Today, the automatic sliding door on my mini-van (that I was so excited about having when we got the mini-van) decided that it didn’t need to close.  It didn’t seem to matter what I did to it, I couldn’t get it to close.  So obnoxious!  I cleaned the sensor thingy on the door.  Nothing.  I pushed the buttons a zillion times, the one overhead, the one on the side of the door and the one on my key fob.  Nothing.  I waited until the door was almost closed and then I forced it shut with my awesome hip action (because I have plenty of uhm-pah to close that door).  It closed!  A momentary hooray!  Then the car opened it back up.  Oy!

So I decided to call my mechanics, which I use so regularly their number is in my cell phone.  They are really awesome guys!  It is really pathetic when you just have to say, “Ya….this is Carin.” and they say, “Oh Hi!  How’s it going?”  Better if I wasn’t calling you…… but I digress.  I talked with Reed.  He said, “Well, we could look at it for you, but we are super busy today.  Tomorrow would be better.”

That’s all fine and good, but I live where the weather can change and will change and choose to rain in a matter of 15 minutes.  It can be gorgeous and sunny, and warm and 15 minutes later windy and rainy and cold.  I couldn’t leave the door opened until later today and especially not until tomorrow.  (I can’t park it in the garage right now either.  Ya’….don’t ask about that!  The garage door isn’t working either.)

So what does Reed do?  He says, “See if there is a fuse or an override switch that will control that.”

“Would that be in the owner’s manual?”

“Maybe.”

“Alright,” as I proceed to read him all the fuse listings in my owner’s manual.  Nothing.  Then I find something in the index that says ‘resetting the power sliding door’.  That looks promising!  Reed tells me to read it to him.  Which I do.

Then he says, “Oh, so there is an override button.”

“There is? How did you get that out of …….?”

“Carin, look for the override button panel.”  I, of course, automobile illiterate individual, have to look it up in the owner’s manual.  “Oh, here it is.  What?!  I use that button all the time!!  I just knew when I pushed it, the kids couldn’t open the door. Ha ha…”

“Try the button and see if you can close the door.”  Which I did.  And voila!  The door closed!  Then I reread something else and realized, oh the door does that when the fuse is blown.  So I do need to go have those guys take care of that for me because the fuses are under the hood, and if you have lifted the hood of my car, you would know that I have to take out the entire engine to reach anything in there.

BUT!  I do not have drive the car right down to the mechanic and have it fixed right now, because Reed was willing to spend 15 minutes on the phone with me!!  Because he knows me and I take my car to his shop all the time and have for the past 16 years!  Not this car, but many, many cars over the 16 years!!

Just glad I wasn’t calling about this!

And THAT is why I love living in a small town!!  That not only happens to me at the mechanic’s, but at the doctor’s office too, and our elementary school, and even sometimes at the dentist’s office.  Person to person service, the way it used to be.

Thanks Reed!!!  I needed you today!

My husband and son (Speedy) went to Priesthood leadership meeting last night (for our stake).  Drew had to be there significantly early for a different meeting, held in conjunction with the stake priesthood meeting.  Anyway, the guys left at 3:30 and weren’t going to be home until 8:30 at the earliest.

The kiddos who were left home and I decided that we wanted to just relax and enjoy our weekend.  We made smoothies for dinner, along with a pot of chili and the a few of the rolls I had made for the priesthood meeting.  I sat down on the couch to read a book (not one of my personal choosing, one that I am reading to help Sun with her English class, but it is still a fun read).

Spike needed attention.  I don’t know what his issue was but about an hour after dinner, he came into the living room snuggled under my blanket, flew his airplane in front of my book and around my arms so that I could not read it, rolled over (about a million times), kicked me on my bruised shin, and got upset when I wasn’t cooperating with his questioning.  Then, as I was finally getting the hint and climbing out of my blanket and putting my book down, his diaper leaked all over my blanket.  Lovely!

So I put him into the bathtub.  Spike does not always cooperate in the bath, so there was a little drama when I was already irritated.  But we managed to wade through that.  By 8:30, he was finally ready for bed and we read our scriptures, said our prayers, and I sent him off to have his teeth brushed and climb into bed.

About that time, Drew called to say they were on their way home.  When they arrived, Slim was with them.  What?!!  I thought you were in Utah?  What are you doing here?  (Enter Slim’s friends).  He didn’t answer my question for about an hour or so.  But when he finally got around to it, he told me the story.

After the truck he was catching a ride in left our home town, about 30 minutes up the road, the driver realized that he had the wrong trailer attached to his cab.  He turned around and came back.  While that was happening, Slim had the thought that the truck was turning around so that he could get off of it here at home.  Then he rationalized that he had a bunch of things lined up in Utah this week that he didn’t want to miss, and coming back home didn’t make any sense to him.  So when the truck got here and changed trailers, Slim just went along with it and decided to go ahead and continue his journey.  Three hours later, as he arrived at our friend’s house, he had kind of come to the understanding that the Lord wanted him to be home and not on this trip.  During his ride, Slim had some insights as to why being home would be more beneficial to him instead of taking this trip to Utah.  He also decided to stay with our friend for the few days he was there, to help them with the work they had to do.  Then he was able to have one of his buddies drive out and pick him up.

