#52 Stories--Story #35

How do you strive to emulate your father's example? 

My dad was and continues to be a great example to me in many ways. I try to hard to help my kids see that I love their dad the way my dad helped me see that he loved my mom. Sometimes that was embarrassing to us as we were growing up--but it is such a foundation piece of my feelings that my family was secure and safe.  I knew they loved each other by the way they talked to each other, and the way they shared the burdens of life together. They worked hard together and set goals together. and they definitely were affectionate to each other.  Ewww, gross--sometimes when we were early in our youth--It was a little too much. Now, I look back and know that seeing that regularly was something I never had to worry about as my friends' parents were experiencing divorce or breakups. That just wasn't something that was going to happen to my parents.

Dad worked hard and never seemed to be done with things--in the best way. He always wanted to make things better and improve the situation with things. Projects would get completed, but there was always something more that he could do and he did it. I try ti see how to make things better as I go along in my work and at home and try to follow that example. I know his work ethic echoes in my head each day I have something I need to do--and I know I can do hard things because he showed me how.

He always taught me to look around for what needs to be done.  I know this began out of frustration that I wouldn't do the things that needed doing until I was asked to do them.  He wanted me--and my sister--to see those things for ourselves and just do it because it needed to be done. Now I do the same things with my own kids and even the younger employees I work with in my job. I don't have the same influence with those coworkers hat I did with my kids though. But my kids are good employees
for other people because they have learned "Grandpa's way of doing things".

#52 Stories--Story # 33

Who are some other important mother figures who have been influential in your life?

I feel like I was very lucky to have many women who modeled wonderful examples of womanhood and motherhood to me as I was growing up.  I'm luckier yet to call them my friends now.

I had a spattering of marvelous young women leaders--Irene Day, Diane Sefton, Toni Zamarron, Cindy Anderson, Sister Nordstrom, Lucia Cooper, and others--I'm sure more names will come to me as the days go by this month.  I spent many weeks of girls camps, Wednesday activities, and Sundays being guided by these wonderful ladies. They showed me how to be a woman of faith, a woman who trusts her Heavenly Father, who knows Jesus Christ and chooses to follow Him. They helped me develop a testimony of my own.  I'd have to include my mom in this group too, because she spent much of these years with me in some supportive role.  She's the best example of all.

I also had some wonderful teachers elsewhere in my life.  Stacy Thacker was a stand out Sunday School teacher as a young teen.  I knew that she knew the Gospel was true and she tried her hardest each week to get us to understand that same truth. 

Teddy Goodrich and Nancy Serigstad were female high school teachers that meant a lot to me. I learned more than just textbook material from them. They made me want to be a teacher someday.

I also had some neighbors and 4H leaders that showed me leaderships styles in the community and wider world. MaryLou Rawitser was our goat leader.  I'm sure she had better things to do with her time, but she was there with us each weekend the goats were showed.  Georgene Abbott was another 4H leader who taught me perseverance and stick-to-it-ive-ness.  Diane Scariot showed me another view of hard work and care of family. Kathy Larsen was a mom who had fun with her family and supported her girls in whatever they had going on.

Then I had a group of women who were friends' moms--who I maybe didn't have the same kind of relationship as their child, but I felt keenly their love for me.  Shari Hoggan, Jan Porter, Diane Sefton and Irene Day--fell in this category too, and Claudia Kambish, to name a few off the top of my head.  I knew they loved their kids--and counted me in that group more often than not.

I have been greatly blessed by so many wonderful women as I was growing up.  I am not sure they all understand how important and valuable they are to me.  I hope I have done my best to make them proud of me and that my own kids will have women just like them in their lives to teach them similar lessons.

#52 Stories--Story # 30

Which parts of your mother's parenting style did you adopt?

I wish I could say I did everything like my mom.  I think she was--an continues to be--a brilliant parent. I hope I did enough things for my kids like she did  for me and my sister.

I think I tried to teach some personal discipline early--I used any method that worked with each kid.  Spanking had little to no affect on my daughter--in fact she would glare at me and tell me "didn't hurt". To avoid beating her little sweet bum within a n inch of her life at time, I took to removal of privileges with her.  Not that that worked all the great either. She was a "strong willed" child, I later learned the classification from a parenting /child psychology book I finally bought and read before one of us was locked up.

