Bishop Napoleon Dynamite

Seriously, I have nothing to say.... except, "HAPPY HALLOWEEN!"

Spreading the Wealth Around

We have heard a lot about this lately. Frankly, it scares me - Happy Halloween! We spread our own wealth around. As a Latter-Day Saint, we give a minimum of 10% of our pre-tax income to the church. Ten percent is tithing and then there are additional amounts for other offerings. It probably amounts to somewhere between 12 and 15% of our income when all is said and done. But, it's never less than 10%.

My husband is a "community organizer" if that's what you want to call it - he's a Bishop who watches over a ward and devotes quite a bit of his free-time to helping others IN ADDITION to his regular job that he works at about 50 hours a week. He receives no compensation for his Bishop's duties - at least not in the form of money. But, the spiritual rewards are plentiful.

We are spreading our wealth - both spiritual and temporal - around. And, I think we are doing a pretty darn good job of managing it ourselves.

Counter this with those who think the government should be spreading my wealth around.

VP candidate, Joe Biden, has made over $2 million dollars in the last ten years and has reportedly given only $3,600 to charity. His running mate gave only about 1% of his sizeable income to charity from 2000-2004 and interestingly, kicked it up to a whopping 6% only after he decided to run for president. But, one year, he gave only .4% of his income.

Contrast this with the other candidates. John McCain has given anywhere from 18-26% of his annual income to charity over the last few years. Now, according to records I have seen, Sarah Palin isn't winning any points with God - she has donated only about 2% of her income to charity each year. Still, as a flat out dollar amount, she has still donated more than Joe Biden has in the last few years. I'm disappointed, though.

My point is that I, and most Americans, can do more with dollars we choose to donate to charity than government can with money taken from us to be given to others who did not earn it. When I donate money or goods to LDS Humanitarian Services, 100% of my donation goes to help others. The overhead to run the program is paid for by investments.

The Perpetual Education Fund has blessed the lives of countless people throughout the world. They are able to get something they could never dream of - an education - that will better their lives. That is much better than being paid to do nothing.

Even our church welfare system requires accountability. Mark has been counseled to set goals with families receiving assistance and they must be accomplishing those goals in order to keep receiving assistance. This is with the goal of quickly helping them become self-sufficient. It's tough love, but if you aren't working on and meeting the goals, you aren't going to keep getting help. As Mark often says, "These are sacred funds given by members of your ward. They are not to be wasted." Does the government EVER do this? No.

Contributing to charities - good charities with honest goals, not well-salaried leaders - is something every American should be doing. Think of all the good that could be done in the world if everyone gave 10% of their income to a good charity?

C.S. Lewis said in his book, MERE CHRISTIANITY. "I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare…If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us,… they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditures excludes them.”

Use It or Lose It

I have been going to our local dry pack cannery for years. I am so grateful for all the oatmeal, flour and sugar we have burned through. I have even given cans of it to neighbors when they have called me because they were out of sugar. It's a great way to talk about the church with them because they wonder why you have giant cans or bags of sugar in your house all the time.

For a while, I did tons of dried apples. They are problematic here in the wet northwest because the minute you open them and snack on their dry crunchy goodness, they absorb huge amounts of moisture from the air and the next day, they are like rubber - even with the lid on. They aren't so good all rubbery.

So, you almost have to use the whole can at once to make pies or something else. My plan to put them in oatmeal sort of works - but sometimes they are hard to dig out of the can because they are a wad of rubber.

I wanted to make Apple Butter for Christmas gifts this year. I had to follow up my "Pomegranate Jelly" from two years ago. People at Mark's work are STILL talking about how great it was. It was so easy that it was pathetic. I made it out of pomegranate juice, sugar and pectin. It took all of 5 minutes in a water bath to seal the cute little jars. But, I forget that most of the rest of the world doesn't make ANYTHING home-made like that. It was a huge hit.

So, this year it will be apple-cranberry butter. I decided to try it with the dried apples that I needed to use and have tons of cans of. They worked GREAT! I put them in the crock pot with spices, salt and sugar (just one cup since the juice is sweet) and then spent all day pouring cranberry juice and water over them as they soaked up the liquid. When they started to turn transparent, I ran it all through my Cuisinart with a can of jellied cranberry sauce. YUM! It was thick and spicy and sweet and tart all at the same time.

Ten minutes in a water bath to seal my jars and I am again "Molly Mormon" who makes her own food... sort of...

The question is... what can I do with all the dried carrots I have, too? I doubt anyone would get excited about Carrot butter - ewwwww!