After he told me the story, he looked right at me and said, “I learned a little more what it means to ‘counsel with the Lord’.”  And so it goes.

Many times, as we are trying to decide what we should do in any given circumstances, or what decisions we should be making, we do take the initiative to study it out in our own minds.  We decide what to do.  Then we inform the Lord what we are doing and how we are going to do it.

If we are wise in our decision making, after we have decided what we think we should do, we will ask the Lord what He would have us do.  As we participate in that process, and ask for His counsel and guidance, it is then that He can tell us what He would have us do.  He may or may not tell us the reasoning.  Slim received some specific counsel and specific guidance regarding how this trip would risk a greater vision and plan the Lord had in mind for him.  Thus, when push came to shove, Slim agreed with the Lord’s ideas and thoughts about the matter.  Then he was humble enough to set aside the immediate desires of his heart for a greater plan.

I love seeing that my men are growing in the counsel and admonitions of the Lord!!  I don’t always get to see that, but I am grateful Slim shared his story with us and glad that he is home from his travels, even if they didn’t go according to our expectations.

So my blogging efforts have not been as regular as I would have like them to be.  Spike Spike has been sick for three days, fever, throwing up, and awake in the night.  Today he must be feeling better because he is actually eating and he wants me to do everything with him!  “Mommy, watch my show with me.”  “Mommy, sing Wonder Pets with me!”  “Mommy, come and play with me.”  I don’t mind and I like spending time with my little guy, but it was just slightly easier when he was on the couch in a blanket sleeping because he didn’t feel well.  Not complaining!  I just can’t believe how demanding he is today.

Slim is on his way to Utah for a wedding this week.  We have friends who offered to drive him out there with them and he knows people he can stay with, so his trip is relatively inexpensive.  (Not like we can support multiple trips across the country!)

Speedy made his school’s basketball team!  That will add practices to our already kind of crazy schedule, though it is getting to that season.  Everyone plays basketball at our house, except Sun.  So right around Thanksgiving, it is time to sign everyone up for their teams.  We will be working on that in the next couple of weeks.  And we have parent/teacher conferences where we get a face to face update with how our children are doing in their classes.

Today I took lunch to a friend who just had a baby.  In our church, when a family has a new baby, or when someone is sick, or there has been a death in the family, we all band together and do what we can to assist the family.  We bring dinners, maybe we watch the other kids, maybe we wash laundry or help get the house ready for guests, or anything else the family might need to assist them during their time of transition.

 People have done this for us, as well.  I cannot tell you the relief it has been to me in such times of stress or sadness.  When Slim was so very, very sick as an infant, we had people who didn’t even know us donate money to our family.  It paid for two months of our rent.  We had one of our friends do all of our laundry.  One of the families in the ward stocked our refrigerator with with easily prepared foods so we could spend most of our time at the hospital.  People came and sat with us at the hospital.  People prayed for us and fasted for our family.  I think our ward paid our electricity bill.  You can bet I spent most of the month crying, not only because I was worried and stressed about my baby, but because of the love and support we received from those around us.

I just got off the phone with a friend who has been so very, very frustrated with all of the social media hype about the Prophet Joseph Smith and his stance and participation in polygamy.  And with all the discussions about the Church’s stance on homosexuality and same gender marriage.  I have to tell you, with all of the contention and wide and varying opinions on these issues, we are missing the bigger picture.  Where is our humanity?!

Without contending on controversial issues, can we just remember that we are all children of God?  That He loves all of us?  That He wants all of us to be happy, safe, loved, nurtured, fed, sheltered, helped?  Can we decide today that we are going to be one of those people?  Can we reach out in our small, intimate circle of people and represent the Light He sent us?  Can we follow the example that has been set for us about how to show our love for the Savior by serving our fellow men and women?  If that is not how others have treated us, will we decide to set a different example for those we interact with?

I don’t know about you, but I for one have decided that I want to follow the Savior, Jesus Christ!  I want to help others and love others, and serve others.  They may not be like me, look like me, smell like me, talk like me…….but I know He loves them too and I know He wants them to feel safe and happy and loved.  He knows I might be able to help them receive that, whether that is my children, my family, my neighbors, or my brothers and sisters who live across the world and who do not know me, or believe as I do.

I do not believe I should enforce my beliefs on others by force.  I acknowledge and respect their agency to choose for themselves.  With our differing beliefs, can we not come together and acknowledge our shared humanity, our shared existence, our shared desire for life, family, children?

I think we can!  I wish we would!  The most important thing we can do today is to decide that we will!!  (Even when others don’t do that for us!)  If each one of us decided to do that today and then again tomorrow and those we share simple acts of kindness with do likewise, think of the awesome force for good and change we could become!!  Will you do it?  Will you join me?

