Monday, July 30, 2007

Yellowstone

Last week we went to Yellowstone. I spent part of the time writhing in misery because I had a terrible sinus infection and fever and chose to stay back in the (very hot) tent trailer while the others went sight-seeing (picture me wetting and re-wetting a washcloth to place on my stomach in a vain effort to cool down). But it was nice (I love camping with the kids and enjoy Yellowstone) and dirty and the kids had a blast. I am buried in laundry, of course.

At one point we were stuck in a major traffic jam. We finally crept up to the place that was causing all the trouble and found that people were getting out of their cars to see a bear. The bear was far enough away, and up in a tree curled up, so that all we really saw was a black blob. I didn’t think it was worth all the time and trouble of parking and getting out. But my mother-in-law, who loves bears and loves Yellowstone, and lives in the hope of seeing a bear every time she goes, was happy to see it and I was glad for her. One thing that made me laugh, though, was one car that crept by: it was driven by a middle-aged man trying desperately to see the bear, craning his head out the window, etc. His passenger, probably his wife, was obviously not interested in the bear. Because her nose was two inches away from a book. Which was, of course, Harry Potter #7. I hope she has pleasant memories of her time in Yellowstone.

There are a lot of people from other countries in Yellowstone. Many of them spoke French. I used to speak French. So here I am in the bathroom stall, listening to a mother and her daughter speaking French. My heart leaps—hey, that’s MY foreign language! Hey! And so I spend the next ten minutes in the stall trying to make a sentence, any sentence. By the time I figure out how to say, “I have forgotten all my French,” they have left the bathroom. So that’s the benefit of all those years in college: that when I hear French, I can say, loud and clear (and in English), “Hey! That’s French!” (“Ca c’est francais?” “Est-ce francais?” “Je suis une stupide americaine?”)

Smart me.

Friday, July 27, 2007

By request . . .

Sharlee's Triple Chocolate Pudding Cake recipe:

1 pkg. Devil’s Food or Swiss Chocolate cake mix
1 pkg. instant chocolate pudding mix
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
½ cup hot water
1 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons vanilla (Darlene's top secret modification: 1 t. vanilla and 1/2 t. almond flavoring)
1 pkg Hershey’s mini-Kisses (Sharlee says, "It has to be mini-Kisses; regular ole’ chocolate chips just won’t do." I've made it with chocolate chips and it was still yummy. But the mini Kisses are divine.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 10-inch bundt pan. Combine cake mix, pudding, oil, eggs, water, sour cream, and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Stir in mini-Kisses. Pour batter into bundt pan. Bake 1 hour. Allow to cool before turning out onto plate. Dust with powdered sugar, if desired.

Let me tell you, my friends, this cake is to die for. If you bring it, you are always welcome at my house. (Well, you are anyway. But I'm just saying.) And by the way, the very best way to eat this cake is along with something salty (like popcorn) in the company of really cool women (like Segullah chics).

Friday, July 20, 2007

Homemaking

[Warning: rather ornery post ahead.]

I’m a little tired of all this hullabaloo about making the job of homemaker into something that sounds more valuable than it really is.

Now, get me straight. I’m not talking about mothering. I’m not talking about being a wife. I’m talking about homemaking.

Even the name makes me wince. Face it, chics, we’re house-wenches. (We are also a lot of other things, but the “homemaking” part is just a lot of menial tasks, regardless of what you call it.) I am so sick of Relief Society lessons on the way the “feeling is different” in a house that’s been mopped lately, that dried flower/wreath arrangements and “Return with Honor” signs decrease the amount of contention in the home. Sick of it, I tell you.

I’ll grant you that living in a pigpen makes me uptight or downright grouchy, and that my grouchiness usually spreads to the entire family and soon enough, woops, there goes the Spirit. I’ll grant you that we’ve been asked to hang pictures of the temple up, etc. I’m not saying that the environment doesn’t influence things.

To a point.

But think about it. Is it the disorder that’s making people ornery or my response to it? If I could live in perfect serenity despite disorder, would my children be more healthy than if I were a stress-case but the house was spotless?

It’s not the WORK ITSELF that’s sacred, people. It’s my attitude about it. And I don’t see how announcing to the world that scrubbing the toilet is a sacred duty is going to change anything about it unless I truly believe it (which is just a change of attitude).

So, although my house isn’t a disaster area, I’m going to let the dirty dishes sit out on the counter a little longer than maybe another woman in my ward would while I (fill in the blank).

