Speaking of...

So I had to speak in Church on Mother's Day. You know what they say about learning more than you can actually say. That is probably why they asked me to speak. I was so nervous, but found joy in the process of reflection that this opportunity provided for me. Since I am keeping this blog as a journal for my family, I wanted to post my talk here. Hopefully, someday my kids will see that I tried to do my best in raising them, and that they will lead happy and fulfilling lives if not because of me then in spite of me...

I have always taken the stance as did Mary, the mother of our Savior. I pondered these things in my heart. Much of my talk are those things that I have pondered and feel compelled to share.
May 11, 1997 was a memorable day for me. It was my first Mother’s Day, and the day that my young husband travelled to Michigan to begin his anticipated internship. We were only able to see each other once a month that summer so that I could keep my employment at BYU as a dorm mom. It was already a difficult day for me as I sent my husband and Whitney’s Dad away, but it soon got a little more difficult. Kevin called me late in the evening carefully explaining to me that through a series of mishaps he became separated from our good friend that he would be following and staying with after landing in Detroit. I had never been to this city and only envisioned the worst. I pictured him in gang ridden, burned out, and extremely dangerous parts of town. I later learned that my visions were not too far from reality. At that point, feeling somewhat helpless, my mother heart kicked in. I gathered my baby and together we prayed for the safety and protection of the man that we loved. A few hours later, Kevin arrived safely to his hotel. So goes the story of my first mother’s day.
As I was preparing my talk, I began to ask the question when do we become mothers? As I searched for an answer to this question, the Spirit gently reminded me of the following experience. We now flash forward to the spring of 1999. Whitney is now 2 years old and Brandon is a little baby. We are now living in Michigan and getting settled into our new life away from Utah and college days. Our good friends Sean and Tina desparately wanted to begin their family. Through many trials and tests learned that they were unable to have children of their own. At that point they quickly began the process to adopt. The adoption laws in Michigan required that adoptive parents must be registered as foster parents. They did this technical step with no thought to actually foster any children. However, late one night, an LDS social worker called them frantically searching for a short term home to a newborn baby girl who was drug addicted at birth and whose mother was not only unfit to take this little baby home, she didn’t want her either. Tina, hesitantly accepted this newborn into her home. She then called me to get any supplies to clothe and care for this baby for the next week or two while a more permanent home was being found. The next morning, I gathered several items and headed over to Tina’s house. Tina had been buying baby furniture and getting a baby room ready so that when they got the call to adopt, they would be ready. She took me upstairs to show me her baby quilting handiwork. Whitney followed me and I carried Brandon. While we visited, I noticed Whitney wasn’t in this nursery with us anymore. I was really nervous because the little newborn was lying on the couch downstairs. I knew that Whitney wouldn’t be able to resist touching and playing with her. We both hurried downstairs to supervise the toddler. When we reached the bottom of the stairs, we saw a most precious scene. Whitney was sitting on the couch, holding this beautiful yet unwanted and mistreated baby singing to her. She wasn’t singing just any song, she was singing “I Am a Child of God.” We felt angels in the room as these two souls shared a heavenly moment. It is evident to me now that my two year old daughter had, even then, a mother heart. After coming upon this scene, Tina then saw a vision of this baby’s future without the gospel and knew at that moment that this little drug addicted, ghetto born child was hers - sent to her from Heavenly Father. Sean and Tina began the adoption process and soon took baby Nicole to the Temple and sealed her to them for time and all eternity. Sheri Dew said this: “While we tend to equate motherhood solely with maternity, in the Lord’s language, the word mother has layers of meaning. Of all the words they could have chosen to define her role and her essence, both God the Father and Adam called Eve “the mother of all living” and they did so before she ever bore a child. Like Eve, our motherhood began before we were born. Just as worthy men were foreordained to hold the priesthood in mortality, righteous women were endowed premortally with the privilege of motherhood. Motherhood is more than bearing children, though it is certainly that. It is the essence of who we are as women. It defines our very identity, our divine stature and nature and the unique traits our Father gave us.”
President Gordon B. Hinckley stated that “God planted within women something divine.” 6 That something is the gift and the gifts of motherhood. Elder Matthew Cowley taught that “men have to have something given to them [in mortality] to make them saviors of men, but not mothers, not women. [They] are born with an inherent right, an inherent authority, to be the saviors of human souls … and the regenerating force in the lives of God’s children.” 7
I have jokingly and teasingly shared the secret with my children that as young girls become older they also receive a couple more gifts to help them mother those around them. Those gifts are “eyes in the back of our heads” and Santa’s phone number. It is amazing how much easier motherhood is when we have the right tools.


