Do People Who Made Bad Choices Eternally Twiddle their Thumbs?

Lately I'm trying to wrap my brain around the way that I've come to understand the plan of salvation.

It's my own understanding that people who did their personal best and maintained faith in Jesus Christ get exalted, can stay in a family unit, "build their mansion in heaven" so to speak, and eventually create their own worlds and move onward and upward.

I don't have a problem with any of this. However, I've started thinking about people who didn't quite follow through with their personal best or possibly even willfully rebelled. It's been my understanding that they suffer eternally. I understand this to an extent. They would really understand the weight of poor choices (if they knew any better to start with) and they would face consequences for their actions. However, now I have more questions. In the grand scheme of things, do they ever create things on the other side or are they prevented from creating there?

What do they spend their time doing? We're often told that people are so busy on the other side and we're even given ideas of what they might be doing but those are the people busy "furthuring the Lord's work." What is everybody else doing? If they aren't able to create or be productive in some way, what's the point of this punishment eternally?

I understand a punishment but if the goal is to build and increase and improve, why would a whole group of people be eternally incapable of contributing to these tasks? I realize my understanding is infantile and incomplete so this is likely not to be something I get to fully grasp here and the answer may be complex. However, I read this scripture this week: Alma 34:33..."And now, as I said unto you before, as ye have had so many witnesses, therefore, I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed." This DOES sound like those in this predicament don't get to work and build and create on the other side. It makes me wonder so much what they do.

I have many things I'm trying to come to an understanding of and this is just one that I remembered to write about. I would like to be better at finding answers.

High School Completion-Check

My oldest son has never liked school. I taught him pre-school and I have pictures of him on the first day sticking colored pencils up his nose instead of working on anything. We both laughed about that and had a fun time. I adapted his education to him, knowing he didn't want something traditional, which my daughter had really enjoyed & taken well to. For him, I didn't plan a bunch of things ahead of time. I'd just ask him what he wanted to learn about and teach him on the fly. We did less assignments and projects and more discussions & experiences. I really like to plan ahead and be prepared so this was a challenge for me but I could tell it was much better for him so that's how we did it. He really thrived in elementary school. He didn't always finish everything or turn everything in but he was happy. He had many friends. He didn't love assignments but he adapted to the school environment well. He also surprised me by always performing with so much "oomph." He'd sing & dance his little heart out. He got to junior high and it was a nightmare.

He struggled to adjust and felt stressed everyday. His nerves affect his health a lot so he was often throwing up because of nerves and would fight me all the time about going to school. I remember days that I walked around the car at the drop off and kind of pulled him out and told him I'd pull him into school if that's what it took. I didn't like doing that but he was 12 years old-it was a little early to be dropping out. I'd worry about it and look for solutions and cry and not know what else to do.

For 8th grade, my sis-in-law introduced us to a cool hybrid school system. It was supposed to be homeschooling mostly but with 1 1/2 days of meeting up with other kids for school stuff. Really early into it, they hadn't worked out the kinks for junior high students so they dropped the junior high full learning day. He only got to do the 1/2 day per week of different extracurriculars and there weren't many students his age there but at least it gave him something and we quit having the fight of getting him to school. For 9th grade, once the state bans parents from being in charge of curriculum for credit, I knew he would struggle to be at school all day so we found out how to do most classes at home but he went in for a few classes. He never loved going in but it was easier to drop him off and say, "See ya in 2 1/2 hours" than "good luck with a whole day here." He seemed to get along with some of the friends he'd had before & I was glad he got to see them a bit. He was having a lot of health problems so I felt like we had extra reasons for him not to be at school all the time. I don't know how much the stress of being at school contributed to the health issues.

For 10th grade, we signed him up for a full day but changed it the first week to some classes at school and some packets because he just struggled too much to be at school all day. He didn't like doing the work at home either though so it strained our relationship as I was always pushing him to get work done.

If I had just pulled him out of school and stopped caring about high school credit, he would have been willing to learn. He's smart and interested in many things but the strict boundaries of learning certain ways and doing typical assignments are not his cup of tea. I should have done that but I didn't. I was afraid that I would be destroying his future. This year is his junior year. To say school has been a struggle and never-ending battle is an understatement. My son did some in-person classes but most of them allowed him to just do most days online and hardly ever have to go into school because of Covid. This was what seemed to be an insurmountable challenge. We barely pulled through the first semester and then dropped a few of the most ridiculous classes to do packets instead. He was put into a half-day law enforcement program at the college and had been looking forward to it but it wasn't the right fit for him. We looked at all the ways dropping the program would affect his schedule and talked to his school counselor. My son wanted to drop out.

He'd been telling me he wanted to drop out for years and I knew this was coming and a long time ago even realized I wouldn't mind if he left traditional school and got his GED but right there in the moment I panicked and felt afraid of ruining his future. However, we couldn't come up with a reasonable plan with the school counselor and I knew that his time and mental health were not being optimized at all and I agreed to let him leave school. He officially withdrew a month and a half ago. We started pursuing a GED. It was a whole new nightmare trying to figure out how to get started, who to talk to, how to get the right forms, how to gather all the signatures we need for the forms, who to submit the forms to, etc. Every day, we'd call or e-mail at least somebody and usually get sent in a loop, never leading to answers.

