March 29, 2009

March 29, 2009

Hello to all of our loved ones,

This week has been a quiet one of recuperation and still preparing lessons and teaching classes. I was able to meet all of my teaching obligations and Spencer has continued to be supportive and protective—almost a worry wart! But I do appreciate his love and concern.

Today we went to Esquipulas for church, since last weekend, Spencer hurried home to take care of me. People seemed genuinely glad to see us. It is a nice little branch. I think there are things we can do to help them. The Branch President has given us four families to focus on and try to help the men become active. In each case the sisters are active. Our work is cut out for us. It was my first day to try to do everything that seemed just normal a couple of weeks ago. I did OK on the trip there—just felt a little queasy, but no major dizziness. When we returned we walked home and that was a little much—I don’t really have that much stamina yet—but we wouldn’t have known if we hadn’t tried!  So now we know to not try to take such giant steps.

This week we have had the weather everyone had been predicting for March, April and May. Hot! Nathan seems to have been given credit for taking rain to San Antonio twice, so maybe when he and Christena arrive in ONE WEEK, he can bring rain to us as well! That would be a nice change.

It is hard to believe that Curtis and Sheryl are just about to finish their mission. It is pretty amazing that Grandpa and Grandma Brown have had three kids (and spouses) in the mission field all at once. After the middle of April we will be down to two couples. But maybe we can count James’ assignment to the temple as a sort of mission as well--and Terry’s genealogy is surely a mission!

I guess what it really boils down to is that each one of us is on a mission of sorts. For lots of moms in our family it is Cub Scouts/Weblos and the men are working with scouts. Of course we have several other callings going on—how many years has Cody been Relief Society President?

One of your most important missions each one of us has is to grow more loving and more like the Savior each day. We practice that mostly in our own homes—as loving companions and good parents. I am so grateful that all of our grandchildren have loving parents who are committed to keeping temple covenants and helping their children learn to choose the right. We are very blessed.

The important thing is to fulfill our callings and truly be committed to furthering the Lord’s work here on the earth. We do that in a variety of ways, but we can do it in unique and individual paths.

Thank you to each of you. We pray for you every day and appreciate your prayers for us.

Love, See below for my spiritual insights.
Mom/Jeanie
Spiritual Musings:
I had a practical and spiritual insight when I was sick that I thought I might share with you.

When I first fainted and I was on the floor, Spencer was determined to lift me up and of course he couldn’t, because at that point I was dead weight. He was asking, “Who can I call to come help me get you up?” Finally, once I became more oriented and said, “Don’t keep trying to lift me. Come around in front and take my hand and let me help lift myself.” That plan worked. But when I started getting out of bed, Spencer’s instinct was still to grab me and I had to keep redirecting him to let me take a hold of him—not just to have him grab me. It just didn’t work that way.

I remembered an in-service I arranged when I was nursing director. We had volunteers from the Blind Center come to the Pioneers’ Home. One of the activities was to blind fold some of us and have others “help” them. When the helpers grabbed the arms of the “blind person” it was awful. You had no control and felt completely helpless. When the “blind person” was offered the elbow of the helper so they could grab hold, they felt much more secure and had some control over their movements. We certainly found that to be true when Noni lived with us and had lost most of her eyesight.

Even when our hearts are in the right and we just want to help other people, we can’t “do it for them.” They have to be allowed to lift themselves up. We are only there for support and encouragement. We hold out our hand and let me use our strength to pull against. If we take over and lift them, we have completely taken away all power from them—they are completely helpless. No one likes the feeling of being helpless. How often do we do that as parents?

Years ago Jason gave me the book “I Don’t Have to Make Everything Better” (or something close to that). It is a great book on helping us empower others instead of taking power from them. Even when it is hard to watch them stumble, we have to let them struggle to get their feet under themselves and take a tentative step.

I’ve known this principle for a long time—but being weak and helpless really brought it home to me—no matter how weak I was—I wanted to be the one hanging on—not the other way around. Life does have a way of bringing these lessons home to us, doesn’t it? There must be some eternal plan we need to learn while we are here in mortality.