Stress Management

A lecturer explained stress management to an audience. He held up a glass of water and asked, "How heavy is this glass?" The answers ranged from 20g to 500g. The lecturer replied, "The absolute weight doesn't matter. It depends on how long you try to hold it. If I hold it for a minute, it's not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, my arm will ache and get sore. If I held it for a day, you'd have to call an ambulance. In each case, it's the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes." He continued "And that's the way it is with stress management. If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, as the burden becomes increasingly heavy, we won't be able to carry on. As with the glass of water, you have to put it down for awhile and rest before holding it again. When we're refreshed, we can carry on with the same burden. So, before you return home tonight, put the burden of work down. Don't carry it home. You can pick it up again tomorrow. Whatever burdens you're carrying now, let them down for a moment if you can."
Here are some thoughts to keep in mind as you go through life:
*Always keep your words soft and sweet--in case you have to eat them.
*Drive carefully. It is not only cars that can be "recalled" by their Maker.
*If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.
*If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.
*It may be that your sole purpose in life is just to be kind.
*Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because you won't have a leg to stand on.
*When everything's coming your way--You're in the wrong lane.
*You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.
And remember the scripture, "Cast your burdens upon the Lord, and He will sustain thee."

They Communicate Volumes

Katie, I read your blog today about the talk by John Bytheway, and it got me thinking about the experiences I have had for the past three years as a service missionary in a long-term-care hospital branch. I serve in a Primary where most of the children are in wheelchairs. They have little, if any, mobility on their own and few can verbalize many sounds at all. But they communicate volumes with their eyes and their smiles. Kayla has the most beautiful long eyelashes and someone always does her hair in beautiful curls and hairstyles. She is small for her age, and has a very loving family--as most of these children do. Sometimes she looks up above her head and smiles--and I feel that she is seeing something, or someone, that we can't see. Caroline, though she is confined to a wheelchair and can't really talk, is a good friend to other children. She squeals with delight and is so welcoming to all of the women who serve in the Primary, and to the Young Women from our stake who come to our Primary every Sunday and sing and participate with us. The Young Women are our voices. Our children love the Primary songs. Although most of them cannot sing the songs, they love to hear them. Jessica's favorite song is "I Am a Child of God." Though she is often in pain, she always smiles when we sing that song and does what she can to sing along. Cody, in spite of many health problems, always has a smile for everyone. You can't help but get a feeling of love from these children.
I have also learned so much from the adults that live at the hospital. Elva is now 104 years old. Every day she tells every one she meets, "I love you" and she reaches to give them a kiss--usually she kisses your hand because that is the first thing she can reach. But if she does manage to give you a kiss on the cheek, she does not want to let go. I think it is very humbling to be kissed on the hand by this sweet woman who continually expresses love to everyone she meets. Our new branch president, President Love, has set a goal to help all the members of the hospital branch to prepare and receive a temple recommend--even if they physically cannot get to the temple. It has been a very inspirational experience to be able to go to the temple with the four or five patients who are able to attend. I had never seen Jeff smile until I saw him in the temple-- and he had a smile on his face the whole time he was there. Another young man was a great example to me of faith and obedience when he expressed his feelings about the Sacrament to one of our service missionaries: "I have a tracheotomy and I cannot eat, but I can press the bread to my mouth and I can lift the cup to my lips."
Lately, after our Sunday meeting schedule, some of us (as service missionaries) have been organized into two small singing groups that go to two different rooms each week and offer to sing a couple of hymns to the patients. This has been a great experience. Though we are not well-rehearsed, the spirit of the hymns has touched the hearts of the patients we have visited and some have been moved to tears. I have always been amazed at the wisdom and testimony of those who have written the hymns, and I love the beautiful music that conveys those spiritual messages of faith, hope, and charity.

The Big Boom

Today at school the lights blacked out for a few seconds. Since my room has no windows (only two doors with some panes of glass), it was dark like a cave when the lights went out. I didn't know it at the time, but a local refinery about a mile away from our school had an explosion. A home near the refinery had all its windows blown out and the house was pushed off of its foundation. It is now uninhabitable. Many other homes nearby also sustained some damage to windows, soffits, garage doors etc. Fortunately, in the worst damaged homes the people weren't home at the time of the explosion and no people were injured. The explosion was heard and felt as far away as parts of Farmington. Our school must be pretty solidly built because it didn't shake. A cloud of dust from the refinery left a white powdery soot on all of the cars in our parking lot. It looked like a light dusting of snow. I washed my car after school to get rid of the dust. Jan and Buzz's house is up the block from where the explosion occured, and it had some (hopefully) minor damage, but the insurance company for the refinery seems to be moving quickly to help the homeowners. So far there has been no explanation for the cause of the explosion. I share a room with the IT guy and he spent the rest of the day addressing computer problems that resulted from the power outage at school.

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!

I am now re-reading Walden Pond by Thoreau.

Here are a few of the thoughts from the first two chapters. Enjoy!...

--To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates a life of simplicity, independendence, magnanimity, and trust.
--All men want, not something to 'do with', but something to 'do', or rather something to 'be.'
--It is well to have some water in your neighborhood, to give buoyancy to and float the earth.
--To be awake is to be alive. I have never met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?
--Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!
--Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? Men say that a stitch in time saves nine, and so they take a thousand stitches today to save nine tomorrow.
--Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that falls on the rails.
--Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.
--I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.

Things you may not know about Alaska

After a wonderful, cruise-tour to Alaska, I would now like to share with you some facts about
Alaska:
--of the 20 tallest mountains in the USA, 17 are in Alaska
--Ketchikan, Alaska gets 300 days of rain a year (and we happened to be there on a clear day!)
--if there were no mosquitoes, there would be no bears in Alaska
The female mosquitoes bite you, but the male mosquitoes drink nectar and they act as pollinators for the flowers in the high alpine areas of Alaska. Bears in Alaska eat
thousands of berries as part of their diet, so the berries didn't get pollinated the bears would have to leave to find food elsewhere.
--Fireweed is a pretty pink flower that grows like a weed in Alaska. It is called fireweed, not because of its color, but because it is the first plant to start growing after a fire. The flowers bloom from the bottom to the top, and when the last blooms fade at the top, the Alaskans say there will then be six more weeks until winter.
--moose antlers are very heavy--I could only lift one at a time. But I could lift caribou antlers.
--if you encounter an angry moose--RUN and hide behind the nearest tree (even a skinny
tree will do). An angry moose won't stop until it has stomped you into the ground.
--however, DO NOT RUN FROM A BEAR--if you run, it will think you are food. Stand still and talk calmly to the bear--if you can.
--Be careful about walking along the banks of rivers that flow from the glaciers. The silt from the glacial waters is so fine that it can make the banks of the rivers like quicksand.
--one of the bays near Anchorage has tides that rise 38 feet overnight.
--there is an Abraham Lincoln totem pole at the museum in Anchorage.

How Do Ya Like This, Martha Stewart?

... aka... De-wect-able, De-wishus Wat-o-melon. Look good enough to eat? It is!!
Tonight was our turn to host the volunteers at SDCH for a get-together after FHE.
This is what I served our guests. I decided to carve the watermelon in a decorative way.
After spending the day getting things ready, we all enjoyed the good food and conversation.
Katie was sooooo helpful.