How to Find Light in the Darkness: Why the Book of Mormon is so important to me

I've been thinking a lot lately about how hard life is. There is a lot of bad in the world and it is becoming harder and harder to decipher the good from the bad. Even things people used to view as blatantly bad are now crossing into gray areas. So how do we do it? How do we raise children in this world and know what to teach them?

What it all comes down to for me is faith. We have to have faith that good will always win. As I type this I realize how corny that sounds, but it's true. It is hard to believe sometimes that things will get better even if they get worse first. But faith is what keeps us going. When we have a hard day and we don't see an end in sight or we are tired from all of our responsibilities or are having financial trouble or any of the other endless trials we go through, it's faith that reminds us to be happy.

But faith doesn't come easy for most. For me, I'll admit it does and I know how truly blessed I am to have that spiritual gift from my Heavenly Father. And although faith comes easily to some, we all must work hard and put in effort to strengthen our faith. Our church leaders tell us until they are blue in the face that we must study our scriptures every day and we must strengthen our relationship with our Heavenly Father. I have always known that and I have always seen a correlation between how well I am doing in strengthening my faith through prayer and scripture study and how I am succeeding in other areas of my life. But recently I have really felt my eyes being opened to how important the little daily things we do to improve our testimonies of God and Christ are to our every day happiness.

I have never been very diligent in studying my scriptures. I have always had the desire and always do good for a few days or even a few weeks but always fall out of a good habit eventually. That's not to say I don't read my scriptures or benefit from my study, I do. I have just always felt I need to do better. The last few months I have been using a study guide written by David J. Ridges entitled "The Book of Mormon made easier." I have seen a drastic change in my studying habits and it has been so helpful.

While reading in First Nephi 13 today I read about a vision the prophet Nephi has of future generations and happenings. One thing that struck me while reading was the part that prophesied about Christopher Columbus discovering the Americas and how from that the pilgrims or Christian immigrants from the "old countries" brought the Bible to America. Nephi goes on to explain why the Book of Mormon is so important:


25 Wherefore, these things (the original writings and teachings of the Bible) go forth from the Jews in purity unto the Gentiles, according to the truth which is in God.

 26 And after they go forth by the hand of the twelve apostles of the Lamb (Christ), from the Jews unto the Gentiles (non-jews), thou seest the formation of that great and abominable church (the church of the devil), which is most abominable above all other churches; for behold, they have taken away from the gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious; and also many covenants of the Lord have they taken away.

 

(You may have noticed that covenants are only required to enter the celestial kingdom. Covenants are not required for entrance into terrestrial or telestial glory. This, by taking away priesthood and covenants, Satan has done major damage.)

 

 27 And all this have they done that they might pervert the right ways of the Lord, that they might blind the eyes and harden the hearts of the children of men.

 

 28 Wherefore, thou seest that after the book (the bible) hath gone forth through the hands of the great and abominable church, that there are many plain and precious things taken away from the book, which is the book of the Lamb of God.

 

 29 And after these plain and precious things were taken away it goeth forth unto all the nations of the Gentiles; and after it goeth forth unto all the nations of the Gentiles, yea, even across the many waters which thou hast seen with the Gentiles which have gone forth out of captivity, thou seest—because of the many plain and precious things which have been taken out of the book, which were plain unto the understanding of the children of men, according to the plainness which is in the Lamb of God—because of these things which are taken away out of the gospel of the Lamb, an exceedingly great many do stumble, yea, insomuch that Satan hath great power over them.

(Ignorance of gospel truths and covenants is a terrible disadvantage. This if one of the reasons that the Book of Mormon and modern scriptures are so precious. They restore these "plain and precious things" to us.)

 

I often wonder how to explain to others why the Book of Mormon is so important to me. It's kind of like asking me "why is your right hand so important?" It's just one of those questions that seems so obvious to me that it's hard to answer. Well, here's my feeble attempt at answering that question. The Book of Mormon is so important to me because it is ANOTHER testament of Jesus Christ. I study the Book of Mormon, in addition to the Bible because I believe it will strengthen my faith in Jesus Christ and thereby help me live a better life. I believe that Heavenly Father has given us the answers to all of our questions and concerns and they lie in the scriptures.

