Moran Family Fun

What would you say if someone asked you what faith is? In Hebrews 11, Paul defined faith as "the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." The assurance of things hoped for - faith is knowing that because of Jesus Christ, we can hope for a brighter future. I feel as if hope and faith are one and the same. Life can be heartbreakingly difficult sometimes and even though I know that challenges are there to help us learn and grow, I sure wish I didn't have to go through those hard times. When I have felt surrounded by struggles and I couldn't see any way that things would ever get better, the only thing that has kept me moving forward is hope. Not the kind of hope that is sort of wishful like hoping your team wins a World Cup game, but hope that is sure because it is based on Christ. Having faith in Jesus Christ is having hope and knowing that His promises are sure.  The evidence of things not seen - faith in God grows when we see Him working in our...

In Ephesians 6, Paul uses a familiar military metaphor to teach about the need to protect ourselves spiritually - putting on the whole armor of God. Satan is tricky and getting more aggressive in his efforts. He will use lots of methods to attack us as we make our way through life. I think about our girls a lot and compare the temptations I faced when I was younger to what they are confronted with each day. It's a whole new world out there and satan is everywhere and actively seeking them out. I was talking with a friend about this the other day and how during the last days, there will be false Christs and false prophets with their signs and wonders deceiving the very elect (Matthew 24:24). I believe today's youth and young adults are the very elect and it is heartbreaking to see so many of them being deceived and falling away. As I look at our children, I worry that I haven't taught them enough or helped them learn how to put on the armor of God AND why is it vital for the...

I've been trying to be more healthy in the things I eat and I've added lots of fruit to my daily life. Way more than I usually eat to the point that I'm almost getting sick of eating fruit. Well, this week I have been studying in the book of Galatians. There are a couple of passages in chapter five that I've probably heard a million times before but they still stand out as worth pondering and remembering.  First, Galatians 5:16-17 that talks about what we need to do to overcome temptation. Paul told the Galatians: "This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would." I recognize these competing sides in my nature, even though I would like to be the kind of person who is only the good side of things. I want to walk in the Spirit, I want to be worthy to have the Sp...

This week I was reading in the New Testament in 2 Thessalonians and wanted to share a passage that stood out to me. On a side note, around this time last year, we were in Thessaloniki for vacation and I didn't even make the connection to the books in the Bible.  Thessaloniki with the White Tower in the background In 2 Thessalonians 2:15-17 it says "Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle. Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and god, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, Comfort your hearts, and establish you in every good word and work." I love traditions and we're coming into the time of year when traditions really take center stage so I think that's one reason why these verses stood out. However, I don't think Paul was talking about traditions like family pajamas on Christmas Eve or cooking Grandma's pumpkin pi...

I'm currently taking a New Testament institute course to help me get ready for next year's Come, Follow Me curriculum and really get a head start on studying when we'll be teaching at home and in Seminary. We're one week in and already, I'm being asked to share what I'm learning. I should have known because that's a big part of the learning model at BYU-I! One option for these weekly assignments is to post on a blog so that will be what I do for the next little while on here - share the thoughts and feelings and discoveries that come to my heart and mind from studying the beautiful teachings in the New Testament.  Back in September, I decided that I wanted to study my patriarchal blessing. I'm pretty good about pulling it out and reading it from time to time, but really studying it is something I'd never done before. My plan was to look for blessings, spiritual gifts, promises, words of affirmation, and warnings. One thing that stood out to me was a ...

I uttered that title phrase one time on a cold windy day in Yellowstone, and that was enough to make it go down in Moran family history as my catchphrase. This week we’re at young women camp in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. Today as I sat and studied the scriptures I felt as if one section from this week’s Come, Follow Me manual was perfectly made for me.  The question I decided to focus my study on was “How does pondering the Lord’s creations lead me to praise Him?” and the corresponding chapters were Psalms 8, 19, and 33. I wanted to write down what came to mind as I pondered the Lord’s creations. The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork.  Psalms 19:1 Alma 30 teaches that “all things denote there is a God” and I believe that. I especially believe that the earth and its creations testify of God. Sitting here surrounded by the beautiful mountains and trees is a good reminder of that. I may not be outdoorsy in that I don’t love strenuous o...

On Sundays, our family studies a talk from the most recent General Conference for our family scripture study. This week we read and discussed Sister Wright's talk Christ Heals That Which is Broken .  She talked about how  Jesus Christ can help us heal our relationships with God, with each other, and with ourselves. It was perfectly timed because I had just shared with Larisa in a text that "I don't feel quite so broken, but I'm not all the way whole either". So often, life knocks me down and leaves me feeling like that. Not exactly broken, but not as unbroken as I'd like to be. Learning how to get back up and put the pieces together again and being okay with things looking differently than I thought they would has been an important lesson that I wish I didn't have to learn.  At the beginning of her talk, she said that our lives cannot "be understood by one magnificent moment or one regrettable public disappointment." I think this is where I get c...