Here are the words of Elder Hugo E. Martinez and his feelings about this topic: (Full text here!)

I believe the words of the Savior in the parable of the good Samaritan apply to us: “Go, and do thou likewise.”⁴
 

Think of the good one person can do!

^{Have a great weekend!!}

This is going to be my “Holy Cow!” blog post!  Things at our house have been a little bit crazy.  As you are probably aware, if you have been reading recently……..we went for 8 days without a washing machine because one of our sewer lines was down.  It has finally been repaired and now we are catching up on that week of laundry, which is a ton, I might add. 

The ‘Holy Cow’ part of that is two fold.  After the initial weekend without the washer, I took seven loads of laundry to the laundry mat to keep things functioning.  Well, the laundry mat’s washing machines are smaller than mine (I have a double capacity washer), of which I am apparently not grateful for enough.  At the laundry mat, we washed five of their loads (only three of mine) and spent $20.00!!  I about fell off my chair, or the folding table, actually.  $20.00 to wash three loads of laundry!!  I brought seven, which probably would have been 11 there.  I only did three because of the time, and money, not to mention that it was completely crowded and busy!!  If I had washed all the laundry I brought to ‘get us through’ the week, I would have spent more than $40.00—for less than a week’s worth of laundry!  That is the first ‘Holy Cow’.

Sorry…couldn’t resist this one.

The second, was the amount we spent to fix the plumbing.  Oh my goodness!  It was $800.00!!  After a week of being down a bathroom (which wasn’t so bad) and not being able to wash laundry, I was happy to pay that $800.00 to the plumber and not the laundry mat!

My other ‘Holy Cow’ event for the week, also involves money.  I spent $60.00 to mail Scuff’s Christmas package to Brazil.  It was not a large package—two small jars of peanut butter, two sticks of deodorant, two bags of Kit-Kats, and three white dress shirts!  The postage was more than the package was worth.  Sheesh!

During that crazy week, we also had two funerals and a baptism, and there was another car accident on our corner.

But the with all of this stuff happening at our house, and more that I haven’t touched on, there are still children who live here, little ones, (or really, one very loud, and demanding one) who need my attention.  Regardless of the stress I am trying to manage, my struggle has been to manage the needs of Spike.  Every time I have needed to go somewhere (even just to drop off the boys for school, or to take Sun to class) Spike says, “Don’t go Mommy.  Pleeeeeaase don’t go!” and starts to cry.  Then when he finally accepts that I am leaving and he is not coming, we have to give four or five  hugs and kisses before we can actually leave or his feelings are hurt and he feels neglected and left behind.

I do not usually take him grocery shopping with me.  It is a hang-over of my childhood.  (I watched my mother take all of us to the grocery store and swore that I would never, ever take children to the grocery store!)  But recognizing his needy-ness, I decided he needed to be able to go with me to run errands yesterday.  Plus that gave Sun some uninterrupted homework time.  So from 10:00-11:30, Spike and I mailed Scuff’s package, got gas, and went shopping.  We came home, had lunch, put things away.  He still was upset at me when I picked the little guys up from school and when I needed to take Sun to her acting class, he melted again.  He was throwing a fit, because even though I had cooked dinner,  he wanted me to stay and feed it to him.  Geesh!  Really?!!  (And while I was cooking dinner, I took time out while the noodles were boiling, and wrote his name with him, six times, while he sat on my lap and we talked about the letters in his name and traced them—probably 10 or 12 minutes).  I don’t know what is going on with him, but he has been so very, very needy lately!

I am very good at nurturing people.  It is a gift!  Probably a little bit of learned art also.  So when I have people, who I am bending over backward to meet their needs and then they are still clamoring for more, I struggle to stop ‘my plan’ and attend to their needs, especially in circumstances where there are other necessary demands on my time.  After so many ‘high maintenance’ children, I have become pretty good at dropping The Plan of Carin, to attend to them.  But Spike, lately, is teaching me something else.  I haven’t quite put my finger on it.  I will have to pray for clarity to help me out.

There is a balance, you know?  I can help and teach and train and little people need a ton of that!  I am not putting my children on the back burner so that I can do ‘what I want’.  I am helping them along, nurturing them, loving them, changing them, picking them up and holding them, and their idea of what is needed is sometimes more than I can give.  But Spike, at least, is insisting on me being the one to meet his needs, he is unwilling to have someone else assist in the process.  That is driving me crazy!  (And the whole potty-training thing?  Ya’—–we aren’t even going there yet.)

copyright Karen Larsen photography

Well, now that I have rambled on, I am late making breakfast for the crew.  Luckily, Spike is still asleep!  Shhhh…..maybe I can get that done before he is awake.  I’ll have to have Shorty help me, as he is already awake and going through his own emotional drama.  He’s a tweeny, you know.

