Today's talk

Here's the talk I gave in church today:

It was a hard lesson to learn that "because I'm the daddy and I said so" or "you shouldn't talk to me that way because I'm your dad" are not convincing arguments to kids under the age of 5. I don't know that they're particularly effective after the age of 5, either, but I haven't had the chance to try it yet! Paying attention to the spirit when I tried using that approach with my kids, I noticed that, in addition to not working, it didn't feel right. D&C 121:41-44 kept popping into my mind afterward:
"No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile—
Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy; That he may know that thy faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death."
During my second year as a school counselor, I wanted to put the first two verses up on my wall to remind me of what helps people change themselves. To make it school appropriate, I replaced "the priesthood" with "a job title", so that it read, "No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of a job title, only by persuasion, by long-suffering..." etc. And though I'd made that sign for school use, it also helped me at home. Someone carrying the title of "Father" only deserves respect if he is emulating the original Father, our Father in Heaven. If he abuses the authority that comes with the title of "Father" or abuses those in his care, he cannot expect to be respected either by his children or by the Lord.

Just over two weeks ago, I was asked to speak on "Honoring the Priesthood in the Family as a Father". Then the very next Friday, Brother Ricker spoke on what sounded to me like almost the same topic, so I've tried hard to cover some different ground in my talk (that means please don't go to sleep). Let's establish our terms:
1) First, Priesthood. In April's General Conference, Elder Oaks said, "priesthood is the power of God delegated to man to act for the salvation of the human family." It's a familiar definition. But it's also very different from the way most of the world uses the word. Outside the LDS Church, priesthood means "the people who have been ordained as priests, deacons, bishops, elders, etc." Sometimes this usage creeps into LDS culture and we talk about "the priesthood" when we actually mean "the men of the church." But if we accept Elder Oaks' definition, then this usage is incorrect. "Priesthood" only refers to the God's authority, not to those who hold it.
2) Next, what does "to honor" mean? Sometimes we use the word to mean "to praise" or "to say nice things about". But my sister-in-law pointed out that this definition doesn't make any sense in this context. She wrote in an email, "Priesthood... is a thing, not a person.... It is inappropriate to ask people to honor a thing. It is appropriate to ask people to honor a person, or deity. To ask people to honor fallen heroes. To honor parents makes sense (although that can become problematic for those whose parents are abusive). But it is wrong to ask people to honor a thing." (emphasis mine)
But there are times when we say we honor a thing and it does make sense, as when we say we honor an obligation, a contract, a treaty, or agreement. In this sense, to honor means "to fulfill, to observe, to keep, to obey, to heed, to follow, to carry out, to discharge, to implement, to execute, to put into effect; to keep to, to abide by, to adhere to, to comply with, to conform to, to be true to, to live up to" (Google's dictionary). So is this what we mean when we say we "honor the priesthood"? Let's try substituting some of those meanings back into the topic I was given: "To fulfill the power of God in the family as a father..." That doesn't seem quite right. What about,  "To live up to the power of God in the family as a father?" We're getting warmer. "To implement the power of God in the family as a father?" Now that makes more sense. "To put the power of god into effect in the family as a father." That makes a lot of sense, but it sure isn't what my brain first thinks of when I hear "honoring the priesthood."
This is a lot of semantic wrangling to try to make sense of the topic, "Honoring the Priesthood in the Family as a Father", when what we really mean by it is something more like: "Living worthy of the trust God has given you by making you the primary bearer of the priesthood in your home" or "Keeping the covenant you made when you accepted the priesthood power and started a family." We also probably mean, "Helping your family appreciate the value of having the priesthood power in their lives." It is in this way that I think fathers can "honor the priesthood in the family:" they honor Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ by behaving as much like them as possible, and they honor their priesthood covenant by applying the priesthood power in the same way.

That's why D&C 121 is really the key to priesthood power. It says it's impossible and wrong to truly help improve peoples lives simply by saying, "I've got the priesthood, so do what I say." The priesthood only works when the priesthood holder acts like God, the source of that power. Thus: "by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile. Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy; That he may know that thy faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death." While people can act in these ways without the power of the priesthood and get good results, the added benefit of acting this way under the aegis of priesthood authority makes miracles happen. As Elder Oaks said in April,"since the scriptures state that “all other authorities [and] offices in the church are appendages to this [Melchizedek] priesthood” (D&C 107:5), all that is done under the direction of those priesthood keys is done with priesthood authority." This means everyone in the church (and for the purpose of my talk, fathers specifically) can make miracles happen by the same power that Jesus used if they are doing as He would do. Though I don't yet apply these attributes consistently, I have personally felt the spirit and seen God's power bless my family when I and other men in my family have managed to apply them. I'd like to share some of these experiences related to each of the attributes listed to help you envision how you a father might honor the priesthood in his family.

