Mynnette's Musings: Self Reliance

The Parable of Fast Food

 

                I have noticed something about myself.  I go through phases where I don’t eat any fast food for a long time and then I don’t have time one day and so I’ll go through a drive through.  This makes me once again realize how convenient it is to have someone do the work of preparing food for me, and I waste a lot of money buying things to eat that I could have made for less at home.  It’s so much cheaper to buy the ingredients and make the meals yourself, but it is time consuming and sometimes labor intensive.

                This can be related to life in this way:  we can choose to do things for ourselves and work hard but reap the reward of less money taken, or we can always shirk our responsibility and have others do our work for us.  This is the more costly option of the two.  Not only do we rob ourselves of much needed work and learning, we create a burden upon others and take away from our spiritual bank.  Heavenly Father has taught us that He expects us to do all that we can and then Christ will make up for the rest.  How scary is it to think that if we do not do ALL that we can, we have robbed ourselves and burdened someone else along the way!

                I sincerely hope that we learn to do things for ourselves when we are young so that instead of creating a burden on those around us, we will be able to give ourselves to the important work Heavenly Father has given us to do here on earth.  If we do so, I know that our spiritual banks will be full for our time on earth and for our life to come!

Related scriptures:       Genesis 3:19, Moses 4:25, 2 Chronicles 15:7, Proverbs 6:6, Proverbs 10:16, Proverbs 14:23, Proverbs 20:11, Ecclesiastes 5:12, Matthew 25:15, Romans 2:10, 1 Thessalonians 2:9, 1 Thessalonians 4:11, 2 Nephi 5:17, 2 Nephi 9:51, Jacob 1:19, Mosiah 2:14, Mosiah 10:5, Mosiah 23:5, Mosiah 27:5, Alma 10:4, Alma 36:25, D&C 42:42, D&C 58:27, D&C 68:30, D&C 72:17, D&C 82:18.

Mynnette's Musings: Share Your Leftover Candy!

The Parable of the Left-over Halloween Candy

I tend to go a bit nuts on buying Halloween candy.  I want to be prepared to have a lot on hand to give out to our trick or treaters.  The problem is, I usually get more than we need and it ends up staying in our cabinet getting stale until the next year unless I throw it out.  I don’t even think about giving it out to other people who may like it but didn’t come to our house to trick or treat!

This is how our testimony can become if we’re not aware.  It’s easy to get up on fast Sunday and to share our testimony for those who have come to hear them.  It is not so easy to share our testimony with those who may like it, but didn’t come that week but do need it!  If we don’t continually share our testimony each day and not just present it to those who come to hear it on fast Sunday.  We can do this by living the gospel, talking to those around us about gospel topics that we have a testimony of or just testifying that Christ loves everyone by doing simple acts of service.  I hope that instead of letting our testimonies go stale, we share it and don’t waste it and let it become stale!

Related scriptures: John 3:11, Acts 10:42, 1 Timothy 2:5-6, 1 John 4:14, Alma 5:45-46, D&C 17:3, D&C 88:81.

Mynnette's Musings: The Leaky Faucet of Sin

The Parable of the Leaky Faucet

 

                I’m sure that we’ve all experienced the annoyance of a leaky faucet.  It is a simple fix, but if we let it go, it just gets more and more annoying each day.  We hear it while we’re lying in bed trying to sleep and it keeps us up.  We’re trying to read a favorite book and it breaks our concentration.  We are talking on the phone and are unable to concentrate on our conversation because of the distracting leak!

                Our sins are the leaky faucets of our spirits.  They can be easy to fix, but if we let them go, they become more and more troublesome each day.  We will think about them while trying to sleep at night, while trying to relax and while working with others.  If we let them go too long, it is too late and we are stuck with our sins.  I pray that we will take the time each day to truly repent of our sins so that we can go about our lives with a clear mind and a clear conscious.

Related scriptures: Numbers 5:7, Ezra 10:11, Psalm 38:18, Proverbs 28:13, Mosiah 4:10, D&C 58:42, Isaiah 1:16, Ezekiel 18:30, Hosea 13:14, Matthew 3:2, Mark 1:15,  Luke 13:3, Luke 15:7, Acts 2:38, Acts 3:19, 2 Nephi 9:23, 3 Nephi 11:32, D&C 133:16, Moses 6:57, Article of Faith 4.

Mynnette's Musings: Don't Sniff Expired Milk

The Parable of the Expired Milk

 

                I’m sure you’ve all smelled expired milk.  It really is not pleasant.  I have come to realize that I really don’t need to smell milk to know when it’s bad.  I look at the date on the side of the milk and know that if it’s past the date, I need to get rid of it!  I shouldn’t have to smell or taste it to see if it’s bad!  Someone who has knowledge about the milk already has told me when it’s bad!

