Reg Doctrine and Covenants 84:61-120, 121:34-46

I was having a horrible day, a horrible day. Too little sleep, too little food, too much homework, too much to do, too much stress, and I was walking home thinking how the world was so horrible. I wanted everything right then right now, and it was not coming how I wanted it. I tried all of the tricks to make me happy. I tried running my hand down the rail, I tried to list some of my favorite things, I tried to eat something that I enjoy, I even tried to read a book. In the end I took a nap.
When I woke up the world seemed a little brighter, and the sun was shining. I was still a little on edge. I went out to dinner with my mom, and we just talked. It was good and that started to lift up my day. I then took some time to study in the library and the day started to go normal. I was just about to turn it in, and then I remembered that I needed to do my reading.
It was one of my favorite verses about Many are called but few are chosen. These words struck me and woke me up. I was being so unfaithful this morning, and such a little brat. How could I forget all that God has promised me, all that he has given me thus far in my life and will continue to give me until the end of time. He has promised me worlds without end if I remain faithful this His spirit, and I need to have faith in that promise. I need to have faith that there are good things out there for me in my life. I need to not only believe that "one day" but know and have faith that all of these "one days" are connected to this day to this time, and to how I am today. I want to have faith in these promises, Lord please give me more faith!
I am greatful that these were the verses I read today, and I do not feel like it was a coinsidence that I read these versus today, because I needed a reminder that my faith in my Lord and Savior should be strong through all of my bad days.

REG

The Holy Priesthood. This was not what I expected. when I saw the title I did not expect to learn the things that I learned from the reading. One of the things that i learned was that I should continually submerse myself in the study of the Book of Mormon. This semester I am taking Doctrine and Covenants, obviously, but my bishop chalanged us all to read the Book of Mormon by the end of the semester. I feel like I have kept up with the reading. I mean I am a little behind but roughly were I am supose to be in the reading. I realized though that I can not simply read the Book of Mormon if I want it to bless my life, I need to study the Book of Mormon. I need to seek to find the principles that i learn in the Book of Mormon in my life and apply the lessons that i am learning.
I feel a stronger feeling that I have more to do with the priesthood power than I ever believed before. One of the reasons for this is the more that i find out about the temple marriage the more that I am thinking that in temple marriage there is a unification of the priesthood. some sort of oath. This is only an idea though, and one that I almost feel guilty for thinking becuase i don't know how much of the temple i am suppose to over hear or to know about or to think about or the wonder... I do feel like there are many priesthood covenants that I will make in the temple though and I guess that I feel strongly that I should prepare for them.
One of the ways that I can prepare is to take the covenants that i made at Baptizum seriuosly. Some of these covenants were to take upon the name of Christ. I have been thinking recently how when I am living a Christ like life that my eyes glow with the light of Christ. My new idea is that this light of Christ is when I take his countance upon me- quite literally. I want to be worthy of Christ's name. I want to live worthy of Christ's countance upon me.

EL ED okay for now

Joy Prior

Book Report: A Book of a 1,000 Days

Author: Shannon Hale

Professor Young

Passages

“Like I what? Like I what, Douggo? Do you ever wonder what it’s like to be so angry that you… And then something happens, and after that, everyone figures that’s what you’re like, and that’s what you’re always going to be, and so you just decide to be it? But the whole time your thinking, Am I going to be like him? Or am I already like him? And then you get angrier, because maybe you are, and you want to…”

He stopped. He wiped at his eyes. I’m not lying. My bother wiped at his eyes.

Page 180

But maybe you can understand a little when I tell you that when the So-Called Gym Teacher hollered at me during Volleyball that I should to after those balls and not act like a Mama’s Baby, you can understand why I got the volleyball and was about to throw it as hard as I could into his sneering face, but I held back- and I’m not lying, it wasn’t easy- and I told him to shut up, just shut up, and he sneered some more and said I would never throw the volleyball because I knew what would happen to me, and my mother would be all upset, wouldn’t she?

I almost threw it.

I almost did.

But I didn’t.

