Empty Nest

Well, with Matthew gone, we are empty nesters again. Interesting how life works. This month's high C topic was repentance. It was interesting, as I was going over the "talk" that was the basis for my talk I really felt like instead of the big things we need to repent of, I should talk about those day to day things that sometimes just "get us down." The story I shared was when I was working for Home Depot and they sent me and another guy to Atlanta for training. We spent three days there and returned home on Saturday. Our flight was in the afternoon, but we were finished in the morning. Rather than entertain us, they just took us all to the airport. The guy I was with and I were trying to decide who got to sit by the window. To resolve the dispute, we went to the ticket counter and had our seats changed so we were each sitting by a window. If you have ever been through the Atlanta Airport, you know what a challenge that is, because the ladies don't speak english (long live ebonix). After about 1/2 hour I gave up, but was surprised to see that although I couldn't understand her, she understood me. We were both excited to fly now that we each had our window seat. Finally, it came time to board the plane. We were flying to Phoenix and then in to Salt Lake.
When I finally got on the plane, I went to my seat and found a young mother and baby in my seat. She gave me a sad look and asked if she could have the seat because of her little boy. Well, what am I supposed to do--I sat in the middle. The kid was not having happy time on the plane and the mom was trying really hard to get him to settle down. I finally asked her if she would like me to hold him. She agreed and gave me the kid. I took him and held him on my shoulder getting him to sleep. Well, "mom" now babyless went sound to sleep as well. After about an hour into the flight, my shoulder was soaking wet with baby drool and my arm was asleep and aching at the same time. I was getting pretty upset about the whole deal--I lost my window seat, I am taking care of some kid while his mom is fast asleep and my arm is killing me and I have slobber all over my shirt. When the mom woke up, she thanked me over and over and then told me that before she got on the plane, her family all got together and had a prayer asking Heavenly Father that someone would help her while she traveled home. Needless to say, I felt like I needed to repent--I was doing the right thing but having some pretty bad feelings about it. Well, we got to Phoenix and I grabbed the kid while my friend grabbed the stroller and we ran as fast as we could to the next concourse getting her there just as they were closing the doors.
Like that little experience, there are many thing we do which are right, but we need to "adjust" our attitude do we are doing the right thing for the RIGHT reason. Repentance is what we do each week when we partake of the sacrament. I believe that is the real reason we go to church each Sunday, so we can repent of all those little things which don't seem to make a difference, but really do.
The "bottom line" is that we all have daily experiences that make up who we are, and sometimes we let those experiences define us rather than being the person we want to be and know we should be and then using those experiences to reflect who we are instead of vice versa.