Did you think I was going to say “read to my kids”? Or “scrapbook”? Because those are OK things to do instead of the dishes, right? But what if I’m just blogging or doing e-mail? Is that OK? Well, I believe that it is—IF the blogging makes me more serene instead of less.

So I guess when I say “it’s not the job, it’s the attitude,” I am acknowledging the value of calling your scrubbing sacred—if calling it that is what helps you change your attitude. But don’t make me call it that. For me, it’s just scrubbing. I do it if it bugs me. (I’m sorry if it’s not often enough for you so that you wince when you come visit me, or makes you not want to come at all. That’s sad. I’ll miss you.)

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Openhandedness

Overheard conversation:

Mommy: “You will lose marker privileges for a week.”
P: “Why?”
M: “Because you colored in the living room and ruined my couch.”
P: “But it’s not your couch. It’s Heavenly Father’s.”

I have a friend (who also happens to be my cousin) who believes in a way of being that I refer to as “openhandedness.” She is constantly teaching me about it, and I am only beginning to learn how to put myself into a place where I can live it, although I see the value of it and yearn deeply to be there. I guess that new book people are raving about (is it called “The Secret”?) is a sort of twisted variation of it, but here’s how it goes:

Give freely.

That’s it. Of course, you could expend it to talk about the benefits of it, but I think that this is where the book (which I admit I haven’t read) goes wrong. The book, from what I can tell, propounds a “give first so that you can get” mentality. You send positive things out into the world IN ORDER THAT you can be the recipient of positive things (mostly in the form of material blessings) coming back to you. But the right kind of openhandedness, I think, is the same concept, same actions, same results but with different motivation.

The right motivation could be that it’s the right thing to do, it’s the Christian thing to do, it’s what pleases God, and that all things are God’s anyway. It could be. But not for me. For me, the right motivation is that it is the only way to be truly free. (So I guess I’m saying that I believe in it because I feel good doing it. Maybe that’s not the most noble reason. But there it is.)

So I want to move more in this direction in my life because it feels so darn good! Not good in a “oh, boy, I’m really earning points in heaven” way or a martyr way or even a “now good things will come to me” way. Just good in a dancing-unencumbered-through- my-life kind of way.

But it is still hard, and I think that there are aspects of our LDS culture that make it harder. The concept of self-sufficiency, for example. I feel torn—the money I’m giving away could be used to pay down debt, or build up food storage, or build up savings against emergencies. The things I give away could be sold, and the money could be used for some of these things. Should all giving wait until I have paid off all my debt and built up all my savings and food storage? I must find a way to balance between trusting that God, the source of all stuff (including brains and stamina used in the earning of money), will take care of me if I live openhandedly, and using my brain to make sure that I and my family are provided for. Unfortunately, the “balancing” so far has meant that I mostly give only those things that are easy to give, that don’t hurt, that aren’t really much of a sacrifice. I don’t like this.

I guess I should trust the Spirit to guide me here, when it comes to things that are a sacrifice. That’s hard for me because I’m not sure I believe that we’re supposed to rely on the Spirit to micromanage things that maybe we’ve been taught well enough to decide for ourselves. I’m not sure about this one. (I’m definitely envious of the people who say that the Spirit guides them in every small and large decision they make.)

Well, I guess I’d better wrap this up and go clean up Heavenly Father’s sofa.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Charlotte's Masterpiece

“What are you doing up there, Charlotte?”
“Oh, making something,” she said. “Making something, as usual.”
“Is it something for me?” asked Wilbur.
“No,” said Charlotte. “It’s something for me, for a change.”
“Please tell me what it is,” begged Wilbur.
“I’ll tell you in the morning,” she said. “When the first light comes into the sky and the sparrows stir and the cows rattle their chains, when the rooster crows and the stars fade, when early cars whisper along the highway, you look up here and I’ll show you something. I will show you my masterpiece.”

We finished Charlotte’s Web a few days ago, which meant payday for me. Let me tell you, folks, motherhood is worth it. It really is. When you finish a book like that and look up at your child to see tears in his eyes, you know it’s worth it. I asked, “Why are you crying? Are you sad?” 6-year-old answered, “Yes, but it’s a kind of happy-sad.” And we talked about that feeling when a book ends—as if a dear friend is no longer in your life, but you celebrate how much richer you are because she was there for a while. Yes, a kind of happy-sad.