I smiled- the way Lil Spicer likes. Then I took off my shirt and threw it onto the bleachers. I went back and served the stupid ball over the stupid net. Overhand."

Page 214

Golden Quotes

“When you find something that’s whole, you do what you can to keep it that way.”

Page 176

“Creativity is a god who comes only when he pleases, and it isn’t very often. But when he does come, he sits beside my desk and folds his wings and I offer him whatever he wants and in exchange he lets me type all sorts of things that get turned into plays for which people who own New York stages are waiting. And right now, he is sitting by my desk, and he is being very kind.”

Page 47

Questions

What was Mr. Ferris’s childhood like? What makes him so willing to identify with Doug?

How did the kind-a small town low financed library get ahold of such a famous book?

Alternative Book Report

EL ED book of 1,000 days

Joy Prior

Book Report: A Book of a 1,000 Days

Author: Shannon Hale

Professor Young

Sections from the book

Day 1
My lady and I are being shut up in a tower for seven years.
Lady Saren is sitting on the floor, staring at the wall, and hasn’t moved even to scratch for an hour or more. Poor thing. It’s a shame I don’t have fresh yak dung or anything strong-smelling to scare the misery out of her.
I nearly warned him that such words would bring him bad luck and canker his own heart. Thank the Ancestors that my lady’s fit stopped me from speaking out of turn. When I pulled her back, her hands were red from beating at the bricks and streaked with wet cement. This isn’t exactly a happy-celebration morning, but I don’t see what good it does to thrash about.
“Easy, my lady,” I said, the way I’d speak to a feisty ram. It wasn’t too hard to hold my lady back, even squirming as she was. I’m fifteen years, and though skinny as a skinned hare, I’m strong as a yak, or so my mama used to say. I sang the calming song, the one that goes, “oh, moth on a wind, oh, leaf on a stream,” and invites the hearer into dreaming. I feared my lady was so angry she wouldn’t heed the song. But she must’ve been eager to sleep, because now she’s snoring on my lap. Happily the brush and ink are at hand so I can keep writing. When you can’t move, there isn’t much to do but think, and I don’t much want to think right now.

Page 1 to page 2

“My lady, I’m Dashti. I’m your new maid.”

“You can’t be, they’re all hiding from me because they don’t want-“ She considered me. “What is your name?”

“Dashti, my lady,” I told her again.

She hopped off her bed and grabbed my wrist, but tight. Her swiftness and force startled me. “Swear you’ll serve me, Dashti. Swear you won’t abandon me. Swear it!”

Page 15

Golden Lines

Mama saying…

“You have to know someone a thousand days before you can glimpse her soul."

“'Are you sad? Then just wait a minute.”

Questions

What was the mother of Lady Saren doing this whole time? Was she killed before the girls were locked up in the tower? Does Saren have any siblings?

What “group” did the two men who came to plunder the tower belong to?

Alternative Book Report

A story from Dashti’s childhood

Mama looks up when she hears me walking towards her. Her hair blows like tree branches in the wind across her checks and nose. I try to roll the sticks out of my arm into a pile near the fire but the nobs on the sticks leave white scratches on my arms and the pile looks scattered and meager. I smile when I look up at mama, knowing one day I will bring her the biggest, most sticks any one could carry.

I don’t look like mama. Mama looks like she belongs in the trees and the wind. My face is red; I have a red splotch across my face. I don’t belong in the world.

She smiles at me and opens her arms. Her red shall drapes across her arms, and I fall into the folds of her red shall. I belong to mama. The Ancestors were kind to give me a mama I belong to.

I like how she smells. Her clothes smell like dirt and her hair smells like sweet rice and smoke. I rub my red check against her and she cuddles me close. I am still little enough that I fit in her arms even when she is sitting. Through the waves of scruffy red I can hear the rhythm of her heart beat, and then she starts singing.

Her voice is warms my cold fingers. It starts a fire in my chest that flickers and licks up my bones and around my wrists and ankles until I it feels as if my fingers are candle wicks and I fell all a glow. She lets me stay in her lap while she stirs the soup and keeps singing. A few lumps and roots float to the top, and I count them out loud to myself.

