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Sand Trap
One Saturday morning many years ago, my brothers and sisters and I scurried around the house, doing our chores early. We were excited because Dad had promised to take the family for a ride in the five-year-old station wagon he had recently bought. We had wanted him to get a newer vehicle, but he said a newer car would be too expensive. Besides, he said, the one we bought was heavier and would be safer in an accident. That was an important factor for Mom, who had recently been in a terrible head-on collision and had almost died. Once we…
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The Blessing of a Home Teacher
My father was a hardworking man with a desire to have his own business, a business he conducted with his own truck. Our living conditions may not have been the best when I was a boy, but he took good care of us. I suppose it may have been because he took his responsibilities so seriously that he worried so much. Eventually he developed a bleeding stomach ulcer that put him in the hospital. Medical knowledge and approaches were very different then, and because the doctor felt that stress was a factor in my father’s condition my mother was counseled…
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Lighten My Burden
Our family lived in Hamburg, Germany, during World War I when food was rationed. City-dwellers often tried to purchase food from farmers, who sometimes had a little surplus. When I was fourteen years old, my mother gave me money for a railroad ticket and sent me to the country to try to buy food. After a two-hour train ride, I arrived at a village where I began walking door to door. Though I visited more than forty houses, no one would sell me anything. I was determined not to return home empty-handed and decided to walk the 4.5 kilometers to…
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Wings of Faith
I wanted to make my son’s Christmas wish come true and see in his face the joy I desperately wanted for myself. My three-year-old squeaks with excitement. His response is an innocent reply to my offhanded question, “What do you want for Christmas?” I mutter a hesitant “We’ll see” before putting him to bed, relishing the rare moments I get to spend with him. I’ve been too out of sorts to be present most of the time. The unceasing screams of his sister, suffering from colic, keep pulling me into the black hole of postpartum depression. I feel like a…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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The Power of Desperate Prayer
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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…
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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…
