Gospel Story Finder

When my family moved a few months after I turned 18, I found myself in a new ward and facing a challenge. Within two weeks of my moving in, almost all of the priests were made elders. I was also called to be the first assistant in the priests quorum.

In giving me this calling, the bishop explained that there were a lot of priests on the roll, but almost no one showed up. We had a lot of work to do to encourage people to attend.

“Just invite people to come,” he said.

Only one other priest came to church, a guy named Ryan, who showed up a couple times each month. I decided to go knock on doors of our less-active quorum members and invite them to our activities. I was nervous, afraid that they’d get upset at me for inviting them to church. I figured they weren’t coming because they didn’t like church. But I also figured it was good practice for my upcoming mission to try to invite, so I gritted my teeth and started calling the other priests or stopping by their houses. I invited them to firesides, to activities, to church.

What surprised me was that some actually responded and came. We eventually had a group of four priests who started coming on a regular basis. It wasn’t that they didn’t like church—they had just been waiting for an invitation to come. They were just as nervous about a new situation—attending church—as I had been.

Some activities were more successful than others. Everyone showed up for volleyball, but I struggled to get people to attend other activities.

Youth conference that year was especially rewarding as I watched some of these young men stand up and bear their testimonies. I felt like I had made a difference in their lives.

One of the differences I saw was that Ryan was attending church every week and we had become good friends.

“Not Ivy! She’s a girl,” Braden whispered behind Adam.
But Adam was team captain for dodgeball for the day, and he had made his choice. “I pick Ivy,” he repeated a little louder. Tyler, the other team captain, smirked. Even Coach Garcia looked surprised at Adam’s second pick.
Ivy looked surprised too and then shyly stepped forward. Braden groaned.
Ivy wasn’t just any girl. She was the smallest girl in the class. She didn’t look very fast, and the ball seemed bigger than she was. “She probably can’t even lift the ball,” Braden said as Ivy walked over.
“Maybe she’ll be our secret weapon,” Adam said, trying to sound sure. But that’s not why he had picked her. Ivy had once told Adam she didn’t like it when they played sports because she was always picked last. The other boys teased Ivy, but Mom and Dad had told Adam that boys should show respect for girls. So he picked Ivy. As he watched Tyler pick the biggest boy in class, Adam hoped he had made the right decision.
After everyone was on a team, Coach Garcia blew the whistle, and the teams ran to opposite ends of the court. Coach Garcia handed Tyler the ball, and Tyler scanned Adam’s team before he focused on Ivy. He pulled back his arm and let the ball fly.
Bam! The ball smacked the ground and bounced without hitting anyone. Adam blinked. Ivy had moved just in time. Everyone around him seemed surprised, but Adam just smiled. Maybe picking Ivy had been a good idea after all.
The game continued. Tyler kept trying to hit Ivy with the ball, but she kept dodging and diving out of the way. No one could hit her with a ball. Tyler and some of his teammates were so busy trying to get Ivy out that they didn’t spend much time aiming for anyone else. Adam grinned—Ivy’s size actually made her better at dodgeball because being small and fast made her harder to hit.
At last Adam’s team won the game. “Secret weapon was right,” Braden said. “Ivy’s pretty good.”
“Yeah,” Tyler said. “Next time, she’s on my team. We’ll win for sure!” Ivy smiled as she walked back to class, surrounded by teammates.
Adam couldn’t stop smiling as he followed the group. He had been nice to Ivy, and he had helped the other boys respect girls a little more. The greatest secret weapon wasn’t a secret at all—it was just being kind.

Now I must tell a little of what happened there. You remember that was as far as I had promised to go with them. From the station there we were taken to the headquarters of the Mormon mission in Norway, at Osterhausgaten No. 27. While we were there, they held a meeting in that hall, and my parents wanted me to go into the meeting. But I wouldn’t go in. You remember I said before that I was bitter. There was a lady there who saw that I did not go in. She said, “If it was my boy, I would whip him till the blood ran down into the heels of his shoes.” I heard her say it, but I thought she would have to be a good runner to catch me for I was light on foot.

