Knee Mail

I practically live with this one family. I do all of my gardening there. I raise my rabbits there. I fix my truck there. Oh, and I eat there a lot.Being there so often I can confirm that the oldest married daughter and the mom talk every day. Even though said daughter lives in Utah, it is fairly common to hear from her at least twice a day. Sometimes she calls the house and I even get to talk to her.

Please contrast this with my dad. I can go weeks and months without talking to him. I call him occasionally and he calls me (usually when I have mail to be picked up or if he got tickets to go see the A's lose and would like me to come along.) He once said he need a score card to help him in knowing who I was interested in or dating. I don't date all that much, but my interests vary and if he doesn't hear from me every two weeks, I could have been interested in one girl two weeks ago and now we're not talking. (This happened in September. I was going on dates with a girl who lived near my dad. I introduced them in the first part of September. The next time we talked about her, I had already moved on and it was only October.) In short, we just aren't big people on conversation.

Neither is My Heavenly Father and I. I know that I'm supposed to say my prayers every morning and every night. And some weeks I do. Some weeks I'm really good about kneeling down besides my bed and praying every morning and then returning every night and doing it all over again...but then I get bored with it. You see, I live a pretty simple life. I work, I go to school, I work some more and I go to church. I don't date a whole lot. I don't socialize all that much. I don't really have a whole lot of variety in my life. So the things I'm praying for don't change all that much. I am always grateful for the blessings of rest the night before. I'm always thankful for warm showers and breakfast. I'm grateful for the blessings others enjoy and I pray that God will bless my family, my friends and specifically Nina, Melinda, KNJ & Adam, John, Mahon & Cindy, and Katie F. I recently added Audra, but beyond that - my prayers sound almost exactly like that every day. Just like in Million Dollar Baby, I get to a point where my prayers are "Well do your best lord, other than that, you know what I want, there's no use repeating myself." And that's about the time I stop.

I think impart this comes from the lessons of my father and just the way I look at life. My father is really the type of guy to follow after the counsel of Joseph Smith: "Teach them correct principles and let the govern themselves." My father raised us the best way he knew and now he lets us make our own choices. He hopes that we make good choices, but he's not going to be there to hold our hand through the whole process. We can always come to him if we get stuck or need a little more help. I think that's the same way prayer with my Heavenly Father is. I know what's right (Listening to the prophet helps), and I'll keep plugging along until I get stuck or I need additional help.

I know many that think there is something fundamentally wrong with that perspective, but I just don't see any reason to change it.