What Do You Do?

By Kari Diane Pike

The question caught me by surprise. One moment I was on the phone discussing Relief Society business with a sister in the ward and the next moment she asked,

“What do you do when your kids are making stupid choices and the washer stops working and the car breaks down, the air conditioning dies, and your husband comes home and tells you he had to take a cut in pay or lose his job?”

Based on our earlier discussion, I assumed the question was rhetorical. We talked a bit about how it seems that challenges come like waves, several rolling over the top of us in quick succession, diminishing, and then catching us by surprise by knocking our feet out from under us, and trying to pull us out to sea. She stopped me mid-sentence.

“I really want to know. What do you do? How do you cope?”

“Me, personally?”

“Yeah. You. What do you do?”

The first answer to pop into my head was not the one I considered proper and worthy for a Relief Society President to give. But the words slipped out of my mouth before I could stop them.

“I eat chocolate.”

There. I said it, quietly and guiltily. The truth was out. Why, oh why, didn’t I bear my testimony of prayer and scripture study? My face burned with embarrassment and I was glad she could not see my discomfort. Mortified, my mind raced trying to come up with a way to cover my faux pas. Then I heard laughter on the other end of the line. Not a titter or a giggle, but great gales of laughter. What could I do but laugh with her? We snorted and snickered and named all the glorious kinds of chocolate and how to eat it. Then came the tears; torrents of healing, cleansing tears. And I cried with her.

“Thank you! I feel so much better. I guess I just had to let some things go before I could move forward. Laughing seems to have broken the dam. I’m going to be okay now. That’s all I needed.”

I hung up the phone in amazement. My heart felt twice as big and twice as tender. I knew that those words of “truth” came from the Spirit. They weren’t the words I would have chosen, because I couldn’t see my friend’s heart like the Lord could. He knew exactly what she needed to hear. He knew that she knew the importance of prayer and fasting and studying her scriptures. She just needed to know that she was not alone. She needed to know that other women experience similar feelings. She didn’t need a discourse. She needed lots of love-

and a little chocolate.

Blessings

by Betsy Love

This week has been one of joy as several things happened and I'm finding it difficult to pick one to write about.

Don't you just love Sundays? I do. Not because I get to sleep in, although that is a blessing, but because of the sweet spirit in attending Sacrament meeting. As many of you know our stake suffered the loss of our beautiful building. While the ward is strong and we meet in a building another stake graciously offered to share with us, we feel a little displaced. Bishop Huish conducted for Fast and Testimony meeting. He told us the FBI concluded their investigation and the church was turned back over to the leaders. Going through the ash and rubble proved to be a difficult task, but found among the remains were a few items which suffered only smoke damage. Bishop told us that the fire burned hottest in his office and the clerks offices and everything was destroyed, except for a small bag of items. His bore testimony of the love of the Lord for the organization who serves him the most is why these items had been protected. I sat reflecting on which organization had items in their closets and which things might have been spared. He then said that the items spared were the missionary plaques which hung on the wall in the hallway outside the Bishops' offices. My husband got to see them and he said our son's plaque looked exactly as it did when they hung it up. Andrew will be the first missionary to arrive home after the fire. I know Heavenly Father looks out for his missionaries. This past week Andrew was in an accident on a freeway that could have been much worse than it was. The only injuries he suffered was too his pride, which probably needed a little humbling anyway.

Sunday night our family went to listen to our daughter's choir concert at the high school. To hear these students sing of Christmas, the Savior, and the reason we celebrate, lifted my soul, truly a perfect way to begin the season.

Tonight, before blogging, I read Kathy Gore's poem, "Christmas Beginnings" and once again felt the sweet tug of the spirit on my heart.

May each of you feel the Love of God as you open your heart to this amazing time of year. And the may the blessings of peace, contentment and testimony fill your life.

Love to all,
Betsy

The Blur of Small Things

by Rene Allen

Today is December 3rd and I can hardly believe it. So fresh is my memory of writing my first essay for this blog on January 1st, almost a year ago, that I can only wonder how the days and months passed with such a blur. What do you do with your time, girl? It is a perpetual question.

But to Marsha who started ANWA Founders and Friends, I say thank-you. It has been a privilege to participate with such tremendous writers and women. To them, I also say thank-you. I love your ideals, your conviction, your commitment to true principles. I feel I have made friends in many ports.