Meanwhile, my son, was a much more tender-hearted guy and even a cross look to him was the end of the world. He really didn't want to displease me--at least when he was young.  He grew more and more macho as he got older, but deep down he is still a tender-hearted, very compassionate, caring young man. I couldn't understand HOW I got two kids that were not a single bit alike to raise.

Then I remembered that I needed to be the one learning--as much as I was teaching them.  I am not sure if that was a pearl of wisdom my mom finally shared or if I had to figure it out myself, but I still have to purposely stop and understand what I need to learn from them when ever they do something that I don't understand.  this is a lifelong goal--the understanding--but I am making baby steps, all the while realizing that I just really need to love them and make sure they know I do.

I know my mom told me that she would talk to us as infants as though we were understanding everything.  I recall very specifically having The Girl in her car seat in the family room, while I was ironing Genius Golfer's dress shirt for work, and I was telling The Girl in great detail what I was doing:  "This is a sleeve.  It goes on daddy's arm.  There are two sleeves in a shirt.  You have a shirt on too, but you have only short sleeves.  This is a long sleeve shirt. See how the sleeve will reach all the way to daddy's hands?"

Now, I don't know if that helped me to be more verbal or not as a baby--my mom told me when I did start talking I was talking in sentences like a I was a teenager.  Well, I saw the same things in The Girl.  She was VERY verbal, right from the start.  The Boy didn't have as much chance--though I did still try to do the same for him. The Girl spoke for him a lot of the time.  Also, I had a very difficult post partum period with his birth--depression that took two years or so to combat and overcome.  Consequently I don't remember things much from when he was very small--at least on my own.  Luckily I wrote things on his baby calendar and tried to write a journal, but I wasn't very good because of my disconnect with life in the depression.

I also followed my mom's example by letting the kids try things they wanted to do.  I didn't like big messes--I think she was the same way--but sometimes those things had to happen for them to experience things. Messy things were not my favorites.  I think back now and wish I'd have let so much more go when the kids were little--like housekeeping stuff.  I should have played with them more.  GG was always VERY good about that.  And they loved him for it even more.  I think my mo has similar sentiments.

I have always said that if I could be even half the mother mom my was, I would be a success. I'm not there yet, but I am a mother of two pretty wonderful kids. Maybe I just didn't screw them up too badly.  If that is true, I guess I am like my mom.

#52 Stories-Story # 18

What valuable lessons about love and devotion have you learned from the most successful marriages in your family--whether they're your siblings, parents, grandparents or even ancestors?

My parents are the most successful love story in our family.  We jokingly say they have been together forever already--and in a way they have been. They've been together since my mom was 14 years old and they have been married since 1964.

From them I  have learned that sometimes you may not always LIKE the person, but if there is love at the bottom of it all, everything and anything can be weathered together.

From them I've learned that you love someone fiercely--with no excuses to anyone else.

From them I've learned that you love someone through thick and thin--and everything in between.

From them I've learned that you never give up on someone you love.

I have learned from them that really loving someone means you'll have to forgive them many times and ask for forgiveness a lot too

From them I've learned that event he hardest things are easier together.

From them I have learned that with a good partner at your side you can do just about anything.

From them I've learned that when you love someone you also love their family--good, bad or ugly.

And from them I've learned that when you love someone that love doesn't go away when things get hard, or boring, or tough, or challenges arise, or things are going beautifully.  When you love someone, you choose to love them each and every day.

They are not perfect examples, but they are the best thing I have had to look to and see how to do this relationship-thing in my life.

Way to Go, Coaches!

I got to listen to the news last night.  That doens't always happen any more.  But a sports story caught my attention.  The teasers before the commercial break was "High School football team suspended."  Well, this I had to hear.

 Now, like many small rural towns--and this one out in the Uinta basin where there is a localized energy industry (oil, gas and mining)---the local high school football game is THE event of the weekend for the whole community.  Our little town isn't quite like that but there are sure a lot of people who come out to sit through a game to see "our boys" play each Friday night.  This is definitely the situation in Roosevelt.


