Little House on the Prairie

My favorite show of all time:  Little House on the Prairie.  I LOVE it!!  I'm pretty sure I have seen every episode. Between my grandfather and I, we own the entire series.  I have been thinking of buying the newly released collection so I can have it in it's entirety.


When I was a little girl I watched LHOTP.  I wished that Charles Ingalls was my dad.  I hoped to marry someone just as amazing someday.  I wanted to look like Caroline and be as strong, kind, loving and smart as she was.  I really liked Laura - she was spunky and smart.  I wanted to be that way too - I felt that way inside, but was often too shy and scared to say how I felt.  She was awesome!  I loved to hate Mrs. Olsen and her horrible daughter Nellie.

Now that I'm a big girl, I still watch LHOTP (I even get to watch it with my awesome boyfriend!  He likes to watch it with me!  At least he seems to, and it's always his idea to watch it.  Maybe because he loves me so much??  Maybe he really likes LHOTP a lot???  Maybe it's both!  I hope so!!!).  I still love Charles and Caroline.  I heart their love story, the romance, the team work.  I love how they help each other.  I love how they've got each other's back.  I love how if they are wrong, the other can help them see it without tearing them down.  I love how they are quick to apologize when they are wrong.  I know it's just a show, and not real life, but I think it helped teach a generation about what life could be like if all the members of a family pull together to accomplish a goal.  It was a good example of how a wife could support her husband in love and build her children into strong adults and still maintain her own unique identity.  It was a good example of how a husband should support his wife in love, and build his children in love.  They both had responsibilities to help their children and each other, to make their family successful.  They both had unique roles, different from one another.  They fulfilled different tasks.  Even the children had tasks to accomplish.  They supported each other in those unique roles.  They seemed to glory in each other and the unique role that they other held.  The supported their children in the unique role and tasks that fell to each of them.  I just love it!!  

I'm sad that television today is so far removed from this ideal.  It seems like all that is available to us on television is the ugliness and evil that is found in this world.  I don't watch much TV these days - anytime that I do I feel sad and let down.  I feel frustrated and annoyed (there are so many commercials!  It seems like there's more commercial time than program time!)  I wish that there were more producers and directors like Michael Landon.  TV might be worth watching again if there were more shows on like LHOTP.  You know that phrase in the 13th Article of Faith??  "If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things."  LHOTP definitely meets this criteria.

Gideon: A righteous man, yea, a man who has done much good among this people...

In my reading of the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, I have come to the story of Gideon.  Gideon was a Nephite patriot.  He loved his people and fought for them and their freedom.  He abhorred the wicked King Noah, and fought him in defense of his people.  He also had something of a soft heart, as he spared the life of the wicked king when he had the perfect opportunity to rid the people of him.  He was a smart man - when the daughters of the Lamanites go missing and Gideon's people are accused of the crime, Gideon figures out who the real culprits are - the wicked priests of king Noah.  When his people were in bondage to the Lamanites it was Gideon who came up with the plan for their escape.  He was a strong member of the church of God and when Nehor came on the scene, teaching all manner of false doctrine and leading away the hearts of the people, it was Gideon that defended the truth and eventually became a martyr when Nehor slayed him with a sword - even as Gideon was sharing his testimony of the truth.  The people were devastated; this was a man dearly loved by them, a man who had defended them and fought for the right all his life.  The people of the land named a city in his honor so that they might always remember their defender and champion.


I have a new little nephew.  He was born right near Christmastime.  His name is Gideon.  I don't know that his parents named him specifically after this Nephite patriot.  But I do know that they looked to this Gideon of ancient times and maybe were thinking along the lines of Helaman who once said to his own sons: "Behold, I have given unto you the names of our first patents who came out of the land of Jerusalem; and this I have done that when you remember your names ye may remember them; and when ye remember them ye may remember their works; and when ye remember their works ye may know how that it is said, and also written, that they were good.  Therefore, my sons, I would that ye should do that which is good that it may be said of you, and also written, even as it has been said and written of them" (Helaman 5:6-7)

Alright little Gideon.  Now, go and do good so that it might be said of you even as it was said of him of old.