Hello! My name is Penny Ogden. I want you to imagine that you are about to eat a bowl of your favorite ice cream, when all of a sudden, one of your neighbors comes by and snatches your bowl. They tell you that eating ice cream out of a bowl is not allowed. You have to use a cone, the flavor has to be mint, and you can only have one scoop. Oh, and you are only allowed to eat ice cream on Tuesdays at 4pm.
I like ice cream cones, but maybe you would prefer a bowl. You think mint ice cream is ok, but I don’t like mint. I would rather have cookies and cream. And why are we only allowed to have one scoop? What if we want more or less? Why are we only allowed to eat ice cream on Tuesdays at 4pm?
Just like I wouldn’t want my neighbor telling me how to eat my ice cream, I wouldn’t want them, or government leaders, telling me how I have to pray, what scriptures to read, or when or where to go to church. Being able to make my own choices about who, what, when, where, and how to worship is called religious liberty.
Article of Faith 11 says: “We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.”
The prophet Joshua taught: “Choose ye this day whom ye will serve…but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
Heavenly Father has given each of us moral agency. This includes the right to learn about Him and then choose if we will love and follow him. But if we live in a place that does not allow us to have religious liberty, it becomes hard for us to choose if we really want to serve God or not. And even if we want to serve God, we could be limited in how we want to serve him.
I am grateful to live in the United States where we enjoy greater freedom to choose how we worship God. There are people and governments around the world that would like to control how we worship. I am grateful for people like my dad who work hard to keep our country safe so that we can continue to have religious freedom.
Penny and Diana created a service club. Their first activity was a food drive to collect 250 items in honor of the 250th birthday of the United States this year. Here they are with some of their neighborhood friends after they made posters to promote the food drive.
At one of Lydian's plays.
Sam took Douglas to the temple each week while I was away for work. She and the girls (and Layth) waited outside the temple for Douglas to finish baptisms for the dead. Here is Penny reading to Layth while they wait.
Penny and Layth
I sent this message (through the Marco Polo app) to Sam on Mother's Day.
Sam sent this message back to me.
He also received the "Bop It" toy. I thought it would take him months, maybe even years, to beat all the Bop It levels. He beat them all in seven days! Now what? 😁
I sent a short birthday video to Douglas.
The kids tried out a martial arts class this week. The girls signed up to continue taking classes. Douglas didn't care for it much.
We visited Sam's oncologist, Dr. Buys and her team today for the first time since Layth was born. It was a routine check-up, but we took Layth to meet them because they were instrumental in getting Sam through her years of cancer treatments before she could even think about getting pregnant again. We love these amazing women!