I feel her ribs shiver through the red shall and I wrap my hands wrap around her trying to warm her like how her singing warms me. My arms are too short to make it all around her hunched over frame, but I don’t let go. She kisses my red check and I open my eyes, not realizing I had been squinting. She brushes my hair back with her fingers, and sings again.

She sings so slow I can watch the words her lips are making. I sing too. Only the words I know, only the notes I remember, but I can hear my voice and mama’s voice.

REL

the law of concecration. What do I want to give up? what should I give up? what am I willing to give up? What the heck is going on? Do I give up my will- that is all that I have to give, but that means my time, energy, emotions (really are emotions there too), thoughts, money, talents... all of it. It all feels like it is mine and I have to give it up- NO!! I want to give it up.
That is the difference the law requires me to want. To want to give all that I have to God. To want to give my will, because that is all that I have to give. Sometimes I wonder exactly what is my will. I mean if everything else was given to me by God, what is left. I can scratch off the easy earthly stuff: my car, bed, apartment, scholarship, food, clothing, shoes, ring, hair holders, my body, my nose, face, legs, arms, eyes, talents, does that include my thoughts? when do my passions cross into a gift from God and my own. When do my desires cross from "my will" to what God has given me? Is there a way to have the two become the same. Is it possible for my will and all that God gives me to be the same thing? Could God give me my will? That seems like an ironic sentence, and one that I do not fully understand.
Today I had a long day- just cause I wanted to. Nothing went wrong, nothing happened, I got made at someone for a worthless thing (what made it worthless), what is wroth fighting for. Above all what do I want to give up. I want to give my all to God, but today as I sit at this computer I realize that I have to learn how to give my will to God. I think that after my little internal blow up it will be harder than I thought. There will not be a magical momement when I give all to God, and let him take the reigns. Like everything I guess, I am going to have to learn how to give my will to God.
I will have to learn what is my will. More importantly I will have to learn God's will, and then I will have to learn what I want to give up to follow God's will. I will have to be patient with myself... I am not the fastest all the time, but the atonement will help. Christ is not only my Redemer but my Teacher and he will help teach me. I think that to keep the law of concerection I should strive to become more teachable.

EL ED Breadwinner book report

Joy Prior

Community Books: Breadwinner, by Deborah Ellis

Passages

“The people who are buried here. Do you think they’d mind us digging them up?”

Shauzia leaned on her board. “Depends on the type of people they were. If they were nasty, stingy people, they wouldn’t like it. If they were kind and generous people, they wouldn’t mind.”

“Would you mind?”

Shauzia looked at her, opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again and returned to her digging. Parvana didn’t ask her again.

Page 107

The Talib kept looking down at her. Then he put his hand inside his vest. Keeping his eyes on Parvana, he drew something out of his vest pocket…

He shook his head and held out his hand for the letter. Parvana folded it and gave it back to him. His hands trebled as he put the letter back in the envelope. She was a tear fall from his eye. It rolled down his cheek until it landed on his beard….

Parvana took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Up until then, she had seen Talibs only as men who beat women and arrested her father. Could they have feelings of sorrow, like other human beigns?

Page 77

Golden lines

Finally, she stuck her whole head under the tap, hoping the cold water would wash the images of what she had done all day out of her head.

Page 113

He was holding up a rope strung with four severed hands, like beads on a necklace.

Page 122

Questions

How likely is it that Parvana will see her family again? What would have happened to her family?

Will Parvana continue to be a boy? When will she start dressing/acting like a girl again?

EL ED picture book report

EL ED 340 Children’s Literature

Section 003

Terrell Alan Young

Joy Prior

Picture Book Project

I chose Mei Li written and illustrated by Thomas Handforth, the 1939 Caldecott winner, for the picture book project. This book implored the Caldecott requirement to provide a visual experience. The characters seem to dance across the folds and creases of the pages, as if they were alive, and the pictures were the ones telling the story- the words were simply attached for an adult’s convenience.