Apparently, Union high School in the tiny town of Roosevelt Utah has had some issues with boys behaving badly.  So, after the team lost their game last week, the coaches took the boys' jerseys and told them they would not be playing again until several things happened.  Homecoming was their next game, and while the school and the coaches didn't cancel it--they worried they might because 50 kids were suspended and they weren't sure they'd have enough kids to fill a team roster.

The players had not paid enough attention to their grades, were disrespectful to other teachers, and most importantly, were discovered to be the root of some increasingly serious cyber-bullying.  The coaches suspended then from the team.In order to get back on the field with Union, these boys needed to immediately pull their grades up, make apologies and amends to the teachers they treated poorly and the entire team had some extra lessons about bullying, it's effects, and why that kind of behavior was NOT okay in any way.  Plus the team members were given a pile of community service hours--cleaning up the Junior High, helping at some Senior Citizens' centers, and each had a personal service project within their families that they had to complete and write an essay about to be turned into the coaches before this weekend.

The best part of this story was when the reported interviewed the head coach.  He said that he knew this was the right thing to do because these boys have much more of life ahead of them after football, and he wanted them to be the material that effective community leaders are made of but he worried with this decisions that the community and the parents would create a strong backlash.  However, the community reaction was in complete cooperation with the coaches.  The rest of the faculty joined together to create extra study sessions for the boys to pull up grades, parents backed the decision from home and the community opened their arms for these boys to make things right again.

They still have until Friday....to make the team again and play for homecoming.  But this lesson will last far longer than the memory of the score at the end of any game.  Good job, coaches!

No Excuses

Here is another of those stories that peel off the excuses I use in my life--when things are hard, or not fair, or just plain confusing to understand.  Reading about Tara, and seeing her beautiful piece, makes me want to put my "big-girl panties" on and just go after life.  See if you don't agree:

Legally Blind Photographer Snaps Stunning Award-Winning Photo



By Good News Network Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Judges of the Eye Remember photography contest in Canada had no idea Tara Miller had any vision problem whatsoever, let alone having only 10 percent vision in one eye.


The blind commercial photographer from Winnipeg won the nationwide contest, which anyone could enter, with her stunning landscape, entitled “Fortuitous Twilight.”

"I will never forget how my 12 year old son was there to help me capture this image," said Miller, who began to lose her vision to glaucoma in childhood.


She takes photos by using what little sight she has to plan and frame the shot. Once shooting is complete, she hooks her camera up to a large 27-inch monitor and blows the image up to 200 percent so she can see the results.


"I found my "inner peace" when I took up photography again using the technology of the digital age. I want urge other people not to give up on what you are passionate about."


As winner of the contest launched by the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB), Miller and a guest will be heading to Quebec City, Quebec, later this year for a free weekend hotel stay and an opportunity to explore and photograph the historic city.


“People with vision loss can do the same things as sighted people, but just in a different way,” says Miller.


CNIB offers a variety of rehabilitation services for Canadians with vision loss. Miller has taken advantage of the charity to learn the skills necessary to live independently despite her blindness. Working one-on-one with CNIB’s specialists, Miller learned to travel on the bus alone, use a computer, and take care of her home and family.


Supported by an unrestricted educational grant from Pfizer, CNIB’s Eye Remember photo contest is designed to educate Canadians about the importance of detecting glaucoma early in life and to remember to be proactive about their vision health.

Glaucoma, which usually progresses slowly and painlessly, is the second most common case of irreversible vision loss in seniors and affects more than 250,000 Canadians.

Miller’s photo was also chosen the winner from among 128 submissions by visitors to the contest’s website. To see more submitted photos, visit eyeremember.ca.

What a Difference

Today we had Young Women basketball, after a two week hiatus.

Two weeks ago the day involved three games, and every one of them turned ugly and nasty to the point that I was sick to my stomach at the end of it all.  We had tears and accusations and hard feelings and angry parents.  I hate that about church sports.

So today, I welcomed each pair of teams with a smile on my face and a prayer in my heart.  I shared with them my sick feelings of the past basketball outings.  I expressed that the sports program for the YW is merely another activity to invite inactive or non-LDS friends to play together with us and to lead all of us to Christ.  If we (meaning the girls, spectators, officials) behave so badly that there are tears and bad feelings, we are not being good examples of what Daughters of God should be.  We are to be examples of Christ at all times, in all places and in all things--and that means basketball too.  I asked the girls to play with heart and determination, but not to let the competition of it and the desire to win defeat them as sisters in the gospel and as daughters of God.