1) First, by persuasion - Elliott is old enough to start understanding logic, so I can often explain the reasons to him for what I ask him to do. When he was younger, though, he just didn't understand much, and Amelia is just barely getting there. When we recently explained to Elliott why we won't allow him to attend or host sleepovers, opting for letting him stay late but come home when the supervising adults go to bed, he didn't like it much at first, but he grudgingly admitted it made sense and didn't complain about it anymore. If I had just said, "You can't go because I said so," our relationship would have been damaged, and his desire for that forbidden thing would have increased. Explaining the reasons for decisions whenever possible is much more likely to foster respect than just saying, "Because I'm dad."
2) Second, by long-suffering. I had to learn to differentiate between my needs and my wants in the things I request of my kids. Do I really need my daughter to go away while I do the dishes? Or do I just want her to go away so I can have some quiet time alone? Just how much whining can I really take? Do I need her to stop whining, or do I just really, really want her to be quiet? In the end, I have to admit that it's a want. And when I'm willing to let myself suffer through the less pleasant behaviors of my children without demanding to get my way right away, I find that the spirit whispers suggestions to me like, "go play blocks with her for three minutes until she's totally absorbed in building a castle, then come back and finish the dishes. Time lost: 3 minutes. Relief from whining: priceless!"
3) Third, by gentleness and meekness. Jesus exemplified meekness throughout his life. He allowed himself to be smitten, spat upon, bruised, broken, crushed, and crucified because he knew it was the only way to accomplish the Father's will. My grandfather on my mom's side married my grandmother knowing that she had a chronic illness and pain. The constant suffering she endured made it hard for her to be in a good mood a lot of the time, particularly in her later years when I was more aware of their relationship. Grandma wanted things to be done in a certain way, and if Grandpa didn't manage to meet her expectations, she let him know it. But I can only remember a few times where he even spoke back to her to defend himself, and never in sharp, defensive tones, but always in a calm, placating tone. Being human, he probably snapped now and then when we weren't around, but I never witnessed it. I asked him about it once when we were sitting in his car outside grandma's nursing home. "Don't you get tired of it, Grandpa? Didn't you ever want to tell her to stop treating you this way?" He said something to the effect of: "Yes, I've felt bad about some of the things she has said, but I know she hurts so badly all the time, and I love her. Marriages don't work by both people giving 50% and meeting in the middle. The only way marriages have a chance to work is by both people giving 100%, and then it might just be enough." Grandpa's meekness and gentleness set an example I'm still struggling to emulate.
4) Fourth, by love unfeigned - "Pure religion and undefiled is this: to visit the sick and the afflicted, etc." My dad served (serves! he's still at it) people all the time, and when I was a teenager he took me with him as his home teaching companion. I don't remember fighting him, though I do remember whining and complaining while I helped him strip ancient linoleum off floors, fix cars in freezing rain, re-roof a widow's house, etc. But he loved me enough to put up with all that discomfort and the added irritation of having me there because he loved these other people, and he loved me, and he wanted to teach me what love unfeigned looks like.

5) Fifth, By kindness - I got the inspiration to write encouraging notes to Elliott, then hide them in his backpack or send them to his iPad reading app mailbox telling him I love him and I'm proud of him. Maybe once a month I get that prompting. And that's in addition to telling him verbally and spending lots of time with him, a luxury I planned to have by choosing to be a school counselor, which mostly lets me be home whenever he is. And Amelia can't read yet, so I can just point to any old scribble and say it's a love note to her!
6) Sixth, by pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile. My parents and siblings set a great example for me of teaching their kids about EVERYTHING. "Teach ye diligently and my grace shall attend you, that you may be instructed more perfectly in theory, in principle, in doctrine, in the law of the gospel, in all things that pertain unto the kingdom of God, that are expedient for you to understand; Of things both in heaven and in the earth, and under the earth; things which have been, things which are, things which must shortly come to pass; things which are at home, things which are abroad; the wars and the perplexities of the nations, and the judgments which are on the land; and a knowledge also of countries and of kingdoms— That ye may be prepared in all things when I shall send you again to magnify the calling whereunto I have called you, and the mission with which I have commissioned you." (D&C 88:78-80) Telling your kids half-truths to manipulate them into obedience is not the Lord's way. The priesthood should be used to empower, not to control or manipulate. And knowledge truly is power. If you make your parenting decisions based on truth, then teaching your kids more truth can only help them to support you. Teach them how to anchor themselves by maintaining righteous family traditions like Family Home Evening, daily family prayer, daily family and personal scripture study, repentance, and forgiveness. Teach them what the Spirit feels like so it can pour pure knowledge into their souls. Teach them to attend the temple, where the purest knowledge is taught. Teach them to seek education throughout their lives.

