Happy Sabbath

I did a lesson on homemaking this week...not my favorite subject. But it turned out to be exactly what I needed to hear. Elder Uchtdorf's talk to the General Relief Society really made an impression on me. I have been struggling with purpose lately, being out of school and out of a job. Sometimes it seems mundane to do the small things everyday (cleaning, cooking, trying, etc) but he puts it all in perspective: 

"The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. No matter our talents, education, backgrounds, or abilities, we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before.

Everyone can create. You don’t need money, position, or influence in order to create something of substance or beauty.

Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment. We develop ourselves and others when we take unorganized matter into our hands and mold it into something of beauty—and I am not talking about the process of cleaning the rooms of your teenage children.

You might say, “I’m not the creative type. When I sing, I’m always half a tone above or below the note. I cannot draw a line without a ruler. And the only practical use for my homemade bread is as a paperweight or as a doorstop.”

If that is how you feel, think again, and remember that you are spirit daughters [AND SONS] of the most creative Being in the universe. Isn’t it remarkable to think that your very spirits are fashioned by an endlessly creative and eternally compassionate God? Think about it—your spirit body is a masterpiece, created with a beauty, function, and capacity beyond imagination."

Creation as a means of fulfillment- a universal potential - finding eternal perspective in creating something that was not there before, tangible and not- the importance of doing if even just to do 

Read the whole talk HERE. I recommend it to females (to whom it was addressed) and males. 

On another note, I found this quote from Sister Tanner to be very applicable to almost all social problems:

Homemaking skills are becoming a lost art. I worry about this. When we lose the home-makers in a society, we create an emotional homelessness much like street homelessness, with similar problems of despair, lack of self-esteem, drugs, and immorality. In a publication called The Family in America, Bryce Christensen discusses this issue. He writes that the number of homeless people on the street “does not begin to reveal the scope of homelessness in America. For since when did the word home signify merely physical shelter, or homelessness merely the lack of such shelter? . . . Home [signifies] not only shelter, but also emotional commitment, security, and belonging. Home has connoted not just a necessary roof and warm radiator, but a place sanctified by the abiding ties of wedlock, parenthood, and family obligation; a place demanding sacrifice and devotion, but promising loving care and warm acceptance” (“Homeless America: What the Disappearance of the American Homemaker Really Means,” The Family in America, vol. 17, no. 1, Jan. 2003, 1).

From this TALK about why "strengthen home and family" was added to the YW theme. 

All this made me think about what an incredible home us kids grew up in. Mom- I will never know how you did it, but I sure appreciate the refuge of our home. You are a great homemaker.