I love this quote from the book (above). Because it really kicks me in the stomach. I am not so great at seeing my children as my masterpiece. In some ways, they can’t be my masterpiece because I don’t make them; they are already made. But I think I could use more of this kind of thinking in my life. I’m always thinking of the masterpiece I will one day create in the form of a book that I’ll publish or a great work of teaching that I’ll do. But I need to remember to focus on my most important work, which is these little guys running around here, instead of seeing them as the distractions from my work. I’d like to thank Charlotte for that re-focusing this week.

I also like that Charlotte says that her work is something for herself. Granted that the work she does for Wilber AND the work she does on her egg sac are both selfless things. But I like that she takes joy in doing something that she sees as being for herself. (And it would be cool if I could see all of the work that I do for others as work that is also for myself.)

Finally, I like that she says she is always making things. I think that she is a typical female. We are all always making things, aren’t we? In one way or another?

Anyway, Charlotte is not the perfect heroine. She gets kind of snobby sometimes. But I love how unselfconscious she is. When someone talks about how beautiful she is, she answers, “Yes, I am, aren’t I?” Can you imagine answering that? Well, you should. Because God made you and you are beautiful.

By the way, I was beautiful today. My sister gave me a dress that I NEVER would have chosen for myself. But it’s kind of sexy and I wore it well today and I enjoyed it. So there.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Sundry

Isn't that a great word, sundry? I love that word. What words to you love?

Speaking of words, what is the present tense form of the word wrought? Is it wright? Is that what a playwright does? He wrights a play? It seems appropriate. Writing anything, especially a play, is really as much a matter of construction and struggle as it is simply pushing a pen or a keyboard. A wringing. Maybe that's what the present tense is. "I am wringing a play. I have wrought a play. I am a playwright." I definitely feel a wrung out after certain periods of writing . . .

Speaking of playwrights, I am in the middle of the most recent issue of Irreantum, which was guest-edited by my friend (and I am so thrilled to be able to call him my friend) Scott Bronson. It's great so far. (Scott is great so far, too. In fact, if any of you have extra money kicking around and want to invest it in the future of Mormon Letters, Scott is working on some projects that deserve backing. Let me know.) If you haven't ever looked at Irreantum, you should. It is the key, my friends, to the future of Mormon Lit., I do believe. Because it represents a community of really fascinating people doing really fascinating things. Also because it is where I see the best work that's being done in Mormon criticism. (Art criticism, as opposed to culture/doctrine criticism. Oh, yes, there is a big and important difference.) Criticism is so important in improving our literature. I'm all for criticism. Enough of this patting ourselves on the back because we produced some piece of work that, at best, "has a good message," and supposedly "doesn't offend." (Except for my work, of course. In that case, be sure to pat me on the back and don't say anything negative. Because writing is hard and my work has a good message, darn it.)

Speaking of criticism, I wrote a review recently of a novel by a sort of acquaintance (through AML). It KILLED me to write this review. Because I felt that this writer fell short of what he could have done. But I like him. I want him to like me. I want him to be my friend. I also want his publisher to publish me some time. But, having been one of the more vocal advocates of stricter criticism, I felt I needed to put my money where my mouth was. I sweated blood over that review. And I know that will probably not be evident to anyone—those who know neither of us will skim over the review (the way I always skim reviews). He and his editor will read it and their eyes will sting with the burn of the negative things I say so that they hardly see the positives. I'm sad about that, because there were a lot of positives. But this guy is a good writer. I felt that if I were honest about what I saw as the flaws of the book, he might even get bettter and someday be a great writer. In the process of writing it, I ended up thinking a lot about charity. Is it more charitable to say only positive things about a person's work? (Or about a person in general?) I decided that there are some positions in which charity requires honest criticism as well as praise. But these positions are rare. The position of reviewer is one of them.

Speaking of reviews, I have a really hard time writing reviews of plays. Just because I know so little about theater. I wish that were different. But, for one thing, I'm a lousy actor. This really bugs me, because for several years of my life I wanted more than anything to be one. I love the theater, but I can't afford to see much of it. We did get season tickets to Hale Center Theater from Roger's boss this year, and, although I have been kind of snooty about Hale in the past, I have to admit that the quality of their productions is extremely high. Little Women was fabulous and Thoroughly Modern Millie took my breath away. Why have I always been snooty about them? I don't know. Because they stick to "safe" shows (meaning, comedies and musicals) and ignore the new stuff being written by my friends. Because they are so successful, while new LDS works struggle. Neither of which is anything I can really blame them for, I suppose. And because I see them as in the prime position to educate LDS audiences because they are so successful and trusted. Why don't they throw into their season one new LDS play each year? Why don't they have some playwrighting contests? Anyway, I look forward to taking my kids to The Secret Garden in a couple of months. Have you seen it, or heard its soundtrack? I love that music. (Thanks to Rachel for introducing me.)

