My talk from Sacrament Meeting

Two weekends ago, I finished a craft—for all of you crafters (and their husbands) out there, you know this was a major accomplishment.  I crocheted a rug for our floor.  I kind of had a plan.  I wanted it rectangular.  I wanted to use only blue and white for the colors.  I wanted it big enough to hide all of the damage done on our wood floor and to protect it from further harm. Creating it involved tearing 18 bed sheets of various sizes into strips 1 inch wide.  Then I crocheted.  It took me three weeks and a little bit too much TV to finish it.  It is mostly rectangular.  It has all of the blue sheets that the thrift store had to offer, and it is nearly big enough to cover the open space on the floor.  It also weighs over 30 pounds. 

I began the rug with a foundation chain.  I began stitching around and around that chain, adding stitches at the corners to make it rectangular.  When I had a rug about 1 ½ x 3 feet, I realized that the base was wrong and that the rug would never keep its shape.  I could keep going and have a lumpy, amorphous thing that I would never actually use, or I could pull it apart and start all over again.  That was a hard thing, ripping out the stitches and winding my strips back into skeins.  I did some research and found the kind of base that I needed.  I corrected each row as I went along, because using sheets made up of different fabrics meant that sometimes there were discrepancies in the size of the stitches.  The rug grew and grew. 

About half way through I began to get a little bit tired of making this massive thing.  With three sheets left to add to it, I felt like I was 9 months pregnant again.  When would this thing finally be done?  I was worried that I didn’t have enough of each color to finish the pattern.  I was weary.  My knuckles were beginning to swell and my knees to get stiff from sitting in one position for so long.  It weighed almost 30 pounds and working on it was a process of continually lugging it around and around and around.   Then, one night, I ran out of sheets and it was done. 
I hefted it over my shoulder like the proverbial sack of potatoes and took it to its resting place, the TV room.  It covers the floor nicely and is a constant reminder to me that I created something fantastic.

1990, the year I graduated from high school was a time of miracles. We were the rising generation.  Songs were written about us and we sang them with tears streaming down our faces.   A computer class was offered—we had 6 whole computers in the school.  We had to sit and write our own programs just to use the things.  The Berlin Wall had fallen the year before, taking with it the dark cloud of the Cold War.  I remember when a young man from my home ward who was two years older than me, had his mission changed halfway through from Denmark, to opening up a new mission in the former USSR and when my cousin got called to the  brand new Ukraine mission.    It seemed like miracles were falling from the sky. 

Except they weren’t.  Not in the way that we generally think of miracles happening—out of the blue and in desperate circumstances.  Last year I read President Monson’s biography “To the Rescue” and a light began to turn on in my mind.  In the foreground, President Reagan and Mr. Gorbechev were making deals and solving world problems.  Quietly, and unremarkably, the saints on both sides of the Communism that cut off an entire nation, lived the gospel.  They hoped and they prayed.  They acted with faith on the promises that one day, the gospel would flourish in countries previously inaccessible.   All of the diplomacy and the political maneuverings were made possible because of righteous prayers.  The miracle did not happen in a vacuum.  Hearts were softened.  The way was paved, inch by inch, prayer by prayer.  Promises made to the saints in the USSR were kept.

When I think about the conversion story of the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi in the Book of Mormon, I ponder the miracle.  What made the difference as Ammon went to Lamoni versus the fate of his brothers?  Part of it was his approach; he came as a servant instead of an itinerant Nephite preacher.  The bigger part of the miracle was what was happening in the hearts of the Lamanite people under King Lamoni previous to Ammon’s appearance.  We don’t have a record of that because the Lamanites didn’t keep one, but we do know that Lamoni had a knowledge and a belief in a Great Spirit—in something greater than himself and greater than man.  He assumed when he heard that Ammon could not be slain, that this Nephite man was the Great Spirit.  As Lamoni learned to know God, he readily accepted what Ammon taught.  Four times in Alma chapter 18, Lamoni said, “I believe”. 