Eventually & with persistence, things were lined up and started. The first 2 GED tests were done at home but then weird technical issues forced us to schedule his last 2 tests in person. He took them this morning, passed everything with flying colors right by the college-ready level (which does prove another year in school would have been a total waste of time), and was sent a diploma and transcripts. I feel a little ashamed of my resistance to let him leave and only wish I had let him do it sooner. He will be happier and have so much weight off his shoulders.

I have tried to learn and grow in the field of education. I feel I've been open-minded about it and have tried to adapt and embrace non-traditional approaches but I could have done much better with all of my kids!!! There's nothing I can do now to go back but hopefully there are great things ahead for a new high school finisher.

Hesitant Compassion

Compassion is a beautiful trait I strive to have more of. There's something lately that made me more aware of ways I hesitate to practice compassion.

A woman in our neighborhood suddenly had some pretty intense physical challenges and a sign-up was sent around to provide dinners. I love this lady and these opportunities go fast so I immediately started to sign up but I had to commit to what I would bring and that sent my mind reeling quickly. I have some ideas about what my family likes but everybody's so different that I had many doubts about what I could make that somebody else would like. I started thinking about not finishing the sign up because I was scared maybe I can't cook anything she would like. I thought I could probably do okay making rice bowls and that I've made them in groups several times in the last 2 years and usually everybody has really liked them. Ingredients could be separate: rice, different veggies (I found a really yummy way to make broccoli and played it safe with pan-fried carrots), and steak.

When the day came, I added a jar of mild Korean barbecue sauce we like, made egg rolls for the side and added a couple kinds of treats. I had felt better about doing it once I committed to a food to bring but as the day arrived, I was really nervous. It's all self-doubt. I've been cooking since I was a teenager. It's not like I never cook but when it's going to people I don't know very well, I just start worrying about if what I'm capable of is adequate. I also always feel a little weird and like I don't really fit in so then I start wondering, what if this meal is so strange to her that it puts her over the edge on how she feels about me? She might think, "I thought she was a little weird but this??? Wow! This girl is fully crazy for sure!" I know that these are irrational thoughts but I still have them and I still worry and get so anxious. I realized I do this nearly every time I'm going to take somebody dinner, even extended family members. I hesitate to take dinners and sometimes don't, not because I don't like people or want to help, but because of my own self-doubts. I hope I can find a way to stop doing this so much. I don't want to not help just because of my own thought patterns. There is a happy lesson for me to learn from this particular instance. I tried to make things look nice so that even if she didn't like the food, she would know that we care. I put everything on a really cute tray and added a little vase of flowers and a card. She was the nicest about everything! This week she texted me updates about her recent doctor visit. This made me feel like maybe there's a new connection a little bit and that this opens a door to get to know each other a little better.

I hope I can focus more on finding ways to reach out to others without hesitating because of my doubts about myself.

Corporations

I had the opportunity to spend a few hours with my older brother on Sunday and had a wonderful time chatting with him. We talked about many interesting things and I'd love to write about all of it but won't. One thing we talked about is the impact of corporations on our everyday lives.

I have thought many times over the last few years about how strange it is that most of society gets up and goes to a job for some company or organization. As recently as 200-250 years ago, most people's jobs were at home. There were a lot of farmers. In fact, for quite some time most of society was farmers.

Once you had a place to live, you just worked hard for the food you needed to stay alive and you did it at home. Every day was a take-your-child-to-work day. Even many grist mills were run on people's properties so they could meet the community needs but they were close to home to do it. As our country got going, there were men that did go to work for a variety of things. Our own government emerged and people became government leaders. Men were needed away from home to build roads and bridges. With conflicts arising, men were needed for military service. During this time, my brother and I discussed building a home. People built their own homes. They didn't need any kind of permits to build it and they hadn't been formally trained to do so but everybody was on a timeline. Get your home built before the weather gets too cold or you die. That was really the only home-building rule people had to follow and no man enforced it, only nature.

We skipped ahead to now and corporations run everything in society and so many little parts of our lives. First of all, most people work for a business or organization of some kind. The company sets many rules for employees, including how your daily schedule will be run and how much prosperity you'll be allowed. We have evolved into a society that manages very little of our own money. We use a banking corporation to hold all of our paychecks and savings. We tell them to pay our bills to others and rely on them to do so according to our instructions.

We go to businesses to meet most, if not all, of our grocery needs. For the most part, society relies on corporations to advise us on health issues and to guide us through the process of maintaining or improving our health. How do we know what we should be doing about our health? Corporations tell us things like get a physical every year, go to the doctor for certain symptoms, get certain screenings done at certain ages, etc. It doesn't even take much digging to realize the government is being run by corporations. They sponsor everything and get paid by us to do it. The environment is heavily impacted by corporations. We are expected to behave certain ways to protect the environment: "don't use aerosal cans anymore", "buy organic food because it limits the chemicals we're exposed to", etc. Yet when companies like Dupont dump chemicals into the environment and animals start dying and people are getting sick and Dupont intentionally hides information from the Environmental Protection Agency but is STILL never held accountable for the devastion they cause in the environment, we see the power a corporation has that an individual does not.