Speaking of wonderful things that you may not have sampled, did you ever get a chance to try the peanut-butter pie at El Cheepo's in Park City? That is THE best dessert I've ever had. How sad I was when we went back to get it a few years ago and found that the restaurant was GONE!!!!!!! How am I going to get that peanut-butter pie now? It had regular pie crust and a layer of chocolate ganache (??) and then a layer of creamy peanut-butter stuff with peanut-butter cups on top. Anyone have a recipe?

Hmmmmm. I'm hungry now. Think I'll go melt some chocolate chips and pour them over the almonds that are going stale in the cupboard. Come join me.

Friday, July 06, 2007

Weaknesses

In the editorial at the beginning of the most recent issue of Exponent II, Kimberly Burnett talks about a moving Relief Society meeting she recently attended. The Relief Society President was teaching, and she began by explaining that she was very nervous and also not feeling well. Kimberly goes on to describe how strong the spirit was that day, and how she believes that the president’s openness about her weaknesses is what invited the spirit and enabled the sisters to open up.

I have seen it before: people confess their weaknesses; hearts are softened; people grow closer. Probably that’s behind my own urge to confess my weaknesses to others all the time. I want to break down barriers and encourage closeness. And when others reciprocate by confessing their own weaknesses, I feel closer to them.
I can see Kimberly’s point. I definitely agree we could use more openness in our church relationships. But I feel a little uncomfortable about this tendency of mine. Because when I meet people who either do not have weaknesses (well, not ones that can be shared, I guess) or who just prefer not to share them with me, I actually have a harder time getting close to them. Women who prefer to keep their struggles to themselves, or who simply aren’t struggling at the time, come across to me as harder to know—or even, gulp, less worth knowing. And that’s wrong, of course.

What I want to do is be able to be equally close and nurturing with another woman regardless of whether she has any problems (or at least wants to share them with me). What if, for example, Kimberly’s RS president was a confident woman and excellent teacher and public speaker? Would the spirit still have been able to come into the room? Is humility a requirement in order for the spirit to draw people closer? Is confidence a lack of humility? And, more importantly, how can I get to feel closer to the women in my life who don’t care to open up to me about their own struggles and insecurities? There has to be a way.

I hate that it’s more easy for me to like and love another sister when I know her pains. (As if it makes it so that I don’t have to feel insecure around her anymore; she’s “just like me.”)

Sunday, July 01, 2007

Trek






Well, we survived trek. (I'm the tiny head covered with a white bonnet in the back left. Roger is the handsome, rugged tall guy in the back right.)

Sorry if it's too much like a travelogue, but I have some things to say about trek, so here we go.

For those of you who don’t live in Utah or near any other pioneer historical markers, “trek” is when a group of people re-enacts part of the pioneer experience by walking part of the trail with (hopefully) some measure of difficulty and distress and also some measure of spiritual awakening and connection with the faith of those who’ve gone before. Trek as an institution for educating our youth arose some time between the time I was a teenager and the time we returned to Utah. Apparently, almost all wards/stakes around here “do” trek once every four years or so and plan to continue doing so from here to eternity.

First let’s talk about healing. Remember how I was released from my primary chorister calling in January, and I was so upset? Part of what upset me was that I thought it was God telling me I wouldn’t be getting better from this illness as quickly as I had planned on. It was rather devastating. I believe I wrote about it at the time. Anyway, around that same time, the bishopric called me to be the “music director for trek,” and asked that Roger and I plan on being “Ma and Pa” for trek. I have to admit that I also saw this as a sign—that God was saying, “No, you won’t be better real soon here, but by trek you’ll be quite well.” I made trek my point of reference for my faith about being healed. I planned on being well for trek. I believed with all my strength that I would be.

