May 23, 2009 Journal

We had stake conference last week. One of the speakers on Sunday morning gave a talk that really helped me to understand a principle of the gospel that I have been struggling with. I always wondered how Heavenly Father could keep forgiving us for making the same mistakes over and over again. She used the example of patience. She said that every night she would pray for forgiveness for being impatient with her kids and said how she would try to do better but she always felt how could He keep forgiving her for not learning this lesson of patience that she kept asking forgiveness for and asking help with. She felt unworthy to keep asking for his help when she was impatience with her children the very next day. A few days later she was listening to her little girl practice on the piano and it came to her (through a still small voice), that she wasn’t upset with her daughter for all the mistakes she was making on the piano selection, in fact she loved that she was trying over and over to get it right. A little voice whispered to her this is how it is with Heavenly Father. This life is our practice session, we keep practicing each principle over and over until we have it down and then we move on to the next principle. He is willing to forgive us over and over because he knows this is our practice time some things we may need to practice on for most our life and other things we will master and move on. It was like an epiphany to me.

We are on our way to Green River to run in the 5k Memorial Race for the year anniversary of Keith Young’s death. I can’t believe it has been a year from his death. That was a crazy time. Jon was graduating from High School. He had lacrosse stake finals, and track state finals. Marci had just had Meg I went out for 3 or 4 days at the beginning of the month and then I asked Jessica if she would go out to help Marci for a few more days because it was such a busy time and I couldn’t stay longer. While Jessica was there Marci had appendicitis and had her appendix removed. It was such a blessing that Jessica was there when it happened. But it was a stressful and busy time. Anyway back to traveling to Green River, Jamie and Kirk are coming with us. The race is at 10:00 am Saturday. We will run the race, visit for a bit, shower and then head back home.

Mindi and Dave came in on Wednesday evening. They went to Logan Thursday and where suppose to be there until tomorrow, but Dave has an appointment with a dentist in Provo for an associateship tomorrow morning so they will be home without us for a day darn it.

Sunday May 24
We are now back home from the race and it is Sunday morning. I was pretty impressed with myself, I came in 74th in the race and my time was 42 minutes and 17 seconds for a 5 k. They said they had around 380 runners/walkers. Jack signed me up for a runner although I don’t run the whole time I run two minutes and walk a minute or something like that. But it was good he signed me up for that because if you were a walker you couldn’t run at all. A cute friend said she was going to have to talk to her personal trainer because here I was I had Lymphoma and I beat her. The Young’s are an awesome family. It was a real honor to participate and be part of Keith’s memorial run. We saw so many dear people that have impacted our lives. It was wonderful to be there.