This is one of my very favorite times of the year.  I LOVE October!  I love the nip of chill in the air as the brisk fall weather indicates cooler temperatures on the horizon (at least here in the states).  I love fall leaves and Halloween and pumpkin flavored everything!

At our house, we have been putting up grape jelly–75 pints worth, so far.  This week we were looking forward to apple pie filling and applesauce.  (Until the toilet overflowed—now we are just trying to get the bathroom and the laundry functioning.  Still waiting on that front!)  But this is the season to reap the benefits of lots of hard work over the spring and summer seasons.

Because we are no longer a strictly agricultural society, the ‘law of the harvest’ is farther and farther from our every day lives.  Sure, we participate in it to a small degree (not many of us can afford house elves to clean up after us if we choose not to do it).  But with fast food, electricity, indoor plumbing, smart phones, etc….we no longer have to completely participate in the law of the harvest to have our needs met.  Not many of us have to build a fire to keep warm or sew clothing to have something to wear or bottle fruits and vegetables to have something to eat through the winter.  We do not have to plan or prepare much to survive.  We just expect we will be able to do most of that with out too much thought or effort.  Heaven forbid if for some reason our expectation aren’t met!  We’ll figure out who to call and yell at to get our services functioning again.  (It is really funny typing that sentence knowing that this week I have spoken with 7 plumbers trying to get the washing machine back up and functioning!!  I haven’t yelled at anyone yet, but I have been plenty, plenty frustrated!!)

One place I believe the ‘lazy monster’ rears its ugly head is in our parenting.  We want parenting to be easy, simple, straight forward.  We birth them, change them, feed them, rest them, and teach them a few of our favorite things.  We want them to grow and eventually move out having become amazing, beautiful, brilliant, talented people without much effort on our part.  Oh, well, we expect a little kick-back—like crying babies, a few childhood illnesses, a broken bone or two, and maybe a visit to the principal’s office.  But over all, we do not expect learning disabilities, physical deformities, serious childhood illness, or death.

Our oldest son had Hirschprung’s Disease.  He perforated a bowel at one month old, had emergency surgery, stayed in the NICU for a month and had a colostomy for 2 and 1/2 years.  (He also has an anaphylactic nut allergy.)  Our 2nd had a heart murmur and was drowning in his own blood before we figured that out.  He also had horrible colic because he was allergic to everything I was eating we didn’t know it.  By the third child, I was praying for a ‘normal’ baby, one without all of those ‘extra’ problems.  At some point in my prayers, I realized —- Wait a minute!  Some people are born with physical disabilities, some have mental disabilities.  Some people eventually need glasses or braces, or special medications.  Having something wrong with us, IS normal!  Ugh!

Then I realized that it really didn’t matter what their issues might be.  I was going to love them anyway.  I do!  And I have!  I am sure you do too.

But just loving them isn’t enough.  We have to teach them!  We expect to teach them toilet training, how to read, and ride a bike, to talk, and to feed themselves.  I think most of us expect to do that.  But we also have to teach them how to share, to use their words, to manage their anger and as they get older, how to manage their time, money, homework, and sort through emotional issues and relationships.  We need to teach them how to interact properly with others.  When we take into account their individual struggles, physical or otherwise, teaching those things will usually take us more work, time and effort than we want to exert.

In the past, the school and the church (any denomination) have functioned to help parents socialize their children and educate them academically and spiritually (morally).  It would seem however, in our modern, individualistic society, that as parents, many of us would like to abdicate our responsibilities for teaching and training to the school or the church.  With our society’s increasingly fast pace toward moral relativism (where everyone is right and no one is wrong), however, neither the church, nor the school can be relied upon to teach these principles.  Where we once could teach our children at home and then send them out into the world to validate these teachings, more and more often our children are coming home confused because the messages they receive out in society are so very mixed and often at odds with the ones we are teaching at home (if indeed we are making an effort to do that).

What are we harvesting??  Just look around and listen to the news.  My husband told me that we have had 71 school shootings this year!!  71!!  Thirty years ago, when I was in high school, I don’t ever remember hearing about any!  More and more children are showing a propensity toward violence, so much so that many of them are being tried in our courts as adults!  Mothers are killing their children, not only through abortion, but after they have cared for them for months or even years!  More children are born out of wedlock than are now born within the bonds of marriage.  More and more families are ending in divorce, if they begin with marriage in the first place.

It would seem to me that the ‘moral crops’ we are harvesting as a society are not going in the right direction.  My belief is because more and more, we are taking God out of the equation and out of our society.  Mentioning Him in public is no longer ‘politically correct’ because we might offend someone. 

Well, we are offending someone!  Him!

The more we remove our hearts and thoughts from Him and His way, the more and more we will continue to reap the harvest of the seeds we are currently planting.

