Fourth Floor, Last Door

"Faith is a strong conviction about something we believe - a conviction so strong that it moves us to do things that we otherwise might not do.

...For anyone who wants to increase faith - [you should] listen differently. 

Faith is powerful, and often it does result in miracles.  But no matter how much faith we have, there are two things faith cannot do.  For one, it cannot violate another person's agency.

God will invite, persuade.  God will reach out tirelessly with love and inspiration and encouragement.  But God will never compel - that would undermine His great plan for our eternal growth.

The second thing faith cannot do is force our will upon God.  We cannot force God to comply with our desires - no matter how right we think we are or how sincerely we pray.  

The purpose of faith is not to change God's will but to empower us to act on God's will.  Faith is trust - trust that God sees what we cannot and that He knows what we do not.

Faith means that we trust not only in God's wisdom but that we trust also in His love.  It means trusting that God loves us perfectly, that everything He does - every blessing He gives and every bless He, for a time, withholds - is for our eternal happiness.  

With this kind of faith, though we may not understand why certain things happen or why certain prayers go unanswered, we can know that in the end everything will make sense.

We can be certain that answers will come, and we may be confident that we will not only be content with the answers but we will also be overwhelmed by the grace, mercy, generosity, and love of our Heavenly Father for us, His children.  

Until then, we walk by whatever faith we have, seeking always to increase our faith.  Faith comes to the humble, the diligent, the enduring.

It comes to those who pay the price of faithfulness.

In our search for enduring faith, in our quest to connect with God and His purposes, let us remember the Lord's promise: "Knock, and it shall be opened unto you."

God "rewards those who earnestly seek him," but that reward is not usually behind the first door.  So we need to keep knocking.  Sisters, don't give up.  Seek God with all your heart.  Exercise faith.  Walk in righteousness.

I promise that if you will do this - even until the fourth floor, last door - you will receive the answers you seek.  You will find faith.

Live in faith, dear friends, dear sisters, and "the Lord [our] God [will] increase you a thousand times and bless you as he has promise!"

Fourth Floor, Last Door

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

General Woman's Session

The Journey Home

Today we traveled home from our great family trip!

I cannot tell you how much Mark and I love these family trips.  We look forward to them so much and see such a high value in them.  We talked this trip, as I think we have talked every trip, about how much we hope our kiddos appreciate them as much as we do.  We know right now they probably won't remember the trips but we hope that when they do that they will see the value in them that we do.  

Mark and I have always tried to be consistent in those things that we believe we should be doing as a family - to keep us close and to have the Spirit in our home.  And I believe that these kind of wholesome family activities are just as important.  Mark and I decided from the beginning that we really wanted to make whatever sacrifices we needed to to make sure that they happen every year.  I hope we always can.  

This trip to North Dakota was great - it was a beautiful state and I am always surprised at how much I have loved every single trip we have taken (even the ones that everyone thinks will be boring).  North Dakota had a definite beauty about it and I loved the big open spaces, the rolling hills, and all of the sunflower fields.  You were good to us!

I also really love picking our state for the next year!  Since we missed last year, North Dakota has been on our mind for a long time!  So we were especially excited to get excited for a new place.  Of course, we had to go over the rules, and then we did our drawing.  

Mark = Indiana

Elise = New York

Jacob = Louisiana

Sarah = Idaho

During our final drawing we picked...

LOUISIANA!!!

We are so excited - none of us has ever been there before and that is apart of the country that is completely foreign to me!  We can't wait!  Now we get to start thinking of planning!  YEA!  I almost love that part as much as the trip!

Pelican State here we come!

Fort Union Trading Post

Almost every day of our trip I have thought, "today should be a pretty relaxed day" and even though we aren't stressing or anything, I have been amazed at how much we have seemed to do throughout the day.  We have taken longer to do the things I have planned (and not that that is a bad thing) it has just meant a lot of long days (and a lot of late bedtimes for the kiddos).  

Today has been no different!

We started our day by driving over to For Union Trading Post National Historic Site.  This was a neat place and more than once Mark and I commented on how much we wish we could have been a fly on the wall during it's heyday.  This is a reconstructed fort and was one of the most important fur trading posts of it's time.  The history was fascinating.  

Parts of the inside of the fort have not been reconstructed but have beams outlining where certain building were.  They had rangers teaching kids and adults how to work metal as blacksmiths - which was pretty awesome.  Again, the history was so interesting and it's amazing all that passed through that fort over it's thirty-nine years.  

We then left the wonderful state of North Dakota and headed to Montana.  This was our cheat on our trip and we went to Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.  We know that we will most likely be spending our Montana trip on the western side and so thought this would be a good opportunity to see this.  

I honestly didn't really think that there would be much there but it proved to be really interesting.  We got there WAY later than we thought and were even worried that we weren't going to make it on time.  CONSTRUCTION!  BOO!

Anyway, it was definitely an interesting stop.  We were able to watch a 25-minute video that highlighted the events leading up to the battle and the battle that occurred.  We decided it is one of those places that you kind of have conflicted feelings.  You can understand the perspective of both sides - although I must admit I side mostly with the feelings of the Indians - but it is just sad that things like this even occurred in the first place.  That so many lives had to be lost.  I was curious about what kind of emotion they were going to end the movie and thought it was really well done.  It ended with the thought that this is a place that causes reflection on the cost of creating our nation.  