After a year and a half of our family living scattered across different continents, taking over parts of dear family members' homes, living in hotels for an extended period, and generally having a bit of an unsettled life, we're in a house that we expect to call home for the next few years. We're mostly here together - it's still strange to have our family become smaller and more spread out as our children grow while at the same time become larger because of our two amazing sons-in-law. The four of us who are here are here together and that's been pretty great PLUS we have all of our things. It's both strange and wonderful.  When we moved into our home in Brandon, I posted a little house tour here and it's been fun to look back on that, so I thought we could do the same thing here for our Bickendorf house.  I loved our house in England because it was all on one level and it had an enormous kitchen. We have stairs here and a smaller kitchen, but we still love...

This post has been bouncing around in my head for the past six months. Having two daughters get married in the space of a little over a year meant that we needed a lot of help with wedding-related things between April of 2020 and April of 2021. I was particularly thankful for the help we received leading up to Emily and Ben's wedding. Because Covid was a little more under control this spring, they were able to have more guests than Madison and Carson did which meant more to plan and prepare and, for me, more stressful feelings. There is no way we could have pulled off either event without the help of some wonderful friends and family members. Six months out from Emily and Ben's big day, here's my list of the many, many people who made it possible for everything to go so well. I'm probably forgetting some people, so if you're not mentioned here just know that my prayers were full of gratitude for you in the weeks before and after the wedding.  Ben's parents JD an...

If you know me, you probably know that I really enjoy sewing. Over the past month, I've been working on a dress for myself for Ben and Emily's wedding. Because life is really busy right now, the only day I can sit down and sew is Sunday. As I've been sewing, my thoughts have kept coming back to the same thing - making a dress has so many parallels to the gospel and God's plan for us. First, we have to understand how the pattern fits together and cut out all the individual pieces in the correct size. To me, this is like knowing about God's Plan and how it works in my life. Patterns or plans provide order to what would otherwise be chaos. Take a few yards of fabric, some thread, and a zipper and try to make a dress out of it without a pattern or a plan. You probably wouldn't be successful. Over 80 pages of pattern pieces had to be carefully taped together and then cut out and pinned to the fabric I snapped this picture before I realized that I'd placed the pat...

I think for the past few years I've felt as if whatever year it is has been the hardest of my life. In addition to the ways in which the COVID pandemic impacted our lives, 2020 was a very challenging year for our family. At the end of 2019, I remember thinking that I couldn't wait to put the year behind us and move on to bigger and better things in 2020. But things didn't magically become easier when the calendar was flipped to January of 2020 and in many ways, they continued to grow more difficult. Robert D. Hales gave a talk about gratitude where he said, "In some quiet way, the expression and feelings of gratitude have a wonderful cleansing or healing nature." I know that's true because as I've turned to the Lord with gratitude I've felt happiness and hope for the future during some really dark times. James 1:2 tells us to "count it all joy when we fall into divers afflictions." That joy can and does come from living a life full of gratitu...

This semester I've been taking an Institute class about eternal families. The main text for the course is The Family: A Proclamation to the World . This was originally written in 1995 and it's easy to see how prophetic it is and how we need the truths contained in it more than ever. We've also been studying the scriptures, General Conference talks, and other addresses from church leaders that further expand on the teachings in the Proclamation. In the introductory unit, we started by learning about the doctrine of the family and why families are so important. Then we moved on to learning about the Plan of Salvation and how families are the essential unit of that plan and that everything within the plan is based on truth and law.  We learned about the purpose of His plan - which is to allow us to gain eternal life - and how marriage and gender help us progress along the path back to Him. In the next unit, we focused on how covenants and ordinances, specifically temple ordina...

This evening we drove to see the Roy City Christmas lights. I got a glimpse of them when I was driving by the city offices a few nights ago and I knew we needed to go back and check them out. There are over a million lights covering the city offices and the surrounding grounds and it's totally free to walk around and enjoy the lights. On the hour and half hour, there is an entire light show! You just tune your radio to a certain frequency and there is music playing and all the lights turn on and off in time with the music. It was so cool! I love that the city just does this. It's totally free and just a perfect little family Christmas activity. You could stay in your car the entire time if you wanted to, but how fun would it be to get out and dance in the middle of the light show? We love Christmastime!