                This is really applicable to things we choose to do.  We know certain things are bad!  We don’t have to smell or taste them to know that they aren’t what we should be doing!  We have someone with a greater knowledge who lets us know if something isn’t quite right.  Actually, we have many someones!  We have the Holy Ghost.  We have parents.  We have righteous leaders.  If we listen to them, we won’t have to go through the physical pain of smelling or tasting bad milk!

                It is my prayer that as we go through life, we will trust in those with higher knowledge to lead us to do the things that we should and avoid the expired milk experiences that will come our way.

Related scriptures:  Joshua 24:15, Psalms 119:30, Isaiah 66:3James 1:27, D&C 37:4, D&C 59:9, .Moses 3:17.

Mynnette's Musings: Sharing What We Love

The Parable of Doctor Who

 

                If there was a prize for best show of all time, I feel that Doctor Who would win!  I love the show.  I love the premise, I love the characters, I love it!  I would also love it if everyone I knew loved it as much as I do and would watch it as much as I do.  It is so awesome!  There is not one person that I think I WOULDN'T share it with!  There are so many things you can learn from watching it.  I feel that it is the on of the most wonderful shows ever and I talk about it to others.  I also like to hope that I am becoming like the Doctor—he’ll always help someone in need if they are good or wanting good.  He’s always there!  Doctor Who has become part of my life!

                This is the way the gospel should be!  It should be something we want to share, something that becomes our life!  It should be what we talk about all the time and want to share with our friends.  It should be what we crave to study in our free time!  How wonderful it would be if we were as unafraid to share the gospel as we are to share our favorite TV show!  How awesome to let the gospel become such a big part of your life that the study of it makes you excited to get up in the morning!

                I hope that as we strive to live the gospel more fully, that we will be so into the gospel that we can’t help but share it with everyone!

Related scriptures: Matthew 6:13 & 22, Mosiah 2:21, Helaman 10:4, Ether 12:13, D&C 4:2, D&C 11:3, D&C 58:27, D&C 123:13.

Mynnette's Musings: De-Cluttering Our Minds

The Parable of the Cluttered Room

                I sometimes have a problem with letting my clutter get too out of hand.  This usually happens in our bedroom because I’m rarely in it—just to sleep and sometimes read.  There are sometimes piles of clothes precariously stacked on top of night tables, books piled up in an unnerving manner and bags of things thrown into inconvenient corners.  This causes me a lot of stress sometimes because I worry about hurting myself in the middle of the night when I can’t see what’s in front of me.  I also worry that perhaps I’ll knock down a pile while maneuvering around.  It causes me a lot of grief until I finally clean the mess.  Then I can finally sleep without worrying about hurting myself in the middle of the night!

                This is like our mind.  If we let anything into it, thrown carelessly about, we can’t think clearly or maneuver through our daily lives with peace because something will pop into our heads at the most inopportune time.  If we let things pile up and don’t take the time to weed our thoughts or replace them with neat stacks of good thoughts, our stress will continue to increase!  We should take time each and every day to put worthy thoughts into our heads and throw away the piles of magazines from 20 years ago that we don’t want and shouldn’t read anyway!  We will be happier if we do so!

                I know that as we go through life, we should be very careful about what we watch, listen to and participate in.  It is easy to clean a room—but hard to clean out a precious mind that is so susceptible to unworthy images.

Related scriptures:  Psalms 94:11, Psalms 119:113, Proverbs 12:5, Isaiah 55:8-9, Romans 8:7, 1 Corinthians 2:16, 2 Corinthians 8:12, Ephesians 4:17, 1 Peter 4:1, 2 Nephi 9:39, 2 Nephi 25:29, Mosiah 2:9, D&C 8:2, D&C 11:13, D&C 67:10, D&C 84:85.

Mynnette's Musings: Keeping our Spiritual Battery Charged

The Parable of the Cell Phone

                Cell phones are wonderful inventions!  People can get a hold of you any time of day or night!  You can be in contact with other people any time and be more effective in making your contacts.  There are some things that can hinder this productiveness, though.  You can be in an area that doesn’t have a good cell signal and have dropped and/or missed calls.  You can also have your phone shut off because you don’t want to be bothered.  The most irritating thing, in my opinion, that can hinder your productiveness is that your battery can lose all of its power and render your cell phone useless.  Another sad thing that can happen is that due to financial trouble, you can’t pay your bill and your phone is shut off.

                So it is in our lives with the Holy Ghost and prayer.  We can be in direct contact 24/7 with our Father in Heaven when we are in tune with the Spirit and pray constantly.  We will get all our calls and messages and become more effective in living and teaching the gospel. 