7) Seventh, "Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy; That he may know that thy faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death." You've probably heard or read how "reproving betimes with sharpness" translates into modern English as something like "offering specific correction early before a misbehavior becomes a habit" (see Elder D. Todd Christopherson's "As Many as I Love, I Rebuke and Chasten"). I like that interpretation. Correction, no matter how gently given, can feel sharp to our painfully self-conscious children, so we must be careful to do it appropriately, but we must do it. "President Boyd K. Packer has observed that when a person in a position to correct another fails to do so, he is thinking of himself." I don't really have a good story about this. Most of the times my father reproved me were when I was small enough not to remember. So I guess he did correct me early, and he didn't have to do much correcting after that. He certainly got the "showing forth afterwards increase of love" part right when he took me on campouts, helped me make Christmas presents for my siblings, wrestled with me, laughed at TV shows with me, etc.

I'm sure I could talk for another 20 minutes about this, but I hope you've got enough to chew on for now. Fathers honor the priesthood in the family by emulating Jesus Christ. I know that if you'll do this, the priesthood power will flow to each member of your family and bless their lives.

How I Got Here

The exact moment when I decided to study Arabic and live in the middle east was toward the end of my 2-year mission in India. I read Alma chapters 17 to 26 from the Book of Mormon at the time, and I really saw the potential for an Arab King Lamoni someday. I wanted to be Ammon (delusions of grandeur much?), or at least one of the other sons of Mosiah.
When I got home, I lost my courage a bit, and instead of majoring in Arabic, I tried majoring in anthropology during the spring term of 2003, with just a minor in Arabic. That got boring really fast, and on July 8, I attended this devotional in the DeJong Concert Hall at the HFAC on BYU campus. It was like he was speaking directly to me, so I switched to Arabic. I spent the next two months studying Arabic close to 8 hours a day and living with a Palestinian roommate, then I moved to Egypt for 4 months to study Arabic more. When I got back, I felt like I'd made a lot of progress, but I also felt like I was plateauing in my Arabic ability, and occasionally wondering what on earth I was going to do for my career.
On Mar 2, 2004, I attended this devotional at the Marriott Center. Again, the speaker directly addressed my concerns and I felt peace even though I didn't have answers to my questions.
A few lessons from this:
1) if you attend one of the BYUs, make it a habit to attend or at least read the devotional addresses. I always came away edified and/or educated, and in these two cases, they literally changed the course of my life.
2) God is aware of you and he has a plan for you. It may take you somewhere scary or uncomfortable, but it's worth it. He'll make it work out in the end.
3) keep a journal. I confirmed all the details of this account by going back in my journals and comparing what I wrote to the online speech archives from BYU. My kids and their kids and so on for generations will know why I did what I did because I wrote about it.

Madrid Day 2 and coming home - Apr 11 - 12

Friday was our temple day. I went first for an endowment session and left the kids with Rachel at the hotel so I could find the fastest way to and from the temple. It was beautiful inside, with a real homage to the architecture of the area in the celestial room's ceiling. Though I got there just ten minutes too late for the 8:00 session, I did catch the 9:00. When it ended at 11:00, I raced back to the hotel and we all jumped in the car because I found out there would be no 1:00 session for Rachel to attend, so she would have to be there no later than 11:40 in order to make the noon session. We made it just in time, and I dropped her right at the foot of the stairs leading onto the temple grounds, then went to park the car while she went inside. I found out afterward from her that she got inside only to discover she didn't have any way to pay to rent the temple clothes, and she couldn't find me when she came back outside because I had to park more than a block away. Fortunately, the temple shares its grounds with the Madrid Missionary Training Center, so a pair of kind sister missionaries loaned Rachel 5 euros so she could rent the temple clothing.
Meanwhile, Miss A had fallen asleep, so Big E and I made and shared lunch at the car to let her sleep. When she woke up, we all walked to the temple and played on its grounds and ate more lunch and snacks until Rachel came. Big E spent most of his time looking at fountains, running races with himself, and doing stretches he learned in PE at school. Miss A played with the fountains and climbed on all the benches and flower boxes she could find. I took advantage of the free wifi of the visitors' center to plan the rest of our day. Unfortunately, it didn't occur to me to plan our route to the airport in the morning, but more on that later.