Motherhood is part of God’s plan. When Christ was a boy, he became separated from his parents. When Joseph and Mary discovered he was missing, they searched everywhere for him. After three days, they found him in the Temple. His mother said unto him, Son why hast thou dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. I also found this story by Sheri Dew. She recounts the following experience: This summer four teenage nieces and I shared a tense Sunday evening when we set out walking from a downtown hotel in a city we were visiting to a nearby chapel where I was to speak. I had made that walk many times, but that evening we suddenly found ourselves engulfed by an enormous mob of drunken parade-goers. It was no place for four teenage girls, or their aunt, I might add. But with the streets closed to traffic, we had no choice but to keep walking. Over the din, I shouted to the girls, “Stay right with me.” As we maneuvered through the crush of humanity, the only thing on my mind was my nieces’ safety.
Thankfully, we finally made it to the chapel. But for one unnerving hour, I better understood how mothers who forgo their own safety to protect a child must feel. My siblings had entrusted me with their daughters, whom I love, and I would have done anything to lead them to safety. Likewise, our Father has entrusted us as women with His children, and He has asked us to love them and help lead them safely past the dangers of mortality back home. Loving and leading—these words summarize not only the all-consuming work of the Father and the Son, but the essence of our labor, for our work is to help the Lord with His work. How, then, may we as Latter-day women of God best help the Lord with His work?
I believe that true Motherhood in the eternal sense is developed through sacrifice, service, and love. We read of women in the scriptures who love and lead and who have power and influence over others. Elder Nelson teaches: We read and learn from Eve the first mother, many great lessons such as laboring beside her companion, she bore the responsibilities of motherhood. Eve set the pattern. In addition to bearing children, she mothered all of mankind when she made the most courageous decision any woman has ever made and with Adam opened the way for us to progress. We also learn from Eve that she worshipped the Lord in prayer, she heeded divine commandments of obedience and sacrifice, and she taught the gospel to her children. We also read of Sarah, Rebekah, and Mary the mother of our Savior. In Nephi Ch. 7 we read that Nephi’s brothers, who had him bound and sought to take away his life, had their hearts softened because one daughter of Ishmael and her mother did “plead with his brethren that they did cease striving to take away his life.” In the Book of Mormon we read about 2,000 exemplary young men who were exceedingly valiant, courageous, and strong. “Yea, they were men of truth and soberness, for they had been taught to keep the commandments of God and to walk uprightly before him” (Alma 53:21). These faithful young men paid tribute to their mothers. They said, “Our mothers knew it” (Alma 56:48). I would suspect that the mothers of Captain Moroni, Mosiah, Mormon, and other great leaders also knew.
What did these women Know? Sister Julie Beck answers this question by saying The responsibility mothers have today has never required more vigilance. More than at any time in the history of the world, we need mothers who know. When mothers know who they are and who God is and have made covenants with Him, they will have great power and influence for good on the rising generation.
I was able to attend a symposium given by Laura Bush on Friday night. Someone in the audience asked her what was the one thing that her mother taught her that has influenced her the most over the years. She said that her mother taught her to Look Up. They had been laying underneath the evening sky out in West Texas. They were studying the constellations, and her mother said that she should “Look Up. The sky will not look exactly like this for another year.” We can learn from her mother as she did that when we look up, we can gain greater perspective. When we turn our eyes and hearts toward the heavens, we can’t help but feel of God’s love for us.
In her talk, Sister Beck describes qualities that women who know will have. First, women who know will have the desire to bear and raise children. Alane Starko, a stake RS president from Ann Arbor, MI shared the following experience: I had served for several years as Young Women president in our branch and had found great joy in the calling. I’d been bleary-eyed at youth conferences, poison-ivied at girls’ camp, and inspired at youth testimony meetings. Through it all I had loved the girls and the time I was able to spend with them. One year, on Mother’s Day, I received a letter from one of them:
“… Because you’ve treated me as your own child, I felt it only right to honor you as an important and special type of mother. You’ve been a model woman that I’ve always greatly respected, but in the last year my respect [has grown] greater and a special kind of love has developed. Who ever said that a child can have only one mother? I believe a girl can have as many mothers as she needs to help her grow stronger in personality and … character. … You are one of my very special mothers, and I thought this would be a good day to thank you.”
Over the years, I’ve read this letter frequently and pondered its wisdom. Who did ever say a child could have only one mother? The sacred role of motherhood is not defined solely by the physical process of giving birth. In fact, I suspect that some who have borne children would not be honored by our Heavenly Father with the cherished title of mother. I believe that the eternal role of motherhood has more to do with the teaching and nurturing of spirits than with physical birth and early mortal caretaking.
Sheri Dew also states: Every one of us can mother someone—beginning, of course, with the children in our own families but extending far beyond. Every one of us can show by word and by deed that the work of women in the Lord’s kingdom is magnificent and holy. We are all mothers in Israel, and our calling is to love and help lead the rising generation through the dangerous streets of mortality.
Few of us will reach our potential without the nurturing of both the mother who bore us and the mothers who bear with us.
Women who know honor sacred ordinances and covenants.
Russel M. Nelson shared the following story in a past General Conference: For a short time during the first year of our marriage, Sister Nelson maintained two jobs while I was in medical school. Before her paychecks had arrived, we found ourselves owing more than our funds could defray. So we took advantage of an option then available to sell blood at $25 a pint. In an interval between her daytime job as a schoolteacher and her evening work as a clerk in a music store, we went to the hospital and each sold a pint of blood. As the needle was withdrawn from her arm, she said to me, “Don’t forget to pay tithing on my blood money.” Such obedience was a tremendous lesson to me. Sister Nelson’s commitment to tithe became my commitment, too.
Women who Know are nurturers. To nurture means to cultivate, care for, and make grow.
Women who know are leaders. Women who know who they are and who God is lead others to come to know the same thing. They lead in families, church organizations, primary classes, community programs, and in many other ways.
Women who know are teachers. Sheri Dew asks us to look around. Who needs you and your influence? If we really want to make a difference, it will happen as we mother those we have borne and those we are willing to bear with.
Women who know do less. I found this one interesting. I find myself scrambling so many days to get everyone where they need to be with just the right equipment. Not to say that there aren’t busy days and times, but overall where is our focus? Am I doing more good or just more? Women who know understand that the quantity of time with those in need is just as important as quality time.
Women who know stand strong and immovable. A quote I recently heard by Condoleeza Rice said that today’s headlines and history’s judgements are rarely the same. I find that to be true for mother’s as well as civic leaders. When we know who we are and who God is we will stand strong and immovable in our standards, virtue, and our faith.