He was the golden contact.  He had been prepared.  He was already wondering if slaying his servants when they lost his sheep was a bad thing, contrary to what he had been taught.  He willingly believed that it was the Lamanites who rebelled and turned away from the Nephites, instead of the traditional lore of his fathers.  When he learned about the plan of redemption, that there was a way to erase the sins he had committed, he fell to the earth, overcome with the Spirit.  It wasn’t Lamoni alone who was affected.  His wife immediately believed Ammon, even though there wasn’t a lot of proof about what was happening.  Her husband awoke, testified of the coming Christ, and they both were overcome with the Spirit.  It wasn’t just the royal family who was privileged to have experiences that prepared them.  Abish, the servant girl had many experiences in her lifetime that prepared her to be the servant who was there in the room at the right time to recognize the situation for what it was and save lives.  The people were ready for the gospel.  There was something in them that hungered for the truth.

On the flipside, Aaron, Muloki, and Ammah found a people whose hearts were harder; it says so in the scriptures.  It took those Lamanites a little bit longer to accept their enemies as missionaries and to leave the traditions of their fathers.

The conversion of the Lamanites was a miracle, but it did not happen in a vacuum.  Clear back in 2 Nephi, as he prepared for death, Lehi promised the children of Laman and Lemuel and the sons of Ishmael, that they would be preserved.  He told them that he knew if they were taught the gospel, they would cling to it.  And they did.  A promise was kept.

D&C 64:33

Wherefore, be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work.  And out of small things proceedeth that which is great.

Heavenly Father is an unchanging God, therefore there are patterns in everything.  I was trying to think if there is a single thing that begins big and gets smaller.  I couldn’t readily think of anything.  Living things of necessity begin life small and grow to a fullness of their kind.  Manmade items are created from an idea and then are worked at piece by piece until they are done.  Even mountains and great canyons began as flat earth that was either worked upward or downward over long periods of time, slowly sculpted by the elements.  The pattern stands.  Small things come before large things. 

In our day, we can go to the temple and make covenants with our Father in Heaven.  We promise some things and in return, one of the things that He promises is that our families will be eternal.  Eternal families do not happen by chance.  There is not one magical moment when suddenly, “Poof!” all is glittery and the family is floating in a golden light, each member perfect with perfect hair and temperaments.  They happen slowly and almost imperceptibly with each time a family goes to church, reads the scriptures, prays together, works together, and serves together.  In and of itself, Family Home Evening is not a sword, buckler, and shield.  If it was all that we were counting on, the few really good meetings we have mixed with the rushed “get this done in 15 minutes so you can all go to bed and please, please, please stop fighting” would lead to shoddy armament.  However, each time we are obedient, we receive a blessing.  Each time we live the gospel in a way that our children can measure, we gain strength and unity.  Minute by precious minute, day by day, year by year we constantly add to our family’s store of faith and testimony.  Then comes the day when we present ourselves to Heavenly Father, no longer the family that couldn’t ride for more than 15 minutes in the car without all out warfare, but the family that is eternal.   The miracle that we pray for every day comes to fruition—not out of the blue, but because of all of the small things.

In Primary, we deal with small things.  We deal with your beautiful small children (even the 11 year olds).  We deal with small lessons that teach faith, over and over.  We deal with the small messages taught in sweet little songs.  If someone looked in on any given Sunday, they might see a program made to keep children out of the way while their parents learn gospel doctrine in peace.  Primary, thankfully, is so much more.  It is knowledge and testimony one lesson and one song at a time.  It is a place where miracles begin and testimonies grow. 

Remember when I had to take apart my rug?  As I undid the stitches and Alison wound the strips back into the skein, I took that moment to teach her about repentance.  I compared my feelings of regret that I had to undo what I had done and start all over, because what I had done was wrong, to the process of coming to the Lord and repenting of a sin.  We talked about how I could start all over, using a correct base and the result would be something lasting and how much that is like having a clean slate and changing for the better. 

When I look at that rug on my floor, I see something that started as a crazy idea and grew stitch by stitch into a finished product.  I also see that moment when my girl and I connected over an impromptu gospel lesson.

Miracles do not happen in a vacuum.  They happen when small things build on each other and create something beyond our wildest imaginings.  We are building a foundation for greatness.  We cannot weary in the process.  There is too much at stake.