Happy are we, happy are we.

I can never fully explain to anyone how happy Rick and I are. We love each other, we love Levi, we work hard, we keep the commandments, we honor our promises to our Father in Heaven, and we try to serve as much as we can. I often tell people how happy and wonderful our life is and the same reply comes, "Better be careful, you might jinx yourself. Now something terrible is going to happen." Why??? Why do we say that or think that? I just think that is so silly. Our Father in Heaven doesn't listen to us and the second we say to someone that our life is wonderful he automatically pulls out his lightning bolt and throws it down at us. I know that God loves us. The more we try and follow what he would have us do, the more we become free.
I know it is tempting to look to self help books and programs to fix things in our lives that are broken or negative. Although these ways can help us understand what we can do to be better.... they are not our solution. Our solution is to LIVE the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In primary if you are ever called on to answer a question, even if you didn't hear the question, the right answers are almost always, "Pray. Read your scriptures. Go to church. Serve someone." These are the most basic but profound solutions in our lives.
I know that the Book of Mormon has healing powers and is a true account of a people that existed long ago. Together with the Bible we can fully understand who our God is. He is perfect and merciful. He knows me and my strengths and weaknesses. He understands my fears and gently helps me through them. He is not a scary, fearing, angry man. He is kind, true, merciful, just, gentle, loving, and trustworthy. Those words aren't even enough to fully explain him. But don't forget we also have the Savior! He LIVES. He is the essential key in this entire plan of our earth life and the eternity. I'm so grateful for what he did for us. He died and suffered for our sins. God is merciful but he is also just. That is why all of this is so perfect. God must have laws and justice to treat everyone equal, but he gave us the Savior to show us mercy. I know all of this to be true.
It is also important to remember that there is RIGHT and WRONG. There is GOOD and BAD. There is JESUS CHRIST and SATAN. This is the perfect plan God has set out for us to learn here on earth and be happy.
Sometimes I feel like Peter that denied the Christ three times and didn't even really know he was doing it until after the third time. I sit back and don't speak up for fear that I might hurt someones feelings or get into a debate that I can't argue through. Really I am just scared to state simply what I know to be true from the mouths of the prophets and even the Savior himself. I can't be scared. I just need to state what I believe and let the Spirit touch them or not touch them. But I don't want to sit idly by. This is a small way I can speak up and let those of you that are closest to me know how I feel and what I think of life and our choices here.
I pray that if you are not in agreement with what I am saying that you respect my freedom of speech and not rebuttal me. Just take it for what it's worth to you.
I love all of you. We count ourselves lucky to have such wonderful people that love and support us. We are constantly surrounded with happy, loving, selfless people. It is so important to have people like this in our lives. You know the saying, "You are what you eat"?? Well you are who you hang out with. :)
~Alexis Brunson