Now this is how they got me to go farther. They knew what I had said before I left home in Ringsaker, and my sister Agnete had said that if I didn’t go, she wouldn’t go any farther either. Father went out to a hat store and bought my brother Mathias and myself each a nice brown hat and gave them to us. He said nothing but looked sorrowful. When I saw my parents looked sorrowful, I remembered what I had read in the Bible: “Honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God gavest thee.” I consented to go with them. Then they cheered up, and I have never regretted it.

I didn’t realize that everyone didn’t know that when I first left home. I was in Georgia and a girl asked me to tell her about the Mormon church and what I liked about it and what I believed. I told her the obvious things about the Word of Wisdom, tithing, and going to church on Sunday. She threw her hands in the air and exclaimed, “Merciful heavens! I want to be religious and hear a good sermon on Sunday, but I’m certainly not going to let it interfere with my life.”

She didn’t know about the plan of salvation—that life is a part of eternity, as much as any part before we came or after we leave. It is all one round whole of the plan of salvation.

After returning from mission, I had two main goals: get married and go back to school, or vice versa. Deciding which one to prioritize was a bit easy, as my Church leaders were encouraging all returned missionaries to get married. I soon learned well enough that deciding on marriage will help me with deciding my education and career goals. I testify that as we continue exercising faith through obedience to our priesthood leaders, even when their words seem contrary to our thoughts, we will be blessed—maybe not in that moment, but it will always be in the broader picture.

Desiring to obey, I took up every good opportunity that came my way; I went on dates and worked on getting back to school. I desired to be a pilot, so I started application for a pilot school. Nearing the completion of my application, I visited the temple to express my gratitude to Heavenly Father for the opportunity placed before me. While praying, I felt a strong impression that I was pursuing this path at a wrong time. I was prompted that my desire to have a family and be home with them would not happen if I remained on my current path, because becoming a pilot meant more time away from my family than I preferred. So, I stopped processing my application, and instead started exploring careers that would give me more time with my family. I sought the Lord’s help, through prayer, in finding a university that would give me the privilege of attending the temple frequently and eventually lead me to a career that would help me be home often with my family.

Not long after, I was advised by a close friend from my mission, who was enrolled in the Pathway program, to consider Pathway as an option. It took me awhile, but after feeling impressed to, I enrolled in it. I came to realize how interesting learning could be when based upon gospel principles, so I decided to continue to the online program. While in Pathway, I met a girl whom I dated for a year, and we decided to marry. Around this time, I also decided on a career in web development, a degree I saw could give me more opportunities to be home with my future family. I informed my immediate family of my decision to marry the girl, and my father advised that we prayed to have everything come together, as everyone was excited.

Well, the excitement did not last for long, as this girl surprised me with her desire to serve a mission before our marriage. At this point, I realized that I had to decide whether to let her leave on a mission or not, as if that was my choice. We had many plans, with things heading in the right direction; thus, I could not understand why she had made that decision. I tried convincing her to stay, but to no avail. Therefore, I sought the Lord’s guidance in making a final decision. For a moment, I doubted the answer I received, because I felt justified in wanting her to stay, as I was only trying to be obedient by getting married. Instead, the Lord helped me understand that everyone has their agency, and that I should not try to take that power away, no matter what. I finally felt at peace with the answer and understood that I needed to let her go on the mission, and after some time we finally ended the relationship.

Feeling lost and not knowing how to move on with the change of plans, I sought for direction through regular temple attendance and prayer. Each time I prayed, the Lord helped me understand that He had a plan for me, and that He was going to take me to a place I had never thought of. One of my dad’s favorite scriptures, which he loves sharing with my family, says, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” [1] I trusted that the Lord would guide me as I sought to choose the right.