As I write this evening, I think about the day’s activities. I am an early riser – this morning it was 5. I like getting up early. Thanksgiving Day, I woke up at 4 a.m. thinking about everything I had to do. The house was quiet, it was dark outside. I heard the gentle splash of raindrops on a skylight. It rained for twenty minutes and became a gift for getting up early and wondering how to make the day nice for my family.

This morning, there wasn’t any rain. I got up because the cat was throwing-up. There is a typical sound a cat makes when it is dislodging hairballs and other stuff that shouldn’t be in its stomach. I can hear it in my sleep. So I followed the cat around for an hour with a roll of paper towels tucked under my arm while the other two cats who weren’t throwing-up watched. Finally, the poor thingcurled up in a pet bed in the room where I write. By then, it was 7 and I knew we were going to the vets.

"Just do a drop-off,” said the receptionist at the vets office when I called. “We’re having a little emergency around here, today, so it’s better if you just drop your cat off. Can you do that?”

I worry about this cat, a gray and white tabby named Scrappy, because she continues to lose weight. The weight loss started when Sputnik joined the family, a white exotic shorthair show cat from my sister who wouldn’t get out of his carrier for the judges. “Too shy,” my sister said. “Do you want him?”

It was a chance to bury a hatchet. If taking the cat meant we forgot past differences, it was worth it. A white fur ball came and Scrappy decided anything that looked like he did with a flat face and all that cat hair couldn’t be a real cat. She was thinking he was some sort of alien and that she didn’t eat with aliens. She’s lost four pounds.

The drop-off turned into a stay. For two hours and $241. After x-rays, lab work, a shot of something so Scrappy would stop throwing-up and a bag of special, prescription only cat food, I left. What was wrong with the cat? Small kidneys. I took her home, fed her and she’s been fine.

The other two cats smelled vet on her and left her alone to her special formula food.


After the vets, I finished decorating the Christmas tree. That took two hours. Then, I took a nap because I got up so early. And ate lunch. And cleaned the family room. And put up empty boxes that held Christmas decorations. And talked to my mother who fell down last night trying to catch her cat. She is 86. It isn’t good to fall down when you are 86. “I can hardly move today,” she said. “That darn cat.”

Then I ran errands, came back and made supper, watched television waiting for my husband to come home from work. Now I’m writing this blog and wondering what I will remember of today, tomorrow. How do I stop all of these things I do from getting lost in the blur of passing days? Will I remember that on December 3rd, the cat threw-up at least fifteen times? That I finished decorating the tree? What will I remember?

Perhaps I will remember this time of year the way I remember parts of a symphony, how some are powerful and others gentle, like the Thanksgiving rain. I will remember that rain because the night before I prayed for rain. I will remember the vet who took care of my cat because she is supposedly retired. Her husband bought a yacht in the Caribbean and she spends half the year there. She returns to Tucson for hurricane season. I liked this vet and was sad when she left. It was great to see her today.

I won’t remember that on December 3rd, I finished decorating the tree. But I will remember this year we had a new tree because the old one had provided nesting material for one too many pack rats so we got rid of it.

I remember those things that resonate with me, with who I am and what I love. And when I remember, I am thankful. So to Marsha and all my ANWA friends, thank-you for a great year. Though the days blur, though nearly a year has passed, there is much to recall with pleasure and satisfaction.

I Think it Snowed Last Night

by Marsha Ward

The only evidence this morning was in the cracks between boards on my deck, and residue on my windshield. However, the online weather forecast said we might get some snow here, and that it wouldn't accumulate, so I have to think it happened. After two days of rain.

I am so thankful for the rain we've had. One man in my branch said today that he registered 5 inches in his rain guage. For an area that's over four inches short of average rainfall this year, that is very happy news.

Many places have been plagued with unusual weather this year. Even mayors and governors have asked their people to pray for rain in drought-stricken areas. News anchors have reported with some incredulity that the heavens opened when that happened. Of course, they noted that it was too little, and missed the lakes that store water, but that's bad news, and bad news brings viewers, I guess.

The good news for me, is that God, Our Father, listens to and answers our prayers--even the unspoken ones. He might do this by having a friend make a casual phone call to a body and find out that a roof is leaking. Said friend might even pass along the word to people who then spend the better part of the day in the wind and rain on the recalcitrant roof, doing mysterious things with tubes of black caulk.

Wondrous are the ways of the Lord!