**Barbara Kemp will be going through the temple this Wednesday, March 24th at the 10:00 a.m. session. It would be wonderful to have you join her and support her if you can. Congratulations Barbara!!
**CAUCUS MEETINGS- March 23 @ 7pm AF01 and AF 01S Voting Precincts. Democrats will be meeting at the Pleasant Grove Senior Center 242 W 200 S. Republicans will be meeting at the Pleasant Grove Jr. High 810 N. 100 E. A letter was read during sacrament meeting encouraging us to go and participate.
**Don't forget that our RS BIRTHDAY BASH is THIS WEEKEND starting Friday night at 6pm. We will be doing a fun game with your baby pictures so REMEMBER TO BRING YOUR BABY PICTURES!!
Ok, now for the lesson notes. Last week Sis. Jana Starr gave a wonderful lesson on the Creation. She took us through the scriptures that talk about the Creation and we studied the different things they taught us about it. I particularly liked the part that explained that we all probably had a hand in helping with the Creation. Sis. Starr wants to know who created the Platypus and is looking forward to finding the answer in the life to come.
She showed us some amazingly beautiful pictures taken by our very own Sis. Debbie Evenson depicting the Lord's marvelous creations. It was a very reverent and humbling experience to see the earth in that way and what beautiful things surround us. It makes you want to "go green" all the way and take better care of what has been entrusted to us. To go along with the spirit of this lesson and the last lesson on music, I have changed the opening music to the song "My Heavenly Father Loves Me." It's one of my favorites!
This week, Sis. Joyce Bond talked about Adam and Eve. This one is still fresh in my mind and because I'm the one writing the blog, I get to interject my own thoughts into this :)
She started by talking about how interested she was to find out how many times Adam and Eve are mentioned in the scriptures and church publications and came to discover online that the answer to that is 1, 332 times. We really don't talk much about our first parents and so it's interesting to note that they are mentioned so often.
Of course, being sisters, we talked mostly about Eve, which I loved. I'm a teensy bit Femi-Nazi and so I like that we didn't dwell so much on Adam who takes all the credit! She brought a book called "Women of the Old Testament" by Caroline (I think) Cronk Olson. It looks like a fabulous book and has a wonderful picture of one artist's perception of Eve. Sis. Bond read several passages from this book, but one sentence really stuck with me. "Being the Mother of all Creation, Eve is connected to each of us." That got me thinking about that statement. We all have a little bit of Eve in us. But, could Eve also depict our Heavenly Mother? While I love talking with our Father about things, sometimes I wish that I could talk to our Mother. I know that she would really understand some of the things I go through. As we talked more and more about Eve, I started to develop a different kind of understanding and love for her that I've never had before. Almost as if our Heavenly Mother really was speaking to me and saying, "Yes! I do exist and you and Eve have more in common than you think. Learn about her and you will learn about me." I find myself thirsting for more about Eve and who she was.
Again, since I'm the one writing this blog you get to hear my stories. So, the first time I went through the Temple I tried really hard to pay attention to what I was learning. The thing that struck me funny was that Adam seemed kind of like a little boy pointing fingers. When the Lord asks, "who did this?" Adam points to Eve and says "She made me do it." Eve owns up and says "the devil made me do it." Eve has to apologize first!!!! But, as we were talking today (and I've always thought this) Eve knew EXACTLY what she was doing! She knew the plan better than Adam did because she had that intuition right from the start. She knew that if they were to fulfill all of Father's commandments, it was going to require some sacrifice. Not just getting kicked out of the garden, but leaving Father's presence, working the land themselves instead of having things just grow spontaneously, pain and sorrow, rearing children, and death. She got the whole picture-but Adam gets the blame. Which leads into the next part that got me thinking. The scriptures talk about the Fall of Adam. "Adam fell that men might be; and men are that they might have joy." That word JOY made do a double take. If the fall was so "bad" then how are we supposed to have joy? If it is so hard to work the land yourself and be amongst the thorns, then where does the joy come in? Didn't they have joy in the garden? Sure they did, they just didn't know that was what it was because they didn't know any different. Eve figured it out though. One time, Jason commented to me that he didn't know how I could go from being happy one second, to biting people's heads off the next, and back to being happy, and then sad and depressed, and then happy and so and so forth. I thought this (but didn't say it) "Adam was cursed with working the land and Eve was cursed with the emotions!" She knew that to be happy you had to be sad. To feel pleasure you had to feel pain. So, what is interesting about that scripture is that it doesn't say "men are that they might learn." it says that we are to feel joy. President Hinckley says something to the effect of "Life is to be enjoyed, not just endured." That has a whole new meaning for me now because of this lesson.
I don't have the complete quote because I can't write as fast as you speak, but Sis. Bond ended the lesson with another great thing that got me thinking. The Creation needed the Fall so that the earth would be cared for and people would be created. The Fall needed the Atonement so that we all suffer for our own sins and not Adam's transgressions. And the Atonement needed....this was the part that I got lost. So Joyce, if you're reading this let me know what the rest of it is!!! But, just reading those three parts, you get the idea of how wonderful a plan this really is and how well it works together. Without all the components it wouldn't work and we'd either never leave Father's presence or never make it back.
Phew! Great lesson Joyce. I'm going to go and get that book and learn more about these great women who never get talked about!
And I leave you with this one last thought: I never went on a mission because I'm a Bible Basher-I argue rather than teach. I've had many opportunities to teach the gospel throughout my life and when discussing Adam and Eve with young men, they would really bash Eve. So, I'd remind them of this hotline and tell them to call it 1-800-ADAM-812!
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