After Rachel came out, we got pictures together, then returned to the hotel to change.

We went back downtown and had a great time at the Royal Palace, where I told them stories about Princess Isabella that were half made-up and half based on the plaques explaining each room. They wouldn't let us take photos inside there either, so look it up online. However, I did sneak one photo of Amelia bumping down the stairs on her bum, because she insisted on going down three whole flights of stairs this way. All the people who passed us smiled at her and said "Princess" in various languages.

Then we splurged a little bit on dinner. Rachel got garlic prawns and I got mixed paella. Big E got some potato and ham croquettes that he didn't like, and Miss A chowed on bread. Both of them finished before we got our food, so they got pretty annoyed at how long we were taking, and that put a damper on our ability to enjoy dinner. On the metro, Big E announced that he really needed to pee again, which we'd forgotten to ask before we left the restaurant. We still had 5 stops to go, but with only 2 left, it looked like an accident was imminent. I proposed that we get off the train and stick one of Amelia's diapers on him long enough to avert catastrophe, so that's what we did. At first he didn't like the idea and was worried he'd actually be wetting his pants, but I convinced him to just go for it. As he did, he kind of smiled and laughed at how silly it was, so I was glad he was taking it well.

Once at the hotel, we packed everything so we could leave for the airport by 3:30. We woke ourselves up at 2:45 to shower and get ready, then put the kids in the car at 3:30. On the way to the airport, we had to make a last-second decision to go one way to terminal 4 or the other way to the airport. Since we hadn't had wifi access, we didn't check in, and so we had no way of knowing which terminal to go to. I took the terminal 4 route and it ended up taking us through a 2 km long tunnel way off to the north. But we got to the airport and returned our rental keys, so we thought we were fine. Little did we know that terminal 4 isn't even connected to the rest of the airport! We took 20 minutes just trying to find a way inside, then they told us to wait another 20 minutes for the bus back to terminal 1 which was labeled "Departures". Both of the other terminals were labeled "Arrivals". So we went to terminal 1 and wandered along the circumference of the terminal finding no Alitalia desks. Finally we asked someone at a different airline, and they told us Alitalia was at terminal 2! So we walked for another 15 minutes to find a line about a mile long at the Alitalia desk. Things didn't look good for getting to the gate without running. Then when we got to the front, we were informed that they had to put us on standby because the flight was overbooked. We stood at that desk for a full hour until past our boarding time, but they finally found us seats on the flight, and the agent personally escorted us through security all the way to the gate. We traded seats with someone else so we could at least have three of our four seats together, and Miss A slept on my lap all the way to Rome. In Rome, we had no trouble with our connection, so we made it to Abu Dhabi with just under an hour until our flight was scheduled to leave for Doha. We rushed through the airport and got three boarding passes at the transfer desk printed because for some reason Alitalia's Spain desk could only print Miss A's. Finally we reached the gate and discovered that the flight schedule had been changed to leave a full hour later, putting us in Doha at 10 instead of 9. The flight to Doha went fine, and we managed to finagle our way through the e-gate despite the fact that the guard said our kids couldn't come through (everyone at the Ministry of the Interior desk that sold us the e-gate service had assured us that they could, so we didn't back down--but that's the way it is here: it all depends on who's working on the day you finally go to obtain the specific service you need). Then our luggage came in a pretty timely fashion except our stroller, which got lost somewhere and is begin delivered directly to our house tonight. That's one nice thing that we wouldn't have gotten
from most airports in the US!
Now we are home, and Big E made it through his first day back at school without any major meltdowns despite having gone to bed at 11:30 the night before and woken up this morning at 5:30. And Miss A unexpectedly got to see and play with her best friend, Ellie, at the store when Rachel took her shopping today, so her whole week of missing Ellie ended happily.

We had a great time! Hopefully this satisfies our wanderlust until December, because we're stuck here until then!

