Sister Amazing

We met a sister last week who grew up in Walawa, Washington who told us some amazing stories of her childhood. At three months of age, her mother left her one day to go for water some distance away. When she left, her baby was tucked safely in her bed and the screen door was safely locked. When her mother returned a short time later, the screen door was torn open and there was her baby daughter in front of the door snuggled up to a cougar who was licking her. When the cougar left and the mother was able to pick up her baby, the baby's mouth was full of milk, cougar milk. The cougar was later tracked to her den where it was found that her kittens were all dead. She must have heard a crying baby and felt the need to mother her.

A few years later, Sister "Amazing" wandered out into the timbers and found a "big kitty" which she played with for a time until a stranger came and took her by the hand and took her safely home. It turned out that right up in a tree was a cougar mother, watching her play with her kitten. They presumed it was the same cougar that had nursed her when she was a three month old baby.

Her grandmother was a Cherokee Indian who was raised in the Souix nation by a couple missionary who took her grandmother and her siblings to the Mormon church on Sundays. When Sister A was 14 years old, she married someone who she thought loved her and had five children. It turns out that the scoundrel only married her because he thought her grandfather would leave them the ranch where they lived when he died. Her husband became an alcoholic, was abusive and often threatened to kill them all. She would have to take her children and go hide in the timbers. She finally took them all away for good to escape being murdered.

She often had strange Indians come to visit her to leave her strange messages which she did not understand for many years, not until she finally came to know of her Indian ancestry. She has some unusual gifts of touch and massage which people really value. She is also a gifted artist, but the one thing she really values, besides her family, is her relationship with her Heavenly Father, and her membership in the true church. As soon as she walked into the church two years ago, she knew she had found what she had been searching for and was baptized. She has such a cheerful, grateful attitude, even though she has had nothing but tribulation. She is so giving and kind.

When her oldest daughter was 14, she was kidnapped from school, taken and sold into white slavery. She was missing for 12 years, finally rescued by a policeman along with two of the four children she had given birth to. Eventually, her daughter married the policeman who rescued her and also managed to rescue her other children. She is a beautiful woman who has had to go through a major healing process and her husband has made it his mission in life to rescue other young girls who have also been kidnapped and sold into white slavery.

Sister A's oldest son is a Naval officer on a well known ship and not long after she joined the church, he was telling her about all the young sailors on his ship who were so young and he felt so badly for them and what they were going through being involved in war. She repeated his concerns in Sunday School one Sunday and wondered what she could tell her son to comfort him in his responsibilities. Someone left the Sunday School class and moments later, the bishop peeked his head into the class and motioned for her to follow him. In his office, he handed her a DVD and told her that it might help her son. He told her to open it and watch it in case there might be something she would not want her non-member son to see, but she reassured him that she would not open it. When she visited her son in Japan, she gave him a set of military scriptures, Bible, and triple combination, and the military DVD. He promised her that he would always keep those scriptures with him, but laid the unopened DVD next to his computer which he did not notice again till she was ready to come back to Alaska. When he did notice and asked her what it was, he sat right down and watched it with her before she left for home. It had such a profound effect on both of them, and they sat in emotional silence for a long time. After she returned home, he told her that he showed that DVD to everyone on his ship, then it was shared with the whole fleet, and was then being shared with the submarine fleet. It has had quite an impact. Cory knows about this DVD and shared it with us sometime ago.

What a privilege and honor it is to come to know such a beloved daughter of God. I wish you could all know her and listen to her amazing stories that she has shared with us.

The Richest Family!

As we have visited people on our mission, we hear so many stories of awful abuse and heartache that I can't help but feel extremely blessed. Our children were all wanted and welcome into a home where their father worked hard to support them and to love them. Your dad provided a home where there was plenty of fresh air, the best water to drink, space to run free, a love for and a reverence for nature (laying on the lawn at night to watch the stars, even shooting stars), walks to the west desert, making whistles from dandelion stalks, eating peas from the garden and gooseberries. He has taught a healthy respect for the constitution, and the great leaders of this nation. We have taught our children to be independent and to work hard. When they all left home, they knew how to cook, bake bread, do dishes (what's a two legged dishwasher?), change diapers, babysit, clean the kitchen, do laundry, pull weeds, mow lawns, a little landscaping, care for their pets, and basically all of the things it takes to make a home.

