Serving Children

When I started volunteering at our local elementary school, I was just trying to give myself something meaningful to do as my last child set off on his own, but soon my service became more than just an attempt to fill an empty nest. As the year progressed, my health quickly deteriorated. Spending the day with a class of energetic eight-year-olds certainly helped divert my attention from a nearly overwhelming sense of anxiety and from the exhaustion I felt due to not being able to sleep well. I also had to deal with considerable pain, and the knowledge that the doctors were not only unable to discover what was the matter, but could not give me any help or hope. Under these stressful circumstances, I found the warm, supportive atmosphere in the classroom very comforting.

Though I received a lot of emotional strength from being at the school, I came home completely exhausted. My husband understood how important this service was to me. He knew that I had an elementary teaching credential, but had given up a career in teaching to raise our four children. He also knew that I had dreamed of having a class of my own when our children were raised, and that this volunteering might be as close as I would ever come to realizing that dream. Because he understood, he said, “A teacher has to teach”, and he cheerfully got our dinner and helped keep up the house.

Marriage Principles That Have Helped Us

I wrote this in about 2006 to answer a friend's question. In 2018 we just celebrated our 46th wedding anniversary, and it just keeps getting better and better.

I had just read this article in our church magazine* and remembered the question you once asked me about how to have lasting relationships. This couple is one of the happiest, most charming couples I have ever met. He is the Lord’s prophet and the leader of our church. They are in their nineties now and President Gordon B. Hinkley recently said:

     "I am so grateful for her. For 66 years we have walked together, hand in hand, with love and encouragement, with appreciation and respect. It cannot be very long before one of us will step through the veil (of death). I hope the other will follow soon. I just would not know how to get along without her, even on the other side, "(life after death).

Talk about a love story!

My husband and I both came from unhappy homes where our parents were divorced. We each joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in our teens and have tried to follow true principles instead of our parents examples. It has been very difficult for us, but we have learned so much, now we have a fulfilling relationship, and the joy of seeing two of our children happily married.

Changing Our Marriage by Changing Me

I wrote this in about 2010. Our marriage keeps getting better and better each year.

In the early years of our marriage I believed my husband loved me, but I sure didn’t feel very loved–  now I do. What has changed? Is he really very different–  am I? Sure we have shared a lot, but have we really changed all that much? What is different now?

A friend mentioned that she thought I have learned to relate better with my husband. I think she is right. I can remember an instance several years ago. I had packed up some Christmas decorations and placed them in the doorway informing my husband that they were ready to go up to the attic. For the next twenty minutes I watched in mounting frustration as my husband walked around the boxes. Finally I blurted out, “Why aren’t you taking the boxes to the attic!?”

He calmly replied, “You haven’t asked me.”

I thought I had. I thought I had been very clear.