What Makes a House a Home?

Merriam-Webster assigns this definition to the word ‘word’: “A speech sound or series of speech sounds that symbolizes and communicates a meaning.” As a communicator and a lover of linguistics, that fascinates me. It is intriguing how a “speech sound” can be powerful enough to evoke in us emotion, move us to action, and prompt us to reminisce or even ponder future possibilities. It is equally intriguing how words are defined one way in a particular area, culture, or generation and can completely change in another. Some words even have essentially the same meaning, according to the dictionary, but a completely different essence in society.

New Year, New Me: See Myself the Way Christ Sees Me

The new year brings with it that tradition of making resolutions. These goals seem to regularly focus on changing what we don’t like about ourselves, often such lofty changes that are so far beyond our reach that we abandon them by the 5th week of the year. I love this time of year, and have learned through experience that it’s best to use resolutions as a way of making goals that I know I can achieve.

I haven’t quite made an official list of specific goals for the year, but the thought of how I can become better has been on my mind. I have come up with a theme for my year, and that is to not be so hard on myself and others.

How An Olympian Learned To Trust In The Lord

The LDS youth in College Station, Texas had a recent fireside where the speakers weren’t members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but were Christian athletes from Texas A&M University. This is part one of three in a series highlighting the events and stories told from that evening.

Stephanie Malherbe is an accounting major at Texas A&M University and a midfielder on the Aggie women’s soccer team. Never before did she imagine the title of “Olympic athlete” would follow her name.

“The Olympics were never in my plans,” Malherbe said. “I was very content playing soccer at A&M and enjoying my time. It wasn't something I had aspirations to do, and it wasn't something that I really thought about.”

True Gifts of Christmas--A Family Tradition

In 1988, I was called to serve as a counselor in a bishopric for the first time. My remarkable bishop taught two principles that I have never forgotten. 

First, Jesus is the Christ. Every day of our lives, we must reflect his love, his mercy, his sacrifice, and especially his Atoning gift that he gave to us all by our actions and service to others. 

Second, charity. This bishop believed in always showing love for our fellow man through giving ourselves in unconditional service to others. Serving the people of our ward was a top priority, so I was not surprised by the idea this bishop had for our first Christmas as a bishopric. 

In October, just a few months after we had been called to serve, the bishop wanted to bring these two principles to the people of our ward through a Christmas gift. The main purpose of one meeting was to think of specific ways we could serve the members of the ward and teach them of Christ. Since our first Christmas as a bishopric was only a few months away, the bishop wanted us to conceive a gift that we could give to the members of our ward to help them focus on the Savior during the Christmas season.  He asked us to go home and pray for inspiration for ideas on what we could do. 

Life Isn't Fair

This post originally appeared on Hearts of Zion. We post it here with the author's permission. 

Five years ago, a month before my 25th birthday, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor called an acoustic neuroma. It was slightly larger than the size of a golf ball (which is huge in terms of a brain tumor). Due to the tumor pressing against my brain stem the doctors had concerns that the tumor could prove to be fatal and would need to be removed as soon as possible. My oldest son was two years old, and my daughter was just 6 weeks old. Needless to say, it was a time of immense stress and fervent prayer.

So many questions flooded my mind. What will this mean for my family? For me? What will the rest of my life look like? What if the doctors concerns were realized and it was fatal? How could I leave my husband alone with our two babies? The questions of the unknown were overwhelming. Most days leading up to the surgery were spent trying to keep busy in effort to keep my mind off of the reality of what was happening but would usually land in a puddle of emotions.

The surgery was complex and would required two doctors and over eight hours to complete. Following the surgery I spent a week in the ICU and hospital. When it was time to go home, I would have been happy to never go to a hospital for the rest of my life. But after only two days of finally being home, I was rushed back to the hospital for another emergency surgery due to complications from the first one. I was so disheartened.