Connecting

As I was cleaning off the kitchen island, I stumbled across this letter.

 It says:

"Dear Grandma,

I miss you dearly.  I want to spend more time with you so we can cook.  I want to open a restaurant when I grow up but I can't if I don't know how to cook good food.  Anyway I wish you could visit some time.  O and I got braces they are blue and purple.  Another reason why I want you to visit is because I want to learn how to sew and crochet and whatever the other thing is called. xoxoxoxoxox.

From your granddaughter,

JEI

Happy Grandmas Day"

What a pure and tender soul my daughter is.  Now, I'm not sure if it's a referendum on my cooking or my teaching the cooking but apparently her life dream is doomed if left to the resources she has avail to her.  What I do know is that she is yearning for a connection.  She wants to soak up the love and knowledge of grandma.  She wants a connection to who she is and where she came from on the most primal and basic level.  It breaks my heart.  She also has unknowingly combined the talents of both her grandmas.  Neither of which she has much contact with.  

Interestingly enough I have been pondering over this exact yearning myself.  Why we were chosen to live where we do.  Why my children can't benefit from the loving knowledge my father has to give or why can't I benefit from my brothers many talents in building and fixing things and how much they love and adore their families.  Why can't our children learn their rich heritage on a more frequent basis from Nate's parents?  I've been trying to understand God's plan for us as it relates to extended family and why we are where we are.  Are there things I could do to make the distance seem smaller?  Absolutely.  There are tons of things I could do.  The question is, why don't I?  Other than my lame excuse of being a recluse, I don't really have one.  

Thinking of a title for this post flooded my mind with the various ways our souls yearn for connection.  

The most important connection?  The one with our Father in heaven.  There are lots of ways we can try and connect with Him and learn from him and enjoy his love and companionship.  

While we were in Carthage connecting to the restoration of the gospel and immersing ourselves in the strength of all those who came before us, I snapped a picture of this monument.  

"I never feel to force my doctrine upon any person: I rejoice to see prejudice give way to truth, and the traditions of men dispersed by the pure principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ"

Joseph Smith Jr 

Doing my own person family history work led me to find that my Dad's Dad's side of the family were carpenters.  Every one of them -with the exception of his father who lost fingers in wood shop class and ended up working in a silk mill and then later in steel mill.  But, my great grandfather and his father and his father were all in construction.  My 3rd great grandfather built ships and caskets.  What I also learned is that a lot of their sons followed in their footsteps or their daughters married men who were carpenters.  This led me to think about the greatest carpenter of all, Jesus Christ.  I had lots of feelings on my role as a carpenter in the Kingdom and my opportunity to be a Savior among men by doing the saving ordinances of my ancestors.  This connection to my family helped me to understand who I am and what my mission here on earth is.  

 I have also been thinking about "tools" lately.  How we are given a set of tools or gifts to work with.  Most of the time we have a general idea of what a specific tool is or what we should do with it, but sometimes we don't.  A specific example is teaching yw.  There are teaching tools and converting tools that I can learn to use, but most of the time I think that I haven't the foggiest idea how to use the tool.  I think, "well, I'm pretty sure this is a hammer so I'm just gonna start hammering everything in sight and hopefully that will work."  One of the biggest challenges is learning what tools you have and how to use them. 

On our trip to Nauvoo we also connected with Nate's 3rd or 4th great grandfather on his father's mother's side, WW Phelps.  While he did live in Nauvoo, he never operated the printing press there.  It was still fun to learn about his trade.  We also spent time telling our children of the biggest story of redemption ever told (in our opinion) and the greatest most beautiful story of forgiveness.  It's never too late to do the right thing and seek repentance and forgiveness.  All hope is never lost!  We were able to connect to that ancestor and what we can learn from his experience.   

We can also connect with our living relatives. We can learn life skills or family history from them like with Jordyn wanting to spend more time with grandma. We can also invite our family members to be Saviors with us.  We can invite them to do their own family history or bring them along to do yours.  We invited our cousins to do my ancestors baptisms.  We can invite them to feel the power and the love from doing this sacred work and strengthen our bond to each other in the process.  

 While engaging in this connecting with the past, we can also use it to heal our future.  Heal our relationships with family members.  Focus on becoming a carpenter that builds, remodels and fixes souls.  We can be carpenters too with everyone we come in contact with.  As we make this connection of being a carpenter, we are becoming more like our Savior and thus connecting with Him by participating in His work and glory.

This life is all about connections.  I'm trying my best not to squander the opportunity, but there are lots of improvements I could make....good thing I've got my tool box that was given to me by the Master Carpenter.  The Holy Ghost is there to help me figure out how to use those tools and to sanctify their use.  The super cool thing is that the Lord is simultaneously using those tools on me. (insert talk about grace)