Once in a while in the days leading up to trek, especially a month or so ago, the thought would come to me, “If I felt like I do now on the day before trek, would I go?” Sometimes the answer was no. But I continued faithful. Meetings for trek began in January and I was well enough to attend all but one (even though they began at the ungodly hour of 8:30 p.m., a ridiculously late time for me—I like to be in bed by 9:00 if I can. Really). (And let me say here, by the way, that those meetings turned out to be one of the highlights of this whole thing for me. I have been utterly amazed at the work and love that these people, the trek committee, were willing to put out for the youth in our ward. Some of the hardest workers and most committed [hey—“committee” and “committed.” Hmm.] were empty-nesters who did not even have any kids going on trek. I think the absolute best people in the ward were on trek committee and I loved going over to the church at night and being near them for a couple of hours.)

Last week the ward had a special fast that we would have no major health problems or injuries on trek and that the youth would have the experience we had been planning for them. Roger and I fasted, and, I have to admit, focused most of our fasting energy (is there such a thing? of course) on my health in particular. We felt hopeful. I felt quite well. (Not 100%, but my remaining “issues” didn’t seem the type to keep me from trek.)

At one point it became apparent that the bishopric had called too many Mas and Pas in an effort to protect against contingencies and back-outs. When I found that out (no one actually told me straight out), I volunteered to give up the Ma and Pa part, especially since Rog and I would still be going to trek as “support staff” because of my music director calling. That took a lot of pressure off of me because now I knew I would not have to walk all thirty-or-so miles over the course of the trek if I didn’t feel up to it.

So the time came to go and I went, with great gratitude in my heart because I can remember many, many days over the past year when doing such a thing seemed impossible. Those days I stayed in bed. Those nights I sobbed on my knees for healing. The weekend we thought I had cancer. And here I was, on the bus heading out. I imagine I was the most grateful one there to be going. (And many people kept coming up to me, looking deeply into my eyes and saying, “Are you SURE you’re feeling well? Are you OK to do this?”)

One really sad thing is that one of the guys who put in the most work planning for this got sick—with MONO, NO LESS—and decided at the last minute not to go. (And I mean last minute. Apparently, he had had mono for weeks before he even told the bishop, because he wanted to go so badly.) I couldn’t help feeling that old guilt—“Why should I be well and not him?” I’ve GOT TO GET OVER THAT! It’s not how God wants me to live! That man has his own path and mine becoming easier for a while has nothing to do with his becoming harder.

Day 1

So we got on the bus early Thursday morning. We had hoped the kids would sleep most of the six-plus-hour journey since we got them up at 4:30 a.m.—but no. So we sang songs and played games and made it to Wyoming. The kids set off with their Mas and Pas for the six-mile trek to camp, and, being needed to help get things ready, Rog and I took the bus to camp where he set up tents while I helped prepare dinner.

It was actually quite sad to see the kids arrive at camp that first night. The trek had been longer than they had anticipated, and their lack of sleep the night before had taken its toll. They trudged in glassy-eyed and depressed. I had been sad not to be able to trek with them but it felt good to see how much what I had done at camp was needed. I don’t mind being behind the scenes when I truly believe my work is needed. The amazing thing was how the kids perked up after they had eaten. They were as lively as ever after dinner and many of them stayed up quite late that night. (They didn’t keep me up, though! I brought ear plugs and slept blissfully, except at one point when I awoke to hear coyotes howling at the moon.)

Day 2

I was up at 5:00 to help get breakfast ready. I awoke naturally—I am a morning person—and enjoyed watching the sun come up over the mountains. During breakfast I was invited to become a “foster-Ma,” because one of the Mas had been overcome with the heat the previous day and didn’t feel able to do the long trek this day. Again, there was for me that odd combination of gratitude for my own good fortune and sadness for her loss, mixed with a little guilt (GET OVER IT, DARLENE). I agreed eagerly. I felt well. I could do this. And there are points at which I could bail out and be driven back to camp if it became clear that I was overly optimistic.

So, Rog and I became “Aunt and Uncle” to a small group of motherless trekkers. They really did come to feel like my kids over the course of the next two days. We walked around sixteen miles that day and I kept up fine. I kept those kids singing most of the way and they told me how much easier the trekking was when they were singing. It really wasn’t hard most of the time. I can’t believe how tough these teenagers are.

This was the day of the “Sisters’ Pull.” This is a portion of the trail that goes up a sharp hill. Right before the Pull, the men are “called off” in a re-enactment of the Mormon Battalion summons. As the men left us, we sang “God be with you ‘til we meet again,” and it was very touching. The men hiked up the hill and stood there in silence, waiting for us. The women listened to a sister missionary tell us about the woman who wrote “As Sisters in Zion,” and then we sang it. Then we arranged ourselves among the handcarts and began the Sisters’ Pull.