What a difference!  We had three good games.  We learned some things about basketball, thanks to officials who took the time to explain the foul, or rule when they called it.  We saw young women show love and tenderness and friendship and genuine care for one another.  It was so much easier to watch.  And it will make me sleep so much better tonight.

The best part is, we had a outright, undefeated champion emerge today, making our scheduled last day of play irrelevant, and consequently cancelled.  Yippee.

70 Years Ago

At the moment, I am reading Anne Frank Remembered. It is the memoir written by Miep Gies, one of the handful of non-Jews who cared for and protected the Frank family and the others that hid in the annex where Anne wrote her diary. It is a heart-rending, but uplifting remembrance of a woman who loved her friends and literally risked her life to keep them safe.

I don't recall reading much about World War II, especially prior to Pearl Harbor, that wasn't written with an American point of view. Reading Miep's book, I can only imagine just how terrifying living in Europe was at the time. She watched the rise of Hitler's Nazi Germany and the invasions of Austria, Poland, and eventually her adopted home of Holland.

Seventy years ago today, The German army invaded Holland. It is 70 years past, and yet the lessons haven't been learned. It is 70 years ago, and the scars have not healed. It's been 70 years and there are still open wounds.

The idea that time can heal the hurts, doesn't fit this story. Reading her testimony of what she experienced makes me want to believe that the human race is better than I had once thought. And that in a pinch, we'd want to help each other--like Miep and her husband did--particularly in the face of tyranny and oppression like that faced by the European Jews in the 1940s.

We can hope that in 70 more years her voice and courage will still be as strong an example as they are today. What an amazing woman of courage and strength.

Example of the Believers

This past Wednesday night I was asked to share some thoughts in another ward's New Beginnings program about the new 2009 Mutual Theme taken from 1 Timothy 4:12. It says, "...Be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity."

So I spent my five minutes or so with them trying to expand and expound. Here is what I shared:

Timothy was one of Paul's closest friends. Paul even calls him his "son in the faith". You could certainly call Paul Timothy's mentor. They traveled together all over the region and Timothy saw a lot of Paul's teaching and was trained well to become the first bishop of Ephesus.

Though Timothy was young, that made no difference to Paul. He recognizes that in the first line of this verse, in fact. But them he gives Timothy, and all of us this year, some very valuable direction. Do we know what we are to do as examples of the believers?

To be an EXAMPLE in WORD, I thought of how we speak to each other. Do we use our words to build up those around us? Or do we tear others down when they are not in our presence? Are we gossipy or passing along rumors?

To be an EXAMPLE in CONVERSATION is a little different. The Greek root word for "conversation" means more about our conduct or behavior. So, how do we treat others? Do we include them in our activities? Do we invite them to join us at lunch? Or do we try to separate ourselves from those we see as 'not good enough' to hang out with?

To be an EXAMPLE in CHARITY, according to Elder Wirthlin, it means "subordinating personal interests willingly and gladly for the good of others." To we put the needs of others before our own? Are we more interested in helping others than getting ourselves ahead?

To be an EXAMPLE in SPIRIT I asked the Young Women and their leaders about their attitude. Are you in a good mood? Are you gracious? Happy? Enthusiastic? Fun to be around? If we are showing our testimony in our attitude, shouldn't it be one of joy? If we truly believe in Christ, we have the "good news" of the Gospel! We should show it!

To be an EXAMPLE in FAITH is a little harder to see. But you do this if others can tell what we believe by the way we live our lives. Can you share your testimony through your actions? Do you fulfill callings with commitment? Do your choices reflect your beliefs?

To be an EXAMPLE in PURITY is of renewed interest recently, as we were just given an eighth YW value to study and pursue. Are we living a life filled with chastity? Fidelity? Moral strength? These are what 'pure' encompasses. I think it also has to do with our way of thinking as well. As we become an example in purity, our desires to do our own thing melt away and we have only the desire to do the Lord's will.