Realizing More About Me

On Friday I asked a favor of one of my good friends at work who is a very talented writer.  After my first meeting of the day I went to his office and we had a lovely chat while he was getting some necessary details for the report.  He is very interested in the law of attraction; he has even had training to help others.  Each time we meet he reminds me of my own faith and correct anything negative or insecure that comes out of my mouth.  He is a cherished friend; not to mention that I am grateful beyond words that he is helping me organize a very overwhelming project in my head by writing the report hoping to describe it. 

Then on Saturday, I was listening to conference and President Eyring, in the Saturday morning session, quoted the scriptures relating to asking and seeking the Lord and we will find him.  I realize many truths about my life.  I know this -  I have never set my mind to anything that I have not achieved if it was in my own power to do and did not depend or infringe on someone else’s agency.  The other thing I realized is that I have always sought the Lord so I have always found him.  I have also always asked for his help in all of my pursuits in life and He has always helped me.  I feel grateful for my life. 

The other realization was that some never seek so they never find…they never seek the Lord so they do not believe He is there; they never ask to know if the gospel is true so they never know that it is; and never look for the miracles in their lives so they never see how many they have; they do not ask for comfort so they are never comforted. 

I also realized that for some reason I have always sought and asked.  I remember first reading the scriptures and all of these scriptures were the ones I marked.  I loved each one and immediately saw my responsibility to do the seeking and asking with total expectations that I would find and receive.  When I was a little girl I used to go to the little neighborhood church.  I don’t know why it somehow always seemed important to my sister and me to go.  We went to that church all by ourselves.  I remember the little lady who used to teach me in Sunday school; the little Children’s choir where I wore a robe and sang in a festival of many little children choirs. We sang the hymn Praise to the Lord, which is still one of my favorite memories and because of that is also one of my favorite hymns; carrying palm frawns into the chapel on Easter Sunday.

I am grateful for my friend and prophets and apostles who testify that these things are true.  To know how  to seek, President Uchtdorf just gave an excellent talk in the Sunday morning session of General Conference.

http://www.lds.org/general-conference?lang=eng

Memory of my dad

Today I was talking to my sister. She had been contacted by a man, through Facebook, about our age who recognized our last name "Copeland". When he was a kid, his older brother took Judo lessons from my dad at the YMCA. My dad was a third degree blackbelt. (side note: my cousin Richard said that he and my dad used to go to Manzanar Japanese Internment camp during the ward for Judo tournaments - they had to have them their because that is were all of the judo masters were and it was the only way they could advance) Anyway, this man remembered my dad. His parents became friends with my parents, came to our house. His mother had an old address book that had our house address and phone number and that of my dad's barbershop in Silverlake. His mom remember my mother bring sushi back from Little Tokyo. It was the first sushi she ever had and now she loves sushi. Of course back then, J-town was the only place to get sushi and it was the traditional stuff they eat in Japan...no soft shell crab and avocado in those.