Political Pet Peeves

Okay, I'm already discussing religion, so I might as well add politics into the mix.

I HATE the political season. I wish you could let someone know that you've already decided and that would magically remove all ads from your TV, stop those HORRENDOUSLY annoying phone calls and stop the door bell from ringing all weekend. I'm a conservative Republican and have never voted any other way and most likely never will. So, although I may not always LIKE the Republican candidate, I will vote for him/her.

We have a heated race for governor going on in our state. It's a rematch from 4 years ago. It came down to the 3 legal recounts and the law said whoever won the last recount wins unless the other side files a lawsuit and drags it through the courts. So our current governor LOST the first 2 recounts and then WON the third one by the slimmest of margins. The challenger decided to graciously NOT drag the state through a court battle and he bowed out. It's lost on most of us how you can lose 2 out of 3 times and be the winner. But in this state, the loser can actually be the winner.

What I TRULY hate about politics is the assumption that I am S*T*U*P*I*D. There is an ad being run by the current governor (a Democrat) wherein an OB/GYN laments that the other candidate voted to allow pharmacists to NOT sell the emergency contraception pill. Then she says, "It's wrong that Dino Rossi forces his opinion and choices on the rest of us." Okay, she is concerned about victims of rape and incest having access to the pill (really, she just wants everyone to have access to it but she's not saying that - it's more dramatic to single out victims). Dino Rossi merely voted to allow pharmacists to CHOOSE to sell the pill or not. He didn't demand that they ALL stop selling it. He just voted, oh, let's call it "PRO-CHOICE" when it comes to selling the pill. How is voting to allow a business owner to CHOOSE forcing anyone to do anything? That doesn't mean that NO pharmacist will sell it. It just means that pharmacists who don't agree with essentially an abortion pill won't be FORCED to sell it. So, how is it that SHE should be forcing her opinions and choices on the rest of us?????

I was so mad that I actually looked for an email address for that doctor. I couldn't find one, but I wanted to tell her that for a doctor, she was mighty dumb to have even SAID what she said. She was treating the public like they were stupid.

I really wish this election was over. Elections drag out too long, are too costly, and at the end of the day, are too stacked full of people who really need to go get a REAL job after a few years of public service. It's sad that the average American can really never run the country. It's become like the House of Lords at times with people feeling like they or their family are owed the right to be in political office. Ted Kennedy has expressed his wishes that his wife or son take over his seat when he passes away. That's what titled men do in England - they pass their political seat down to their heirs in the House of Lords. I thought we had a little war or something over 200 years ago to get away from that??

How many days are left?? I can't wait for this to be over... Be sure to vote, though. I love the letter that the church sends out reminding us of political neutrality and that we should vote for good men and women who will make good moral choices for our country. Everyone gets to choose that person. I'm grateful for a church who doesn't tell me who the RIGHT person is.

A Word of Caution over Words

Since the "crash" on Wall Street and the "world financial crisis", I keep seeing and getting more and more "stuff" that is attributed to someone in the church somewhere. Often, they seem to be "friend of a friend" stories - always a dead give-away that something's not quite right. The other day in church, it was a talk circulating the internet by Elder Packer given in his home ward. My baloney detector went up because it was A) a talk give during testimony meeting and B) a full-on transcript of a talk. I wondered why he would give a written, prepared talk during testimony meeting. It was very "end of the world". Well, apparently, the talk DID happen but it was "off the cuff". The transcript circulating is someone's notes from the talk and there is a lot of "interpretation" in the notes that wasn't quite the way it was.

Then I ran across this letter. I remember them reading this because I was like, "WOW! People do that?" Well, the internet was in it's infancy back then. I was amazed when President Hinckley died to find out that my friend in Australia found out about it nearly at the same time I did - just minutes after he passed away. And all the church and Utah news sites were crashed with people trying to find out more.

The internet has given us the ability to communicate instantly with one another. And that means the ability to instantly pass on something that we have not taken the time to verify.

This talk has been posted on hundreds of blogs just like this one - usually with some commentary by the blogger that he/she pledges to change their life because of the great calamity that Elder Packer said was coming.

These were comments to his HOME WARD, not the whole church. This is not prophecy. This is a man stating his opinion to his ward in a testimony meeting. I have heard that the church is aware of the fact that this is going all over the place and is not happy, nor is President Packer. But, I have not verified that fact - so again, it's rumor.

It's too bad talks from conference aren't being posted on blogs everywhere. with blogger renewing their desire to "stand a little taller" in their callings and their faith.