We could have easily of spent a lot of time (they have sites miles away that you can visit) there but since it was so late in the day we just looked around the areas surrounding the visitors center.  We walked up the Custer's Last Stand.  This is where Lt. Col. George A. Custer and the U.S. Army's 7th Cavalry lost there lives

It was such a contrast coming from the Fort Union Trading Post where fur traders and Indians worked so well together for decades.  It was sad to see where things kind of "ended up" for them.  Poor choices made on both sides.

They also have a memorial for those Indians from the Cheyenne and Sioux tribes that died.  It was a beautiful memorial and I am glad that both sides of this hard battle were represented.  

Finally, we walked around the National Cemetery that is there.  I have always appreciated the peacefulness that abides in cemeteries.  

Once we left, we began our trek to Billings, Montana, where we are staying for the night.  We are all pretty pooped and I think will sleep hard tomorrow night.  Tomorrow we have our long trek home - but the silver lining is we get to pick our trip for next year!  I seriously CANNOT wait!

Knife River Indian Villages

We had another rainy full day!  We left the great city of Bismarck and headed north to the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center.  It was a museum that focused on the winter that Lewis and Clark and their expedition stayed in the area.  It was really interesting and I definitely came away learning a lot.  

Sarah was SERIOUSLY freaked out by these "bad guys"!

Wrapped up in some buffalo skin!

But what really made this worth it was that it included access to Fort Mandan.  Fort Mandan was the fort the Lewis and Clark built and stayed in throughout that winter.  The actual fort was lost in a fire but it has been recreated.  It was really interesting to walk into the rooms and get a little bit of a feel for what it might have been like to live in one.  It's amazing what this group was able to accomplish on this expedition.  

They had a great play area inside that the kiddos absolutely LOVED too!

After another really chilly lunch we headed over to the Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site (wow...that's a mouthful!).  This was definitely a highlight.  We watched a really interesting video about what life was like for the three different tribes that made up the Knife River Indian Villages.  They had a lot of hands-on stuff for the kiddos - which is ALWAYS a hit!

Outside, they have also built an enormous earthlodge.  It was so neat to go inside and they looked amazing from the outside.  In the video we learned that these usually lasted about ten years before needing to be rebuilt.  They also had various sites you could walk to where there used to be many many of these homes.  

Jacob also earned his Junior Ranger award here too!

We walked up to the Hidatsa Village where there used to be over one hundred earthlodges.  Amazing!  It would have been incredible to have seen it.  

We then started making our trek north west.  Once we learned that we would be driving right past the entrance to the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park (we had just done the south unit) Mark KNEW he would regret it if we didn't go in!  So we hopped in and did the scenic drive throughout the north unit of the park.  There were definitely similarities but we decided they were really different too.  This unit was a lot more wooded but also had a lot more grassland as well.  North Dakota is a beautiful place. 

Around 8:30 tonight we finally rolled into Sidney, Montana where we are staying for the night.  Tomorrow is our last full day of activities!  

Lewis and Clark Riverboat

Today was a wet day!  

We are SO glad that our hiking day was yesterday!

We left the fair town of Medora this morning and began our trek eastward.  We stopped in Dickinson at the Ukrainian Cultural Institute.  I really had no idea what to expect but it was really interesting.  My Grandpa Moldenhauer's family emigrated from Odessa, Russia, which is in present-day Ukraine.  They actually settled here in North Dakota for a time before moving to Idaho so I thought it would be interesting to stop and learn some more about that heritage here in the state.  

We were the only people there and the sweet lady running things showed us around and had us watch a movie about "pysanky".  I wish I could remember everything that was in the movie because it was really fascinating.  They make these beautiful eggs and we just assumed that they were painted (which would still be amazing!) but they are actually made completely out of wax through multiple layers.  It began as a pagan tradition but as Christianity spread through Ukraine the symbolism on the eggs began to mean different things.  They were beautiful and we appreciated them so much more after learning how much work went into them!

Next, we decided to drive down the "Enchanted Highway".  We hadn't initally planned on doing this but we had the time and thought "why not?!"  Also, it was pouring down rain the vast majority of our day and so doing an activity that we could do from the car wasn't too shabby of an idea.  

The Enchanted Highway is a stretch of road about 30 miles long that has eight huge metal statues made from scrap metal along the side of the road.  It's kind of fun and amazing how much planning much be involved.  We had yet another lunch from the trunk of the car (due to the rain!) but we are just rolling with it.  However, I think Mia is going to need a good cleaning out once we get home!

Next, we headed to Bismarck!  It continued to rain pretty hard even until we got into the city but as soon as we pulled in front of the temple it stopped.  It's amazing the tender mercies that happen.  We hopped out of the car and were able to walk around the grounds and enjoy the temple.  The Bismarck Temple is the 61st temple and one of the smaller ones but still oh so beautiful.  The kids loved running around the big grassy area in front and it's always wonderful to feel the peace of the temple - even from the outside.  

We found a random park because we still had a little time to spare before we needed to be at our next activity.  Everything was still really wet but we were able to wipe off the swings and the kiddos had a good time getting some of their energy out.  

The finale of the day was going on our Lewis and Clark Riverboat Cruise.  I had never been on a boat like that before and it was really neat.  We had been worried all day that it was going to get cancelled due to the weather so it was yet another tender mercy for us.  It couldn't have been more perfect.  The sun had come out and it was a great evening.  We got to have a barbecue dinner on board and enjoy the sunset down the Missouri River.  Sarah only tried to fling herself into the "water" a couple times and so we will count that as a success.  

Yet another great day here in the Peace Garden State!