Tuesday, March 26, 2024
This morning I woke up pretty early and got to work fixing up the blog. I ran some calculations and found some interesting stats.
Since this trip began we have driven over 6,400 miles in a car. We have flown over 4,700 miles, and we have traveled over 3,400 miles in train. That’s a total of over 14,500 miles.
We have visited 8 different LDS wards and 15 temples -- six in Europe. We’ve done all of this while sleeping in 13 different houses and spending only two nights in hotels -- those were driving back and forth from Michigan to Utah. We have slept one night in temple housing and two nights in a Catholic Church in Rome. It will take some time after it’s all said and done for everything to sink in.
Today I had the great blessing of showing my kids one of my most favorite cities: Barcelona. We took a train in from Sant Boi to Drassanes. It’s the same journey I took for a month when I was studying Catalan here 16 years ago. We saw the Columbus statue and I gave the kids a crash course on Catalan history. Then we walked up the Ramblas, a beautiful walking street filled with street vendors of all kinds: artists, jewelers, flower sellers, etc. Our first main stop was the Boqueria -- one of Europes oldest and best markets. We took maybe an hour walking through all of the stalls and taking in the different sights and sounds and even smells. In the end we got some fresh juice and candy for the kids. River loves gummy candies so we took a few minutes to give her birthday a little extra celebration.
Then we just went for a nice walk up the Ramblas to Plaça de Catalunya and then down through the Barri Gotic by the Palau de la Música Catalana and then to the Cathedral, the Plaça de Sant Jaume, and then to the Roman Temple d’August. And finally to my favorite church in Barcelona: Santa Maria del Mar, which we went inside and were even able to climb up to the roof.
We finished everything off with patates braves (spicy potatoes) and pa amb tomaquet (bread with olive oil and tomatoes) and croquetes. It was a great day.
We headed back to the house where we relaxed, talked, watched tv, and had a great seminary lesson.
We read the verse in Mosiah that says that if we keep the commandments we are blessed in ALL things, both temporal and spiritual. And then we talked about the interesting questions that scripture brings up.
We know that there are people who have kept the commandments of God and it does not appear they are blessed in all things. They may be sick or struggle financially. Or they might have a child leave the covenant path. So either one of three things is going on.
Those people with challenges in their lives are not keeping the commandments.
The scripture is simply not true.
We misunderstand what it means to be blessed in all things.
For me there is only possible answer.
So we talked about what it might mean to be blessed in all things. That led us to talk about how the purpose of life is to grow to become more like God. And growth only happens when we are challenged. So the greatest blessing God could give us would not be comfort, but opportunities to grow. And when we keep the commandments, he gives us opportunities to grow in all areas of our life. It’s similar to what we discussed when we talked about the Liahona. It leads us to growth, not comfort.
It was a good talk for us to have because honestly we are all panicking a bit about this last stage of our journey. It’s going to be an intense opportunity to grow.