They may have thought they were poor when we went on picnics at ward outings or reunions, and we were the only family without potato chips, or lots of candy, but their mother, in an attempt to raise healthy children, just didn't want to spend precious grocery money on junk food - chips, cold cereal, candy, pizza, etc. I used to wonder where the nutrition was in most of the grocery carts I saw at the grocery store. People used to comment on my grocery carts full of fresh produce. I guess I kind of prided myself on trying to feed my family right.

Maybe we couldn't afford all of the frivolities of life - dancing lessons, acrobatics, music and voice lessons, but you all have managed to cultivate some very impressive talents and abilities to meet setbacks and hardships.

We did have our challenges with health, teenage rebellion, dad out of work occasionally, disagreements - you know - opposition in all things that helps us to appreciate the good times. I have very fond memories of getting up early in the mornings to read scriptures together after our missionary son rebuked us for not doing so. It became a way to dress our children in spiritual armor for the day. I also faithfully wrote letters weekly to missionary sons and daughters.

The greatest satisfaction now comes to us as we recognize what good parents you have all become, the wonderful sense of humor which you can go through life with, the great love you all have for one another, the way all of the cousins enjoy getting together and what a blast we have had sharing memories, laughing, laughing, laughing, rolling on the floor, laughing, and recognizing everyone's talents. We are grateful for your political interests, the way you are all becoming informed and desiring to make right choices as we all face this very critical time in our history, and the challenges to our freedoms. We are grateful for all of your tender feelings for President Hinckley, but most of all for your knowledge of Heavenly Fathers great plan of happiness, and gratitude for the atoning sacrifice of His Beloved Son.

We are grateful for the exotic cultural opportunities our lives have been blessed with and enriched by. We are indeed the richest of families. Love Mom and Dad

I taught my kids this dance

Home Away From Home

One more time...

Here is a recent email that Mom wanted help posting. Most of you have probably already read this but comments are ordered.

Take a look at the great picture!

Tuesday morning, when we got up, it had snowed some more, but warmed up a little so we waited til after lunch to head to Anchorage and arrived safely. The mission home was filled with some pretty impressive senior couples and I was feeling kind of intimidated. The new Assistant to the President, Elder Long whose father was killed in an auto accident not long after he entered the mission, sat next to me and shared something that really touched me - in fact it makes me weep every time I think about it. Do you remember when we told you about the preemie twins whose mother was flown to Anchorage from Kenai to be put on bed rest til they were at least 30 weeks? Elder Long was one of the elders who came to the hospital to administer to them after they were born - He and Elder Watt from Arizona each put a finger on each tiny boy and blessed them that they each had a mission to fulfill in this life and that they would survive.We got to see them in the NICU not long after that ( don't know why this is all underlining) and right next to those tiny little scraps of humanity was a whopping 9 lb. + baby boy that I had no idea why he was in the NICU. His mother recognized us from the few times we attended her ward in Anchorage. Her husband is in the military and their name is Beagley. We have visited the twins - Aiden and Alexander = who live in KIenai since we have lived here in Soldotna and they are thriving.

Back to the Beagleys - Just before we left Anchorage to move here, we did some last minute shopping at Costco and as we were leaving Sister Beagley walked up and asked if we remembered her and she was also anxious for us to see her baby. As I looked at him, the picture of health, I knew why he had been in the NICU. I wanted to come right out and ask and to make a comment, but didn't want to offend in any way, but I also felt such overwhelming feelings of tenderness - so, I swallowed my timidness and simply said "I perceive that this little boy is Downs, a Celestial being, and oh what a privilege and an honor it is that you have him in your life." I spoke of some I have known in our lives, and also commented that he looked like he was obviously loved. I told her of holding a Down's baby belonging to a very young unwed mother in Mona, and how alert he was and how as I looked into his eyes, it was like looking into eternity. We told her that we were glad to see her again and then left.