Last fall Kevin and I attended the funeral of a dear family friend, Caroline. She was a young wife and mother of 3 children whose ages were 11, 10 and 6. I noticed that the boys were all dressed in suits with purple ties, and her little daughter had on a beautiful purple dress. I leaned over to Kevin and I said that I knew Caroline had planned their outfits for her funeral. They just had that look. Their mother had stamped her approval I was sure. I am sure if she took the time and effort to care for this part of their lives in this way, she made preparations for other times in their mortal lives when they would need the influence of their mother. Her children will rise and call her blessed. All of you will also influence this rising generation, but your influence will be felt through the ages on Earth as well as in Heaven. So, I ask, when does Motherhood end? As daughters of our Heavenly Father and as daughters of Eve, we are all mothers and we have always been. This is one calling from which we can never be released. Once we understand our purpose and place in God’s plan, we have the responsibility to love and help lead the rising generation. Our motherhood doesn’t end when our children leave us either. In John 19:26 we read of Christ’s commandment to his own mother as He was leaving this mortal existence. “When Jesus therefore, saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold they Son!”

Family Journaling

A shout out thank you to my friend Crystal! She told me about a site that will print your blog. She prints hers by the year and keeps it as a journal for her family. It is fast, easy, and reasonably priced. I got to see Crystal's books, and thought the quality was quite nice. The site is www.sharedbook.com. I just ordered my first 2 books as father's day gifts for my sweet hubby!

Just sayin'

Softballs are not SOFT! Ouch....

One Year!

We've been in our house for one year now! One summer, one fall, one winter, and one spring. It seems like so much longer, like this is where we were meant to be. We have already made so many memories here. I've taken my time getting the house decorated. It was mostly done to our liking, but the kids' bedrooms needed some personality. I refinished the girls' dressers, added a vinyl wall quote to the game room. I also made new pillows for the family room. I've had fun doing it, and the kids have enjoyed picking out their own colors and adding their own personality to their spaces.

EASTER

We did celebrate Easter, I have just been slow to post our pictures! We had grandma, grandpa, Jayne, Johnathon, Ainsley, and Bobby Ray over for the special day. We enjoyed the nontraditional brisket dinner. Everyone had a great time!