Counting my blessings….

At the risk of being very trite, I cannot believe it is December already.  It has been a very busy November that kept us moving every single day to something unexpected.  I can say that I am thankful for many things and one of them is that the familiar Holiday preparations has not been one of them this year.  Our Thanksgiving was just another Thursday, the busiest schedule of the week. 

I teach four hours, or two classes on Thursday morning catch the campus bus to the South Campus where I teach a three-hour Professional Development class on Thursday afternoon.  SCUT is launching a new program to imbed English in the regular core curriculum as well as the English classes.  I have been asked to work with professors, all PhD. or PhD. candidates from the Law school, Biological Sciences, Information Technology, Economics and Environment a wide variety of classes that are now being taught in English.  The professors are struggling; their students speak much better English that most professors speak.  My task is to help Professors introduce Western style presentations to their teaching methods as well as improve their English in five short weeks. The trip back to the North Campus where we live is another 45 minutes through the heavy rush hour traffic.  One of our BYU colleagues was presenting an English Lecture Thursday night at 7:30. So it was a very long busy day without any hint of a Thanksgiving feast. 

Thanksgiving isn’t about the food, however I did miss the Pumpkin Pie, but it is about the people you have the privilege of sharing that holiday with.  I have committed this year, when I return I will work harder at building relationships and spending meaningful conversations with people around me and not worry too much about the commercialization of the holidays.  We haven’t seen any of the usual holiday music, decorations, stressed shoppers or advertisements that accompany this time of year in the U.S.

Among my blessings, I am most thankful to be a wife and a mother. I have amazing adult children who are the parents of my ten grandchildren. I miss them tremendously, but I am confident they are taking care of the daily life adventures that support their children and family.  They each live in such different circumstances and each have made spiritual and academic choices to be successful contributing independent individuals and families. 

Mike and Jessica are working through some issues with Jessica’s father right now.  Richard had a serious accident about two weeks ago and remains in the hospital.  Mike sent us his thoughts and impressions when he arrived in SLC for his first visit on Wednesday.

“Life has a way of giving us burdens that we cannot, in our current condition, handle.  But we need not remain in that condition, we can rise and become better and stronger.  When they are needed, we find within us reserves of strength, compassion, and love we did not believe we had.  I watched Richard and Louise last night, and pondered the adjustments they have already made, and those that still lie ahead for the two of them.  I have no doubt they will rise to them because they are committed to one another.  I remembered that Henry B. Eyring said something about that during the last general conference; I looked it up this morning:

Heavenly Father has perfect foresight, knows each of us, and knows our future. He knows what difficulties we will pass through. He sent His Son to suffer so that He would know how to succor us in all our trials.

We know that Heavenly Father has spirit children in this world who sometimes choose sin and great unhappiness. That is why He sent His Firstborn to be our Redeemer, the greatest act of love in all creation. That is why we must expect that it will take the help of God and time to polish us for eternal life, to live with our Father.

Life in families will test us. That is one of God’s purposes in giving us the gift of mortality—to strengthen us by passing through tests. That will be especially true in family life, where we will find great joy and great sorrow and challenges which may at times seem beyond our power to endure them.

Around midnight, we left the hospital.  As I walked into the elevator it triggered a recollection of the times I had been to IMC to visit members of the Wilford Ward when I was Bishop.   I had forgotten about those visits, but being in the elevator (of all places) brought them back to me.   That was a time in my life when I was stretched beyond my current condition. 

I am grateful for my family, and for the family I was raised in.  You are all amazing people.  

Garrett and Cindi are preparing to leave San Diego for Islamabad, Pakistan next spring.  They are spending time with family and friends before they leave and making sure they secure those relationships before they leave the country.

Kaci and Ashley elected to spend the Thanksgiving holiday weekend together. A long six-hour drive from Newport Beach to Mesa, AZ brought the families together to share together time.  These efforts bring joy to my heart and comfort to my soul.

I am truly blessed to have the honor to call these four adults and their spouses my family. I am humbled by their goodness and care for each other and their families.  They are true humanitarians, guided by the spirit to bless the lives of us who stand in their sunshine. 

I must say I have much to be thankful for.