Church – Page 20 – Letters from Home

Snow, snow, snow, Serve, serve, serve

We got so much snow last weekend that we thought we would document it. The snow plows always make a large pile in front of our yard, but this is the biggest we have ever seen.

Richard is camping! with the Scouts in this stuff. I sometimes feel grumpy about all he has to do because I wouldn’t enjoy doing those things. However, I think he likes most of the life of a Scoutmaster. Maybe I am a little grumpy because I miss him, too.

This week I fielded calls and texts every day about people being sick and meeting their needs. If I stop to think, I can feel overwhelmed by so many needs. Mid-week, I got a call from the YW saying they were going to make a whole bunch of freezer meals for the Relief Society. Hooray for the army of women and young women who do so much to help others. On Thursday I met with our quilt group to see the quilt we made for a sister with cancer. We always have the biggest turnout at quilt group when there is a service project to do. It is a tribute to the hearts of the women that service activities are always full.

Have you downloaded the Serve Refugees app yet? In Salt Lake there is a need for JoAnn gift cards for a sewing class that is now in session. This is an easy, meaningful way to help a refugee become self-sufficient today. I am thinking that a small note from you or your children, encouraging a vulnerable refugee woman would go perfectly with a gift card.

You can mail gift cards to:

Utah Refugee Connection, 6440 South Wasatch Blvd., Suite 100, Salt Lake City, UT, 84121

An evening to learn how to help refugees

Continue reading An evening to learn how to help refugees

Lifting Others’ Burdens

This Advent activity on LDS.org is a beautiful thing and I am going to follow it each day, but if I decide to share what I do, it will be in vague terms. Today to “lift a burden” I spent time on hold with customer service to fix something for a family member and visited someone who was in bed. I feel my life is pretty standard and not exemplary in any way, but I still feel God’s involvement in the details, and that means so much to me.

Pretty things

My craft room shelves are full of soft, colorful, whimsical gifts for Christmas. I wish I could post some pictures, but my projects are top secret. This year I am giving to my brother Joe and his kids. The goal is comfort and joy for this precious, buffeted family. As November turns to December, and until Christmas, you will find me embroidering and hand sewing in the late evenings. Heaven.

Last night I gathered with my presidency to package our Christmas and 2017 birthday gifts for the sisters in our ward. The Christmas gifts are not quite ready to show, but the birthday gifts are ready. We will give each sister one of these lip balm packages on her birthday. They are so pretty. Richard helped me make the labels to stick on these little jars that we ordered from Bulk Apothecary. I found the “Charity Never Faileth” graphic on Pinterest. These gifts are less than a dollar each with packaging.

Something I feel good about

The invitation read,

An Evening at the Bishop’s House

Please join us Friday, November 11th for an informal evening with friends, food, and faith.

We’ll start dinner at 6:00 pm, but come when you can. We will eat, visit, and discuss issues of faith and belief.

Child care will be provided–call or text….. They are expecting to hear from you!

We hope you can come,

The Brockbanks and the Rosses

Please let us know if you can’t make it.

The bishop and I prepared an evening for people in our ward to gather in his home for a meal and a discussion about maintaining faith. We talked about this over the course of a year. We knew it was probably important to address the doubts that are coming forward so strongly today, but how should we go about it? We talked about it in ward council. We talked about it in other meetings. We wanted to create an environment where people would feel comfortable addressing this very personal topic. We wanted it to feel casual, warm, supportive, and inspiring. I heard myself say in ward council one Sunday that I felt that a sister’s voice was needed along with the bishop’s voice in such a gathering. Eventually, in September, the bishop asked me to come up with a format for the night to be a foundation we could add upon. He wanted to hold this activity sometime in October or November.

One night I lay awake thinking about what to do. I fell asleep but woke up around 1:00 am with a clear idea of what needed to happen. I turned on a light and wrote it all down. We did not plan this evening. The Lord did. On this list were tiny details such as mailing invitations and a need for childcare. Also there were bigger concepts such as focusing on maintaining faith rather than going down a list of controversial topics, although we should be prepared to address these topics. Truly, God’s hand was in the planning. The bishop added a few things, including providing a dinner, not just a dessert and he finalized the list of people to invite.

The bishop mailed invitations and prepared his house for the big event. Seriously, he hand-addressed envelopes! No one was hand picked because we had specific concerns. We just chose the younger age group in the ward. I saw how he prepared spiritually. I tried to do the same. My presidency, a few other sisters, and I made the food. Two sisters and their teens provided childcare next door to the bishop’s house. Richard rode in the back of our truck up the hill to the bishop’s house, trying to stabilize a handful of crock pots full of soup.We helped set up some chairs and set out the buffet. We held our breath and hoped for a good turnout. 30 people out of the 40 we invited showed up!

After dinner, we gathered in the living room and began a discussion. The bishop and I spoke, back and forth, and so did his wife and Richard. We hoped others would participate, too. Neither of us spoke from notes, but we knew some basics of what each would discuss. We shared personal stories from our lives. The bishop used some videos from the church and Steven Spielberg to make some points. I drew from James 1 to encourage us to let patience have her perfect work as we sort through matters that challenge our faith.

I feel really good about the evening because so many came and so many people felt comfortable enough to share their experiences. As people shared their journeys with us, many topics came up, such as sustaining the prophet, same sex marriage, and priesthood, as we thought they would. People felt supported. People seemed to love the time together. There is a lot of support for doubt in the world. We wanted to create a place and community to support choosing faith, while acknowledging there are challenges to our faith. I think we achieved that.

I feel a lot of gratitude for the opportunity to speak as a leader, to share my testimony, and to encourage others. Preparing food for a crowd and preparing my mind and heart to speak at the same time was a big deal. I smile when I think about the evening.