I am here to tell you that there is a right way.  There is a right answer!  Our Father in Heaven, God, has a plan!  He has an opinion!  Your life and the lives of your children and your siblings, and your parents, and your spouse, and your spouse’s family—-He cares about all of us!!  He wants all of us to be happy and loved, and cared for and for our needs to be met, regardless of our station, or economics, or nationality, or the color of our skin.  We are all His children and He loves us all!!  He knows what we need to do to receive those blessings.  Hi message has not changed since the beginning.  He is the same yesterday, today and forever.  You can know the truth of His message for yourself!  You do not have to rely on the words of others.  You can learn to recognize His spirit in your life and how it works.  Through the power of the Holy Ghost we can know the truth of all things!

Start by praying to  your Father in Heaven.  Tell Him you know He has a plan and you want to learn about it and follow Him!  Read the scriptures—-the Bible and the Book of Mormon to hear the words of ancient prophets.  Here what His modern prophets are saying—Link here!  Call the missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and ask them to teach you about God’s plan (no string attached–if you don’t like what they say, they won’t come back!).  If you need more help, email me and I will help you.  God loves you.  He has a plan for you and your life.  He will help you.  Then you will know how to help your children and your grandchildren and your great grandchildren!!

Teaching them truth is not taking away their ability to choose for themselves.  It is giving them direction and guidance.  It is not brainwashing them.  It is our responsibility to teach them and help them, that is why God sent them to us, so that we could help them.  If we want to harvest happy, stable, healthy people, we have to be those kind of people, and we have to teach them how to do it!!  (Not ignore our responsibility or hope it will just happen without any work on our part.)  It is time to rise up and become the parents God intended us to be!

Every year, the Monday before Halloween, we carve our pumpkins, roast the seeds, drink apple cider or hot cocoa, and watch the Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Disney style).  It is one of my favorite evenings because we are enjoying each others’ company, spending time as a family doing something fun, and just hanging out together.

This year, we had also promised one of our children they would be able to watch a TV show for their help to clean up the building after a funeral this week.  Unfortunately, their ‘reward’ was going to fall on last night, our traditional Legend of Sleepy Hollow viewing.   I was not very happy.

For whatever reason, the stars and the cosmos aligned and our internet was down from about 4 p.m until 9 p.m.  That wasn’t so great for our son, who was disappointed at not receiving his reward last night, but it made me supremely happy, because we have the Legend of Sleepy Hollow on video.  Unfortunately, that wasn’t working either.  We did, however, have apple cider, carve pumpkins, enjoy family home evening and watched our favorite comedy series, Studio C.

Spike LOVED carving pumpkins and getting the seeds out.  This year I must have roasted them just the right way because the children ate almost all of them.  (Sorry, no photos).  But I simply washed the seeds in the colander, melted butter on a cookie sheet under the broiler, stirred the seeds into the butter and topped it with a ton of salt.  Then we broiled them for 10 minutes, stirred and broiled for five more.  Voila!  Delicious!

After the children had gone to bed, and the internet was up, I watched the Legend of Sleepy Hollow!  Well, more realistically, I fell asleep to it.  Guess I’ll watch it again later today!

I have been struggling lately with all of the drama going on here at our house.  I called one of my visiting teaching people on Thursday to invite her family to our ward Halloween Party and ended up taking her to the emergency room at the hospital.  After 5 hours in the emergency room, they decided to admit her.  I got home just after midnight, got my little family up and moving on Friday morning and was exhausted throughout the day, trying to manage home and visit my friend.  Her husband was out of town and she literally was all alone.  She really did need me there, as she has not been active for awhile and does not have many close friends.

Friday evening was the party, so there was that business of helping the children to get ready.  And then the toilet overflowed in the carpeted bathroom, but also backed up into the tub and the shower.  It has been a lovely weekend of talking to five plumbers in 24 hours trying to get that bathroom functioning (because every time we run a load of laundry, it overflows the toilet).  It has been just lovely!  Anyway, Friday night I just started to cry because of the stress and I personally bagged the Halloween party but sent the kids.

Saturday morning started bright and early with the Primary Program Practice, which we are presenting today.  The other ward in our building is also having their program today, so they wanted the building at the same time and they had actually scheduled it, where we had not.  We moved our practice to an hour and a half earlier.  Which all ended up being very good and wise because we had an unexpected memorial service that afternoon in the building as well (which for us, ended up being 5 and 1/2 hours, with set-up and clean-up) all the while trying to coordinate with multiple plumbers about our bathroom.  More crying for me on Saturday.

The bathroom is still not functioning (which means no laundry as well) and we will see what happens on Monday.  At least by the end of today, the Primary Program will be over.  One thing off of the list.

However, with all of our drama and stress, I watched this video this morning:

And I realized, that my life is really not so hard after all.  I do not have to flee my homeland or leave all of my things behind.  My daughter is not paralyzed from our journey and someone shooting her.  I have all the things I want and need, including two other bathrooms that work.  I have hope, and faith, family, love and all of the necessities of life.  Life is good!

I know my Father in Heaven loves me!  I know He is aware of me!  I know He will help me and comfort me, if I let Him!

Have a beautiful Sabbath.  Life is good, even when the toilet overflows onto my new carpet.

