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Feel the Love!!

12/27/2015

“Charity is the pure love of Christ…wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love…” (Moroni 7:47-48).

A month or so ago, during morning prayer, this scripture came to my mind with a clarity that rarely happens in my life.   The impression was so strong and the inspiration so clear that I could not fail to recognize it for what it was—divine, personal instruction.   I was to pray, with all the earnestness I was able to muster, to be filled with the pure love of Christ.

So I did.    And I do. In every personal prayer I plead to be filled with Christ’s love.   When I began my petitions, I thought that I was asking that charity become a part of my Being, my “Ser” so to speak.   I imagined that, filled with Christ’s love, my interactions with others would change.    My hopes were that I’d be blessed with true charity, with love like the love that Christ has, that I’d be able to share that love with others and, guided by that love, that I would be able to interact with others as Christ would if He were in the situation.

This week I realized that my prayers have been answered; I have indeed been filled with Christ’s love but not in the manner I anticipated.   Love from those around us—caring family and friends—has filled me.    I am filled to overflowing by kindness, generosity, and pure love—Christ’s love—poured out upon us by fountains of friends and family.

A family member came home Wednesday after spending 8 days in the hospital. Though all is well now, the situation was concerning for a while.    Enter Christ’s love. LOTS of it.   Coming from multiple directions and manifest in many ways.   As is so often the case, Christ used the hands and hearts of others to answer my prayers.

Sister-in-laws wrote heartfelt and heartwarming emails.
Just days before Christmas my sister volunteered to drop everything and come to Ogden
Cousins texted, asking for suggestions on how to help
Grandparents stepped in to soothe, transport, and entertain.
A niece wrote a tender message expressing love and support
One teacher emailed instructions NOT to worry about the class work missed and another teacher offered her office as a sanctuary if needed.
Two families told us how they had knelt together, praying and fasting in our behalf, and expressed gratitude for the opportunity to join do so.
Religious leaders who built relationships of trust that put them into positions where they were trusted and able to help
Kind friends and family who must have been curious but who did not ask questions. [Please follow their example. Thanks!]
A neighbor fed my sheep and another plowed our driveway
My boss, even though school was out for the holiday and her stewardship over me was temporarily suspended, texted several times, asking for updates and offering support
The head secretary, whose competent assurance made it possible for me to miss a day at school without worrying about anything, gave me a huge hug and offered to help with whatever, whenever.
My teaching colleague, a young, hip, rock-climber guy, offered—twice—to bring us dinner.
Sweet Sara, who before coming to UT did not know one single person who regularly attended church, fasted with us, going without food and drink for 24 hours motivated purely by love.
Miles, who has never in his life fasted even one meal, did a full fast. He stayed strong, laying his head on the table during school lunch, sitting through a class movie party while everyone around him ate popcorn, and resisting the urge to consume the birthday treat given him by his teacher.

Blessings on our heads, love in our hearts, and healing in our souls.

“…pray unto the Father with all energy of heart that ye may be filled with this love….”

Prayers are answered.     I am filled.

Thank you, Father.    And thank you to His ministering angels, all of you who pour His love into my heart.

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Christmas' True Gift--HELP!

12/20/2015

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I have a beautiful teenage daughter, several actually….but today I am writing about one in particular. She truly beautiful. And bright. Also, charming, loving, and kind. Honestly deLIGHTful.   Seriously FULL of “de” light. Except when she isn’t.   Sometimes severe health issues put her in a very, VERY dark place.

This summer, at a family reunion, my lovely, light-filled girl was engulfed in a paralyzing darkness.   Unable to face the world, she isolated herself, hiding in the sleeping bag on her bunk.

Oh my sweet, wonderful child! I could not understand, nor fathom the enormity of her pain but I did feel some of it. I ached for the agony, whatever it was, that was keeping her away from us and I ached at the loss of the experiences she was missing because of the agony that was keeping her away from us.

