Matt.

I've been thinking about home.

My home is here, where I sit and type.

where my children sleep.

But home is there, too. that barn in Canada,

where I've never lived but spent each summer of my life.

I like to breath the air there.

home is where I love the most.

Home is my family.

Where I'm loved the most.

Here.

and there.

It's where I've been.

Where I'll be again

with Conan and our children, forever.

and ever.

The place I don't remember, but I know.

Where I can rest.

My cousin passed away last week.

It's been a long thinking week. about him. about home.

about family. time. the important stuff.

We spent a lot of days at that barn.

I love my family. It's hard not to be with them now.

Not that there's anything I could do for them

to make it stop.

but it's hard to be

away.

it helps to know,

Matt's home.

resting.

and I'm pretty sure he likes the air there.

patience.

I love the slow, breathable space that sneaks in between busy and consumed. The soft spot of time, when everything's clear and smells of contemplation. That time when I'm allowed to linger.

Until I get bored with the scenery.

It's ingratitude, I think.

Impatience for sure.

When I'm anxiously waiting for the view to change {to build our house, when all our dreams wil come true, etc}, just because I want it to; and the Lord tells me to stay put. Learn to love where you are.

Okay. I'll stay. But I still think it will be better over there.

So He gives me this:

"The seeming flat periods of life give us a blessed chance to reflect upon what is past as well as to be readied for some rather stirring climbs ahead. Instead of grumbling and murmuring, we should be consolidating and reflecting, which would not happen if life were an uninterrupted sequence of fantastic scenery, confrontive events, or exhilarating conversation.

Patience helps us to use, rather than protest, these seeming flat periods of life, becoming filled with quiet wonder over the past and with anticipation for that which may lie ahead, instead of demeaning the particular flatness through which we may be passing at the time.

We should savor even the seemingly ordinary times, for life cannot be made up of all kettledrums and crashing cymbals. There must be some flutes and violins. Living cannot be all crescendo; there must be some counterpoint."

-Neal A Maxwell, Patience 1979

Humility. I can only pretend I know what's best for me, but I don't.

He knows for real. He knows I'm not ready for the crescendo.

It's time to linger in the flutes and violins with gratitude.

and patience.

Nauvoo.

We spent two days in Nauvoo, Illinois.

This is such a wonderful place;

you can't help but disregard the sweltering heat

and soak up the history and the reverence.

I didn't really want to leave.

“I was in Nauvoo on the 26th day of May, 1846,

for the last time,

and left the city of the Saints feeling that most likely

I was taking a final farewell of Nauvoo for this life.

I looked upon the temple and City as they receded from view

and asked the Lord to remember the sacrifices of his Saints.”

Wilford Woodruff