Times and Sorensens

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Monday, September 07, 2015

Cannon Beach 2015

What can I say? We had the perfect beach day on Friday and I'm very grateful.  I'll let each picture speak its thousand words...


















Lucas trying to tickle Caden with a feather:



Thursday, September 03, 2015

Pictures from Summer 2015

Since it's too much for me to do individual posts about all the things we did this summer (and I didn't get pictures of even a fraction of what we did) I thought I'd just post some of what I do have and call it good.  It's been such a lovely summer for us, I'm so grateful!












Pittock Mansion Date

Jake and I finally got to use the tickets to the Pittock Mansion (one of Portland's favorite local landmarks) I won at the elementary school's silent auction fundraiser last spring.  It was a great way to spend an afternoon, pleasant and low-key.  We headed just a little ways into downtown for dinner at one of my favorite places (Jake admits he likes it too ;) and then ended up back at the mansion to walk the grounds a little more.  A really great date!



If the sky hadn't been so hazy you'd be able to see Mt. Hood behind us.  But I guess you can see my baby bump which is more exciting anyway :)


Quote from Elder Maxwell

This article in the Ensign led me to a BYU Devotional address given by Elder Neal A. Maxwell many years ago.  It was on the topic of patience and I loved it.  I never really thought patience was a particular weakness of mine but his remarks helped me understand what a vital characteristic patience is and that it is in fact something I need to actively cultivate.

His talk helped me identify areas of this principle that I am, perhaps, lacking in and perspectives I can adopt to help with that.  When I brought it up with Jake, his thoughts were that maybe patience should replace the woefully underutilized "hope" in the "faith, hope and charity" triad.  Although I don't want to see hope tossed out, I think I can see what he means.

As he was wrapping up the devotional, Elder Maxwell said he struggled with knowing how to conclude his remarks but what he came up with literally brought tears to my eyes, it was so moving and beautiful.  He captured the essence of something I have felt all my life but could never fully articulate.  I'm not surprised that Elder Maxwell's words could reach across decades and touch me in the way they did:

"Some of us have been momentarily wrenched by the sound of a train whistle spilling into the night air, and we have been inexplicably subdued by the mix of feelings that this evokes. Or perhaps we have been beckoned by a lighted cottage across a snow-covered meadow at dusk. Or we have heard the warm and drawing laughter of children at a nearby playground. Or we have been tugged at by the strains of congregational singing from a nearby church. Or we have encountered a particular fragrance which has awakened memories deep within us of things which once were. In such moments, we have felt a deep yearning, as if we were temporarily outside of something to which we actually belonged and of which we so much wanted again to be a part.

There are spiritual equivalents of these moments. Such seem to occur most often when time touches eternity. In these moments we feel a longing closeness—but we are still separate. The partition which produces this paradox is something we call the veil—a partition the presence of which requires our patience. We define the veil as the border between mortality and eternity; it is also a film of forgetting which covers the memories of earlier experiences. This forgetfulness will be lifted one day, and on that day we will see forever—rather than “through a glass, darkly” (1 Corinthians 13:12)."

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/neal-a-maxwell_patience/