Amusement parks and Relief Society Manuals

What gets me through the dishes:)

Sister Tanner, who wrote the new manual Daughters of my Kingdom, speaks in 
this mormon channel episode about her process. 


It's short. I've listened to it a few time now, loading the dishwasher.  And bits of it have lingered with me.


She says this book's purpose is to get the women of the church from where they are, to where thy need to be.


She describes feeling stuck, and having a dream
 (abotu 6 minutes in)
"I am not prone to having dreams," she explained, "that I can even remember, but I had a very vivid dream in this place where I was stuck."







She discribes going on a hike, following someone,  but she looses sight of them and ends up 
lost in an amusement park.


"I couldn't see any way out, I could see over the walls at where I needed to be, but couldn't figure out how to get there."


She decided maybe this dream meant that she needed to lay aside some of the amusements of the world, so she could have the Spirit of the project again. 


She then almost immediately felt,  "Maybe this isn't just an allegory for me, but this is an allegory, for the women of the world or the sisters in the church that they have allowed the amusements of the world to encroach upon them...they're lost in an amusement park, and they need to lay aside the things of this world and seek for the things of a better.
That felt like, again that originall injunction that we need to get the sisters in the church form where there are to where they need to be."

This world is so noisy, so flashy, so full of things we can constantly be reading , checking, viewing. 


Things that dont' really feed our souls, or make us grow. 


I don't think this was meant in a accusatory way. We all get sucked in to the cares and values of this world. I think it comes as a gentle invitation, to follow the Saviour, away from the noise, away from the clamour and find greater peace and purpose. 


There is so much good to take in, and we live in an age when there is endless accessibility to interesting things. But we are also warned again adn again to not let the good, crowd out the best. 


I love how the women who wrote of a constitution for the women in church,  (with their oh-so- womanly way: seeking for ways to improve,  serve and gather) were told by Joseph Smith that the Lord had "something better" (see chapter 2, in Daughters of my Kindgom)


When he did organize them, shortly there after, he left them with a promise,  
"If you live up to these principles how great and glorious!—if you live up to your privilege, the angels cannot be restrained from being your associates. … If you will be pure, nothing can hinder."

Joseph Smith

If you remember back (to this post) my word for myself this year is "purify".

Things that are impure have fillers and additives, things that aren't essential, that sometimes aren't even real. 

What amusements are tainting my life? what is robbing me, even of just the time I could spend in more soul satisfying pursuits? Learning of the Lord, or serving and loving His children.

That is what pure sources offer, true satisfaction.

Sister Eliza R Snow said the Holy Ghost “satisfies and fills up every longing of the human heart, and fills up every vacuum.  I am filled with that Spirit,” she continued, “my soul is satisfied, and I can say in good earnest, that the trifling things of the day do not seem to stand in my way at all. But just let me lose my hold of that spirit and power of the Gospel, and partake of the spirit of the world, in the slightest degree, and trouble comes; there is something wrong. I am tried, and what will comfort me? You cannot impart comfort to me that will satisfy the immortal mind, but that which comes from the Fountain above. And is it not our privilege to so live that we can have this constantly flowing into our souls?”

There is so much in my life that doesn't satisfy....really. Things that, even though "not bad" have me "partake in the spirit of the world"  just a bit too much. That, to use Joseph Smith's wording "hinder" me.

This scripture story reminds me of one of my favorite songs.

And leave me feeling lost in an amusement park, wandering, instead of purposefully following my Master in the paths He would have me take.

I think He's always walking with us, but like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, maybe we don't always recognizing Him there. 

If we can get away from the distractions....

In RS today we learned about the Six Destructive Ds—doubt, discouragement, distraction, lack of diligence, disobedience, and disbelief from this talk. 

I found it very interesting that distraction came after discouragment. I know in my life when I seek distraction most, is when I haven't sought as diligently for the encourgement of the Lord and His Spirit.

I'm grateful for Daughters in My Kingdom, not just as a new resource (yet another manual) but as a gift from our Heavenly Father, that has the power, specifically to help women, like me, who are trying to get from where I am to where I need to be--which is beside my Savior, close enough to feel His power, His mercy and His help.  And His love. 


Because we're not meant to do it alone.