The lesson here is to be cautious about hitting FORWARD whenever you receive stuff like this. The notes of this talk, if taken out of context and twisted, could do more harm than good as we are made out to look like a bunch of Kool-Aid drinkers who are waiting for the mother-ship to come pick us up before the world blows up.

I received a similar email a few weeks ago where a regular member of the church claims to have received prophecy about the Wall Street Crash in a vision. It was totally bizarre, but again, it went all over the place as THE TRUTH.



May 13, 2004

To: General Authorities; Area Authority Seventies; Stake, Mission, and
District Presidents; Bishops and Branch Presidents

(To be read in sacrament meeting)

Dear Brothers and Sisters:

Statements Attributed to Church Leaders

From time to time statements are circulated among members which are inaccurately attributed to the leaders of the Church. Many such statements distort current Church teachings and are often based on rumors and innuendos. They are never transmitted officially, but by word of mouth, e-mail, or other informal means.

We encourage members of the Church to never teach or pass on such statements without verifying that they are from approved sources, such as official statements, communications, and publications. Any notes made when General Authorities, Area Authority Seventies, or other general Church officers speak at regional and stake conferences or other meetings should not be distributed without the consent of the speaker. Personal notes are for individual use only.

True spiritual growth is based on studying the scriptures, the teachings of the Brethren, and Church publications.

Sincerely your brethren,
Gordon B. Hinckley
Thomas S. Monson
James E. Faust

EDITED:

Mark just got an email from our Stake President which was from our regional rep specifically regarding the email about Elder Packer's talk. It quoted the letter above. Interesting....

Thirty Hours a Week!

Recently, a survey was done among Bishops in Utah. They said that on average, they spend about 30 hours a week doing Bishoply duties. While that seemed a bit high to Bishops in our stake, it still amounts to about another part-time job for most of them. Mark works about 55 hours a week so even adding another 20-25 for being Bishop leaves him with precious little time for anything else.

Interestingly, the leaders of the church said that that time was being spent on things that weren't that important for the Bishops to be doing - such as administrative duties like issuing callings and taking care of issues that home and visiting teachers could be taking care of or Quorums and Relief Society Presidencies should be doing.

The long and short of the meeting was that a Bishop should be taking care of personal issues for members that only be taken care of with him, working with the youth, and missionary work. They said that if Bishops especially concentrated on the missionary work (which is really what working closely with the youth is also), then the church would grow and the members would be happy.

It was a real eye-opener for most Bishops who are drowning in the administrivia of their wards and barely have time to do anything else. All those things are supposed to be delegated. that means that other leaders in the wards need to "Stand a little taller" and spend a little more time on their own callings.

It's interesting that we (and I'm included here) have been trained so incorrectly as to the role of our Bishops. We (and again, I'm including myself here) tend to think that the Bishop is more "botherable" than anyone else in the ward. It's somehow become more acceptable to call the Bishop for a phone number for someone in the ward, than it is to "bother" our visiting teachers or RS secretary (who probably has more numbers than the Bishop does).

One of the lessons I take with me from Mark's calling is that the Bishop is really busy and that I should try to solve my problem myself before I call his house. I'm not saying this is a problem for us - because it really isn't most of the time. But if you look at the collective Bishops of the church, it really can be a problem at times. Members will often head "straight for the top" when they have issues with their callings, need help moving, need a blessing, have a concern about something in their auxiliary, need an appointment with him (his executive secretary has his schedule), need to find a new apartment, etc.

It's service that Bishop's gladly give - I've never ONCE heard a complaint from my Bishop. But, it would be nice if we could all make their lives a little easier by following the house of order that God has set up for us and looking for answers to the simple questions in other places first. A lesson learned...

Drive-By Visiting Teaching Interviews

We are holding our Visiting Teaching interviews this coming weekend. We know everyone is busy and so is our presidency - half of us work full-time. So, we are going to get the job done!

We are making it super easy - the sisters will sign up for a time between 9 and 11 am. They will literally just drive into the church parking lot and one of the presidency members will hop in the car with them and do the interview. The sisters will get a muffin and some juice and HOPEFULLY a fun thing to hang off their rear view mirrors to remind them to do their visiting teaching and then we'll send them on their way.

We're telling them to "come as you are"! If they want to come in their jammies on a Saturday morning, they can.

The only thing that would make it more fun is if we had a literal drive-up window at the church, but, we can't have them driving into the bushes! I don't think the Bishop would appreciate that.