 

I love the Bible, especially the New Testament and the opportunity it gives us to learn about Christ and his earthly ministry, but often certain parts of the Bible are hard to read and so dated that it feels hard to connect to sometimes. This doesn't mean it isn't important to me, but I also value what the Book of Mormon holds within it's pages. It holds, unaltered truths from God. We believe that Joseph Smith unburied the original golden plates that the Book of Mormon was written on by the many prophets who's writings make up its pages. He was the first to touch it's pages after Moroni, the last author of the Book of Mormon, buried it in a mountain. Because I believe this to be true, I also believe that the Book of Mormon is from God. I believe He knew that we would need additional guidance in order to strengthen our faith in this life. He knew that some very important truths would be lost or altered from the Bible and that we would need another way to learn these things. In all His wisdom He planned for us to have the Book of Mormon, in addition to the Bible. We are so blessed to have many ways to learn about Christ and his teachings.

 

I finally understand after 26 years of being told over and over, why I need to study (not just read) my scriptures every day. We have access to such an important book that was painstakingly written and preserved for our generation to learn from. It seems rather selfish to me now not to study and read it everyday. I'm still working on it and I am sure it will never come easy to study my scriptures daily, especially with a one year old screaming at me and a four year old who almost never stops talking. But I know how important it is and I make it a priority. I am so grateful for the Book of Mormon and the role it plays in my life.

 

Hayden turned one

Hayden's first birthday came and went at an alarming rate. Where did my newborn baby go? Who is this little baby turning into a toddler?

 

Hayden has always been a good baby. He was so much easier as a newborn than Afton. He got the hang of nursing so fast and went to sleep on his own better than Afton. We still rocked him to sleep for most naps and bedtime up to this point, but it wouldn't take nearly as long as with Afton and he wouldn't wake up 5 times when you laid him down and tried to go out of the room. For the most part, once he fell asleep and was in his crib you were safe to move around. He is a pretty deep sleeper and takes very good naps. Around 9 months he started taking 2 solid naps a day. He still naps twice a day, and sleeps 6-10 hours straight at night. He still wakes up at night at least a few times a week but I nurse him and he goes right back to sleep. I think he mostly wakes up due to teething. I don't mind nursing him at night. I can go back to sleep so easily that it doesn't bother we waking up anymore. And I know he is not ready to stop nursing yet and our day time nursing is becoming sparse and he isn't as interested so the night time feedings are special and I'm not quite ready to cut them out.

During the day, Hayden is always happy. Unless he is having an especially hard day with teething he is always smiling and jabbering these days. The past two days he is finally starting to take a few steps on his own. The first time he did it, I saw this little light go off in his head and he got so excited. It was one of the first times I got sad because he is so big and growing so fast. I can see the little motors in his head starting to spin faster as he learns and grows. He is doing more activities on his own and is getting more independent. He is starting to respond to me when I ask questions. No real words yet, but I can tell he tries to copy what I am saying sometimes.

Although he is getting bigger and more independent, he still loves to cuddle. When he wakes up from a nap is my favorite time. He is so happy and smiley in his crib when I come in to get him and then he lays his head on my shoulder and holds me for a few minutes. It lingers and I can tell both of us know he is getting older and these moments will start to become more sparse. I think we don't give children nearly enough credit when it comes to what they understand. I know that Hayden senses moods and feelings. He expresses his love to me as easily as I express mine to him.

Hayden may love me but he loves Chad just as much if not more. To say he gets excited when Chad comes home from work is an understatement. He gets a huge grin on his face, makes some kind of loud excited noise and crawls to the door. He also loves playing with Chad. Chad will hide behind the couch and Hayden walks quickly back and forth and peeks around the side. Chad will yell and scare him and Hayden will run back the other way squealing with joy.

His favorite food is still bananas. He would eat a banana for every meal if we let him. He is a really good eater too. He eats almost everything. He just recently started liking meat. Up until a few weeks ago I liked to joke that he was a vegetarian because he turned his nose up at most meats. But he loves anything and everything else. He eats pretty much every cooked veggie but broccoli. He especially loves cucumber and homemade pico de gallo. He usually makes a mess so we have given Afton the special chore of floor cleaner after Hayden's meals. It works beautifully. She feels special and I don't have to bend down on the floor!

Hayden and Afton are loving each other more every day. They are starting to play together more and enjoy it. Afton loves to give Hayden hugs and kisses and hold him every opportunity she gets. Hayden used to love it but now he will let her do it for about 5 seconds before he pushes her away or gets annoyed. But I think it's mostly because he is too busy to sit still that long. Afton loves to go into his room when he wakes up from a nap and climb into his crib. I hear them playing and throwing stuffed animals around. They also love playing with the play kitchen in their room together. We rearranged the room a few weeks ago and put it out again and they are obsessed. Hayden always has a play spoon or fork with him wherever he is these days.