Update:  After I posted, I read this article on lds.org: “The Surprising Science Behind ‘Supremely Happy’ People.”  It is well worth your time and happiness!!

I know!  I missed my Family First Friday blog.  Oh well.  I guess that happens.  When all is said and done, I wanted to have 52 Family First Friday posts.  So far I have 37.  So I won’t hit the mark, but I will be so much closer than last year, when I think I had seven.  Maybe next year I will have all 52!!  But that is not what my post is about today.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend the temple.  It was amazing.  We didn’t get to attend a session for endowments because two stakes were having their stake temple day.  The locker room was packed before we arrived and when we were leaving–standing room only, in the locker room!  Crazy!  But it was great to see so many people there worshiping together.

copyright:  Karen Larsen photography

While we were coming home from the temple, my family was having another adventure.  We live on a very busy intersection.  (Not busy by big city standards, but very busy by super small city standards.)  Our intersection is the main place to turn to get to the church building and a major route to the only hospital in town.  Because it is busy, we probably have about four accidents a year at our intersection.  Most are fender benders and people just not being very careful.  We usually hear the accident and then we (all the neighbors included) run out to see who needs help and what we can do, call the ambulance, or police, or whoever needs to be notified.

Around 2:30 or 3:00 p.m. yesterday, there was a major crash at our intersection.  My husband went running out to check on the vehicles and passengers.  His adrenaline went through the roof when he saw that the car which was hit had four elders in it (missionaries) with blood everywhere, and three were unconscious and unresponsive.  Various emergency vehicles were called.  The sisters were just a few car lengths in front of them ahead of the accident after they had made the turn to the building, so they pulled over, and called their mission president and the zone leaders.

Two missionaries eventually walked away from the accident.  Two were taken to the hospital.  One was released last night after eight staples in his head (I think that is where all the blood came from).  The other was flown to a larger hospital down south.  I think he will be alright, but obviously his injuries were bad enough that our hospital didn’t feel like they could manage his care.  Please add your prayers to our and pray for those boys and their families, include their companions too.  Because even though they are physically alright, it doesn’t mean they are emotionally and spiritually alright.

Today I have been pondering how we manage life when hard things happen to us.  When we are struggling with our emotions because we are hurt, afraid, sad, depressed, embarrassed, ashamed, guilty, disappointed, when our spirits are low and life seems dark, how do we manage?  Where do we turn?

In my life’s experience, it seems to me that we turn one of two ways.  We either turn toward God, or we turn away from him.  If we turn away, we may turn to alcohol, drugs, pornography, anger, apathy, food, or any number of other avenues we may try to use to soothe our negative feelings.  Unfortunately, these things do not take away or fix our negative feelings, they simply mask them so we don’t have to feel them right now.

The only way to truly manage them properly, to eliminate them or help manage them while we are working through them, is to turn to God—to give them to Him, through the Atonement of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Read this story to give context for the next part of our discussion.

It took me a minute or two of pondering to put some concepts together in my head and help me gain a clearer picture.  I struggled with how the Savior has paid for all sin, when the scriptures teach us, in D&C 19: 15-18:

But if you look at it as each sin needing to be paid for twice, once for the one who committed the sin–the driver in Joe’s story, and once for the person who received the pain and suffering of the behavior (Joe), then it is easy to see how the Savior has paid for all sins, at least on one side, or both sides of the equation, while still requiring the unrepentant perpetrator to pay for his own sin.

When bad things happen to us, especially due to no fault of our own, the only place to turn to that will adequately mend our souls, is to the Savior, who has paid the price already for all of our pain and suffering.  He has felt it all and is intimately acquainted with our grief and sorrow and pain.  When we choose not to turn to Him in those moments, we are denying the power of the Atonement and the Savior’s ability to succor us in our moments of trial, hardship, and despair.

Lest you think I am on a soap box and preaching at you, the truth be told, I don’t know exactly how to do that myself.  Intellectually, it makes total and complete sense to me.  Application wise?  I am still learning and struggling through my mortality as much as you are.  I don’t know the how of it, I just know that I need to do it.  In our times of emotional difficulty, we can and must turn to the Savior, if we are going to manage it properly.  I know He has suffered for my sorrow, my grief, my pain, my anguish, my guilt, and even my sin, if I am willing to do what He asks of me and repent.  If I have done no wrong, I still know He knows my sorrow and pain.  He felt it.  He understands.  He knows what I need to do to get through it and learn from it.  He will never leave me, if I turn to Him.  But that has to be my choice.  He will not force me.  He will only reach after me.  The choice to come unto Him, is mine, and mine alone.

I read this article by President Uchtdorf this morning.

Instead of thinking about it in terms of gaining my testimony, I though about it in terms of strengthening my testimony, of shoring it up, gathering the oil of conversion in my lamp of testimony, so when the storms of life come at me, because they will, I have enough in there to give me light through the dark night of trial and adversity, the storms of life.  I think this post is more for me.  I feel a storm brewing on the horizon.