No Sleepover Zone

Call us crazy - plenty of others have - but our family lives in the NO SLEEPOVER zone. We made this decision long before our kids entered the sleepover years. Luckily, most of our friends and our kids' friends parents are fine with it. A few will give us weird looks while others will blurt out, "REALLY!?!?!?" when we say our kids aren't allowed to do sleepovers.

We are an equal opportunity NO SLEEPOVER zone - we neither have them nor allow our kids to attend them. Not having them is partly because I simply don't want to deal with them and part of it is because we feel like we want to be consistent with the rule. It's like taking a donated organ but not believing in donating them. You can't have it both ways.

Why do we do this? Well, there are several reasons.

1. The unknown - you just never know who's at someone else's house. Older siblings, visiting relatives, other kids sleeping over - you don't always know them well. I have too many friends who were either molested at sleep overs or experimented with sex and/or drugs during sleepovers.
   
2. No need - what's the big deal about SLEEPING at someone's house? All I ever did was stay awake all night with anxiety. N already has some anxiety in his life - I think he would probably have night-time crying issues and other people don't need to deal with that
3. The unknown: Part 2 - Mark had plenty of times where he and his friend left the house after the friend's parents went to bed. And, mischief followed them into the night. I can't be sure a parent will keep my kid IN the house. We have plenty of junk done in our neighborhood by kids in the middle of the night where I think to myself, "WHERE ARE THEIR PARENTS?!" - probably home in their Sleep Number bed sawing logs.

So, what's our solution? LATE OVERS! Last weekend N went off to a sleepover birthday party and the mom was like, "Do you want us to drop him off after the movie?" The boy across the street has sleepover birthday parties and N stays until bedtime and then comes home. Sometimes he even goes back for breakfast the next morning.

We have had kids over until 10pm at night watching movies and hanging out. It's actually nice to never have to struggle to get 6 boys to go to sleep. It's nice to put them in the car and take them home or wave from the front porch.

Our boys are starting to fight us on our rule -they want to split hairs and try to get us to let them stay a few select homes where we know the families well, but really, we can't budge - that's a slippery slope to start down. Suddenly, everyone's house will be an exception in their minds.

So, call us crazy, but we just can't imagine our kids sleeping anywhere but our house or their grandparent's house. I sleep better at night knowing my kids are safe in their beds and not out running around the neighborhood, smoking their first cigarette or crying themselves to sleep because this really wasn't as good of an idea as they thought it was.

I'm not saying that if you let your kids do sleepovers that you're a bad parent - I'm just saying that for us, this makes sense. Everyone has to decide what's best for their family.

Family By Phone

Mark was in Chicago last week. He travels quite a bit - which is a bit of a problem when you're the Bishop. But, he's not the worst. His brother who just passed away lived in a ward in Florida where the Bishop was a SNOW BIRD! He was literally gone all summer to his home in Utah. I don't know how that worked - they must have been really hard up for a Bishop!

But, I digress...

Anyway, most nights he will call at 9pm and I put him on speaker phone and we have family prayer together. It's become our habit or tradition. Even when we can't be together, we can still have family prayer together. Sometimes he even calls in early to read the scriptures.

Our hope is that when the boys remember that dad was traveling quite a bit when they were young, that they will also remember he prioritized praying together as a family.

I found the video!

In THIS previous post, I was wanting to find a video from seminary. Well, when we were in Utah, I went to the church's distribution center and their "video expert" listened to my description of it and said, "Oh, The Body is a Temple from the New Testament Video Presentations!".

And darn it all if he wasn't right...

Yay, Video Expert Guy!! Thanks!

BTW - that video has some GREAT clips on it. The boys loved "The Whole Armor of God". You just have to get past the 1980's look - big hair and preppy clothes. Did we REALLY look that way???

There's Disco in Vernal

We spent last week in Utah making arrangements for and attending Mark's brother's funeral. It was a wonderful celebration of his life.

We had a nice time visiting with all of Mark's siblings - including his brother who lives in Cambodia.

One of our nephews (who is like 4 years old) is probably going to be the new Weird Al Yankovic. He has some weird ability to connect music to EVERYTHING in his life. He connects it in hysterical ways.

For instance, he got a nose bleed at Stake Conference several months back and when his mother took him to the bathroom to clean him up, he started bellowing, "I KEEP BLEEDING! I KEEP, KEEP BLEEDING LOVE!" (by Leona Lewis). I wish I could remember more of the stories his parents tell us about him and music. Every time they tell us one, I always say, "I hope you're writing these down!"

It should be noted that this family lives in Roosevelt, UT - which isn't too far from Vernal. Well, recently, they were cruising along in the family mini van and this little tot says he wants to go to Vernal to the Disco. And, his father says, "DISCO? How do you even know that word? And why do you say you want to go to Vernal?"