While I think Hayden will be more mild mannered than Afton, a little more reserved probably, he still loves to be around people just like Afton. He is not shy at all and will go to anyone most of the time. He is always good with baby sitters. I'm hoping he won't be a crazy destructive boy, but we shall see.

 

It's definitely hard being a mom to two young ones, but it's so rewarding seeing our family age and grow together. Hayden is such a good baby it makes me want to have 5 more! I just love him and sweet little spirit. I am so incredibly blessed to have been given the privilege by my Heavenly Father to be Hayden's mom. I try hard every day to live up to such a big calling.

Natural Child Birth- The way God intended

I read an article recently that talked about how we (women) are losing the capacity to give birth. The content of the article talked about how we are replacing our body's natural oxytocin system and how it functions with artificial oxytocin (Pitocin). This is causing us to "forget" how to give birth as our body and God intended. I'm no scientist and this article was a little involved but I do agree to an extent.

I feel so strongly for Natural Child Birth that I am breaking my own rule and publishing my feelings on a controversial topic. I try not to spout my opinion on social media too often because it can lead to hurt feelings and that is never my intention. My only intention in writing this is to support new mom's, first time moms or anyone who is confused about child birth and how they want to give birth. Even women who have already done it once and want a different approach the second time around (like me!). There is so much information out there and at the same time a lack of information as well. We have moved towards hospital births and sometimes it seems as if this is our only option. To make matters worse, hospitals have strict policies and a lot of the time don't let women know ALL of their options. This makes women think they have to do things a certain way, when they don't.

I strongly advocate for natural child birth, free of any interventions, unless medically necessary of course to save mother or child form harm. I don't feel this way for any other reason than I've done it both ways and the natural way helped me feel like a true woman. I realized the potential I have physically, mentally and spiritually. I think many times when we give into medical doctors views on how we should birth our children, we aren't experiencing all that God wants us to. I often wonder why did God make the act of bringing a child into this world so painful for a mother? Why can't it be simple, not painful, just beautiful?

Here is my answer: Life is hard, life is sometimes painful, life is almost never simple. If you believe as I do, then it makes sense that child birth should also be this way. Life if meant to be hard and we are meant to have trials. I believe that we were sent to this earth to learn from our trials and to get stronger. With that said, we have a lot to learn from the process of child birth. I felt so much stronger, more capable and empowered when I listened to what my body said and then did it. Our bodies are truly miraculous and they can do it all on their own! They don't need Pitocin or even epidurals. I'll admit, thinking about child birth, even when I have done it twice, is overwhelming. Thinking about experiencing that kind of pain again is hard to swallow and accept. But then I remind myself that the positive effects of natural child birth far outweigh the pain. I believe you can't truly experience all that child birth has to offer and teach when you are laying down in a hospital bed unable to move your legs. Again, I can say this because I was given Pitocin and had an epidural with Afton. I speak from experience.

Our bodies go through different stages in child birth and if we aren't carefully paying attention and if we don't know what to look for, we miss out on a lot. With Afton's delivery, I never got to experience a real contraction. Instead, they were much more painful and lasted much longer due to the Pitocin they hooked me up to. Then when my labor was lasting much longer than it should have and I was so tired and exhausted, I finally opted for an epidural. My body couldn't take any more, I was so tired. Again, the Pitocin extended my labor. When I received my epidural, I feel asleep!! I feel asleep for some of the most important moments of my life. Then, when I was finally ready to push, it wasn't because I felt it in my body, it was because the nurse told me it was probably time by how far dilated I was. I missed out on all of the cues my body could have given me naturally and all of the lessons I could have learned. Of course, the last stage of labor wasn't as painful with an epidural and my first moment holding Afton was still beautiful. But I only got a few moments with her before they took her to "clean her up and take measurements". They didn't encourage me to breastfeed or bond. This was something I did on my own because it felt right. I had no one to give me any direction on these confusing first moments. My doctor didn't even get there in time for the birth. My sweet nurse and Chad delivered Afton together.

I knew I wanted to breastfeed but I had no clue how and I was so tired from 23 hours of labor I wasn't in a great state of mind. It was so hard in the hospital and all the lactation specialist did was poke and prod me. She humiliated me and made me feel like a machine. She did nothing to help me understand the importance of breastfeeding. Looking back on it, it's a miracle I breastfed Afton at all. It was painful for the first 3 or 4 months. I had use a nipple shield and every time I tried to not use it, it was so painful I gave in again. Eventually we got the hang of it, but it was after many tears and trials.