A few things I am thinking about

I just bought a gallon of milk that has an expiration date AFTER election day. We have almost made it! On social media, I got carrried away one day and temporarily blocked many friends who posted something political, so now my news feed is missing, oh, most people. My social media consists of Minion memes, recipes, weddings of people I have never seen before, and a lot of Chicago Cubs stuff. And there is that one friend who posts obscure quotes about classic literature and meditation. I figure many of my social media friends have blocked me for all the links I post to LDS.org. So much for social media being a way to communicate.

Richard and the boys pumped the attic full of insulation over fall break. I have been so warm at night ever since, but I am not sure if it’s because I have convinced myself that I will be warm or if there is a real difference.

Richard has always been conservative with energy use at the house. He is driven to see our kilowatt hours go lower and lower. Our power company gives us a graphic showing how we rank among our neighbors in energy usage. The coveted lowest tier is not yet ours, but I think Richard knows we can get there someday. Is your house full of LED lightbulbs? They are expensive and flicker, but the quality of their light is so much gentler than compact fluorescent bulbs.

Our refrigerator died on Friday night the minute after the appliance repair shops closed for the weekend. It is an 18 year old refrigerator, and it has kept our family alive for a long time. I feel some nostalgia as it begins to falter. Richard looked up another You Tube video about how to fix a refrigerator and got things running again. (He fixed our washer earlier this year after studying a You Tube video.) Better energy efficiency in a new refrigerator may put us in the running for the elite tier of energy savers in the neighborhood, so maybe we should buy a new one. We go round and round endlessly wondering what to do. I keep a thermometer in the refrigerator to make sure it’s staying cold as we enter day 4 of deliberation and negotiation. And I may have to cross over to stainless steel, a sure indicator that styles will change abruptly and stainless will be outdated.

One difficult part of my job at church is when someone asks a tricky question in class and the teacher asks me for a definitive answer. Women older and wiser than me hold their breath. “Will she be able to answer it?” they wonder. Kind and sympathetic women turn and give me encouraging looks. I got a tricky question on Sunday. For the first time in a year and a half, I came home from church not second-guessing my wording of an answer. It must have been important for me to have the answer on Sunday, because I hardly even blushed as I spoke. Maybe I am getting used to being put on the spot.

I hope you didn’t waste too much time reading this nonsense.

The lie of perfectionism

I post this because it’s a powerful testimony of how scripture study helped a young woman learn about Christ’s grace. It’s a reminder that God doesn’t tell us that if we were just more amazing we would be enough. The race is not for personal perfection on our own; the race is to come unto Christ to be perfected.

Sometimes visiting teaching looks like this

I have a church assignment to visit one of the women in this photo each month to share a gospel message and be her friend. I have a great partner who comes with me who could not be with us when this picture was taken. One thing I have learned about visiting teaching over the years is that sometimes a visit isn’t what a woman needs most. Sometimes it is a meal. Sometimes it is a phone call or a letter or text messages with funny or uplifting quotes. Always it is my prayers. Last night it was an impromptu birthday party at a restaurant. These are some of the busiest women I know but it was so good to take some time and be happy together.

The Miracle of the Peaches

Someone said to me as I visited her elderly mother who was ill, “You’re a little young for this job. I think Relief Society presidents shouldn’t be called unless they are much older.” (She meant no harm, only concern for my young family.)

“Yes, I am young,” I agreed. “Yet here I am,” I thought. I do lack some years and life experience and knowledge. However, I have a lot of experiences that indicate that the Lord magnifies our efforts, whatever our age.

Last week I got a call from a man in our congregation. He sounded frantic, “I need your help!” and then the cell phone cut out.

Worried, I called him back, thinking of all kinds of awful possibilities for his call. “I have some peaches from my tree that I need someone to prepare. Can you do it?”

“Yes,” I said, remembering all the times we had offered to help this family, but they said they were fine. I knew this meant he had come to trust me. I also knew I could call many people to help me, but that takes time which I didn’t have. I did ask one person, but she wasn’t available. When I saw there weren’t too many peaches, I decided I could do it on my own…only I had never done it before.

Peaches don’t wait for you. You must deal with them quickly when they are ripe. It was after 8 pm when I had time to face the box of peaches and begin the task. I would be up late, of this I was sure.

At this moment, I saw the little light on my phone blinking. There was a text message from a neighbor telling me that she was canning peaches from 8-10 and inviting me to come over. I had signed up to learn her techniques at a canning presentation back in May. She was apologetic for the late notice; she had found a deal on peaches that afternoon and realized they needed to be canned right away.

I don’t love asking for help at the last minute. I don’t even like making phone calls. But I recognized a miracle happening and I needed to act.

I called her and told her I needed her help, not realizing her ENTIRE kitchen was filled with peaches. She and her husband, over steaming pots and sticky peaches told me over speaker phone, “Sure, bring your peaches. We will make it work.”

And they did. Jeremy washed and blanched. I peeled and cut, and Elizabeth prepared the syrup and packed them in containers. Their son also stayed up late in his pajamas to help. In a little over an hour, the task was done, their own peaches and jars set aside to help a neighbor late at night, with no advance notice.

Yes, I am young, and they are young, but sometimes there are miracles. And because of the peaches, I have strengthened friendships with the man with the peach tree, Elizabeth, and Jeremy.

The best day

Yesterday was the best day I have had in a long time. I got to speak in church and teach a class. Paige came home for a few hours and we had a nice Sunday dinner. At church I sat on the stand and could see the faces of the women in my congregation that I do not see in Relief Society. Some dear friends were well enough to attend church. The weather was sunny and the colorful mountains startled me with their vibrant red and yellow leaves. It has been four years since I have spoken in church. Sigh. I love writing and public speaking.