So, the kid broke out into song to explain his desire to go to Vernal to the Disco...

"Burn, baby, burn, there's a Disco in Vernal!"

Now you'll never be able to hear that song again without hearing these lyrics!

When Dad is Bishop

Last week, N dragged home a bike with one wheel. One of the neighborhood kids had pawned it off on him. He HAD the wheel but it was in his other hand. I spent all week conjuring up some plan to deposit it back into the neighbor's yard under cover of darkness and then hoping that N wouldn't notice it was no longer sitting in our front yard (I'm sure the neighbors love the "garage annex" aka our front yard.)

Today, I noticed that the wheel had somehow gotten back together with the bike. I asked N if he had done it and he said he had, with the help of our neighbor.

That's the tricky part of having your dad as the Bishop. The lawn always grows just a little too high before it gets cut. The toilet leaks just a little longer before it finally gets fixed and the kids' "projects" get put off as long as possible and then one of our boys will go off and ask whoever is outside washing their car to help them. I'm grateful to the few neighborhood dads we have who are willing to dig out the tools and put the pedal back on the bike. They probably think Mark is the biggest slacker in the universe, though - LOL!

You should have seen Mark during Pine Wood Derby season this year. He had TWO to get done in less than 4 weeks. His first counselor also has two cub scouts. I joked that they would be sitting in Bishopric meeting discussing the ward while sanding cars. I know the boys are supposed to do it, but they need supervision and that's what Dads are for. But, when dads are super busy, sometimes it's lucky to get done at all.

I've come to the conclusion that this calling isn't for families who have to have things done YESTERDAY. If I was the kind of wife who was a nagger, it would make Mark's life miserable. Instead, I'm okay with pulling the top off the toilet tank to push the flapper down for the 4th time this week because it doesn't always go down by itself. And, I'm okay with the Christmas stuff not getting dragged from the crawl space until the last minute because of tithing settlement 4 nights a week for the first half of December.

And, the boys seem to be just fine with asking "Neighbor Mike" to help them with their bikes. And we appreciate "Neighbor Mike" being kind enough to help. We pay him in Chocolate Chip cookies on Sunday nights so I think he's happy.

Sports on Sunday - Our Family's View

It's SOCCER SEASON! I'm really not a "soccer mom" except that I drive them to and from games. I really only pay attention when one of the boys is on the field and I'm not first in line to be "Team Mom". But, both boys love it and it's the only sport besides Karate that we do each year on a regular basis.

This coming weekend, D has a game on Sunday. Whenever we fill out our soccer registration, we always put in the comments box, "Will not play on Sunday". That doesn't mean that none of the games will be on Sunday, that just means that we are giving the coach advance notice. So far, we've had only a few games be on Sunday. I think when they see that, they try to limit the number of Sunday games for that team. I know it's a pain in the neck for the scheduler's but I appreciate the effort.

So, here comes our Sunday game. I told D's coach and his usual response is, "Why?" accompanied by a look of total confusion. When we try to explain, we get a "But if it's not during church then you can come?" Finally, we just tell him that the whole day is for church activities and not sports. He still never gets it after 3 years.

It IS really hard to explain, but, honestly, I don't feel like I need to explain it to anyone. We don't play sports on Sunday - period.

I have always admired athletes who try their hardest to keep the Sabbath Day holy. It's a personal decision - especially when you're a pro-athlete.

A few years ago, there was a BYU student who got drafted by an NFL team and when he said he would't play on Sunday, it was a deal-breaker for him. He went on to become an Elementary School teacher if I remember correctly. I was so proud of him. He gave up millions to make thousands.

Then there was the marathon runner from Alaska who flew all the way to either NYC or Boston to run a marathon only to find out it was run on SUNDAY. Since he was there already he went ahead and ran the full course on Saturday. He missed out on his dream but compromised to keep the Sabbath Day Holy - which was apparently more important.

The Sabbath is Holy at our house. We don't watch regular TV - just BYU TV and videos that keep the spirit of the day. We stay in our church clothes so we can keep the attitude of the Sabbath. Our kids can go outside and sit in the treehouse or on the bench swing to read, but they can't go out and play. And, no home work is allowed at our house on the Sabbath.

The world (and sometimes other members) don't understand our quirky Sunday style, but that's okay. We're doing the best we can to keep that day Holy and set it apart from the other 6 days. Saturday is for sports, Sunday is for the Lord. It's our effort to "Stand a Little Taller" as President Hinckley always advised us to do.