During this time, I was again encouraged by my mission friend to try applying to BYU-Idaho. Again I prayed to know the Lord’s will, and being here today is an answer to that prayer, and with it the greater blessing of finding my eternal companion, with whom I find true happiness.

We had Mrs. Jacobson over for Christmas dinner last year. I now have someone to visit with when I feel depressed, like the other day when I went out with Dave and I spilled spaghetti all over and felt like climbing under the table. I told Mrs. Jacobson about that, and she told me about how once when she was dating her husband, he came to visit her one evening. She thought he was coming a half hour later than he did. He came to the door while she was in her room. Mrs. Jacobson’s sister invited him in to sit down and started to go up the stairs to announce that he was there. Mrs. Jacobson came out of her bedroom door, intending to go downstairs and borrow a necklace. She started singing a song and was halfway down the stairs when she saw the young man grinning up at her. I guess everybody does things like that sometimes.

In Portugal, in the city of Funchal, on the Madeira Island, lived a lady named Asencão Frango who had been a nun for twenty years. As a matter of fact, she was a Mother Superior at a home for poor children and orphans. Toward the end of a four-year teaching assignment early in her life as a nun, doctors discovered a cancer in her throat. Her mother had died of this same disease. Although she knew that her deteriorating health might lead to certain death, she had a strong feeling that she had not finished her work on earth. She prayed with great faith for the restoration of her health and was healed, with no further problems or need for medical care.
When her church decided to close the children’s home where she was assigned, she maintained it herself for four years, using an inheritance she had received from her deceased parents, until the children living there were raised and on their own or were adopted.
Hearing of a new religion, she attended her first meeting of our church with a friend, out of curiosity. It was held on the dirt floor of a member’s garage, but the spirit of the meeting impressed her. The elders began teaching her the discussions and challenged her to be baptized. She declined, saying that she already had been baptized. The elders persisted by inviting her to read the Book of Mormon. The elders told her, “If this book is the true word of God, then Joseph Smith is a true prophet and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true. If so, you need to be baptized into God’s true church.”
She read the Book of Mormon and gained a strong testimony of its divinity. Later, she stopped the missionaries after a discussion of the Godhead and requested baptism. Just one year afterward, she stood on the doorstep of President Reuben P. Ficklin’s mission home in Lisbon. She obtained her temple recommend and could hardly wait to enter the Swiss Temple to pledge sacred covenants with her Heavenly Father.

And I can testify that this is true, because I’ve experienced it firsthand.
When I was called to serve a mission on Temple Square, I was able to serve with other sister missionaries from over 40 different countries. It was amazing to see how despite our differences in culture, race, traditions, and even small things like food preferences, we were united as one through serving God and furthering the gospel of Jesus Christ.
We weren’t divided by differences—we saw the good in one another; we saw one another as children of heavenly parents, regardless of appearance or differences; and we loved one another dearly.
My mission was a beautiful experience I have always carried with me.

Another thing his uncle had told him that he believed was that by studying and doing the good things taught in the Book of Mormon, a person could get closer to God than by any other means, short of personal prayer or dying. Elias had given the boy a copy of the book, one that Elias had been presented as a young missionary while living in Nauvoo. The book had helped to ease Simon’s lingering sorrow over his parents’ deaths, and he had read it faithfully, pondered its contents, and prayed about its truthfulness.
One day when Simon had emerged from his secret place of prayer, he told his uncle that he experienced “a feeling that was as warm as the down comforter Mother used to wrap around me on cold winter nights.” He said that he knew the Book of Mormon was true and that he would one day be reunited with his parents in the world to come.
“Now that you know the truth,” Elias had counseled him, “you have a duty to Heavenly Father and to yourself to live it. It won’t always be easy to stand firm against the opposition that may come. But let the winds of adversity blow you forward, never down.”

