The Sunday Visits

Today I visited FIVE - yes, that's right...

FIVE families.

Short but sweet visits.

Oh, how I love the people in my neighborhood.

Here's how it played out.

Jerry & Linda Asay; they had just gotten home from church.  Linda looked great in her blue outfit.  Jerry looks weak, but he was in good spirits, which i was glad about.  They had just returned form Thanksgiving with their children in Tucson.

After dinner, I went  to see Edith, my visiting teaching person. She has zero interest in the church, but she's great.

Abby Forsyth, who just returned from her mission and gave her mission report.  What an obedient, wonderful young lady.

Steve & Rachael Beckstrom, to tell them how wonderful their young son is.  He is so prepared for baptism...it was astonishing to me how well prepared and knowledgable he is.

Baelie Beatty, only she wasn't home, so I visited briefly with Waunita.

I love, admire, and respect all these people.

When I got home, OUR home teacher was here.

And, I'm so very grateful for Ron Olson.

I have such good people in my life and I feel blessed.

LIFE IS HARD!

Once again,

I heard another truly heart-breaking story from a wonderful young mother in our ward.

her husband just walked out and left her!

This is her fourth marriage.

She married the man of her dreams and he died of a brain tumor when her youngest daughter was a few months old.

Since then, she has met and married three - good - men.

Only they weren't good.

They turned out be scumbags, losers, whiners, or whatever.

She is devastated.....of course....naturally.

Oh, LIFE.

And, on the other hand, some families just glide thru life.

OH, I'm praying for you, my dear KA.

DO NOT DISTURB!

Life is pretty calm and good right now.

I don't want that to change.

Life is such a flow of ups and downs.

I'm not very good at the downs.

So, I want everything to just stay the same as it is right now.

No changes....just same old, same old.

So, please do not disturb.

Baptismal Covenant

When we are baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints,

we make a covenant to...

MOURN WITH THOSE THAT MOURN.

This is a very big challenge for me.

Because....

I only want good things and happy things for people....

Whether they are people that I know personally or whether they are people on the news people in far-flung countries.

It's just so hard for me to see or hear about the sufferings of others.

So, this week, when a wonderful missionary friend opened up to me about her financial horror stories with the IRS, I was stunned and depressed and overwhelmed with sorrow for her.  I cannot stop thinking about it.

I want so badly to help her, but how can I//

She has spent literally thousands and thousands of dollars to get out of this horrific situation, but it follows her everywhere; the fear, the harassment, the continual requests for more money to settle the account.

They have nothing left.  She confided in me that she is terrified the IRS will take her home when they make their final payment next month.  She feels she is bing stalked, watched, recorded.

She has hired good lawyers, and they have drained their entire savings, but still there is no resolution.

This scenario has broken my heart and has caused her husband, aged 80, to lose his health.

She is so stressed.

And, yet, she continues to serve faithfully at the Family Search Library.

How can our very own government do this to us?

Just heart-breaking.

So, I will pray.

Then, pray some more.

My Apologies...

to...

the neighbors who lost weight and gained it all back...

I was judgemental.

to....

the HUGE man at the buffet last week.

I was judgemental.

to....

the lady where I work who waddles from her heavy weight.

I was judgemental.

I am ashamed that I was so unfeeling about your weight.

And, now that judgment has come back to haunt me.

Because, you see, last year, I lost weight.

But, now it is all coming back and I'm on the other side of the coin.

Wondering how it could happen....

Wondering why I can't control this situation....

Wondering WHY I have been so unfeeling towards others who continually struggle with their weight.

And, so to you, I apologize.

The Devil in the Story

Earlier this week, I went to do a temple endowment session.

I try to go to the temple every other week, but I haven't been for awhile since we were gone the entire summer.

And, I usually do initiatory.

But I decided to do an endowment.

It was just so amazing to me how REAL the Satan in the movie seemed to be.  He was smiling, slick, went in close to Eve's face.  He was, to use the word in the temple, very beguiling.

And, I realized - again - that is how he is in real life.

He's so beguiling that it's easy to be persuaded to his way of thinking.

Oh, I want to stay away.

I need to get the devil out of my life and not listen to his beguiling ways.

I'm grateful for the Gospel and the perspective it brings to my life.

I love the Savior and His Lite.

Dear Young Mother....

Thank you for your visit today with your two young children.  I appreciated and enjoyed it.

I saw you look with a little envy at the clean kitchen counter; the living room floor without any Legos or dolls scattered around; the decorative blanket on the couch that wasn't draped into tents covering all the furniture; no Play Dough scrunched into the carpet.

I notice you looked at the bowl of candy and nuts sort of longingly as if they would not last a minute at your home and they would be scattered all over the coffee table.

You apologized profusely when your son started to bang on the table with your keys and when he started to whine and your daughter began to cry.  You felt uncomfortable during the visit because my home is so quiet, so orderly, and I know yours with four young children is hectic, cluttered, noisy, and filled with LIFE.

But, let me tell you this:  YOU NEEDN't HAVE HAD ANY OF THOSE FEELINGS.

Because, you see, I totally get it.

I've been there - just exactly where you are.

I've walked into a home with small children and felt so uncomfortable and awkward and out of place and like, "what am I doing here?"

SO, here's the thing; TRULY......

EVERYTHING will change.

I'm sure you get tired of hearing people tell you how quickly it will pass.....

Not when you are struggling to change ANOTHER diaper, wipe up another runny nose, hear the whiney cry of, "Mom, I'm hungry," trip over another toy car, spend a sleepless night with a child who is coughing and fevered, look with dismay at the piles of laundry scattered all over the house, get the kids buckled in the car only to have one of them say they need to go potty; feel like you can't take another minute of the chaos, noise, fighting, whining, bickering, teasing, screams, tantrums, clutter.

Oh, yes, beautiful young mother; things WILL change - it may not seem to go quickly when you are in the thick of it, but it will happen.

And, you too will have an orderly home, a quiet home, no fingerprints, no dust, no scattered toys on the floor, no cookie crumbs in the carpet, no noise.  And, you too, will have a young mother visit you.

You will look with fond memories and think, as I often do, I've been there.  It was hard, it was a challenge, it was lonely, it meant long hours; but now, I reap the rewards of having done it by enjoying being with my adult children; they are good, they are inspiring, they are good parents of their own.  They bring me great JOY that I may have missed in the day-to-day struggle of raising them.   

Now, I will be content with this situation knowing I fought the fight.

I will enjoy this time in my life.

And, then the grandchildren will come rushing thru the front door and you will smile and say with GLEE, "Let the Destruction and the FUN begin!"