• Hope letters

    Mom’s Empty Chair

    My husband and I lived in the same ward as my angel mother. Each Sunday, as a member of the Relief Society presidency, I sat at the front of the Relief Society room, facing the sisters. My mother always sat in the same place on the front row. I enjoyed watching her responses to the lessons and hearing her comments. After each meeting, she kissed my cheek and squeezed my hand. My mother and I were close, so it broke my heart when she passed away unexpectedly. After her funeral, my emotions remained tender. When Sunday arrived, my husband asked…

  • Hope letters

    Stuck

    One winter while I was driving home from a wedding reception for several hours in the middle of the night, the snowy weather became frighteningly intense. I was driving through a canyon, with 30 icy miles (48 km) stretched between me and my home. Almost instantly, it seemed, the road got slicker, the night sky darker, my eyes heavier, and the falling snow much thicker. Having foolishly forgotten to put my mother’s sport-utility vehicle into four-wheel drive, I realized there was little traction, but that thought arrived too late. I completely lost all control of the vehicle and began sliding across…

  • Hope letters

    Sister, I Love You

    During an interview while I served in an elders quorum presidency, I asked a fellow quorum member if he had ever felt and acted on a spiritual prompting. He thought for a moment and shared an experience. One afternoon he was washing dishes when he received a strong impression to go knock on a neighbor’s door. He did not understand why, but the prompting was powerful and urgent. He stopped what he was doing and left right away. He arrived at his neighbor’s door, not knowing what to do or say, and knocked. No one answered. He knocked again. There…

  • Hope letters

    Letting Go

    The other day, I felt prompted to write a very difficult story down in which I lost $21,000 dollars.  This was a hard experience to go through losing that money I didn’t have, and the lesson was just as hard,  that money really doesn’t matter to God, it shouldn’t matter so much to me.  He asked me to let go, and I, after quite a while, conceded.  Not initially because I felt I was really ready to let go of that money, but I needed God back in my life.  That was the more important thing. Through time, I was…

  • Hope letters

    Healing the Issue of Blood

    With Easter a few weeks past (but still on my mind) I’m remembering the Miracles that Jesus performed here while He was on this earth.  Each miracle had a purpose in healing, but, with all of His parables lies additional truth for us to find. In this story, this woman made great efforts to get close to the Savior for this healing.  She didn’t just hope for healing, she sought Him out.  We don’t really know her name, but Jesus knew her, calling her “Daughter.”  Many times we feel forgotten, unknown, unloved or broken.  Friends.  He knows your name.  It…

  • Hope letters

    A Miracle Through My Struggles

    On January 7, 2023, I woke up to complete blindness in my right eye and only about 10 percent vision in my left eye. The world had suddenly faded to gray—literally. Color and light were gone. I was left in darkness, fear, and doubt. As an artist, all I ever wanted to do was add to the beauty of the world through art—a passion I have had nearly my entire life. What would I do if I could no longer see, participate in, or appreciate beauty in the world? A few days earlier, my eyes became sensitive to light, and sharp…

  • Hope letters

    Abide In Faith

    While serving in Guatemala as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Randall Ellsworth survived a devastating earthquake, which hurled a beam down on his back, paralyzing his legs and severely damaging his kidneys. He was the only American injured in the quake, which claimed the lives of some eighteen thousand persons. After receiving emergency medical treatment, Elder Ellsworth was flown to a large hospital near his home in Rockville, Maryland. While he was confined there, a newscaster conducted with him an interview that I witnessed through the miracle of television. The reporter asked, “Can you…

  • Thoughts

    Finding Him

    Last summer I had a chance to go to a Toby Mac concert.  I’m a lover of christian music and so I couldn’t wait!  I enlisted my two daughters to go with me and, since we all grew up listening to christian music, they were in. It was a little different than what I expected.  I was the minority being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, but listening to Toby Mac was incredible. In the middle of the concert, Toby got a break and they brought in a preacher.  He was all about saving…

  • Hope letters

    That Darn Cold

    Two weeks ago, my husband got sick with a nasty cold.  It was not just sniffles.  It was full blown fever, chills, heaviness in his chest.  He thought he could die. It was that bad.  Hey.  It happens.  We all get sick sometimes.  The problem was timing.  We had a daughter getting married and it was important that he could show up and support her. As this cold dragged on, the realization that being there was becoming bleak.  With the wedding in two days, we were still waiting for the fever to break, a sign that he was getting better.…