So I prayed.   In my prayer I shared these feelings with my Heavenly Father. After sharing the feelings, I thought to make a deal with Him.   I’ve read of people who make deals with Diety—If you will help me with [whatever], I will do [something]—but I could not think of anything I could promise to do or to give to my Heavenly Father that I have not already promised Him.   And I could not promise to do anything better because I am already doing the best I can. I’m certainly not perfect but I’m holding nothing back. I am honest in my efforts.

Having failed to find a deal I could make, I thought to offer to take her pain on myself—let me suffer her anxiety and let her enjoy my health—but I was paused in my thought.   Could I handle it? I wasn’t sure if I was strong enough or loving enough to handle the burden she has to carry; it is truly a tremendous load and I really enjoy having good health.   And I couldn’t sincerely offer to take her burden until I knew that I had enough love and strength to carry it.

I was searching my soul for strength and love when the Spirit stopped me.   “You don’t have to carry her burden,” I was told, “because Christ already has.”

Selfish, personal relief and deep, deep gratitude filled my heart. My question was moot. I would not have to find the strength necessary to carry her load because the task was already done.   Christ, in His infinite atonement, already did it. Christ has carried my loads and the loads of the ones I love.   Done.

This is the true gift of Christmas.   Christ the Child was born and we celebrate His birth.    But His birth was only the necessary antecedent to His Atonement and this, His Atonement, is the true gift.    The Atonement, guaranteeing our resurrection and offering us exaltation, also grants compassion.

In the scriptures compassion literally means “to suffer with”.    Speaking of Christ, Alma wrote “And he shall go forth suffering pains, and afflictions and temptations of every kind…he will take upon him their infirmities that his bowels may be filled with mercy…that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities” (Alma 7:11-12, underlining added).    He knows. He knows how it hurts and He knows how to help. And He will help.   With intimate understanding of our pain and infinite compassion for our suffering, He will help.    This is Christmas’ true gift.

Merry Christmas!

Teresa

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Black Outs, Black Eyes, and Red Ink

12/13/2015

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“Is there a Mrs. Hislop in the audience?” queried Mrs. Doxey, the Roy High Choir director.   The RHS Christmas concern was about 2/3 over, the auditorium was about 2/3 full, and I was much more than 2/3 convinced that the Mrs. Hislop whom Mrs. Doxey sought was not me.    I do not sing and I do not play the piano. There was no conceivable reason why Mrs. Doxey would want me.   “There must be another Mrs. Hislop in the auditorium,” I thought as I sat silently, inconspicuously, in my seat.

When no one responded to her question, Mrs. Doxey rephrased it. “Is Tanah Hislop’s mother here?”     Though I was still baffled as to why she wanted me, I was not at all confused about who she wanted.   I am Tanah’s mom (and proud of it!).     I stood, walked down the (long) aisle to the front, climbed the stairs leading to the stage (to scattered applause from the audience), and was escorted backstage where I saw Tanah, lying on the ground, surrounded by concerned choir members.

It was all good.   She’d blacked out and dropped but managed to make it off stage before going down and she went down into the arms of adoring friends.     By the time I’d arrived, they had the situation totally under control.   Her pulse was normal, as were her respirations and eye dilation.   When Lance asked her why they’d called for her mother instead of her father she said “If you had come, you’d have just stood around making bad puns.”   Ah, how well she knows her dad!

Her father (my first husband) also had an adventure.   One of the West Ogden renters has been problematic for a while (living there without paying rent or utilities for 7 months, broke out five windows, tore the front door off its hinges, tore up the kitchen linoleum and made a 36”x 4” deep hole in the kitchen floor and punched several holes in the walls, among other things) and was finally evicted this week.     The locksmith changed the locks though it is difficult to secure the place with 5 broken windows and a front door that will not shut.

Later that night a neighbor called to tell us that the man was back in the house.   I volunteered to go with Lance to kick him out but Lance decided he’d rather have police help. The officer said he was confident he could talk the renter out of the house, that Lance did not need to come to West Ogden, but that he (the officer) would call Lance if something out of the ordinary developed.

