Weekend Oasis

This weekend was an oasis from too much work. The lawn was mowed in no time due to how dry it is right now; in fact we didn't even need to pick up any grass for a change.

We had good news, Leah's car was found in one piece! The only thing the thieves took were the items on her seats and floor. She drove it home on Saturday and said there were only a couple of problems, the steering wheel doesn't lock any more and they must have jimmied the ignition as it feels a little different. She is one lucky young woman! That was the fourth time here car was broke into. Seems to me the saying is three times and that is usually it,

One day last week, our Branch President asked me to give a talk in church. The assignment was Faith. I always learn more than those that listen when I give a talk. I did quite a bit of research and thought about off it an all week so on Friday I started looking through the Ensign Magazine conference issues.

One of the two apostles presented an excellent way to increase faith. Elder Robert Hales' conference talk "Finding Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ" in the the November 2004 issue gave five basic things that are necessary to establish faith in ones life.
(1) hear the word of God, spoken and written by His servants
(2) let that word sink deep into your heart
(3) hunger in your soul for righteousness
(4) obediently follow gospel laws, ordinances, and covenants
(5) raise your voice in mighty prayer and supplication, asking in faith to know that Jesus Christ is our Savior.

Faith is such an evasive thing, we can't see it or hear it or feel it. We have to trust and make an effort to have it. In Hebrews 11:1 the Apostle Paul taught that “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” So true.

I am working at having faith that we will complete the exhibit in time for fair week so that we will have fair visitors take the time to come and see it. We will be putting some of up at the fair too. One part of the exhibit will test how well we can recognize our neighbor's farm from an aerial photograph. We do get impatient with how slowly some of the photos and information are coming in though.

I finished reading The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake at 8:00 this morning. It is a very different story with many twists that one can't really figure out until almost to the end. It would not be a good thing to be able to taste the feelings of someone who had cooked your food for you. This is the case for the little girl in the story. It is now on to try and complete The Elegance of the Hedgehog. This is also a recommended book from Oprah's O magazine and the More magazine.