Empowering Daughters of God

When I watched Diary of a Wimpy Kid with my kids, I thought, "yep.....that's about right, middle school was the worst".  I think I've successfully blocked out parts of it because my conscious and subconscious doesn't want to remember it!  It's not that school itself was bad or the teachers were bad, but it's just a really crappy time for developing kids! I had a few really amazing teachers in middle school.  Fortunately and unfortunately, homeschooling isn't "new school, old cheese", but rather a whole different kind of cheese, maybe even one that stinks on its own without having to sit on the playground for months!  Haha!  I mean that in a good way and maybe.....sometimes a bad way..........let's just say it's challenging! Being a home schooler puts you in a position subject to many judgements and criticisms from others......but what doesn't, am I right?  I feel like I have been under a microscope for a long time with this subjec...

  Luke 17: 15-16 says “And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan.”   When thinking about this story I thought, is there any reason why the other 9 did not go Back to show gratitude?   I like to give people the benefit of the doubt and believe that there are always 2 sides to the story.   There may be parts we are missing perhaps.   I thought maybe they were skeptics?   Maybe they did not know or believe they had been healed?   Or maybe they did give thanks, but in private?   I’m not sure.   Then I read earlier on in the story Luke 17: 12-14; “And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off; And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us! And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. An...

 This last week while at work I was talking with a coworker and dear friend.......Yajaira, as we often do!  The conversation turned to things of a spiritual nature and religious routines and so forth.  We both admitted that we wanted to teach our families the gospel better and read our scriptures more, etc.  We talked about the different ways we and our spouses grew up in and out of our church.  We discussed the difficulties we find in ourselves to keep up and be perfect, or close to perfect, haha, yeah right!  With all the "perfection" out there...........or supposed perfection due to social media and the Utah LDS cultural expectation, sometimes I wonder.........does this expectation really exist or do we just think it does???  So often I think it's our own misconception that creates the expectation.  We want to be good..........we want to be perfect..........we want to be worthy, however, we forget that worthiness is not the same as perfection!...

I was a horrible little child, when I was a child, at least that's what I was always told and I do remember being pretty bad sometimes.  I was emotional, dramatic, mean, controlling, and stopped at nothing to get my way!  Often times I think I was misunderstood and struggled to communicate.  My poor parents did not know what to do with me.  It was, in part, 3rd child syndrome, haha!  What does that even mean????  I don't know!  I don't blame my parents for handling my issues the way they did, but sometimes I wonder if they had responded differently, that maybe I would have too.  I love and respect my parents and I know they did the best they could at the time!  I owe a lot to them and am so grateful to them!  They had a big role in helping me become who I am! I remember, just to calm me down from a tantrum or over emotion, my Mom would take me to the bathroom and close the door, and sit me on the toilet.  My older siblings thought i...