Something out of the ordinary developed.    When Lance arrived the man was in handcuffs, lying on the bedroom floor. One policeman had a lacerated face and another officer had a bruised and swelling eye.   Apparently the man decided to barricade himself inside the house (which is difficult to do when one has torn the door from its hinges) and, when the officers came in, he came out swinging.    Lance watched as several officers drug him, screaming, from the house and put him in the back of a police car.    When the former renter saw Lance, his vocal tirade switched from cop criticism to Lance lashings.    He was totally unappreciative of the fact that Lance had essentially paid his rent and utilities for seven months. “I learned multiple new uses of the f-word,” Lance said. “I never knew it could be used so many ways, so many times in just a few sentences.”

I had a few choice words to describe my stupidity Tuesday, though none of them were as colorful as the words Lance’s renter used.

I’d been in town all morning buying things to put into Elder Hislop’s Christmas box and had spent a considerable amount of money at J.C. Penny. When I got home I found a coupon in the mail for 20% the entire purchase.   I checked the dates to make sure it was valid (J.C. Penny is very particular about coupon dates) and it was.   Coupon, packages, and receipt in hand, I went back to the store to return the merchandise and re-buy it with the coupon; 20% savings was significant on that purchase.

I explained my plan to the clerk as I handed her the coupon. She got a very puzzled look on her face.   “This is a coupon for Payless Shoes,” she said. WHOOPS! Turns out J.C. Penny is particular about who offers the coupon as well.

The stories continue, though most of them are not as exciting as black outs, black eyes and red ink (on the coupon)……

Miles won first place (and a $20 gift card) at the Midland Elementary Science Fair, Sixth Grade Division.
Miles’ essay was one of only three chosen to be read at the D.A.R.E. graduation.
Tanah was cast as the lead in the RHS winter play, “The Pied Piper of Valley Junction”. Her character is neither wicked nor drunken.
Grace was given a speaking part in the same play, essentially the only non-senior to receive one.
Grace “broke” into the finals in Congress in her first ever debate tournament and earned 2nd place in Novice Congress (and a trophy) in her second debate tournament.
Grace won first place in the local FFA Creed Speaking Contest. She thinks she also won $50 and she knows she won the chance to participate in the region competition.
Elder Hislop actually wrote us a letter!!! And it was good….. REALLYGOOD! He also sent us various candy wrappers because he was “too lazy to throw away the garbage so sent them to you! Merry Christmas”.
A student in Lance’s second period class told him that his shirt was on inside out. She was right.
Lance has taught himself (and Miles) how to pick locks…a skill they probably should not list on their resumes.
Sara managed to stay out of the emergency room though she did make it to Salt Lake City, on the train, where she spent the night with foreign exchange student and tennis friends.

May your week be void of black outs and black eyes, may your coupons and your children be good and, most of all, may your days be merry and bright as you prepare to celebrate the birth of our Savior.

Love,
Teresa

After the concert....not hard to tell which one blacked out....

The trophy says it all...........

Notice the red ink. I, too, saw the red ink. What I failed to see was "Payless".

Reading one's essay at D.A.R.E. graduation is serious business.

Miles' grin is almost as big as his science fair board.

Sara gets a Christmas tree.....

....Babs get a boot.....

.....and Lance gets rid of a renter!

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Wrecked and Repaired.....

12/6/2015

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The lump on Sara's wrist is not normal.

The lump was not normal but it was painful!

Click on the triangle above to watch the video. If you lay your head on the table, the video will appear right side up. Nothing you do will make it appear like the van is facing the right direction.

Wrecked and repaired!

Well, not actually wrecked but certainly repaired……..

Thursday morning, on a yellow grass field in a North Las Vegas park, a group gathered to play football.   In what has become tradition, members of the Mountain Shadows Ward had their annual Thanksgiving Day Turkey Bowl game. This year it was the Watkins clan (five Watkins, three Hislops, a couple Noels, and a Wallman) and Jared versus the rest of the ward.

The game was going well for us—Jason had a couple interceptions, Romney and Hamilton were basically unstoppable on offense and nearly impenetrable on defense—when Jared, the quarterback, dropped back in the pocket.   As she had been trained to do in Powder Puff practice at Roy High, Sara was blocking for him, giving him time to pick his play.