If we choose to do things that drive the Spirit away, such as watch a not so good movie or participate in unworthy activities, our signal is not as strong as it could be.  You will miss the calls from Heavenly Father that could prove vital to your well being or your very life!  You could have been having a wonderful day where you felt the Spirit and were in tune, but by doing one bad thing, your call is dropped.

 If we become angry at God and turn from Him, it is like shutting our phone off.  We may think we are punishing the one we do not wish to communicate with, but it cuts us off from more than just one person when we do this.  We miss all our calls and all our messages and we are spiritually shut off.

The saddest thing that can happen is that we just let our battery die or our spirit gets disconnected from the Holy Ghost.  This happens when we consciously or unconsciously forget to charge our spirit so that we can be in tune with the Holy Ghost.  This happens when we forget to pray, read our scriptures and do the other good things that we know we need to do.  Sometimes we may be “too busy” or else have other things to do that we think are more important.  This is not so!  The battery is our spirit and what keeps us going!

I hope and pray that as we go about our daily lives, that we remember to continually charge our battery, keep our phone on and stay in a good signal receiving area so that we can learn the things that will make us happy in this life and in our eternal lives after our probation is complete.

Related scriptures: 2 Kings 2:9, Psalms 51:11, Roman 8:9, Galatians 5:17, 1 Thessalonians 5:19, Jude 1:19, Mosiah 2:36, Alma 34:38, Helaman 4:24, John 14:26, Moroni 8:26, D&C 31:11, D&C 42:17, Moses 6:61.

Mynnette's Musings: Dirty Dishes

The Parable of the Dirty Dishes

 

                My husband and I were so very excited to move into our first home!  It was everything we could wish for, except one thing I was really not happy about.  There wasn’t a dishwasher!  All of our dishes would have to be cleaned by hand.  We were determined never to have dirty dishes in the sink for longer than a day.  We did quite well the first few days, but soon work, church callings, basically life took over and we let the dishes go for a day.  About 3 days past, and I found myself standing in front of a giant mound of dishes. Dishes don’t just disappear—they’re always there to be dealt with. I was so upset!  I had such good intentions!  And they were all for naught, because I had failed.

                As I started to wash all the dishes, I became impatient and cleaned quickly instead of thoroughly.  I ended up having to go back and rewash some dishes that did not get fully clean.  It took many hours to finish the job and I was exhausted by the end of my experience.  We did eventually have enough money to buy a portable dish washer and I cannot tell you how happy I was to be rid of the dishes quicker and more efficiently!

                This is how repentance is.  Sin is always there.  There is no way to get away from it.  If we repent each day of the little things we do, our pile doesn’t become too large to clean!  If we take care of each mistake as it occurs, we will have less to worry about.  If we let ourselves go and wait, thinking we have time to do the dishes later, our pile becomes overwhelming and we feel like we can’t repent.  We will try to repent half-heartedly and end up costing ourselves more grief and pain than if we had repented fully in the first place.  And best of all, if we continue to seek to make the Savior’s Atonement part of our life, He becomes our dishwasher and makes it easier for us to become clean again!

                I pray that we will turn our hearts to the Lord and continually repent each day so that we may stand blameless in the last day and come before our Father and our Savior with clean hands a pure heart!

Related scriptures: Joshua 24:15, Psalms 119:60, Proverbs 3:28, Isaiah 22:13, Matthew 24:44, Mark 13:36, Luke 12:47, Luke 21:24, Alma 5:29-31, Alma 13:27, Helaman 13:29-38, 3 Nephi 8:24, D&C 6:3, D&C 33:17, D&C 64:25, D&C 88:83.

Mynnette's Musings: Building God's Kingom on Earth

The Parable of the Hedgerow

Living in Kansas, you get to see and feel the effects of the wind on a regular basis.  It is interesting to note that the effects of the wind aren’t just felt, but seen.   There are single trees in the middle of a field that are bent over because the wind has blown them constantly.  There are rows of trees, called hedgerows, which are all bent in the same direction due to the same cause.  But there are also groups of trees that are not bent because they have stood together and have been able to withstand the wind.  The more the trees, the more the strength.

The wind is the adversary.  One tree is you!  Which tree do you want to be?  The one standing alone in the field because you feel that you can do it all by yourself?  The tree that stands with a few friends in a row trying to resist the wind and failing to do so?  Or would you prefer to be the tree safely standing in the cluster that your family, ward, and stake can become to you?  I pray that we all try to be the last type of tree so that we are able to withstand together the temptations and misfortunes that will befall us in our lives.  Our families, wards and stakes create a protection far beyond that of just ourselves or a few friends.  Cling to your family, ward and stake.  Choose a Zion attitude and help build the Lord’s Kingdom!

