Self-Isolation the Stott Way

Because of COVID-19, we have been in isolation now for two weeks. Even though we have a large house, we can still get a little stir-crazy when we aren't allowed to leave the home except for obtaining food or other emergencies. [By the way, Alan is seeing emergency patients as needed (only one so far) and has opened up one day a week to perform dental procedures that don't require drilling inside the mouth which would create an aerosol, like denture try-ins or seating of crowns.] 

Four days ago, on a Saturday, we decided to leave home in order to get out of the house and enjoy nature by going to the local poppy reserve. The reserve, itself, was closed, but we could still get close to many hills full of poppies. We were careful to stay socially distant (the required 6 ft. apart). There were several other people there to enjoy these beautiful wild flowers, but it was easy to not get close to others, which could possibly expose us to the coronavirus. We felt very safe doing this. I'm so glad we went. We have had a pretty wet winter, so the poppy crop was good this year. It wasn't as good as the super-bloom of last year, but it was still a good year.

Timing is everything with poppies. You have to go on a sunny, non-windy day. If the weather is overcast, cold, and windy, the poppies will not open up to expose their beauty. We picked a perfect day to go.

I love visiting the poppy fields. I go almost every Spring. Seeing these beautiful flowers always brings me joy.

Preparing for the Storms that Surely Lie Ahead

Preparation, preparation, and more preparation. That is a common theme in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints these days. What are we preparing for? We are preparing for the Second Coming of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. 

Ever since President Russell M. Nelson became the our Prophet, Seer, and Revelator two years ago, I have seen the pleas to prepare spiritually accelerate. Never before have I seen so many changes take place within the church in such a short period of time. We have changed how we minister, how we worship, how the Priesthood, Relief Society, Young Women, and Primary organizations function, and how we study the gospel at home. All of this accelerated preparation, I'm sure, means that the coming of our Lord is very near.

President Nelson has said:

In coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost.

I believe that statement to be true. That's why I am striving to daily study the scriptures and try to stay in tune with the whisperings of the spirit.

Yesterday, I watched a YouTube video by a member of the church entitled "Seven Year Tribulation in the SEVENTH seal TIMELINE." This video blew my mind! The seven seals are mentioned in the book of Revelation in the New Testament. Each seal covers roughly 1,000 years of world history. During the seventh seal, which we are in today, the Savior will come and the millennium will begin and will last for 1,000 years. According to the scriptures and prophecy, the Savior will come at the beginning of the 7th seal, which is NOW...or very soon!

According to his calculation in the video, the Savior will come around the time of the next total solar eclipse which will be in 2024. That is a sobering thought! That is only four years from now!!!

With this current COVID-19 pandemic basically shutting down this country, along with other countries, the economy will eventually start to fall and people will start to feel desperate. When fear sets into the hearts of men, who knows what could happen. Time will only tell. I'm sure this is just the tip of the iceberg of what lies ahead of us all.

It is left up to me to decide whether I'm going to act or react when times get hard. I'm trying to prepare myself spiritually so that I can withstand the buffetings of Satan who surely would like me to buckle under pressure and lose my faith. I will not let that happen! I will stand firm and strong in defending the Church of Jesus Christ, for I know it to be true. I know it to be the way for me to achieve exaltation and to find peace and happiness in this life.

Oh that my children (those who have currently stepped away from the Church) could understand the urgency of preparing for what lies ahead and the importance of staying faithful and true to Jesus Christ. My heart breaks at the thought of them not being allowed to welcome the Savior at His Second Coming. Hopefully, I will still be among the living at that time and be allowed to be a participant. Only time will tell. I can only say that I look forward to the day when the Savior himself will rule and reign here upon the earth. Nothing could be better!

Following The Prompting

This morning, I arose about 6:15 a.m. Normally, I wait a while to shower and get ready for the day, but today I went against that schedule and showered right away, dried my hair, etc. At 7 a.m., I felt a prompting that I needed to go to our local supermarket - Stater Bros. to pick up some items we will need soon. I was confused by this prompting because nothing was urgent. 

