Ministering Sisters

            About eighteen years ago my Relief Society president, Sue Smith, came to me with a proposal. She expressed concern that the younger mothers didn’t have the advantage, as we did, of mother education lessons that were once part of the Relief Society curriculum. She asked if I would write a mother education lesson each month that would be printed on the back of the visiting teaching message to be left in the homes of the sisters. She gave me a list of topics, and I enthusiastically agreed to write the lessons if I could remain anonymous. I felt the teachings would be more effective if no one knew who authored them. The plan worked, and the ward sisters were receptive. But as the lessons emerged, I realized that most of the lessons were not specifically for mothers, because all women inspire children, and the lessons were basically the gospel in action—which, of course, applies to everyone. (With the church-wide restructuring of visiting teaching, m...

            Mariah, my sixteen-year-old granddaughter, and I exchanged texts:             Mariah: Grandma, I found a quote I thought you would like. “The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it.”             Me: True.             Mariah: Here’s another one. Wayne Gretzky a famous ice hockey player said: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”             Me: So true. Thanks for sending these quotes. How are you?             Mariah: Good and u?             Me: Same. And it is good to be good.             Mariah: Yep. And it’s fine to have problems too.            I was more than surprised at Mariah’s response and wondered what leads a sixteen-year-old young woman to such a matur...

            Pharaoh, king of Egypt, had a dream that Joseph, who had been sold into Egypt by his brothers, interpreted. Joseph explained to Pharaoh: “There come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt; and the famine shall… be very grievous.” (See Genesis 41:25-37 .) Trusting the dream and the interpretation were from God, Pharaoh gave Joseph responsibility to prepare Egypt for the prophesied years of famine. History shows Joseph’s family who lived in Canaan, the twelve tribes of Israel, were saved because they left their home and relocated to Egypt where there was food. It was an 11-day journey of about 250 miles.             Brigham Young counseled the Mormon pioneers, when they were preparing to relocate because of intense persecution, to prepare for the future, frugally and diligently. "My...

            I had opportunity to speak to a stake Relief Society in California a few years ago and stayed in a home in the stake. It was a bit of an unusual circumstance. Terry and Shelly were living in a six thousand square-foot home that belonged to David and Liz who were serving a mission in South Africa. This home has two staircases. It is modern, roomy, family-friendly, and filled with things David and Liz love and worked hard to obtain. As a guest in this home, I stayed in David’s office, which turned it into a guest room. Even with all of David’s furniture there, there was still enough room to accommodate a queen-size bed.             I noticed David’s books in a bookcase along one wall, organized by subject. Above the bookcase were art and artifacts from David and Liz’s travels around the world. His seven-foot roll-top desk stood against the adjacent wall, while his rust-colored leather sofa sat grandly on the opposite...

         Being famous may seem glamorous and desirable. Facebook videos and Instagram photos clamber for likes and comments. Although this technology is relativity new, the desire to be remembered, to feel that your life counted for something, is not new. Yet, the vast majority of people who have lived on this planet never became famous, in the usual way of thinking. As President Gordon B. Hinckley said: “Most children grow up to be just ordinary people.” After a handful of decades, all that remains for ninety-nine percent is perhaps a brief biography on Ancestry.com and a cement marker with fading dates on a cemetery hillside.           Marcy Heisler poetically expressed the universal desire to be remembered: Let me grow old; let me grow wise; Let lines of laughter crease my eyes. Let me spin stories as I rock forth in my chair. Let me knit yards and yards of yesterdays to gather round my knees, And woven in the pattern is a me...

            The Romans conquered Jerusalem and forced the Jews to pay taxes to them. The Romans hired Jews to be the tax collectors, called publicans, and paid them well. The Jews despised their fellow countrymen who worked for the Romans. Levi was a tax collector. One day he prepared “a great feast in his own house” for “a great company of publicans” and invited Jesus to join them, which He did. The scribes and Pharisees criticized Jesus, asking: Why does he “eat and drink with publicans and sinners” ( Luke 5:29-30 )?             Jesus dined with those who invited Him.             Zacchaeus was also a publican, the chief publican in the town of Jericho. He was rich and he was short. When Zacchaeus heard that Jesus had come to Jericho, he wanted to see Him as did many others. Zacchaeus could not see over the crowd, so he ran ahead and climbed a tree. “When Jesus came to the place, he looked up, ...

            At age ten, Lizzie got eyeglasses for the first time. Looking at the mountains she uttered in amazement, “I didn’t know you could see individual leaves on trees.” About sixty years later, Lizzie got bifocals to help her read fine print and drive at night. When she got home and saw herself in a mirror, she uttered in amazement, “Wow, new glasses gave me a lot of new wrinkles!” New glasses helped Lizzie see the world as others do.             In 1858, Abraham Lincoln, while giving a speech, said: “Reading from speeches is a very tedious business, particularly for an old man that has to put on spectacles, and the more so if the man be so tall that he has to bend over to the light” from Bartleby.com ). From Lincoln’s point of view, he had three problems reading speeches—too old (he was forty-nine), too tall (he was six-foot-four-inches), and too little light.             Too much light wa...

