Easter Testimony

Since it is Easter and all I thought I would write a post about Jesus Christ. I have been reading the gospels in the New Testament about the last week of the Savior's life and am in awe each time I read it of what it means for Him to be our Savior.  So much is encompassed in the Garden of Gesthemane and on the cross that it is beyond our mortal minds to truly comprehend it all, but the little we can comprehend I am truly grateful for.

I know that Jesus Christ did indeed walk upon this earth. That he came and was recognized by those who had humble hearts and minds. I know that he suffered in the Garden of Gesthemane and there took upon himself our sins. But not only our sins, our sorrows, our sadness, grief and pain that we may experience, thereby being able to understand every human emotion so in depth that he truly knows each of us and knows our trials. For this I am so grateful because we each have times when we feel like no one understand or can possibly know how we feel, but HE does. From there he was betrayed by a friend and led away to be tried. He was mocked, spit upon, whipped, and finally nailed to the cross. All without harsh words for those committing these acts against him, still being the perfect example of love and compassion. In fact he prays for these men and asks Heavenly Father to forgive them. Then he dies on the cross leaving his friends and family weeping and mourning.
I imagine Mary Magdalene as a friend who dearly misses Jesus going to sit at the tomb just to feel near him as I have done with my family after they have passed. We go to visit their resting places to feel close to them. So I imagine this is what Mary was doing.  But when she arrived the stone was rolled away and the tomb empty. She was so saddened thinking someone had taken his body. But then the most spectacular thing happened, there he was in front of her nail prints and all, a glorified resurrected being. He had just prepared the way for you and I to be able to return to live with our Father in Heaven, for each and every person to someday be able to be resurrected and return again to our Heavenly home. I can only imagine to tears of joy Mary cried as she ran to tell of the great news on that first Easter morning.

To quote a favorite hymn: I know that My Redeemer lives, what comfort this sweet sentence gives.
Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world, He is not dead, but lives and we too will live again. I testify that he knows each of us and wants us to be with Him. May we each have a blessed Easter day and celebrate it's true meaning.

Happy Easter
Sara

Cable and Les MIserables

About a week ago we shut off the cable. We had been discussing this for a long time, but Aaron really wanted his news back then and we had a show or two we watched. But recently we can get all of that online or on our phones now so off the expensive and ever increasing cable went. I don't know why it was kind of tough to do. I rarely watch the thing in the day and about the only time we watched cable was when The Walking Dead was on and at night before we went to bed. But we did it.

We decided to get an apple tv. Kind of like a roku. So we still have our Netflix and we can stream shows wirelessly from the iMac, so it's nice. I don't think we'll miss it much.  My in laws may be doing the same thing soon because cable is so expensive.  I went to turn in the HD box (we got this when we threatened to cancel last year when our bill was going to jump about 40.00 for nothing, they gave us free HD for a year and no price jump), anywho a lady was in the store saying that her bill goes up but she sees no benefits are added things from it. The customer service rep just said that is just how it is.
They may not last long with that attitude.

So for Les Mis. We finally watched the new Les Miserable over the past two nights.  Thats right TWO nights because IT SUCKED. We forced ourselves to finish it thinking since there was so much hype and raving it must get better. Nope. The Les Mis with Liam Neeson and Uma Thurman, phenomenal movie. I don't mind a musical but literally singing every word was painful. The actors are top notch but they cannot sing, so that made for bad acting and bad singing.  Most of the time it felt like they were forcing words into the music that didn't really match. If I hadn't seen the other Les Mis I'm not sure it would have even come together, there wasn't much character development between Cozet and Jean Valjean nor between Cozet and the beau.  I was really disappointed and bored. Glad I didn't pay to see that in the theatre, I probably would have left.

On a different note I am sure ready for the cold to go and the warm to stay. I'm ready for Easter and the awesome celebration of Christ's resurrection. We decided to start a family tradition this year of visiting a loved ones grave each year on Easter and discussing death and the resurrection. I'm excited to do this. I think this year we are going to visit Aaron's grandpa Haney. I think we can really get the Easter message to our kids this way.

Valentines, Snow, and the Temple

So there is lots to catch up on......
First, Valentines Day. Pretty low key, honestly I'm not a get me chocolate that I will devour and don't really need (not for weight purposes, but I don't need it because it's not healthy), or another stuffed animal to sit around. I do like flowers though, they are pretty and I can actually put them out and they look nice. So any who we had a pretty low key Valentines, I got a You Curl, I told Aaron I wanted one. One of my friend's Patricia told me about them and her hair looked so good I thought I would try it.  Maybe I just didn't do it right but it didn't work out too well. So I took it back. We got the girls balloons and some candy. Our ceiling in our living room goes all the way to the top floor so we thought it would be fun to let one of the helium balloons go and see how long it would take to fall. Kayla thought it was pretty funny!

Sideway,  but there's our balloon up there. 

I don't love the cold, but Kayla has been so eager to build a snow man. It finally snowed enough good packing snow that we made a tiny one in our bird bath. Kayla hated the snow getting packed on the bottom of her boots though, so she would get so frustrated walking around. I had to kick it off the bottom of her boots quite a bit, but all in all it was nice to actually get outside and play a bit. Plus, Aaron got to stay home. He had to work still, but we got to see him and play with him on his breaks.

SNOWMAN!!!

Kicking the snow off

Yesterday we had the opportunity to go to the Oklahoma City Temple. For my non-mormon friends temples are a the House of the Lord, a place we consider to be sacred and more than just a church building. Here we are able to learn more about our Heavenly Father and reflect on our lives and our part in His plan. Here's a link for you more curious souls. http://www.lds.org/topics/temples?lang=eng

We have ben trying to go to the new temple in Kansas City, MO, but we had  sickness the first weekend and then I had obligations the next, then Kanas decided to have a blizzard so I just said let's just go to whatever one we can. I'm glad we decided to do this. I really enjoyed my time with just the two of us. We got to talk about all sorts of things from politics, to our jobs as parents, to spiritual things.

I wanted to mention a few things we discussed.
First, we both have political opinions and we can both be really passionate about our views on certain ones, but our ultimate conclusion was that the place in which we can do the most good in making real change in this world is within our own home. We see many people so engrossed in the newest political saga or talking point that it literally get's their blood boiling. Or others whom all they talk about it seems is this stuff (personally I feel to start arguments) I mean come on unless you know everyone who's seeing it agrees with you, you know an arguments going to happen. Anyways, my point is does all the ranting and typing and sharing really make a difference, or are you spending a lot of wasted time on that while things of more importance are slipping by unnoticed?
We also have decided to cancel cable. This is one of our ways to get our house more in order, not so much because we watch it too much, but more so because there's not much good to watch. So we are going to try apple tv and we have Netflix, so we will see how that works out.  I'm betting we won't miss it much.

What things in your life are maybe not bad, but for you personally may be something you need to take a step back from? Facebook, pinterest, tv, etc... It could even be things we wouldn't consider to be bad at all, do we feel the need to have our phone always within reach or must we check it at every buzz or ding? Kind of reminds me of Pavlov's dog's. We so quickly become conditioned. Maybe take a step back and feel how it feels to not be able to be contacted or found at every moment. Now I say this all pointing the finger at myself, that's why I share these are some realizations I am coming to, thought others may need them as well.
Have a great Week!!