I know all these things, but sometimes I still feel “concealed,” and I think it is not the adulation of the world that would change that feeling. I remember the time when, as the young mother of four very small children and the wife of a very busy husband, I felt not just concealed, but buried by my home. I vividly remember standing at the ironing board in a room cluttered with toys and children, watching general conference on television. As President Harold B. Lee spoke, he seemed to be talking directly to me, and the Spirit entered my heart that day to remind me that I was a daughter of God and beloved of Him. Tears splashed on the iron as I felt His love surround me—a feeling I had forgotten.
Later I realized that I had become too busy with my little family for scripture study and going to the temple. Most of my time at church was spent in the hall with fussy babies, rather than worshiping. I had thought that reading the scriptures years earlier as a missionary would carry me through the rest of my life. I felt “concealed”—cut off from the Lord, but I was not. He was there, but I had failed to look up and see Him and receive His help and blessing. Now I know that no matter how small and insignificant my life may appear to the world, it doesn’t matter—as long as I am not concealed from the Lord.

The best opportunity I had defending the Church was when I became involved with the Junior Miss Pageant as a contestant for Capitol City’s Junior Miss. Many of the senior girls were trying out, and I decided to go for it, too.
Once I was picked as one of the 20 contestants, there were dances to learn, a short course on modeling, a talent number to prepare, and studying to do for a personal interview with the judges. It was great. Twenty girls from different schools learning together and having fun and not a Mormon except me in the bunch. Excitement began to mount as the pageant drew near. Our interviews were scheduled the afternoon of the pageant.
Finally, it was my turn, and I nervously walked up the long flight of stairs to the room where the five judges awaited. At first they just visited with me. Then an older, quiet man began asking questions about my religion—tough questions. It took me back for a moment. Then I got hold of myself and answered the best way I knew how. The words flowed freely, and I felt as if my eyes were relaying the message as well as my words. I knew I received lots of extra help from above that day. What I said must have satisfied the judges because that night number 10 was crowned Capitol City’s Junior Miss—I was number 10!
As friends and mom and dad crowded around and hugged me, my mind reflected back to the hateful feelings I had felt at first after reading “the call.” Now in my heart I thanked Heavenly Father for giving me the chance. I felt so happy—happy for wonderful friends who accepted me with all kinds of southern hospitality and for friends at home who kept reassuring and encouraging me with their love. I was happy for a wonderful family like my sisters who received calls from a bawling baby sister and always ended up making her laugh. Most of all I was happy for a dad and mom who stood by through it all and guided me with all their love.

Ivor, my third son, was still living in the village. He was destined not to be with me long. He had been born two months early and was so tiny that his mother carried him on a pillow. He grew to manhood but suffered from a heart disease. He was the poet in the family, and even though his health was poor he was always happy. I can hear him yet as he sang to the trees in the woods that bordered our home. I remember that just a few days before his heart failed him that we walked together up into the meadow and we looked across the valley. He took my hand in his and spoke softly. “Listen, Dad,” and across the valley came the plaintive call of a cuckoo bird. “Isn’t it lovely? The cuckoo tells of the coming spring, and soon the meadow will be white with daisies, and the birds will sing joyful tunes. Oh, Dad, its a grand world that God has given us.”
He died in his sleep and was buried beside his mother in the little cemetery on the hill.
The funeral was quite an event in our village. It was the first Latter-day Saint funeral ever conducted there. Many people came out of curiosity, but most came because Ivor was loved and respected. Mr. Jones, the undertaker, in his black suit and top hat drove the wagon with the casket with a pair of black horses.
It was only a short distance to the cemetery, and the mourners walked behind the wagon. Soon the villagers started to sing. At first their voices were quiet like the summer breeze on the mountains. Then as the words came, “Feed me till I want no more,” their voices raised in a great crescendo like waves breaking on a rocky shore. Oh, my people from whom I came, your songs of mourning are still in my heart, and I know that my son and my Bess heard.