Many moons ago, when we were young married college students, and our ward was all of three blocks big (seriously, it really was only three small city blocks!!), I was thinking about one of the other families in our ward.  They had one small daughter.  The wife had just started working because things were tight financially for their family.  I just was feeling bad for them and wondering if there wasn’t some way that we could show them how much we loved and appreciated them.

I started talking to a few of the women in my ward who were also friends with this family.  We did a little brainstorming.  I don’t remember whose idea it was, but we decided that one night, we would go into their apartment at the appointed time, clean it and leave dinner on the table.  We also baked bread in their oven so the house smelled like homemade bread.  I’m sure it is only in Utah that we could do something like that.  Here in California we would probably have been put in jail for breaking and entering and/or the apartment manager who was also in our ward would have lost her job.  But one of their friends knew they didn’t ever lock the sliding glass door, so we didn’t have to ask the apartment manager for keys.

On the appointed day and time, we (the four or six of us) showed up and cleaned their two bedroom apartment and left dinner.  Because the wife had just started a full time job and they were adjusting, the house was a mess.  She was not a messy housekeeper.  She was usually pretty on top of it.  But we did our good deed and left dinner with a note as planned.

Not only did our friend break down and cry, but that particular day had been horrible for them.  Their daughter fell at day care and broke her arm.  Our friend had to leave work early to take her to the hospital, where they had spent the majority of the afternoon.  When they arrived home, tired and exhausted, they came into a clean home, with dinner and homemade bread and a little note that just said, “We love you and we are thinking about you today!”

We didn’t leave our names.  It was a secret service!  Because she thought she knew who had done it, our friend gave a similar service for the person she thought had given her service.  That person wasn’t involved in our service.  But that family then went out and paid a similar service to someone else.  We actually started a service wave in our ward.  It was very cool and really sweet to watch the benefits and the joy of those who received the service and then to hear about their secret service.

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Can you imagine the good will and feelings of love and support our ward felt about each other as various members here and there received a non-solicited service, an expression of love, and friendship?  It was amazing!

I have not been able to figure out how to do something similar with our children.  But I have been able to reach out and serve the one.  Ocassionally I have been able to bring someone bread, or take a dinner, or watch their children, or talk with someone having a difficult day, or just smile.

Our world is a little out of the service loop.  We try to help others by giving them money or maybe donating to charities or giving of our time to organizations.  None of those things are bad or wrong and they help many people, I am sure.  But what about a teeny, tiny service to your neighbor?  What if you just mowed their lawn sometime?  How about if you brought them dinner or had them over, just because!

Here in California, in my neighborhood, my boys have helped our neighbor put together a bar-b-que grill.  She needed some help.  My neighbor next door, always kills the weeds that are next to his property.  I know he is probably doing it just so they don’t blow onto his property, but I need to take him some bread and just tell him ‘Thank you! I notice you do that and I appreciate it!’  I wish I was more on top of our yard work, but there is only so much work one woman can manage, even when she is also directing several other people to help her.  I need to reach out to my neighbors a little bit more, especially because they don’t go to church with me.  But just to build some good will and positive happy feelings in my neighborhood.

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What about you?  Could your neighbors use a little loving service?

Speedy came home the other day and told me of an interaction he had at school.  One of the 4th years (Seniors) was speaking with him.  She is not someone he particularly knows.  They were in the same place at the same time.  She let him know that our family “is really strange and a little disturbing”.  At first, I was a little put out, but I decided I really wanted to know what she meant by that so I asked Speedy to elaborate on their conversation.  ‘What did she mean by that exactly?’

She went on, “When we were all here for registration and our parents had to be here and we were all standing around in line, you and your mom were joking and laughing with each other and obviously had some inside jokes and looked like you were having a great time.”  Speedy told me that she doesn’t have a good relationship with her parents, in fact, it is quite the opposite.  She called our relationship ‘disturbing, weird, and just wrong’.

I laughed out loud for a few minutes and then I was just sad.  I realized that even when I am just being myself and being what I would call ‘normal’ people are watching us.  I wasn’t sad about the watching part, as much as I was sad that her experience led her to believe a positive and fun relationship with your parent is just ‘wrong and disturbing’. 

As I pondered more over the next few days, I realized that as an adolescent, I didn’t have a good relationship with my parents either.  I didn’t feel like I was understood or that I could be myself.  I did not feel valued or loved for who I was.  Those feelings led me to be very active in my parenting and make significant efforts in the relationships I have with our children.  I want them to feel like I am honest in our relationship.  I want them to be able to believe the things I tell them.  If I make a mistake, I say so.  I apologize to them when I have mistreated them.  I try to treat them like I would my best friends, except I have to be their parent, not their friend.  But I am courteous, and kind.  I ask for favors, like babysitting (I don’t just expect them to be available).  I do give them assignments and chores and I discipline when that is necessary.  But I really, really like my teenagers for who they are.  I appreciate their uniqueness.