Our conversation kind of went on but my brother looked around and saw a card I'd made him and said that was a break from the power of corporations and that it had been a way to use creativity without corporate influence. I agreed to some extent but then said, "But I bought that paper from a craft store that belongs to a corporation and they bought the paper from a paper manufacturer. I may have chosen how to use the paper but at least two corporations were involved before I even started using it." He brainstormed a bit more and said that one day he was outside and saw a beautiful flower in the yard so he cut it and brought it in and gave it to his wife and that was not influenced by a corporation. That was all nature. However, he then said the plant had to come from somewhere and chances are, it was at one time purchased from a corporation because this is all located in a highly developed city. It was just interesting to really sit and think about the ways corporations have leaked into every aspect of our lives within a few hundred years. There are some sites that give ideas about how to avoid corporate influence to the extent that we can.

Some ideas are just beautiful. Instead of consuming the entertainment that's readily available in a variety of platforms, make our own entertainment. Create our own works of art. Learn to fix things and not just replace everything that breaks. There are plenty more ideas to explore. This is just something I like to think about from time to time to at least consider.

Thankful

I wanted to write about something I'm really grateful for. My mom taught me never to show up empty-handed. If you're going to see somebody, whether they know you're coming or not, you bring them something, even something little. I don't think everybody has to abide by that rule but that's how we were raised to behave.

This is something I still practice today and I get a great amount of joy out of bringing some little thing. It's not anything particularly noteworthy. It is just small tokens, usually little treats. As often as it's possible, I try to make them look cute. This gives me a chance to practice crafting.

I never care if people come over and bring anything!!! I never have any expectations from other people. I just feel grateful that my mom planted a seed of desire in my heart to take things to people when I go over and to think of excuses to drop off little things for people in my life, too. It's something I enjoy very much!

Talking Nice

My daughter goes to hair design school. She was telling me about two girls at her school who have started doing something they hope will become a thing for other people and it's talking nice behind people's backs.

One of the days that the students were doing scalp treatments on each other, they just kept saying things about other people and all of it was nice. "Do you know so-and-so? She's one of the funniest people I've ever met! She can make anything seem funny!" "Can you even believe so-and-so? He's getting the best grades in college and he has really hard classes!" and they go on and on mentioning new people and good things about every single one of them. One day, they were scrolling through Instagram and commenting on one person's account, saying they can't believe how good every single picture had turned out and they were pointing out everything they liked about all of the posts and it turned out to be another student who noticed they were looking at her Instagram. They were a little shy about getting caught because they didn't know she was around but then there's nothing to be embarrassed about because they only said good things and it makes that girl like them even more for their kindness.

I just wanted to write about this while it's on my mind because I think it puts much good into the world. What a great idea!

Tame & Wild Olive Trees

I've been reading in Jacob 5 about the allegory of the tame and wild olive trees. Here are a few verses: ********** 21 And it came to pass that the servant said unto his master: How comest thou hither to plant this tree, or this branch of the tree? For behold, it was the poorest spot in all the land of thy vineyard. ********** 22 And the Lord of the vineyard said unto him: Counsel me not; I knew that it was a poor spot of ground; wherefore, I said unto thee, I have nourished it this long time, and thou beholdest that it hath brought forth much fruit. ********** 23 And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard said unto his servant: Look hither; behold I have planted another branch of the tree also; and thou knowest that this spot of ground was poorer than the first. But, behold the tree. I have nourished it this long time, and it hath brought forth much fruit; therefore, gather it, and lay it up against the season, that I may preserve it unto mine own self. ********** I have many thoughts about this. The Lord of the vineyard planted it in a poor spot. When the tree notices how poor the spot is, is the tree allowed to be angry? Is it ok for the tree to think "Why did I get planted in such a poor spot?" We found out that another tree has been planted in a poorer spot than they so there's somebody worse off. Does that mean they are then only allowed to feel gratitude because it could be worse? It could always be worse. The tree doesn't have all the support and nourishment that most other trees have but the Lord of the vineyard says it's ok because he nourishes it and cares for it. Does the tree appreciate that but sometimes long to know what it would be like to have the nourishment of the ground that it's surrounded in, that it can see and feel around it every day? The tree brings forth much fruit. This proves by the Lord of the vineyard that poor ground doesn't guarantee poor results but will this tree always bring forth much fruit? Is there a day when the tree feels like even with the nourishment from the Lord of the vineyard, without the nourishment of all the tree is growing in day-to-day, they don't feel capable of bringing forth much fruit anymore? Does the tree being angry ruin the tree or can the tree contain the anger to some extent while still continuing to bring forth much fruit? Is the Lord of the vineyard glad he planted the tree? Would he be glad if it stopped bringing forth fruit? Was there truly a grand purpose or was it an experiment? Also, will the tree ever get to feel what it's like to be nourished by both the Lord of the vineyard and the ground all around it? Obviously, this isn't much about a tree to me. These verses have never meant to me what they do now but I wish I could answer all of these other questions as well.