When President Spencer W. Kimball was nine years old, his job on the family farm was milking from two to nine cows every day. Milking cows can become boring, so he thought of things to do while he milked that were interesting and good and fun. He practiced squirting a stream of milk into the mouths of the cats that gathered around at milking time. He memorized every word of the Articles of Faith and the Ten Commandments to the beat of milk squirts hitting the pail. He copied most of the songs in the hymnbook on sheets of paper and memorized them. On a one-legged stool, his head pressed against a cow’s side, he sang them to the cows.

President Kimball made his inner temple brighter and kept his spirit free by filling his mind with worthwhile things while he worked. Can you do the same?

When I was young, we moved to the city of Cartagena. Many boys there were smoking marijuana. I feel that I was blessed because I was never invited to do it. When I was ten or eleven, I became a Boy Scout. I was the only one in my public school, so I was chosen to be the leader for many things, and I wore my uniform in parades. I remember collecting things for the poor people in the city. I remember the joy of giving.

The way for you to be happy is to love others and to be obedient. You can set a good example at school and in your family. You can also set an example as a good citizen of your country. If we want to have strong nations, they must start with you children.

In the Ensign there is a story about a young man named Christopher, who was grateful he didn't turn bread into stone or serpents. When he tore open his mission call, his heart dropped when he read the line "Michigan Lansing Mission." He had waited his whole life for that moment. He took German and Spanish in high school because he had dreamed of a foreign mission--walking the cobbled streets of Europe or hiking remote mountain pueblos in South America. What he got, however, was Michigan. Did you ever have something like that happen to you--you figuratively wanted Argentina, but what you got was Michigan? Christopher could have regarded that call as a stone, a serpent, but instead he saw it as bread. He accepted the call the Lord gave and served an honorable mission.

More than 20 years after his return, his neighbor invited him to take a DNA test. "I had been adopted and had no idea of my biological ancestry," said Christopher. He was curious about his biological parents but was content with his life. He had a family he loved. Then the results came back. It was a "close family" match. It predicted with 99 percent that they found a close family member.

"Before I knew what was happening," said Christopher,
[my wife composed] an email to send to this "close family" match.
Within minutes an email came back. How old was I? Where was I born? . . .
It turned out the "close family" match was my half brother. The person sending the emails was my birth mother. . . . [S]he wanted me to call her.
The next morning I dialed her number. As we talked, she told me the story of my birth.

Before Christopher hung up, he asked about his biological father. His mother thought Christopher's father was from Lansing, Michigan. Within minutes after the phone call, Christopher found his father on the Internet. He lived in an area close to where Christopher served his mission. Digging further, he discovered his dad had a sister in the same area. He emailed his father, and his father replied that his sister was LDS, and she and her husband were coming to Utah and hoped they could visit with Christopher.

As they walked in my door, I felt an instant familiarity. Suddenly another light turned on. The man's hair had gone from black to silver, . . . but suddenly I saw in front of me the ward mission leader from the Grand Rapids Ward. . . . I had worked [with him during] a large part of my mission. For months I had been at his home weekly. I had played with his children--my cousins--and been with my aunt and uncle and hadn't known it.

In light of my discovery, I knew why I had been called to serve a mission in Michigan. . . . My biological family was spread all over Michigan in the places where I was called . . . to serve. . . . I knew now . . . this was truly a call by inspiration specifically for me.[16]