Related Scriptures:     Exodus 15:10, Alma 26:6, Alma 37:15, Helaman 5:12, Mormon 5:16&18, D&C 90:5, Psalm 106:47, Matthew 18:19-20, Ephesians 1:10-12, 2 Nephi 29:14, D&C 101:22.

Mynnette's Musings: Where am I going?!

The Dual Parable of Augusta, KS

 

                One afternoon I received a call from the sister missionaries serving our ward to ask a favor.  They were in need of a ride from their residence in Haysville, KS to Arkansas City, KS to complete splits with the sisters in that area.  The distance between the two cities is 30 miles. 

Sister Nelson, Sister Reynolds, and I started out from Haysville and, guided by Sister Reynolds as to how to get to her residence, arrived there safely about 45 minutes after leaving Haysville.  Hugs were exchanged and goodbyes were said as Sister Clark replaced Sister Reynolds in our car for the journey back to Haysville. 

We left Ark City confident that we were on the right track and knew our way home.  About 5 minutes into our journey, we received a call from Sister Reynolds asking if we knew our way back.  We assured her that we were confident in our knowledge of how to get back home.  We continued on, talking about the gospel and having a wonderful time. 

We came to the end of the road we were on and I realized that because we had missed a turn, we had ended up in Augusta, KS, some 40 miles north and east of our intended destination.  I reassured the sisters that I knew how to get back, as I have friends who live in Augusta.  I also told them I was confident that I knew the quickest way back. 

Instead of heeding a feeling that I had to continue to a major road, I took the first left turn that I knew to be a quicker way back southwest.  Upon coming to the crossroads where I needed to turn, we found a sign that told us that construction work was being done on the road and we had to turn back. 

I made an executive decision to take a dirt road leading us west so that we would not have to go all the way back to the highway we had left.  It was a bumpy, dirty and sometimes scary journey to travel that dirt road in a minivan.  I had to be very careful not to go too fast, not to hit potholes and not to hit other cars traveling the opposite direction.

We finally arrived at our intended destination, Haysville, 1 ½ hours later than planned.  The sisters had just enough time to go inside and discard their items before we again hit the road and went to their dinner appointment.

When I got home, feeling a bit foolish, I decided to ponder on what I could have done differently in the situation.  I realized that Sister Reynolds had had a prompting from the Spirit to call us and we should have heeded that prompting as she did in making sure we knew where we were going.  I also realized that had I listened to her then, we would not have ended up in Augusta. 

The other lesson I learned was that I do not always know the correct way back and should listen to the Spirit, who does.  If I would have heeded the prompting I had to go to a major road instead of taking my shortcut, we would have arrived still late, but not as late as we did.

This is how our lives sometimes turn out.  We are on a course that we feel is the right path for us.  While on this course, we may receive counsel from parents or leaders asking us if we need help or giving us suggestions.  We have the agency to choose whether or not to accept this counsel—and we should!  If we don’t, we end up very far away from where we should be. 

If we then realize that we should have listened, we have the opportunity to repent.  The Spirit will guide us to the fastest way to repent, and we should heed it.  If we do not, we end up with another road block in our way, having to turn around once more.  We will end up treading a much more difficult road in order to not have to back track to the beginning of where we realized we went wrong. 

Oh, may we always listen to those righteous friends who have our best interests at heart!  May we be open to the Spirit’s guiding influence to help us back when we stray so that we may one day live again with our Father in Heaven and our Savior in perfect happiness.

Related scriptures: Jacob 4:7, Ether 12:27, Mark 13:33, 1 Corinthians 10:12, 1 Nephi 15:25, Alma 12:9, D&C 21:4, D&C 84:43, D&C 93:48, Deuteronomy 7:12, Proverbs 12:15, Proverbs 23:22, 2 Nephi 8:1, 2 Nephi 9:29, Alma 5:38, 3 Nephi 28:34, Exodus 19:5, Exodus 20:12, Leviticus 26:3&21, Deuteronomy 20:30, Joshua 24:24, 1 Samuel 15:22, Ecclesiastes 12:13, Zechariah 6:15, Luke 11:28, John 7:17, John 15:10, Acts 5:29, Psalms 38:18, Proverbs 28:13, Isaiah 55:17, Ezekiel 16:61, Matthew 3:2-11, Luke 13:3, 2 Corinthians 7:10, 2 Peter 3:9, 2 Nephi 2:21, Jacob 3:3, Alma 5:31, 3 Nephi 9:22, D&C 18:13, D&C 58:43, Moses 6:57.

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