Giving Thanks

There's an old Perry Como song that sometimes gets played during the holidays called "Oh, There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays." It's pretty corny, but I realized this week that part of it is very, very true. One of the verses says "Take a bus, take a train, Go and hop an aeroplane, Put the wife and kiddies in the car. For the pleasure that you bring when you make that doorbell ring No trip could be too far." This week, we had the joy of having all of our family home for Thanksgiving and what pleasure it brought us! We appreciate the sacrifice each family made to be here; the love, kindness and toleration that helped us enjoy each other; and the peace that comes from knowing that despite challenges, each person is trying to do what the Lord would have them do. We're so thankful for Heavenly Father's blessings!

Our Amazing Ancestors

Okay, strictly speaking, Judah McClaskey Gillett is not our ancestor. She is the sister of my gggrandfather, Samuel McClaskey. I have been obsessed with Judah and her family for about 5 years.

She was born in southern Ohio along the Ohio river on land given to her father and brothers in payment for their services in the War of 1812. She grew up there, married there and had several children there. At some point, she and her family made the decision to move westward. On the 1850 census, Samuel and Judah and their family are living, amazingly enough, in Nauvoo. I suppose at some point they heard about the abandonment of Nauvoo by the Saints and chose to move there. From Nauvoo, Samuel and Judah and the younger children moved back to Knox County, Illinois, near Galesburg. However, five of their children headed west to California. Another daughter would move there later.

One of Judah's sons died at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862 and Samuel died in Knox County in 1865. At some point, she decided to journey west and join her children who lived in California. She died there in 1896.

In October, I was able to travel to California with Rene when he went on business. When we decided to take an extra day and go north to the Redwoods, I suggested that we also go to visit the parts of Humboldt county where Judah's children settled and where she died. What a thrill that was! I described the trip to Petrolia here, but let me just say that it was wild and rugged countryside that we traveled through. After zigzagging up and down the mountains, we finally descended into the beautiful Mattole valley. This is where Judah and her children settled. I was touched to see the charming little farmsteads, many with small orchards and beautiful yards. In Petrolia, we went to the tiny cemetery, where we found the grave on Judah's son-in-law. We drove on up over more mountains to Ferndale, where some of Judah's grandchildren lived and died.

This little excursion really increased my admiration for this family. It took us, in a car, 4 hours to make the trip from the main highway to Ferndale. There is only one road that goes through Petrolia and it's not a good one. How in the world did they do it with a horse and wagon? How did they even know that this beautiful, isolated little valley was out there? I'm sure they were very self-reliant and worked hard to be successful. I wonder if they ever felt alone or isolated? I know they lost children and many of them died at a young age. Did Judah feel discouragement as she survived many of her own children?

When we went to Lauren's blessing in St. Paul earlier this month, Preston blessed Lauren to have the faith of her pioneer ancestors. To me, that was a thoughtful and tender blessing and one to be sought after by all of us, too!

Non Sequiturs

For those who may not know what a non sequitur is, it is something that does not follow logically from what preceded it. Here's an example. As we were eating breakfast today, we were talking about what we had to do today and events that we have coming up, when Rene suddenly said, "You know what people never have enough of when there's an emergency and no electricity?" I was just sitting there staring at him because that thought apparently came out of nowhere. The answer, by the way, is candles. When I knew what the answer was, I could follow his train of thought--there is a candlabra thing on the table with 5 candles on it and he was sitting there looking at it while he ate.

Sometimes in life, as we go about living the gospel and developing faith in Christ, we come across things that appear to be non sequiturs in the religious sense. Our friends Jim and Mary have had a hard year in some respects. Eleven months ago, Jim lost his job and in the intervening time, he has had hardly a nibble as far as a new job goes. On top of that, Mary lost her job two weeks ago and now Jim's dad is ill and struggling with his health. Jim and Mary are both converts to the church who married in the temple, served faithfully in callings, keep the commandments and are raising their kids to do what is right. To our human eyes, it doesn't follow that all these hard things would happen to them. Or what about our friends Pam and Ray? About a year ago, they lost their young adult son when he had a two week old son and his life was just beginning to turn around.

Of course, the opposite situation is true, too. There are many in the world today who feel that they have done such horrible things or have lived such bad lives that there is no hope for them, that the Lord could never love them. Many are struggling with addictions and cannot believe that the Lord's grace and mercy are available to help them. To them, it doesn't seem logical that the Lord does love them.

Part of our problem as humans is that we cannot "see" the Lord's thought processes. When I realized that Rene was eating his breakfast looking at candles, I could understand why he said what he did. But generally, we can't do that with the Lord. In Isaiah, we are taught that the Lord's thoughts are not our thoughts, nor his ways our ways. We have to rely on our faith to help us understand and that's hard. I don't think I'm especially good at it and I know there are many out there who aren't good at it either.

In August of 2008, President Monson was asked what members of the church could give him for his birthday, he responded, "Go and find someone who is having a hard time, ....and do something for them." It seems the least we can do in this month when we ponder our many blessings and thank the Lord for them.

Grandmas

Apparently, Macey and Lauren weren't as impressed with the historic nature of the occasion when 4 generations of us were together this weekend. In fact, Lauren appears to be downright bored.

Boo!

Macey came over on Nov. 30 to go to our ward's trunk or treat. (Okay, Ben and Shannon came, too.) She was so cute! Here are some pictures of that night and of the next day, when we all went to Emily and Preston's for Lauren's blessing.