I never go to the store this early and I never (or almost never) leave the house without putting my make-up on, but I felt an urgency to go there. When I arrived, a line was forming outside the store. There were probably about 10-15 people in line. I asked the two gentlemen in front of me if they knew what time the store opened. One man, named Dave, spoke up and said 8:00. He said he was there to get some eggs and toilet paper for his 90 year-old mother-in-law. He had already stood in line for over an hour at Albertsons and because of the coronavirus and everyone rushing to the stores to get what they need, the store was out of those items. I told him that because of my bad back I couldn't stand in line for an hour so I was going home, but that I would bring him back some T.P. because I had a good supply at home. He was very touched. We exchanged phone numbers and when I turned to leave, he suddenly asked me what items I was looking for and I told him. He said he would look for those items for me. 

At about 8:15 he called me and said he was not able to get any T.P. but got the other things he needed and also got a couple of items for me. We met in the parking lot and I exchanged my T.P. for the milk and flour he had purchased for me.

On the way home, I marveled at how God's hand was in on this whole exchange. God knew of Dave's need to find T.P. for his mother-in-law and God knew that I had enough and to spare at my home. God sent me there on His errand to help his 90 year-old daughter have the peace of mind she needed during this uncertain time when the virus is impacting so many lives. She could live without T.P., but I know it will bring her comfort and peace.

I love being an instrument in the hand of God. I want to always be on His errand. I just need to remember to stay in tune with the spirit so when those promptings come I can act on them.

I love what Brett Lee wrote on my post on Facebook:

"God uses His people to finish His work. He also uses His work to finish His people"

I believe that is true. I'm happy to be part of His work.

Worshiping At Home

Because of the world-wide outbreak of the coronavirus, the church leaders have suspended all church meetings until further notice. That means that we had no formal church meetings yesterday. Alan and I held our own Sacrament Meeting and Gospel Doctrine class, which was different but special. 

For Sacrament meeting, we opened with announcements, opening song, opening prayer, then we held the sacrament. 

It seemed so odd to have Alan bless and pass the sacrament to just me...but I was very grateful that he is a worthy priesthood holder who could perform that ordinance in my behalf.

Of course, Alan wanted our church meetings to be like every other Sunday in the branch, so we held it in Spanish - not my preference, but I went along with it.

For our talk we read and discussed a General Conference talk from last October by Elder Ruben V. Alliaud entitled "Found Through the Power of the Book of Mormon."

For Sunday School, we did our "Come Follow Me" study for the week - Jacob 5-7. We recently started using Ben Wilcox's "Teaching With Power" videos for our study time. He does an excellent job of delving into the scriptures and bringing them to life. He brings out new perspectives that I had never considered before. 

Our first at-home worship went well. I missed being with other members on the sabbath, but I thought it was fine and we were spiritually fed.

Mass Hysteria U.S.A.

Covid-19, a coronavirus which began in the Wuhan Province in China has caused panic throughout the world. As of today, there has been 137,837 reported cases worldwide and 5,088 deaths. No person under 50 years old has died from this virus.

As a comparison, from what I have gathered, there has been 36 million reported cases of influenza this season, 370,000 people have been hospitalized, and there has been 22,000 deaths. I'm not sure if this statistic is for just the United States or if it is world-wide, but I think it is U.S. cases.

This daily death rate worldwide is interesting:

So why all the fuss? Even though the flu has killed and hospitalized many more people than covid-19 has, hysteria has broken out all through our country as well as other countries, especially Italy. The media has hyped it so much that our citizens are scared and on impulse they are depleting stores of things like bottled water, toilet paper, hand sanitizer, etc.  In fear of having to be quarantined in their homes, people are buying more food than usual. This means having to wait in long lines at stores....some standing in line for up to 4 hours at some Costco stores. This is crazy!

To top it all off, the stock market has taken a plunge, sporting events of all kinds have come to a halt, travel has basically come to a stop, and even my church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has announced that all meetings are to be discontinued until further notice. About 15 temples have closed, church schools have closed, nobody will be allowed into the Conference Center during General Conference in three weeks, and our Stake Conference, scheduled for March 28th & 29th has been cancelled. (We were supposed to be getting a new Stake Presidency at that time.)

 Because the First Presidency of the Church has taken extreme precautions to avoid facilitating the spreading of Covid-19, I thought I would share something a friend posted on Facebook that I thought was interesting:

1. Isn't it interesting that in this time, Heavenly Father called a DOCTOR (President Nelson) to be a prophet to the world?