As he sat there, staring sullenly at the floor and wrestling with his frustrations, I cradled him in my heart. He wanted to communicate as sincerely as I, but neither of us was having much success.
I felt that if I could just hug or hold him again—the way I did when he was small—maybe he would know of my love and concern. But at 16, my son was embarrassed by affectionate displays, especially from his father.
“I’ll never make it,” he moaned. “You expect too much, and I’m just not good enough.”
“That’s not true,” I said. My voice rose as I thought back on my adolescent insecurities. “Why, when I was your age …”
“Dad, you don’t understand,” he interrupted. “I don’t think you’ll ever understand!”
Of course I understood! My heart ached with important things I wanted to tell him—lessons I yearned to teach him. He wasn’t being fair. After all, I wasn’t that old. And it wasn’t that long ago that I had been in his place.
How many times had I sincerely told him about my own frustrations as a teenager? How many good scriptures had I quoted him? How often had I sat him down and given him good, sound advice from my own experience?
If he would just hear me out, he would realize I knew what I was talking about. But I couldn’t get him to understand because I couldn’t get him to listen to me. As he stood abruptly and prepared to leave, I called him back.
“Son, why don’t you ever listen?” I asked.
For the first time during our argument, he looked directly at me. His look startled me, but not nearly as much as his reply.
“Dad, all I ever do is listen to you. My question is, why don’t you ever listen to me?”
At first, his question surprised and upset me. Even if I had expected him to do all the listening, was that so wrong? After all, I was his father.
As I sat there, I suddenly realized that what my son had said was true. I had been talking and preaching to him when I should have been listening. My concern for him was proper, but how I expressed that concern was not.
During the next few days, I realized I had been proud of the wisdom I wished to share, but I had not learned the importance of listening. I had unintentionally been telling my son that my experience and ideas were more important than his. I cringed at my insensitivity.
My son wasn’t the only person I had not heard. I had also failed to listen to the Lord’s anointed, who have counseled parents to “spend a great deal of time listening, not just telling. This listening should be done with an open mind and heart. When children feel they can talk freely about their feelings, problems, and successes, wonderful relationships develop between parents and children” (Ben B. Banks, Ensign, November 1993, page 29).
I realized I couldn’t hope to understand my son if I continued to look at him strictly from my point of view. And I couldn’t comprehend his perspective without truly listening to him as well as to the Spirit—with both ears and heart.
I saw clearly that listening is a way of showing love. It is one of the ways we show affection for our children, even when they are too old to be cradled in our arms. By listening, we also show respect and love.
After considerable thought and repentance, I tried again.
“Do you have time for a talk?” I asked my son. “I’d like another chance.”
“Do we have to, Dad? I know you mean well, but I’d really rather not.”
“I’d like to change roles this time,” I said. “How about if you talk and I listen? I understand your disbelief, but I’ll offer advice only if you ask for it.”
His smile was a welcome contrast to the look he had given me a few days earlier. For a change, I really listened. A few times, I had to stop myself from speaking, but I learned more about my son during a half hour of listening than I had learned during several years of lecturing.
That conversation was the first of many heart-to-heart talks. I think we can share just about anything now. We don’t always agree. But by listening, we have come to understand one another and to avoid some of the pitfalls that marked our earlier conversations.
A willingness to communicate, Paul says, is part of “a good foundation against the time to come” (1 Tim. 6:18–19). Listening with our ears and our hearts may not be easy, but it is always essential—especially for family members who need a hug.

Parting can be hard, particularly when the parent and the child know that they may not see each other for a long time. I had that experience with my father. We parted on a street corner in New York City. He had come there for his work. I was there on my way to another place. We both knew that I probably would never return to live with my parents under the same roof again.
It was a sunny day, around noontime, the streets crowded with cars and pedestrians. On that particular corner there was a traffic light which stopped the cars and the people in all directions for a few minutes. The light changed to red; the cars stopped. The crowd of pedestrians hurried off the curbs, moving every way, including diagonally, across the intersection.
The time had come for parting, and I started across the street. I stopped almost in the center, with people rushing by me. I turned to look back. Instead of moving off in the crowd, my father was still standing on the corner looking at me. To me he seemed lonely and perhaps a little sad. I wanted to go back to him, but I realized the light would change and so I turned and hurried on.
Years later I talked to him about that moment. He told me that I had misread his face. He said he was not sad; he was concerned. He had seen me look back, as if I were a little boy, uncertain and looking for assurance. He told me in those later years that the thought in his mind had been: Will he be all right? Have I taught him enough? Is he prepared for whatever may lie ahead?
There were more than thoughts in his mind. I knew from having watched him that he had feelings in his heart. He yearned for me to be protected, to be safe. I had heard and felt that yearning in his prayers, and even more in the prayers of my mother, for all the years I had lived with them. I had learned from that, and I remembered.

