Mormon Helping Hands This Saturday

Mormon Helping Hands: Saturday, April 26 - 8am to noon at Canoga Park High School Farm.  Check in at the corner of Vanowen and Jordan. Cleaning, painting, trimming, and weeding. Kids will enjoy seeing the horse, Llama and farm animals! Please bring any rakes, weed diggers, branch cutters, hoes, shovels, brooms, hat, gloves, and sunscreen. Be sure to mark your tools with your name! Light breakfast, BBQ lunch, and water bottles provided. All ages and abilities needed. Parking across the street at the mall next to the former Sizzler’s.

Food Sign-ups for Linger Longer 4/13

Ward Conference is Sunday April 13th. We will be having a Linger Longer after church and we are in need of food sign-ups.

Please email me at lisamarinagarcia@gmail.com if you can bring any of the following:

Finger Sandwiches (or any other type of finger foods)
Fruit
Vegetables
Salad
Dip
Chips
Dessert

Sorry for the short notice. Thank you!

Lisa Bell

Primary/Ward Easter Activity

Please join us at the Easter Celebration Saturday, April 12 from 10-12 at the Ward Building. There will be food, activities for the children, easter eggs and a good time by all.

How the Atonement of Christ Eases Sorrow

• By Rebecca Rickman at familyshare.com
• When my youngest daughter, Hannah, who is now 22 and married, was little, she was a bit of a complainer and a whiner. I got so frustrated with her that I devised a little game and when she would complain, I would add something to it and she would add something to that. She would say, "I’m tired" I would add, "I’m tired and my leg hurts" She would say, "I’m tired and my leg hurts and the sun is in my eyes"_I would continue, "I’m tired and my leg hurts and the sun is in my eyes and I’m hungry."_We would go back and forth until we had a list of complaints far too long to be remembered and she would start giggling and that would solve the problem, at least temporarily.
  Being a young child, to her, these complaints were very real and very painful. That's the problem with grief and pain. You may feel completely alone in it because no one ever feels it quite the same way. Our pain generally gets all scrambled up with past painful experiences that are uniquely our own and so no one feels the pain in quite the same way as we do. Knowing that can cause the compound pain of feeling misunderstood and alone.
  For instance, if someone else is hungry, it’s an annoyance and they go and get something to eat. If I’m hungry, it is mixed with the memory that there was a time that I couldn’t feed my children properly.
  I was asked to speak at a funeral for a baby that died, inexplicably, the day she came home from the hospital. This young couple is dealing with what I believe must surely be the worst pain anyone can feel. Much worse than losing a parent, which is at some point anticipated. Worse than losing a sibling. But even in that greatest of sorrows, each of these two parents are feeling it differently. Most people can’t express all the crazy events in their lives that compose their current hurt. And that makes them feel alone.
  There is hope. Understanding the atonement of Jesus Christ can allow us to take comfort in the knowledge that there is someone who understands exactly how we are feeling. Exactly. Because through his atonement Jesus Christ has felt every hurt of every single person who has ever or will ever live. And not just the sorrows, but the anger and the betrayal and the hunger and the skinned knees and the broken hearts and the guilt.
  When the world will spoon-feed us platitudes and dismissals like, "Just get over it," or, "Time heals all wounds," or, "I know exactly how you feel," we can take consolation in knowing that there is one person who understands and feels our pain the way we feel it.

  The atonement is for everyone

  Christ atoned for everyone, whether or not they believe or accept or understand.

  The atonement is not just for our sins

  The atonement covers our pain, whether self-induced or inflicted by others or by circumstance. We are not alone.

  The atonement can heal us

  By knowing we are not alone, we can turn to our God and our Savior and pour out our hearts to them and receive comfort through the Holy Ghost.

  The atonement is infinite

  It does not stop or have a limit in its capacity to cover our ongoing pains and heal us with its power.
  This beautiful plan allows us to call on the powers of Heaven to overcome any trouble or pain that we may be in. We can discuss it any place, any time, with or without words, and receive comfort in the knowledge that we are heard, understood and loved without limits.

April Recipe

Vanilla Coconut Rice Pudding

1 1/2 cups cold cooked rice
1 1/2 cups of coconut milk
2 cups of whole or 2% milk
1/3 cup sugar
pinch of salt
1 vanilla bean, insides scraped out (or vanilla extract to taste)
Directions:
Combine all the ingredients together in a saucepan and simmer
medium-low heat for 40 minutes. Allow to cool and serve.

Quotes:

If you feel unclean, unloved, unhappy, unworthy, or unwhole,
remember, "All that is unfair about life can be made right through
the Atonement of Jesus Christ," Have faith and patience in the
Savior's timing and purposes for you. "Be not afraid, only believe."
Elder Timothy J. Dyches

"However late you think you are, however many chances you think
you have missed, however many mistakes you feel you have made
or talents you think you don't have, or however far you are from
home and family and God you feel you have traveled, I testify
that you have not traveled beyond the reach of divine love.
It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of
Christ's Atonement shines." Jeffrey R. Holland

"…Thee are times when we will experience heartbreaking sorrow,
when we will grieve and when we may be tested to our limits.
However, such difficulties allow us to change for the better,
to rebuild our lives in the way our Heavenly Father teaches us,
and to become something different from what we were -- better
than what we were, more understanding than what we were, more
empathetic than we were, with stronger testimonies than we
had before." Pres. Thomas S. Monson, Oct 2013