Travelling to Madrid, and Madrid Day 1 - Apr 10

We cooked our breakfast, packed, cleaned the apartment, and left Granada by 10:00. We had considered driving up into the Sierra Nevadas to let the kids play in the snow given their obsession with "Frozen", but it would add an hour to our trip, and we already knew we would be cutting it close. So we drove all the way through to Madrid just stopping once for diesel and bathrooms and once just long enough to put Rachel in the back seat with the kids so she could hold the iPad while they watched the-movie-that-must-not-be-named AGAIN. (Sorry, it's now 13 April and those songs are still running through my head every waking moment of the day, so my memories of it are not as pleasant as the experience was at the time). The kids did fine and managed to get some sleep along the way. Our hotel was a Holiday Inn Express located near the airport, so we had no trouble finding it or getting checked in.
We did, however, have some trouble getting to the metro station the receptionist had tried to direct us to, so we were starting to stress about the time by the time we made it to Madrid to activate our tourist Madrid Card and get to the Prado. The metro stop took us to Gran Via, then I took us the wrong direction to Plaza del Sol because I thought that was Plaza Mayor. So we ended up backtracking a bit and taking a different route to get to Plaza Mayor where we got our cards, then walked all the way to the Prado. We stopped for dinner at 5:40 so no one would die of starvation or complaining, and Rachel went ahead to get some alone time in the museum without the kids around 6:00. I helped them finish dinner and we played on a grassy hill across from the ticket office for about an hour.

Then I took them in and told them lots of Bible stories and Greek myths while we wandered aimlessly through the museum. I may have also added some Ana stories in there for good measure. We met Rachel again at the entrance at 8:00, played some more, then made our way to the hotel.

We got lost again on the way, so we arrived there grumpy and tired, and the kids didn't want to sleep, but we made it to bed eventually.

Granada day 2 - Apr 8

Steve writing:
Today we left our apartment around 10:00 to go to the Science Park. We drove, but given how difficult it is to get into and out of the under-reconstruction store we're parking in, we decided we weren't going to drive again here if we can help it. No point in scratching the car somewhere else!
The science park was fun, but we probably left too late in the day for it without packing anything more than just some fish-shaped salty crackers for the kids and no lunch for us. So even though we didn't see all the park had to offer, we left around 12:30 having seen most of the stuff the kids would enjoy. That's where I first spotted the purple wisteria vines/trees that I became enamored of and pointed out every time we passed them for the rest of the trip!

At home by 1:00, we had our normal at-home lunch of PB+J sandwiches with apples, carrots, yogurt, and milk. Then we started a load of laundry (hooray for an apartment with a washing machine!) and headed out for a walking tour of Al Bayazin. We walked up a river at the base of the slope beneath the Alhambra, then up a looooooong steep hill that curved up away from the Alhambra onto the hill next to it. This led to the San Nicolas church that was not nearly as impressive as the view of Alhambra from the plaza in front of it. There we enjoyed listening to some buskers sing and play flamenco music while we snacked on cheese and crackers. This time I'd brought along some chocolatey snacks to give to the kids every time we paused our walk either to find directions or rest, and they were much less irritated / irritating as a result. We saw lots of beautiful houses and flowers and churches and alleys on our walk, and got all the exercise we need for about a week.

On the way home we purchased some Piononos, a dessert I was introduced to by our guide the last time I was here. Imagine cinnamon rolls soaked to sogginess in light syrup, then put flan on top. That's kind of like a Pionono. We ate them after our at-home dinner of spaghetti with peas and some sauce called tomatas fritas, that tasted a bit like marinara sauce but was much creamier (we couldn't find spaghetti sauce at El Corte Ingles when we went shopping our first night here). Just before we started eating, our host showed up to fix the internet, and (of course) it worked without him doing anything after I'd tried 50 times to do the exact same steps I followed when I started to show him the problem. Oh, well. At least we could use the internet finally. Then after dinner, we ate the Piononos, and I did the dishes while Rachel journaled about what we did the day before. We rested a bit, then headed out once again for a small but excellent Flamenco show. The kids did a great job (helped along by another box of those chocolate snacks), so we got to enjoy the show the whole time without feeling self-conscious about their behavior. Elliott spent the first song and a half either hiding in a corner behind my backpack or burying his face in my shirt, terrified for some reason. But when the female dancer came out, he began to watch and get interested as the show got louder and faster-paced. Amelia spent the female dancer's entire performance absolutely transfixed. Rachel had told her a lady was going to come out in a pretty dress and dance, and I don't think Amelia blinked through the entire performance! I figured the kids would fall asleep because the show didn't even start until after their bedtime, but they both watched and even started twiddling their fingers and clapping along during the male dancer's performance and the encores. The guy's feet were like machine guns! It was pretty great.

Then we came home, put the kids to bed, went to bed ourselves so we could have all our energy for the Alhambra the next day! And just before we fell asleep, Rachel said, "Hey Steve! Put your hand here!" And I felt baby girl #2 kick for the first time. A great way to end the day. Maybe she was inspired by the flamenco show. :)