One of the most important things I believe parents can do, besides teach their children about the gospel, is to validate their feelings.  They have feelings.  Infants have feelings.  Toddlers have feelings.  Children have feelings.  Adolescents have feelings.  They are people.  They deserve to be treated that way regardless of their age.  If they are hurt, sad, upset, afraid, embarrassed, or angry, those feelings deserve to be addressed and ministered to.  Children do not know the best ways to handle all of their emotions.  Unfortunately, most adults do not either.  But if you think back to your childhood and can recognize when people treated you in a way you did not like and when people treated you in a way that made you feel confident and happy and loved, then you will have some clues about how to help your children and teenagers have those feelings as well.

If as a parent, you are emotionally struggling with an issue, it is alright for your children to see your struggles.  It is alright for you to admit that you are scared or having a difficult time, especially to your adolescents.  You do not need to burden small children with your emotions or make them feel responsible for fixing your negative emotions, but it is completely appropriate to tell your children that you are sad, or hurt or afraid or sick and allow them to comfort you.  Then you just say something like, “Mommy is going to try to help herself have better feelings,” or “Mommy is going to ask Heavenly Father to help her,” and then model appropriate behavior.  If your children see you struggle and then watch you make positive efforts to manage your negative emotions that gives them an example to follow when they are having some of those same feelings.

Especially when emotions are shared without blame and anger, teenagers can be a huge source of comfort and solace.  And when teenagers explode with their emotion for whatever reason, kindly let them know their feelings are valid, they are OK, but their behavior is not.  Then give them other options for behavior when they have negative feelings.

To be very honest, your teenager needs your time.  He or she needs you to take time to listen to them.  Teenagers are a group that have real adult kinds of problems.  In the circles they run in, they have friends who are using drugs, alcohol and/or tobacco, having sex, discussing birth control and abortion, have parents getting divorced, they are abused, etc….  One of the things we adults do not always do well, is to listen to our teenagers.  They are trying to solve some seriously adult issues with teenage hormones and brains.  That is not an easy thing to do, which if you think back to your adolescence, you can personally validate.  Your teenagers may not be doing any of those things, but I guarantee you they know other teenagers who are.

Speedy has been upset lately because people at school are approaching him for ‘dating’ advice.  He is flattered, but he is also 15, so he doesn’t have any experience to be giving advice.  It is a little daunting for him.  He is completely stressed out about the amount of homework he has.  It isn’t more than my college boys have or more than I had at his age, but for him today, it is a huge stress.  That feeling is valid.  It is more homework than he has ever had to manage and it is causing him grief and stress.  If as his parent, I tell him to just ‘suck it up and deal with it’ or ‘that he doesn’t have anything to complain about, his load is not that hard to manage,’ then I have just invalidated his feelings about his situation.  I have done nothing to help him expand his ability to meet the load or to help him feel like he can manage it.   I have invalidated his feelings of stress at his circumstances.  If, on the other hand, I remember how I felt at his age and the amount of homework I had and felt overwhelmed by and just say, “Ya’ gosh!  I remember that!  It was hard to get all of that done,” even if I do not give him any new strategies, just letting him know his feelings at that age are normal for those circumstances does a lot for his ability to manage those feelings.  If I then go further and help him to reorganize his workload or pick up some of his chores so he has more time for his homework, or sometimes just encourage him to go to bed and get a good night’s rest and then face the problems again in the morning, I am validating his feelings and helping him to manage his negative emotions.

We all need help!  If we were perfect at always managing our feelings, we wouldn’t need to be on the earth anymore.  The fact that we are still here, means there is more for us to learn.  Teenagers are trying to manage more adult situations with an entirely new set of hormones.  They deserve extra consideration, time, and love.

I think teenagers have always been my favorite because they can think like adults, work like adults, and are in a place where they are making decisions to guide their future, but they still want to play like little children.  They are going to make mistakes, some big mistakes in how they manage themselves and their circumstances, but if they are shown enough love and understanding with proper boundaries for their behavior, they are usually very teachable, if their childhood experience has given them the opinion that the world is a safe place.

If, through their childhood, they have learned that the world is not a safe place, then adolescence is much more difficult to navigate, though it is not impossible.  It just takes a lot more work and prayer.

LOVE your teens!!!  And if you are overwhelmed and exhausted with them, pray for them and pray with them.  Ask your Father in Heaven what you can do for them to help them make the right choices and show them of your love and concern.  Then do what He tells you to do, even if it doesn’t make sense to you.  Trust Him.  The child you are raising was His child first.  He knows him/her and He knows what will touch his/her heart.

If you do not have teenagers, start working on your relationship with your children.  You are building the relationship you will have with them through their teens!  Build wisely and validate those little people feelings!  Overall, sometimes us stuffy adults need to let loose and have a little teenage, or childhood fun.  The children and youth need us to play with them.  Those who do, will have better relationships than those who don’t have time for childish things.  LOVE and PLAY….that is my advice and counsel for today.