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We've started mission papers for Erik.
This summer is going to be exciting and full of good things.
Basketball is coming to an end and tennis is starting just as winter decided to rear its ugly head. In two weeks we've had several good snowstorms which were much needed, but not wanted.
I'm two months into school. One more to go with these two classes. Out of the two, I've really enjoyed my classroom management one. I'm not too fond of the one about lesson planning and assessments. I am beginning to wonder if teachers spend more of their time planning than actually delivering the content. Maybe I'll get better and quicker at it, but right now it seems like a lot of time spent prepping.
I took the girls home to Ferron for a girls weekend. I noticed in my mom's bedroom that she still has this ceramic duck I made her when I was 10 or 11, over 30 years ago. I've given her permission several times to throw it away, but she can't because of the memories. I'm afraid I didn't inherit her sentimentality.
Nate is registered to take the ACT for the first time. I've had Kiersten and Erik take it early as a way to get a benchmark. Turns out both did fairly well that first time. We'll see how Nate does. At least this will give him time to improve is he needs to.
Take a look at the type of words Alex keeps bringing home. There are a few that I kept mispronouncing as I was helping him study. This is definitely expanding my vocabulary . . . or voc-u-bowl-ary as Kiersten once called it.
One week there was the word pugnacious. He and I looked it up and had a good laugh when it said, "quick to argue" which so describes his two older brothers. Alex had an assignment from me to use it when they came home from tennis.
Erik and Nate always walk through the door arguing about something tennis related. I'm surprised they keep wanting to play together. He reported to me that he fulfilled the assignment except they didn't come home arguing and just gave him a funny look when he used his funny word.
And on something totally unrelated . . . I had the opportunity to bear my testimony at stake conference yesterday. I usually don't have a problem speaking in public, but when I got up and looked at the crowd that filled the entire stake center, not including the live stream to the Lake Point chapel, I got a little bit nervous. But after giving a talk and bearing my testimony in the last 6 years at stake conference I think I'm good for awhile. It also meant I had to go to the stake center. It was a weird feeling sitting all by myself. I know that day is coming but I wasn't quite ready to experience it yet.
Entropy.
My new favorite word.
Last summer as I was studying for my Praxis exam and studying anything and everything, I got to the section about the second law of thermodynamics which states that everything naturally moves towards a state of disorder and chaos. The word for this is entropy. You know when you go on vacation and come back to a lawn that needs mowing and a house that needs dusting and weeds that need pulling. Things will naturally decay over time unless we actively maintain them. The solution to entropy is work.
Erik's room will never become organized and clean without some degree of work. Tyler's puzzles will never naturally fall together to form a picture without someone to put it together. We work to overcome that natural state of disorder.
As I've thought about this word over the last eight months, I've come to the conclusion that if everything is spiritual to the Lord (D&C 29:34), then entropy must be an eternal principle and that there surely must be spiritual entropy as well. Lehi tells us in 2 Nephi that "there must be an opposition in all things."
Life and death.
Health and sickness.
New and old.
Growth and decay.
Love and hate.
Entropy and work.
Our bodies fight daily against this principle of entropy as they age. Are our spirits fighting daily as well?
It is the natural tendency for men and women to drift away from God and his commandments. This turning away brings disorder and chaos to our lives and in order to return, work must be involved. It is hard. It is not comfortable. It is not easy. Just like we must work to restore things to their original state, we must also actively and regularly look for ways to restore our relationship with God EVERY DAY (and I might add all relationships in our life).
It isn't good enough to simply stop doing something to become converted to God and his commandments. Nephi didn't tell us he would go and believe what the Lord had commanded him. He didn't say he would go and think about it. No, he said, "I will go and do . . .," do being the key word. I know when my life become comfortable, I need to work harder at doing something to fill my soul with light or it will gradually slip back into the darkness.
I guess it's safe to assume that in the physical world, entropy always wins. But in matters of spirituality, I don't want to assume anything. We get to decide who will win: entropy or us.