Back to Elder Long: He asked me if I remembered Sister Beagley and I had to think for a minute til he reminded of her baby in the NICU. He told me that he heard her speak in sacrament meeting recently and she told of meeting us in Costco and the things I had been prompted to say to her. She told how she had been struggling with her feelings about having a Down's baby, but that the things the Lord prompted me to say to her had brought comfort and peace to her. You cannot possibly have any idea how much it meant to me to have Elder Long share that with me. I keep praying that the Lord will help me speak the words He would have me speak

Since living here in Soldotna, a couple of the elders here have shared with me what a difference it made to them when I recognized them when they were newly arrived in the mission home, deeply stressed at being so far from home, in a cold strange place (one of them had even had a bloody nose while President Lewis was orienting them, how I made them feel welcome really made a difference. Both of these elders come from broken families and one of them had a brother call me in the office the day before to see how he could have a letter or a message there for him when he arrived. I suggested he send a fax, which he did, when I told this elder that I had something special I would give him the next morning from someone at home who loved him very much. Elder Taylor remembered everything I said to him that night and he was so comforted and it really made a difference to him. I love these missionaries so much and I really miss being in the office just for those kinds of experiences.

The senior couples conference yesterday was so uplifting. There were ten couples counting President and Sister Lewis, plus Pres. counselor and his wife (brother and sister Miles), (Tysen's seminary teacher), and three Assistants to the president, who gave us some instruction. We had a wonderful dinner and a great visit with some incredible people. Several of the senior missionaries are converts including the newest ones (Elder and Sister Noel) who was the mission president in Charlotte, North Carolina from 2003-2006. He was a professional baseball player and coached at BYU for 20 years. He is now a missionary and is flying to Dutch Harbor to the branch president until he can train some new leadership; there.

We slept downstairs in the missionary dorm for two nights and came back to Soldotna today. Our trip back took about three hours, but the couple who came from Fairbanks have a 7-9 hour drive back in much worse weather conditions and going back to 40 below zero weather. One couple flew from Juneau, one couple from NakNek, and the rest were from the Anchorage area. We had a most marvelous time. The weather here has warmed to 20 degrees above.

President Lewis is getting forgetful like the rest of us and asked your dad to say the prayers the first night we were there before we all went to bed and asked him again this morning to say the prayer. President Lewis did promise me that your dad would soon love doing proselyting as much as I do. It is happening, and in fact he has to nudge me a little.

The group of ladies who take turns feeding us on Mondays are so fun and we love them all. They also in their group, Natasha who is from Moldova, a Russian Jew. She is not a member of the church but lives next door to the Soldotna elders, and just loves all of the missionaries.

After Natasha played the piano and entertained us. I would have given anything for Sharon and Cory to have heard her. She played some Russian gypsy music and sang. She would gesture with one hand, play the piano with the other and sing from the guttural to the high notes - oh what a delightful performance. I wondered if she was a professional entertainer, but she teaches music and is extraordinary. She played the organ in the Sterling ward when the regular organist was gone for awhile and sometimes accompanies the missionaries and anyone else who asks. Her brother Grigorii also lives in Alaska and teaches Spanish. I wish you could all meet her. One she came here 8 years ago, she spoke not a work of English. One of the sisters in the Soldotna just took under wing and is her "angel sister." Her only son lives in Magadan which is located on the eastern end of Siberia. She cannot to visit him and the direct flight from here is no longer available, so she sends him money instead. She has changed her mind about what the communists used to teach her about Americans, and she knows that she lives a much better here.

This mission is definitely fulfilling in so many ways and I am so grateful for the opportunity to serve. I know that I will feel lost when we get home. We love you all Sorry about writing a book, but there is so much I would like to share, but it would take days. Love Mom

Just testing out my new blogging skills.

I found this picture in my archives. I think this was right around the middle of July last year. Can't quite remember what possessed me here. But if I remember correctly, it was quite invigorating. What have I been missing out on my whole life?