Traditions

With the Holiday season here, I can't help but think of the years that have gone by.  There are things that my family has done every year for my entire life that make the holidays so special to me.  We have some rather strange traditions, but I wouldn't change them for anything!  One that I think gets most people is our Thanksgiving Pinata.  I don't know where this tradition came from, but we have done it my entire life, and I know my older cousins did it too.  I think it must have been my great grandma.

Here is the start of our Pinata this year!  

Here's a blast from the past!  

Like I said, we have done this every year, for my entire life!  Some years we would buy the pinata, but most years, it was homemade.  Another tradition that we always do at Thanksgiving is go up to our pasture in the mountains and cut Christmas trees.  We also usually try to go shooting when all of my family is here, but that doesn't happen every year.

We have a lot of traditions revolving around Christmas.  One of those is our huge Chandler Christmas Eve party.  This is another tradition that has been taking place for a long time!  At least 50 years!  My dad remembers going to it when he was really little.  It has changed through the years, as our family has expanded, but it is still a time spent with family and I love it!  Another Christmas tradition that we have is we always have a huge breakfast on Christmas Morning with my Grandmas, my aunt and her two boys.  We open presents and just spend time together.

There are sooo many more traditions that my family has, but it would take me hours to write them all down.  At this time of year, I can't help but be thankful for all of my many blessings!  I'm so thankful for all of my family and for the blessing we have of spending time together.  I'm thankful that my parents have created traditions of their own when my siblings and I were young that we will be able to carry on to our own families!  I hope you all have a blessed and happy Thanksgiving!  

The Five Love Languages

Every two weeks for my class, The Eternal Family, we do something called  a provident living project.  The first two weeks of the semester were dedicated to making better habits of scripture study, the second two weeks were dedicated to healthy eating and exercise, the next two weeks were dedicated to budgeting and money management, the last two weeks were dedicated to media management and the coming two weeks are supposed to be dedicated to learning how to love others more fully.  One of the things that we were supposed to do in preparation for the next two weeks was become familiar with the book, The Five Love Languages, by Gary Chapman.  There was also a questionnaire we were supposed to do that told us what our love languages are. Here's a link if you want to take the quiz yourself!  http://www.5lovelanguages.com/  I would encourage everyone who hasn't already, to take it!  Anyways, I'm just going to talk about my results here for a minute :)
The five love languages are Words of Affirmation, Quality time, Physical Touch, Acts of Service and Receiving Gifts.  
My primary love language was Quality Time!  When I was talking to my roommates about it, they already knew that, even though I didn't know it myself!  The next two that I scored the highest in were Words of Affirmation, and Physical Touch.  I always thought that my primary love language was words of affirmation so this quiz was really good for me!  Learning how other people love and feel love can be very beneficial to all relationships, romantic or not.  When we understand what our family members' love languages are, we can better show our love for them,

A lot of Controversy!

The last couple of days, every single time I get on Facebook, I see something about the "change" in the Church Handbook regarding children of same-sex couples.  First off, I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I believe that President Thomas S. Monson is the prophet of God on the earth today.  I know that he is God's mouthpiece.  Because of that knowledge, I believe that this "revision" of the handbook came from God.  I also believe that this isn't really a change.  The church has had it's stand on same-sex marriage from the beginning of time, that being that it is an abomination before God. Romans 1:25-27 says

"25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

 26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

 27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

God always meant for marriage to be between a man and a woman.  I believe the the leaders of the church are protecting the children of same-sex couples from having to disobey their parents and go against their wishes.  Belonging to a church where one thing is taught, then living in a home where another thing is taught can be detrimental to a child.  I saw a post of Facebook last night that said, "Come on LDS Church, it's 2015 for goodness sakes!"  Something that we say all the time is that we should live in the world, but not be of the world.  Just because the world is changing, doesn't mean the church has to change.  In fact, it never will!  This morning, first thing when I woke up, i read this article that several of my friends shared on Facebook called "Quit Acting Like Christ Was Accepting of Everyone and Everything"  I would HIGHLY suggest that you take a couple of minutes to read it!  I believe that even though the world is going farther and farther away from what is right, it is even more of a reason for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to stand up for what we believe in!