Beccy: Good Things

Hi from sunny St. George. It was 70 degrees at 8 p.m.! We're staying in a condo that belongs to some friends, just here for the weekend. Troy and Kyle are doing a 50-mile bike ride in the morning to finish Kyle's Cycling merit badge (last one he has to finish and then he's done with his Eagle and all necessary m.b's). Once the kids were in bed, I camped out on the couch with Troy's laptop and read the entire archive of our family blog. It's great to be back! Your posts are more interesting and fun than the Sept. 2007 rerun BYU-Arizona game Troy is watching on TV. :)

I'm reading This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin. Another good addition to our list of music reads. Also Hearing the Voice of the Lord by Gerald Lund. Those are the top two books of the stack on my nightstand.

Other non-fiction: Lately I have been reading the Book of Mormon with the BYU Religion 121 manual. For some reason, I have been fascinated with Mormon himself this time. I've read the whole book rather quickly this time, trying to see it from Mormon's perspective--wondering how he was affected by what he read. He must have named his son after the earlier Moroni, since he obviously had tremendous respect for him. We know very little about his lineage, and I wonder if his parents were wicked and he might have been ashamed of them? Just a thought. The manual points out that he obviously grew up surrounded by evil, and yet he remained so pure that he received a personal visit from the Savior in his youth (in his 17th year if I'm remembering right). What an example for youth today.

For some reason, it had never caught my attention before that the Jaredites' final battle occurred at the same place as the Nephites' final battle; the base of the Hill Cumorah (the Jaredites called it Ramah I think--don't have my scriptures handy and now I've moved from couch to bed. Troy's snoring. :) Mormon wrote a letter to the Lamanite King "requesting" that they gather there for the final battle, of course knowing how it would end. That got me thinking about why Mormon requested it. Historic irony? Both civilizations annihilated in the same place, several thousand years apart. I wanted to find some place--a verse even--where Mormon comments on the record of the Jaredites. Moroni abridged the Jaredite record and obviously made many comments on it, but I couldn't find anywhere that Mormon gave his impressions of it. Anyone??

Well this is not poetry. I've been helping Jared with his 4th grade poetry notebook all week, so I'm already in that mode. Being in Tucson last week made me think about B. Kingsolver and I'd like to re-read her poetry. More when I get back home.

I was listening to Julie Beck this morning, and after reading over your posts I'm thinking that you are all "women who know." I love your educated opinions and insights, your cleverness and careful choices, your wit and wisdom. And Martha Stewart thinks she can label something a "good thing." Ha!