The Gospel According to Jeffrey

I just awoke from a dream. I was driving in the car with my wife, Anna, in the town where my grandparents lived. We were just about to the highway that would take us back to my parents’ house when the Spirit told me that the Christ was about to be born. Now, obviously in reality, I know that the Christ has already been born and at this point He doesn’t need to be born again (ironic though that statement be). But in the dream, He was finally coming, and the still, small voice of the Spirit was letting me know. But even beyond that knowledge, there was more: I saw Him in vision. I saw Him in that very moment, about to leave home and begin His calling on Earth, and I could see how He was feeling. We often talk about the Savior subserving His will to Father’s. We recognize that His suffering in Gethsemane and on the cross was so severe, He begged for deliverance if it be possible. The pain and agony that He suffered are beyond human comprehension, but He knew it would be that wa...

I haven’t been remembering my dreams much lately, but I just awoke from one and feel it very important that I write it down. It was Sunday morning and I went to church with my family, but instead of pews, there were long tables set up for a large meal—a feast, really. Though we were a few minutes early and no one else was at the table, I sat down, loaded my plate, and began to eat. By the time others came to sit—I remember my elders quorum president, John Anderson, sitting next to me—I was almost done with my meal. A bit embarrassed, I got up and walked out of the building. My family came with me, and we drove to the home of some friends from the ward, the Joyces. (As an aside, I’ve never actually been to the Joyce’s house, so I have no idea if my dream’s representation thereof was in any way accurate.) I didn’t actually see any of the Joyces there, which is particularly interesting since they’re a family of nine. I did, however, go into their family room, which was probably about...

In the midst of my constant blogging about interesting things in my life and giving other people suggestions, I’ve got a bit of a switch-up, tonight: I could really use some help, here. About two months ago, my five-year-old son, David, suddenly became terrified of the dark, of going upstairs by himself, and of going to bed by himself. (He’s our only living son, so he’s been going to bed by himself since he was an infant.) At first, he was afraid of zombies; these days, he’s just plain afraid, ostensibly without the ability to articulate just what it is that scares him. Either way, the problem is the same: we have a lot of trouble getting him to go to bed. We’ve tried talking to him, assuring him that zombies aren’t real ( CDC page notwithstanding). We’ve helped him look out the window, to let him see that there’s nothing out there. We leave his lights on all night, so he’s not afraid of the darkness. We bought him a dream catcher, to help “keep the nightmares away.” I taught...