“As the plane came in for its landing I could see again all the old familiar sights that had been so far away for the last two years. As I walked down the stairs from the plane, I could see a whole montage of family faces looking out the terminal window at me. Mom, Dad, both grandmas, and good old Grandpa George. Wow, that tall blond guy must be Allen; he’s grown a foot! The arrival and reunion was teary and joyous and all that I had hoped it would be, but on the way home the two youngest were fighting in the car, and Dad called the guy in front of us a blockhead for changing lanes too quickly, and Grandpa George told that same old elk hunting story again.
“I had been gone for a long time and had experienced some deeply moving spiritual and emotional moments, and the family just didn’t seem to understand. They hadn’t changed much; I really couldn’t see much of a change in them at all except that Lindsey and Allen were bigger and louder. Somehow I wanted to tell them that I was different. I really knew the gospel was true now, and I wanted them to know how very important it was.”
This is one young missionary’s return-home story, a story not necessarily typical of all missionaries, but a story that does point out some of the problems that a young returning missionary will face as he or she tries to adjust once again to family, home, and friends.

President Spencer W. Kimball gave these two examples of marital love:
For many years, I saw a strong man carry his tiny, emaciated, arthritic wife to meetings and wherever she could go. There could be no sexual expression. Here was selfless indication of affection. I think that is pure love. I saw a kindly woman wait on her husband for many years as he deteriorated with muscular dystrophy. She waited on him hand and foot, night and day, when all he could do was blink his eyes in thanks. I believe that was love.[51]

My amazing mother has had dementia-Alzheimers for over 10 years now. My dad’s lovingly taken care of her and attended to her every need at home until the last four years, when she needed to go to a memory care facility. He feeds her every meal because her capacity is so diminished. But she’s been a bright, multi-talented woman all her life…and a wonderful mother. I want to tell you a little about her…

She was an incredible pianist and taught for just $2 a lesson…just so children who couldn’t really afford it could learn to play.
Mom was an awesome seamstress! She’d stay up late making something special for homecoming or other dances. By the time my sister Alicia came along 8 years later—our folks had some money to buy her clothes. But Mom sewed all of mine…through most of college. And she did a great job!
She drove us great distances to music lessons so we could develop our talents—and even joined me playing violin in the orchestra at a Catholic girls’ convent, which my violin teacher conducted.
Mom was such a good homemaker…she was a great cook…and so clean, you could lick her floors and think they tasted good!
As an adult, she was a substitute teacher, a volunteer, and she took voice lessons. She was a renowned choir director in our California stake for decades…and put on more beautiful programs than you can count—both religious and secular. And, after they retired and moved to Utah from California …Mom played the violin in a local symphony orchestra.
She would do anything to help anyone, always serving. And she and my dad served a senior couple mission to Ireland—even though she was a bit nervous. But she was faithful and found she could do that, too…and her sweet personality won many Irish hearts. I love her dearly…and that’s the way I always think of her in my mind. Gentle and fun…never overbearing. Always kind.
Even though Mom still looks much the same…her memory is gone…along with her recognition of most of her family members. She doesn’t speak and can’t really do anything for herself. It is so very sad—yet we are thrilled she is still with us…and she’s still wonderful, beautiful Renée. I often wonder—why her? And, sometimes, I think--why us? Or why me?
But maybe, instead, we should ask the question Elder Maxwell asked when he was diagnosed with leukemia: “Why not me?” And ask…What am I to do? What am I to learn? What am I to change? Whom am I to help?
In time, we all realize that “there are beautiful sunrises even after devastating sunsets.” Heavenly Father continues to pour down blessings, even when we’re in the midst of our trials. And we, too, have seen that in our family.