The play he picked was a run—his own.    And the player he ran over was his own— our Sara.   Unscathed by the opposing linemen, Sara was grounded by her own teammate, a “friendly fire” incident that broke her wrist.

Blessedly the wrist was not wrecked and it is being repaired.   Visits to urgent care facilities in North Las Vegas (for a splint—“It will take four weeks for you to get an appointment here to get it casted” we were told) and Utah (a three hour wait on a Sunday afternoon got her a baby blue cast—“Do you have any more neutral colors?” she asked) began the repair process.    Her youth and Mother Nature will complete the healing process and she should be good as new in 4-6 weeks.

Saturday of the same weekend we were out garage sale-ing, something that has also become an annual Thanksgiving weekend tradition.   At our 3rd or 4th garage, I was making a U-turn in a cul-de-sac when the van suddenly stopped.   It was as if I had slammed on the brake but I had not.   Thinking perhaps I had blown a tire, that maybe the abrupt stop was caused when the rim connected with the cement, I got out to check it out.   Everything looked great. I got back into the car, put it in gear and everything sounded great but everything did not work great.   The car would not move forward or backward.    The engine worked. The gauges worked. The shifting mechanism worked.   The wheels did not.

Thinking perhaps it was an Apple-type thing, I shut the van off and explored the garage sale, hoping that when I returned in a few moments and restarted the engine it would work fine.

Nope.

The car started obediently, even cheerfully (as long as I’m being anthropomorphic, I might as well just go with it, right?!) but the wheels would not move.   Pushing my luck, I put it into reverse and pushed the gas pedal probably more than I should have.     Something popped and the car moved backwards.     Gingerly, I switched gears and it moved forward as well but its forward movement was not graceful (and not even close to cheerful); every 10 or so yards I felt a stuttering grind in its front end.

In the meantime Marjorie had called a mechanic friend who said he suspected a transmission problem.    “If you have someone who is crazy enough to drive it backwards home you could try that,” he suggested.

With Marjorie in front, the hazard lights on her vehicle flashing, I tried driving it home.    The front-end, stuttering grinding increased to the point where I feared the grind would soon be shattering. It was time for a change in tactics.

A quick turn into a parking lot entrance enabled me to reverse orientation.   I continued to follow Marjorie but now I was doing it backwards.    On a six lane North Las Vegas street, my eyes glued to my rear view mirror, I drove backwards, doing up to 20 mph.     In a school zone, 20 mph may seem really slow but, believe me, driving backwards down a six lane street, it feels really fast.   The kids tell me that we got some really strange looks and a finger or two but I saw nothing except Marjorie’s tail lights in my rearview mirror.     Focus!!

We’d gone about 2 miles and were approaching the need to do a left hand turn (guardian angels—prepare yourselves!!) when Marjorie saw a repair shop she’d used and trusted and suggested we stop there.   [Thank heavens for cell phones and the ability they give us to communicate instantly.]   I backed in and the rest is history.

It turns out the transmission was not wrecked—just the brake pad—and it was quickly repaired.   A brake pad had slipped and wedged into the rotor, preventing forward movement.    New brake pads, a hardware kit, some rotor work, a bill that was 1/10 of what I feared it would be, and an hour and a half later it was repaired.

The best part of the whole thing—even better than the fact that I did not have to pay for a new transmission and that we were able to drive the van home that day as originally planned—was the plaque Lanae and Romney created for me.

“Aunt Teresa,” it says, “Thanks for teaching us that we don’t always have to be facing the right way to be headed in the right direction.    Sincerely, Your Nieces and Nephews.”      On the bottom of the plaque are images of cars all (but one) facing right, one car facing left, question marks above the cars behind the left-facing car, and a sign pointing right that says “ONE WAY”.

Priceless!   Absolutely priceless.   It was worth every penny we paid in repair bills.   Though the weekend was never a wreck, there were points it needed repair. The plaque, the effort required to make it, the memories it evokes and the love it represents did much more than repair the weekend; it made it!!

WHAAAA-WHOOOO!

Love,
Teresa