Lessons from building a tower

Last week while we were driving to the Gila Valley Temple open house, Jared, Sariah, and I rode with my parents. We got to talking about life, and how life gives us learning moments. In fact, life gives us many ordinary moments that we can learn something from. How many moments pass us by that we don't apply to gospel principles, or use to teach our children the gospel from? It's kind of like the scriptures - if you don't liken them unto you, what do you have to learn from?

I really thought about that, and made a promise to myself then and there that I would use more of life's moments to teach my children about the gospel.

This morning, Sariah was building a tower out of blocks. There are 11 blocks in all. She was trying to build the tower on the soft, plush carpet, and the blocks kept toppling over. So, she brought over a hard, flat, plastic surface to build her tower on.

Building a tower is easier when you have the right foundation. Living your life is easier when you have the right foundation.

She would get about 6 or 7 blocks high, and then they would shift and the blocks would topple over.

Sometimes, even with the right foundation, your blocks are going to fall if they shift. Sometimes, we have our foundation set, but life shifts our blocks and they fall anyway.

But Sariah, bound and determined not to give up, would pick up the blocks, set them straight, and keep going. No matter how many times our "blocks" fall, we can always pick them back up, set them straight, and keep going.

After quite a while, she finally had all of her blocks in one tall tower!


Then, willingly, she knocked over her own tower! We, too, knock over our own towers and know exactly what we're doing. We make choices to keep our towers strong, or willingly knock them over.

We actually took a minute to talk about creating our own foundation, and keeping our towers strong by reading our scriptures, saying our prayers, going to church, and helping other people. I only hope that I can be smart and use more of these moments to teach my children the gospel, and apply them to my own life as well. I learned a lot from watching her make that tower!