On Display

I was reminded today of something that happened many, many years ago.

Sister W was a perfectionist in every sense of the word. She was an artiste, kept her person and home immaculate, and at the time of this little event, she was the Homemaking counselor in Relief Society.

It was the day of the Homemaking Bazaar. BYW (beautiful young wife) had been asked to arrange the items for sale on the tables. So, all afternoon as women brought in their crocheted booties, home-sewn aprons, baby quilts, embroidered dish towels, BYW set them on display on the tables.

When it was time to leave, she stepped back to look at her work. You could see that she felt proud of what she had done. And, the items looked fine; there was an order to it, but it was just okay. BYW left. (I had to stay for some reason, so I saw what happened next.)

As soon as BYW was out the door, Sister W marched over to the sale table, and in a flash, had transformed those items into something like a display in a Macy's Christmas window. Oh, she had the gift.

An hour later, time for the bazaaar to begin. Here came BYW with HYH (handsome young husband). She wanted to show him her creations. But, oh, the crestfallen look on her young beautiful face when she saw that everything she had done earlier in the afternoon had been changed, rearranged.

A few weeks later in a testimony meeting HYH got up - not to bear testimony - but rather to give a vitriolic and scathing rebuke to the women in the Relief Scoiety. He told of his wife's excitement to be asked to work on the display, her efforts to make it look just right. Then of her total disappointment and hurt when she returned to see it done over by someone else. Maybe it wasn't as professional looking as someone else could have done it, but, "If you weren't going to leave it the way she did it, why did you even ask her?"

It was a very uncomfortable moment for everyone that day. I admired the HYH's support of his wife, but it was a very awkward feeling in testimony meeting on that particular Sunday.

I was reminded of that story because this week, I invited a SYA (single young adult) from our ward to help me wrap Christmas presents. She was in a life-threatening motorcycle accident a year ago, so she can't work, can't drive. Right now, she is pretty bored as she stays home all day with nothing do to. So, I asked if she would like to come over and wrap up some gifts for an hour or so.

Now, I've never been a perfectionist or even close to that. But, in the last few years, I have enjoyed making the Christmas presents look nice. (I learned this from Jenni and Leigh, whose presents are always works of art.) So, I've tried to wrap them attractively at this point in my life. If wrapped attractively, they do look lovely on display under a tree.

SYA came over. I wrapped a present with a flourish. Then she began to wrap a grandchild's present. "Ooops," she said with her fun smile. "The paper doesn't fit the package."

Then she said that she could fix it someway. She patched the present together as I watched silently, thinking, "But, I wanted them to look nice, not all patched together."

Then, she wrapped more presents - if she cut off too much paper, it was smushed into the sides. Too little paper, and it was pieced together. "Do I have to have ribbons and bows?" she said with her fun smile. So, she didn't use any ornamentation.

Meanwhile, I was wrapping with elegant paper, ribbons, etc.

When we were finished, and I drove her home, she said, "Thanks so much for asking me to help you. That was a lot of fun!"

"No," I said honestly. "I should thank you...for your help. It made the process more fun and go more quickly."

And, to myself, I added. Thank you also for reminding me...."I asked you to help me, so I'll just leave the gifts the way you wrapped them. I need to honor what you did and not do it over."



Boy, I'm always learning lessons and being reminded of life and people.