hello spring

My husband thinks I'm weird. I hate turning on the bathroom light for fear of what I will see as a reflection in the mirror. I am always saying that even the flat, orange-y tone light in that room makes for an unflattering representation of yourself in the mirror. Perhaps a naturally lit bathroom will make things a bit more tolerable for me. I could easily stare at the mirror all day if all I could see were these sweet, smiling, beautiful faces.

Remember Johnny Lingo?!  I wish I would have been clever enough to come up with that story! However.... I lived it...in. real. life. He's the Johnny to my Mahana. I always tell him that I will try to be the 8 cow wife he deserves... but I gave birth to his 5 little angels, so I say that counts for something :)

I have trials. We have trials. I/we haven't felt so overwhelmed in such a looong time. It's a different type of "overwhelmed". New sets of tests, all at once, because that's how it always seems to be. But even though the weight of the burden(s)  is (are) still upon us, we know we aren't carrying it alone and we know the meaning of "pressing forward" a little better. Opposing forces [discouragement, despair, fear, etc] press against us, and we muster up strength to press back and overcome. A few days ago, it seemed like mountains as tall as the Rockies were ahead of us. Today, I feel like we have the tools to climb those mountains. So, you see, they won't disappear, but we've replenished ourselves with the most basic of element....faith.

There is a reason why I have read the book of First Nephi more times than I can remember. I've experienced everything Nephi's family went through in some way...in my own life. Over and over again.
So now, here we sit... this time, the Harris family has been asked to build a ship. A seemingly impossible task for a young family to do. But where we are now is not so much "worrying" about how impossible the task is... but in gaining access to the knowledge we need to get started. There is a little less "HOW?!" and a lot more "How?"  There is less "We don't know how!" and a little more "Please show us how." Whereas before our pleas (spoken and unspoken) were dressed in human fear and concern, our pleas are now humble and demonstrative of the faith we know we possess, but was hidden underneath the natural man. That natural man--always gets in the way.
 But we are grateful for trials of our faith. We get to teach and show our posterity how to live the gospel... so we welcome the trials and the lessons our children will learn because of them.
The children sing these words with such gusto ..."I will go! I will do!" So I believe that is what this family will be using as a motto.