2. Isn't it amazing that if we are asked to stay at home, we don't have to freak out? The prophets have long been telling us to have food storage prepared for emergencies!

3. Isn't it amazing that if church was to be canceled, our prophet has been having us learn how to study/have church at home?

4. Isn't it amazing that Heavenly Father put a prophet on the Earth to help people know what to do and how to prepare us?

God works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform. I trust in the leaders of the church to guide us and direct us down righteous paths. I am going to continue to follow the prophets.

I certainly don't know what the future holds regarding this virus. I'm hoping it will all blow away in a few weeks. Many people, including me, believe that the main stream left media is purposely hyping this virus in order to cause chaos in order to enhance their chances of winning the next presidential election in November. It seems unconscionable to me, but I wouldn't put it past them to try something like that. They have been trying for over 3 years to bring down the Trump Presidency and they will stop at nothing to accomplish their desire to do so. I am convinced that no other President could have or would have acted more quickly and more decisively than President Trump has. He has done everything possible, including closing borders and taking measures to slow the spread of the disease. He declared it a national emergency today. 

We have a vacation planned in one week, but we are not going to let fear keep us from enjoying our trip. We will be traveling by car, so we aren't concerned about catching the virus. We will move forward with faith, not fear!

I Swallowed My Pride And Bit The Bullet

My back seems to be getting worse. Walking long distances and standing for very long has become more of a problem over the last couple of years. When we went to Universal Studios over a year ago, Alan rented a scooter for me. It was a "God-send"! My back was happy all day - no painful walking (except from the parking structure to the entrance - both ways). No standing in lines! Same thing when we went to the Phoenix Zoo right before Christmas. The rented scooter came in super handy.

Although it is r-e-a-l-l-y difficult for me to swallow my pride and ride a scooter, I bit the bullet and purchased an early birthday present yesterday. Alan and I drove to a store in Burbank that sells mobility scooters. After test driving a few, we settled on a portable one. It is called a GoGo Elite Traveler made by the Pride Company. It detaches into 4 parts that can easily be stored in the back of our van. 

There were a few other models to choose from, but we chose this one since it is the lightest and easiest one for me to take apart and lift into the van. It doesn't have some of the bells and whistles that other models had, but I don't need all that. I just need the basics since I won't be using it daily...or even weekly. I mostly need it for special occasions.

One upcoming special occasion is our trip to Arizona and New Mexico in a couple of weeks. I think the scooter will come in very handy then, especially at Tombstone and Carlsbad Caverns. Time will tell. I'm looking forward to that trip!

Rice Experiment Continued

I have been conducting my jars of rice experiment for three weeks now. The experiment went well. The jar with the "Love" label never did show any sign of discoloration while the jar with the "Hate" label continued to get more discolored each day.

After day 21, I decided to remove the "Hate" label and replace it with a "Love" label. I want to see if it can heal itself or if it will continue to decay. This should be interesting. The red "Love" jar is the original and the pink "Love" jar is the old "Hate" jar.

I will do an update after about 3 more weeks to share where things stand.

Jane shared a poem with me that goes along with the topic of showing love and kindness instead of belittling or hating anyone. She said she memorized it a few years ago and often repeats it to herself in her mind.  It goes like this:

I have wept in the night

For my shortness of sight

That to somebody's need made me blind.

But I have never as yet

Felt a tinge of regret

For being a little too kind.

Kindness and love are so important. I want more of that in the world today!

**********
UPDATE:

I continued to do the rice experiment for another three weeks. After 21 days of both jars having the "Love" label, I could see that the rice in the original "Hate" label jar continued to deteriorate some, but maybe not quite as fast has it had done previously. I was hoping that it could reverse itself and turn good, but that was totally wishful thinking.

This second experiment really helped me see that once someone feels unloved, neglected, hated, bullied, minimized, abused, etc. it is very difficult to change course and recover from that. Most likely, the roots of this abuse run deep making becoming emotionally well an almost impossible task.

This makes me appreciate my upbringing and my marriage. I have been treated kindly and with love by my parents, my siblings, my husband, and my children. For that, I am very grateful.