Sweet Is the Work in Texas: Tender Mercies

I wanted to start out this post sharing two wonderful experiences I had on Sunday. I was just getting ready to leave Sunday School to go into the YSA Branch Sacrament meeting. I was sitting next to Kate Dickenson, one of our students. I always think of her as sweet Kate. She was diagnosed with a brain tumor about 18 months ago. When they did the first operation, they cut the nerves for the left side of her body in order to get at the tumor and so even though she can walk, she doesn't have much strength in her left arm or leg. She has since been through chemo and radiation. Before the cancer, Kate had beautiful long hair, but she loved to wear wigs and other funky things. Lucky for her, she already had a collection when all of her hair fell out. So, back to the story. . . I was sitting there and this tall, strong older man who was a prize fighter and once fought Cassius Clay, appeared out of nowhere to take Kate's arm and lead her back into the chapel. He was so gentle and caring as he helped her up. It really touched my heart and makes me teary just thinking about it. It was especially sweet because my talk was about developing Christlike love for others and then this kind man was almost an immediate personification of those qualities.

The next tender mercy was in Relief Society in the Branch. Maddie, who is one of our new members of a month was called to be a RS teacher. She couldn't get hold of the RS President and asked what she should teach. Since I didn't know if the Branch had chosen 4th Sunday Conference talks, I told her to just choose one of her favorite talks from conference and go with it. It was a great lesson! It was well thought out and well presented and best of all there was such a special spirit about it all. The gospel changes lives.

1950's Singer Featherweight

I got an early Christmas present this week.
When my sewing machine went on the fritz a few weeks ago, a sister in the ward let me borrow this little featherweight. She has three of them, but was wanting to sell this one. It sews only a straight stitch, but those stitches are beautiful. She called the other day to see if I was finished with my project because she had a buyer for the machine. I said, "Oh, that's too bad, I was thinking I might want to buy it" and voila. I am now the proud owner. I am happy to get my other machine back just in time for Tiago's baptism this Saturday. He needed a special baptism towel. Tiago is the first of 7 baptisms that will take place while we are gone. Does this mean I can count him as one of my baptisms? "The greatest work we will ever do is within the walls of our own home." Pres. David O. McKay

I was asked to speak on Sunday in the family ward. I was doing just fine anticipating my talk when one of the Sister Missionaries started to give her talk and I realized we had both used Preach My Gospel as the main resource for Christlike qualities. I found it so ironic that the best and most complete resource I could find on Christlike attributes is in Preach My Gospel. I guess that is a big criteria for missionaries as we go out to share the gospel. Good thing I'm quick on my feet so they didn't hear the same talk twice. Ha, ha! I was just fine until the rest song before my talk was "Let Us Oft Speak Kind Words" and we came to "Like the sunbeams of morn on the mountains", I started to see the mountains in my mind and then I just started crying. I told them that even though I miss the mountains terribly, I do like listening to so many birds all around us. There seem to be many more kinds of birds here than in Utah. They wake us up most mornings with their lively chatter. We have also been learning a lot about the different kinds of trees that grow in Texas. There are 4 or 5 different types of oak trees. There are River Oak that have leaves like an ash tree, but the bark is like oak trees and they have little bitty acorns. There is also a live oak, an Heritage Oak and a post oak where the branches grow downward and then run along the ground. They are great climbing trees. We went to visit a member and he showed us his post oak. It is covered with a fern called a resurrection fern. It looks totally dead and you might think it is a kind of moss, but when it rains, it comes alive within minutes and looks like a regular fern plant that is rich and green.

Resurrection Fern on a post oak limb.

We have been busy this week doing bulletin boards. Isn't it great that you can find such fun things on the internet. I don't think I have created a bulletin board in over 40 years from when I first started teaching. It was fun putting it together with Neil and cutting out letters, etc. A big thanks goes to Kimberly Sylvester for the scrapbooking paper. She gave me two pads of it when we were packing up. Thanks, Kim! The blue bulletin board beneath is at the back of the Institute in the common area and is used for announcements, calendars and now the quotes