A picture book develops a story-line, concept, or theme. The illustrator in Mei Li uses remarkable details for the clothing and faces of particularly Mei Li and her family to emphasize the theme family relationships are enriched through community celebrations. This is particularly noticeable when Mei Li is at the celebrations. The backgrounds and crowds are composed of lines and smudges. In contrast the features on her brother’s clothing remain unbelievably realistic. The detailed facial expressions, clothing, and gestures allows the audience enjoys the same familiarity Mei Li has with her family.

Caldecott defines the audience for a picture book as a child, persons under the age of fifteen. The illustrations in Mei Li are children: girls in dress up, boys setting off fireworks, children playing with dancing toys, and children flying kites. Few things can captive children more than other children; even the adults in the pictures are holding and cuddling their children. One particular image seems misplaced, but supports the very theme of developing family relationships. It is of the orphan girl holding the gate open for Mei Li; the adults on this page are mostly blurred squiggles. Compared to the adults that surround Mei Li who are expressive these adults appear obtrusive. Her father, uncle, and even older brother look at Mei Li, hold her, and carry her. These images of Mei Li with her family create a sense that children are beloved members of a family. A theme intended for an audience of children.

The content of Thomas Handforth’s Mei Li is a little Chinese girl who dresses as her brother and explores the wonders at the New Year Fair in the nearby city. One of the major themes of the book is how traditions and celebrations bring families together. In my ink drawing I wanted to depict my own unforgettable memories of the Fourth of July. Trying to stay within the content of the Mei Li I drew my brother and me in matching barber quartet hats. Our mother bought them for us; we wore them until the Styrofoam broke.

The pictorial style of media Thomas Hadforth used lithographs (a method involving images scratched in wax and then inked onto a slab of stone so it can be transferred to a sheet of paper). This media creates a stamp like quality- thick lines flowing from curves into lines and shapes filled with blotches of sponged grey. To better suit my resources I used an ink brush pen to imitate the patterns and designs of Thomas Hadforth’s images.

Mei Li measures up to the Caldecott Criteria. Thomas Handforth most famous etcher and lithographer from his early 1900s collections is Mei Li because it is such an outstanding execution of lithography technique. The pictures depict the story so clearly that the words merely act as a frame; they enclose the characters. Particularly impressive is the detail of Mei Li and her family. Their faces and movements make them seem like characters filled with love and life- not simply images.

Lithography was an ideal style chose to support the theme of Mei Li. A single lithograph requires wax tablets, stone, paper, chizzes, and ink not to mention the multiple copies and recopies. Similarly, the family in Mei Li has siblings, uncles, and parents that interact together to produce a single memory. The highly invested process of the illustrations parallels to the theme of the picture book.

Because Thomas Handforth lived in China he was able to draw images from his own memory that enriched the illustrations. Without obscuring the innocence of the story the illustrations depicts the Chinese culture: the character’s hair to the slopping roof tops.

Mei Li is a presentation for children of children doing childish things: A picture of Mei Li talking to a bear, her being held upside down, flying a kite. They are all images a child sees at the fair- without the over crowded streets, the staggering drunks, and the glazed eyes of underfeed circus performers. The illustrations embody a child’s memories and ideals of a celebration.

Although, the illustrations in Mei Li are outstanding the text is a complementary component of the picture book. The plot is oddly romantic. A little girl dressed as a boy enjoys a celebration beyond any believable expectations. I believe that the characters are especially important: a loving uncle and playful older brother. The author and illustrator Thomas Handforth brings to life the daydreams and pleasures of a child celebrating culture and life with a loving family without depending on sound, film, or computer programs. I found it remarkably enjoyable to read the story, study the pictures, and immerse myself in my own childish memories.

I have included a table describing all the books that I chose to read for this project. These picture books impressed me with not only the artist talented but the consistency the artists use throughout the entire book. It was beyond my understanding when I realized that illustrators do not simply have to create ONE master piece but pages and pages of majestic art work that maintain the same themes, patterns, and designs.