            Father Lehi explained that experiences span the extremes from righteousness to wickedness, from holiness to misery, from good to bad. (See 2 Nephi 2:11 .) The Lord said to Joseph Smith: “All these [good and bad] things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good” ( D&C 122:7 ). I assume you have seen in your life as I have in mine that experiences expand wisdom and knowledge.             The prophet Isaiah said experience evolves incrementally, “precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little.” If that were all Isaiah had written, you would expect life to be a steady upward climb. But when you read the rest of the verse, you realize he understood: “that they might go and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken” ( Isaiah 28:13 ). Experience includes falling, breaking, and being snared by Satan. As we say: Life can sometimes be t...

            Have you ever done something nice—really, really nice—for a group of people and had only one of them thank you? If you have, you are not alone. Jesus Christ knows how it feels to be unappreciated.             Jesus “entered into a certain village, and there met him ten men that were lepers…. And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests…. and as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks…. And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine” ( Luke 17:11-17 ).             Have you ever taken the opportunity to share a gospel truth with someone in the sincerity of your heart and had the person reject the pr...

            One day when life took a bad turn, I thought of the opening words to Charles Dicken’s novel A Tale of Two Cities : “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair”             The bad turn was I found more cancer. The doctor diagnosed it as metastatic. It took too many tests, two surgeries, chemotherapy again, radiation, a new diagnosis of a serious lung infection that took a year and 1,700 milligrams of antibiotic a day to heal, dental troubles with two root canals, eight crowns, and an unrelated surgery. I spent eighteen months going from bed, to chair, to couch, day in and day out. I thought of my health as the worst of times, a season of darkness, the winter of despair. I felt frustrated about this unpleasant interruption to my good life and felt anxious about my future. (I look back now and ...

            One early spring day, I was cleaning the winter off of some outside window panes when I heard someone singing in Spanish. Our neighbor had a construction worker repairing their chimney and he, with earbuds in his ears, was singing along to the radio with gusto: “Me llamo Victor. Soy guapo; soy muy, muy, muy, muy guapo.” I speak enough Spanish to understand and mentally translated: “I call myself Victor. I'm handsome, very, very, very, very handsome.” When the song finished, he yelled: “Soy guapo; soy inteligente (I am smart); soy simpático (I am nice); soy fuerte (I am strong.)             Richard, my husband, is another person who sees good in the world beginning with himself. After he mows the lawn, he looks out the window many times in the next few days, smiling and enjoying how good the lawn looks. He is also an artist and follows the same pattern. After he completes a painting, he puts it on an easel in the l...

            The meaning of talent has changed through the centuries. In Biblical times it was a measure of weight of 75.6 pounds. King David’s crown weighed one talent. (See 2 Samuel 12:30 .) Can you imagine a neck that could support 75 pounds? We may in the future experience what it feels like to be hit with a talent. Revelation 16:21 prophesies that before the great battle of Armageddon a mighty hailstorm will occur “every stone about the weight of a talent.” On August 8, Delta flight 1889 made an emergency landing after baseball-size hailstones hit it. The largest hailstone on record hit Vivian, South Dakota in 2010. It was eight inches in diameter and weighed not quite two pounds. Makes you wonder what the diameter of a 75.6-pound hailstone will be. Look out below!             In Jesus’ time, a talent was a measure of money equal to 20 years of wages for the common worker or $666,000. That is how much the Lord in the Pa...

            Many voices have weighed in on why women in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints should or should not receive the priesthood. Give me a little space to explore the idea that perhaps that may not be the issue.             On April 6, 1830, the Church was organized. To be officially recognized, according to the laws of the state of New York, a religion had to have at least six members, and there were six. As the converts started coming by ones, then by tens, then by hundreds and thousands, most devoted their lives to the Church and endured to the end. Some fell away for various reasons. A few became apostates and enemies of the Church. These few were excommunicated.             Had Joseph Smith organized the Church to aggrandize himself, he likely would have clung to every member by adapting doctrines, principles, and practices to be all-inclusive. It would have been a numbers ...

            Moments away from being sacrificed by heathen priests is severe affliction. Abraham wrote: “As they lifted up their hands upon me, that they might offer me up and take away my life, behold, I lifted up my voice unto the Lord my God, and the Lord hearkened and heard, and he filled me with the vision of the Almighty, and the angel of his presence stood by me, and immediately unloosed my bands” ( Abraham1:15-16 ).            Leaving your home and riches and thinking your sons are dead in the wilderness is severe affliction. This was Sariah’s situation when she called her husband “a visionary man.” Lehi responded by buoying her faith, reminding her that indeed he had seen “the things of God” and knew of God’s goodness. He assured her: “I know that the Lord will deliver my sons… and bring them down again unto us in the wilderness.” Little did they know that a miraculous moment of reunion was just over the horizon. Sariah...

            Ruth went to the carwash just as she had done for years. She slid her credit card, pushed the buttons, and the oversized carwash door opened. She drove inside and pulled forward until the red light instructed her to stop. The carwash door closed behind her. She sat, anticipating that momentarily the big arm of the carwash would start spraying soapy water on her very dirty car. She waited, waited, and waited and finally realized she was trapped in a broken carwash. Fortunately she had her cellphone. Unfortunately, the emergency number for the carwash was posted outside. She got out of the car, fearing the big arm might start working and tried to lift the oversized front and rear doors; she pounded on the doors; she yelled for help. Eventually another customer drove up, slid his credit card, pushed the buttons, and waited. After awhile he realized something was wrong and called the emergency number. Being trapped in a carwash did not ruin Ruth’s d...