his life that ultimately we all have the freedom to respond however we wish.   Lia provided respite care for a young woman in her neighborhood who had very little control over her body - another example of what the world would say is a person with no agency.  Yet Tawnya found joy.

A third example was from Lauren's email this week.  A man who was a senior missionary in Brussels a few years ago, and was injured in a terrorist attack.  He says that he refuses to be a victim.  She read the closing paragraphs of Lauren's email:  

"This is a difficult time for everyone. You may have just experienced a family tragedy. You may be upset by the result of the elections, or you may be frustrated with those people who are upset. You may have the virus or know someone who does. You may be lonely because of the restrictions the virus is causing. You may be experiencing financial difficulties or stress. You may struggle with temptation or trials. Whatever it is, don't see yourself as a victim to it. God created things to act, and things to be acted upon. My friends, we were created to act! Not to mention, to have joy. Turn to God and put your trust in Him. Press forward with a perfect brightness of hope that even though things are difficult right now, in the end, Christ will wipe away our tears and make everything right. In the meantime, rely on the power of His Atonement, because he felt exactly what you're going through so you wouldn't have to do it alone. 

I would like to end with a scripture that goes hand in hand with Isaiah 41:10. They both have been highlighted in my mind this week. Deuteronomy 31:6 says "Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee."

Lia closed with these thoughts: Not being happy with ourselves, we create an illusion that we don't have power, that we are a thing to be acted upon - that we have no agency.  She ended her talk by encouraging us to "cheerfully do all things that lie within our power," i.e. to forgive, to repent, to pray and to be grateful.

Later, we visited with them over the internet.  It was lovely to catch up.

A very inspiring day!