I firmly believe that I should not have been "induced" 3 weeks early and that Afton was not meant to come at that time. She still needed more time to grow and develop and that made it even more difficult to breast feed. Babies develop so much in the last few weeks of life inside the womb.

With Hayden, I knew I wanted something different. I researched and I learned how my body worked during pregnancy. I found a birth center with midwives who had attended thousands of births and done it themselves as well. Don't get me wrong, there is definitely a place for men in the child birth field, but how can we expect a man to give us advice on birthing when they have never experience the feelings? That's the problem, we can't. Most men doctors don't advocate for natural child birth because they know nothing about it. Sure, they have read books and know facts, but they don't know what it feels like to give birth or have a contraction. OBGYN's are trained to be doctors to help those women who need medical interventions. They are not trained on how to give birth naturally. This is where midwives come in. They get a bad wrap a lot of the time and I think this is mainly because most of us do not know very much about them. We assume they do hand in hand with hippies and eating organic food. And while that may be true a lot of the time, it's certainly not the whole picture. My midwives were so caring and concerned. They answered every question I had and I never felt rushed at my pre-natal appointments. They made sure I was informed and comfortable with every decision.

When it was time to give birth to Hayden, I felt ready. My midwives had prepared me. With Hayden I felt every step of the birthing process, both painful and beautiful. I know now that my body is slow to go into labor. I was over a week past my "due date" with Hayden and my midwife still helped my body along with breaking my water. This was technically an intervention, but did not impact the natural birth process at all. My body still went into labor on it's own and went through the process naturally. Hayden was so low in the birth canal that it enabled me to make this choice. My total birth was less than 5 1/2 hours from when they broke my water to when Hayden arrived. It was slow at first. When the contractions started, they were manageable. I felt in control, powerful. My midwife helped me understand what my body was doing and what would come next. I had a exercise ball that I sat on when the contractions seemed to get unbearable. My midwife helped me through each contraction and helped me understand the more I relaxed, the easier it would be to get through each contraction. Easier said that done, but it worked! Yes, the final hour and a half of Hayden's birth were the most painful of my life, but I have never felt such a sense of accomplishment. I was never lying in a bed or strapped to machines. I was free to move around and be in a position that helped me to relax. When I even thought about laying down on the bed, I wanted to punch someone. That was not a natural position for me. During the final stretch of labor, pushing, I was in the bathtub on my hands and knees. Again, laying down was not an option for me. When I tried, my body screamed against it and it was almost impossible. My body quite literally told me what to do and how to do it. My midwife supported me the entire time telling me I could do it. To slow down when I needed to and to keep going when I felt like giving up. She was really the only person I focused on the whole time.

When Hayden was born, they laid him on my chest and he looked up at me and opened his eyes. Our eyes connected and I knew he was my son. I knew him before we both came to this earth. It was one of the most sacred and spiritual experiences of my life. Just thinking about it, brings back the sweetness of the experience and helps me know why I will do it again the same way. My body was free of drugs, it wasn't weighed down and tired. Everything happened just as it was supposed to. God gave me this beautiful strong body to bring children into this world and I used it just as He hoped I would. I felt every pain of child birth but I was also able to feel every joyful moment as well because I was in a comfortable, loving environment. It was quiet, peaceful and safe.

We moved to the bed and he nursed right away and he never left my chest for the remainder of our time there other than to lay on the bed next to me occasionally. Chad, Hayden and I all slept on the bed for a few hours and Hayden nursed on and off. The nurse did all of the measuring and gave him his vitamin K shot all from the comfort of our bed and never took Hayden away from me. She gave us our space when we needed it but helped me whenever I asked. I couldn't help but think that the feeling that was in that room for the first few hours after Hayden's birth was probably similar to the feeling in the stable after Christ was born. There was such a sweetness and peacefulness that is hard to replicate. I have only ever had that feeling in the temple. It was something I dearly wish I could always feel. I would endure the pain of childbirth everyday if I had to in order to have that feeling again.

I feel so blessed to have been able to have this experience and hope that all of my future child birth experiences will be the same. My hope to all of you moms out there who are deciding how you want to give birth is this: make an informed decision. Do your own research, ask others about their experiences, ask your hospital their policies and rules. Don't just take your doctors word for it. Also, talk to a midwife if you can. Above all, think about what kind of experience you want and make it happen! It makes a difference, I promise. Listen to your instincts and your body, they will guide you. Above all, rely on God. He will guide you through the pain and help you come out stronger.