Baptism of Maverick Roy Rasband (February 24, 2024)

        Some thoughts

I saw an interesting thing on Fox News this past week.  There was a religious teacher in a Christian college in England that posted on Twitter something to this effect:  "Homosexuality is wrong.  If there is no sin, we don't need a Savior."  Of course, he got fired for his views (or at least for sharing his views online).  I thought his "Tweet" was profound.  In this world people are trying so hard to say that certain choices are not sins that they convince themselves they don't need a Savior.  Elder Holland in his talk last conference said, "To be a follower of Jesus Christ, one must sometimes carry a burden--your own or someone else's--and go where sacrifice is required and suffering is inevitable.  A true Christian cannot follow the Master only in those matters with which he or she agrees.  No.  We follow Him everywhere, including, if necessary, into arenas filled with tears and trouble, where sometimes we may stand very much alone." I'm afraid that this religious teacher has found himself very much alone for following and sharing his convictions.  

Most of you know that I signed up to be an online institute teacher (volunteer).  I have been doing the training for the past couple of weeks, as well as joining in a Zoom training meeting a couple of times.  In one of these sessions I learned something: I had been faithful in my regular scripture study each day, which consisted of reading our Come Follow Me assignment; studying Teaching in the Savior's Way; reading and thinking about Conference Talks; and looking up Book of Mormon Scriptures to further my study. Along with this I did the online training for the institute class.  When we had our weekly Zoom meeting, the instructor asked all of us to list one thing in the chat feature that we had learned this week.  I had done all this studying throughout the week and I literally had to rack my brain to come up with something to add to the chat.  So, what did I learn?  I learned that I need to be more mindful of what I read and study.  If I'd had my notes by me, I would have had no problem.  Anyway, I decided that I needed to take a few minutes at the end of my study sessions from now on to write a paragraph on what I learned and what I felt while studying.

Last week in Sunday School, the teacher spent a long time on taking upon ourselves the yoke of Jesus Christ.  Most of us think of this scripture as the Savior helping us pull our loads thus making our load easier, but the teacher wanted to look at it differently--he read the scripture and emphasized that it says we are to take upon ourselves His yoke.  We spent 3/4 of the lesson discussing this.  I went home thinking that the lesson wasn't very good because he saw something that the rest of us didn't see and he wasted his time trying to get us to look at this scripture differently.  However, throughout the week, while studying the Sunday morning talks from this past conference, I noticed that almost everyone talked about this scripture.  Sister J Anette Dennis' talk was even entitled, His Yoke is Easy and His Burden is Light. His Yoke  I think she got the exact meaning that our Sunday School Teacher was trying to share.  She said, "We are commanded to love others, not to judge them.  Let's lay down that heavy burden; it isn't ours to carry.  Instead, we can pick up the Savior's yoke of love and compassion."  If we take the Savior's yoke, we can help him to carry that love and compassion to those around us.  She also says, "When we confront life's wind and rainstorms, sickness and injuries, the Lord--our Shepherd, our Caregiver--will nourish us with love and kindness.  He will heal our hearts and restore our souls.  As followers of Jesus Christ, shouldn't we do likewise?"

So, I had to humble myself and realize that the teacher was successful for making me think of that scripture throughout the week and for seeing a myriad of ways to apply it.

Roy had another conference in St. George and was down there for a couple of days.  We didn't see the family much the past couple of weeks, but we had some pictures shared with us on the Rasband Clan and also sent to us individually.  I'll share some of those pictures here:

A Few Family Pictures

Congratulations to Ollie.  His baseball team took first place in the championship playoffs.
You probably can't see it, but Ollie has his championship ring on his finger. 
They got rings instead of trophies.

Cait made a visit to grandpa.  She said he was fairly coherent and that he was
very glad to see her. 

Camden and Ori; Bevy and Harvey, celebrating St. Patrick's Day with some new duds.

This is Avi posing.  I think she's at the doctor's office.  She had
a double ear infection.

Foster: grumpy and happy

We couldn't use our Matilda tickets, so we passed them on to Sara and the girls.  
Sara said the girls laughed so loud she was almost embarrassed.  

This is my current project.  Now I have to figure out how to
quilt it with my embroidery machine.  I have new hoop that makes it possible
to match the patterns together so I can quilt the whole quilt that way.  I'm a little 
nervous to try it.

I took a picture of our yard on Friday morning, showing Roy what
he had to drive home in.  You can't see it, but it was snowing fairly
heavily.  We've had weather like this on and off all week.  It's unusual.  And--it's a much
needed miracle!

A Family History Moment

Now, at the expense of being too verbose, I wanted to share a family history story shared by Dave Cook in his letter last week:

Our most recent Irish heritage on the Clyde side is when my third great grandfather James McDonald immigrated with his wife, Sarah Ferguson McDonald.  The Ferguson name is prominent in both Ireland and Scotland, but the McDonald name is prominent only in North Ireland and Scotland.  James McDonald spent a good portion of his youth in Scotland and moved back to the place of his birth, Crawsfordsburn, Down County, Ireland.  James worked to prepare flax for weaving.  We don't know if they met at the flax factory that employed both men and women or if they knew each other as children.  James and Sarah were among the first to recognize and accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ and were baptized in 1841.  Their home became the gathering place for the Saints.  The Spirit of gathering was strong with them and their seven children including our 2nd great grandmother, Eliza McDonald Clyde.  The voyage was unusually good, and they arrived in Nauvoo in April 1844 and had the privilege of having Joseph Smith, Jr. come aboard their riverboat and meet many of the saints.  He also preached to them.  The crowd was so large that if you were on the outside of the crowd, you wouldn't have been able to hear him.  It was only a couple of months after meeting the Prophet of the Lord that Joseph was murdered at Carthage, Illinois.  In 1850, they joined the Aaron Johnson company to travel to Utah and to Springville, Utah (Eliza's future husband, William Morgan Clyde was in this company).  Sadly, after wading across the North Platte River, James became ill and died the next day.  He was buried where he died.  Sarah was prostrate from shock and grief, but life had to go on. After all she was Irish and had the stubbornness and (we're told) a temper to forge ahead.  A great heritage for sure. (Taken from: James McDonald--Sarah Ferguson, Their Progenitors and Their Posterity by Ila May Fisher Maughan).  Dave adds: Apparently, the name Ila was more common than we thought.