As we approached the hill, the men, standing in silence along the trail, took off their hats and held them over their hearts and bowed their heads for us. This was the most touching moment of the trek for me, because I thought about my biggest fear, which is that Roger will die before I do. I imagined to myself that if that ever happens, I will try to picture him always by my side, in silence, holding his hat over his heart for me. It was beautiful.

At the bottom of the hill I looked up to the top and said, “I have been through labor. I can do this.” And it really was so much like labor. Remember that feeling when it starts getting really bad and you know that there is no way out but through, and you dig deep down into yourself to push through it? (It really is a sort of claustrophobic feeling.) And there’s your husband nearby who cannot help you at all, but can just stand with his hat on his heart and pray for you. We dug in and we pulled. It was hard, but it was short (too short, I think), and we made it. We all did. But it was very, very moving.

(I'm on the far right in the front.)

We also went to Martin’s Cove, but it was very hot and we were so very tired that we didn’t really have the experience there that we had all planned on. (At least I didn’t.) Also, Roger and I made a tactical error. I had brought along a cd player because at one point we needed music for contemplation. But we didn’t want to carry the thing all the way through the cove. Seeing that people were coming back on our same path, we decided to stash the cd player in the bushes on the way in and pick it back up on the way out. But then we found ourselves coming out by a different path and realized that it was a loop. Rog and I ended up having to backtrack to get it. I didn’t mind terribly, though. It was kind of romantic to be walking there quietly with just my sweetheart. (And some twizzlers we had smuggled in.)

By the time we got back to camp we were all pretty beat, but I made them come into camp singing for the benefit of those who had stayed at camp working so hard for us. Again I was amazed at the resiliency and health of teenagers when they all proceeded to have a waterfight. After sixteen miles! Sheesh!

I spent some time in the medical trailer, but not for anything to do with my health, really. I had stupidly worn fancy hiking socks fresh out of the package instead of washing them first, and had an allergic reaction in the form of a bright red rash spreading up my legs. My calves were swelling up and I had to keep them elevated for the evening and all night. What a stupid thing to put me out of commission, after getting over all those other health problems! But I was still able to sit at the testimony meeting. I had assigned someone to sing “Prayer of a Walking Child.” If you haven’t heard it, check it out here. Amazing song. I can’t believe anyone can sing the thing.

I hear that the kids were up until 2:00 a.m. I wouldn’t know. Earplugs are my favorite invention.

Day 3

Up early to break camp. Then we set off for the final trek, six miles back to the visitor’s center where the bus will pick us up. About two-thirds of the way through this day’s trek is the “River Crossing.” I have brought music for this, since we didn’t want to ask anyone to bring his violin into the dust and wind of trek. I asked a young man in the ward who plays amazingly well and who wouldn’t be on trek to play and record several hymns. It seems sort of cheesy to be playing music from a tape player during trek but it really added a lot to the experience.

The River Crossing is an enactment of the pioneer’s crossing of the frozen Sweetwater. Remember all those stories of the boys (and others) who carried multiple people across and then died? This is the place where those stories happened.

Because of my rash (still quite extreme), we felt I shouldn’t get my legs wet with river water. So Roger carried me across quite early in the process. It was a good thing to do because it looked good. After that, several of the girls let the young men carry them across and it was very moving. Very last to cross was our sweet Young Women’s president, whose bad knee had prevented her from doing most of the trek (to her immense sorrow). She got a short way into the water and then appeared to really struggle. It was beautiful to see the people who jumped back into the water to go back and help her. Altogether it was a sweet experience, and the kids were quiet for the next mile—a good sign that they had been touched.


(Yes, that's Rog carrying me.)




Lunch at the visitor’s center and then the long, long bus ride home. It seemed twice as long coming home as going! At one point the kids were getting too wild in the back of the bus and I went back and sang with them. It was really cool to see some of the young men move to the back of the bus and sing with us, shyly.

Besides the fact that I was well enough to do all that walking, the thing that makes me feel like trek was a success in my life is this: I have developed a great love for the youth of our ward. (Did you think I was going to say “for the pioneers”?) I served them with all my heart these last few days, and I love them dearly now. Also my fellow yoke-mates, the others who served them—I have grown in love for them as well. All in all, it was a beautiful, beautiful experience. I am so grateful to have been able to go—grateful to God for granting me my request, grateful to my in-laws for babysitting, grateful to the leaders who planned it. I am brimming with gratitude today. And there you have it.