I had the opportunity to give a talk today in Sacrament meeting for church. Both Randy and I spoke. He spoke on "Charity" and I spoke on "Qualities of my mother that I try to Emulate." My mother requested that she have a copy of my talk. I only had an outline so I'll try to write down exactly what I said. So here is your "Happy Mother's Day Letter." :-) Thank you, Mom, for being such a great example to me, and for giving me the skills and knowledge I have needed to help my family. Love you tons, Joycelyn.
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Brother Haymore gave me the topic of qualities of my mother that I try to emulate. Growing up we lived by the saying "It takes a village to raise a child." I had many influential women in my life that helped me find my moral compass and taught me the things I needed to live a righteous life. My grandma, great-grandma, aunts, the mothers of my friends, my YW leaders and my seminary teachers were among them. In Elder M. Russel Ballard's recent talk in General Conference, he said,
Throughout the history of the world, women have always been teachers of moral values. That instruction begins in the cradle and continues throughout the lives
of their children.
Most of all, it was my mother that influenced me the most. As I pondered this topic, I thought of many qualities about my mother, but here are a few that I want to focus on. My mother was a woman of unwavering faith, she gave a lifetime of service and generosity and she was always strengthening our family unity.
UNWAVERING FAITH
In raising our children, I feel that my mother and I have had somewhat of similar trials during this time. When we were still pretty young, our father became ill. A series of strokes left him unable to remember us and he had short term memory. Not only did my mom have to raise us kids, but she had to take care of our father as well. In the 5 years that we lived at Fort Polk, Randy was gone 1/3 of the time due to 3 deployments, 3 NCO schools, in-field training and some construction projects for his unit, leaving me to raise our young family. I feel that what sustained us through these situations that were placed before us was that of unwavering faith.
My mother always listened to the prophet's counsel. I remember that half of our basement was filled with food storage and my parents tried to set money aside for a rainy day. Once all of us kids were in school, my mother felt prompted to go back to work. Dad was only a few years away from retiring, so it wasn't needed. But after prayerful consideration, they decided that this was a wise choice to make. A few years after she started working is when Dad first became ill. Along with that came the hospital bills. Because my parents had listened to the Spirit, our family was prepared to take on this challenge. My mother's income was able to help us pay those bills, we were able to sell our house and move into a smaller home closer to family.
One of the things I remember about mom working is how no matter how tired she was after working a graveyard shift Saturday night, she always got my dad dressed and took us to church. We would get onto her about going back home bc she would just fall asleep during sacrament meeting. Her reply was that our family needed to be here at church. This is where we belonged on Sunday.
During our last deployment of 15 months, there were many Sundays where I felt it would just be easier to stay home with the kids than to go to church. We could just relax at home. As I would lay in bed on Sunday mornings, I always could here my mom saying that our family needed to be at church and that was where we belonged on Sundays. So I would get myself out of bed, get my children ready and we would go to church. The blessings that came from going to church was that every time I did go on those Sundays, even when I really didn't want to be there or felt I didn't have the strength to go, the messages that were given were exactly what I needed to hear to buoy me up for a little bit longer. In 1 Chronicles 20:28 it says,
And David said to Solomon his son, Be Strong and of good courage, and do it: fear not, nor be dismayed: for the Lord God, even my God, will be with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee, until thou hast finished all the work for the service of the house of the Lord.
LIFETIME OF SERVICE AND GENEROSITY
Usually the best way to ease your stresses is to lose yourself in service to others. That is what my mother tried to do. My mother became a caretaker for Dad when he was ill. A few months after he passed away, her parents became ill and came to live with us. My mother took care of her mom for 9 months until she succombed to her bone marrow cancer. And then she took care of her dad for another 5 years as he suffered the same health problems as my father had. During this time, my two brothers went to serve missions. Through prayerful decision, my mom accepted the calling as a counselor in the Stake Young Women's Presidency. I remembered that we always, without fail, fed the missionaries every month. Some people would tell her, "You work full time, you are trying to raise your kids, take care of your parents, you have two sons on missions...we should be bringing you meals." Yet my mother's response to them was that if she could do this one service for the missionaries and meet this one need, she knew that the Lord would bless my brothers and that the members of the church in Japan and Brazil would take care of their needs while serving their missions.
During this last deployment, Randy was gone for 15 months. I tried to do what my mother had and involved myself in many ways to serve others. I tried to magnify my callings and attend and be involved in the Enrichment meetings. The thing that took up most of my time was volunteering with my husband's unit Family Readiness Group. This group is for the spouses and family members of the soldiers where we can find out information and have activities to help the family members. If they had a committee, I was involved. I was on the welcoming committee, the activities committee, the fundraising committee and I also became a point of contact for my husband's platoon of soldiers. In Mosiah 2:17 it states,
And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow bings ye are only in the service of your God.
STRENGTHENING THE FAMILY UNITY
As kids at home, in college or as adults getting married and starting our own family, Mom was always trying to keep us close together. She knew that if we didn't try to keep the family strong, that we could fall apart during the challenges we faced as a young family. She is always telling us that we need to not hold grudges, to forgive each other, to nurture our relationships because family is all we have. And that these relationships will be our treasures stored up in heaven. In the Proclamation to the Family it says,
Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.
With Randy deploying, I tried very hard to keep him involved in our daily family activities. When he left on his first deployment back in 2005, I started a family blog. I take a lot of pictures and video clips of any firsts that our children may take so he could see them as well. Another thing we would do is have internet dates. I would burn movies or certain seasons of a tv show and mail it to him. Then whenever he wasn't on a convoy or mission, we would press play at the same time and have a running commentary on a messenger during the show. The biggest blessing we had from technology was when Connor was born. I was 8 months pregnant when he left and only had a few weeks left. A couple weeks later is when I had Connor. Randy was able to get internet in his room. I did most of my labor at home, webcamming and chatting on messeger with him. We could see each other and he would give me words of encouragement during the contractions. When Connor was born, my mother was there to make little video clips of him when they took his apgar test. She then immediately called my sister Jasmine, who in turn got on the computer to instant message Randy to tell him the stats of Connor and that we both were doing alright. He didn't have to wait a whole day to get the message from the American Red Cross.
CONCLUSION
I know that because of my mother's example I have gained a moral compass to guide me and that I can find ways through my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ to keep going, that I can hopefully endure well, and to also teach my children by example where to turn to in times of happiness and sadness.
I bear you my testimony that I know that as we make every effort to have unwavering faith, give service to others and are always strengthening our families, we will be blessed by our loving Heavenly Father. The Lord promises us this! In 1 Nephi 17:3 it says,
And thus we see that the commandments of God must be fulfilled. And if it so be that the children of men keep the commandments of God he doth nourish them, and strengthen them, and provide means whereby they can accomplish the thing which he has commanded them.
It is my prayer that we can remain strong in our fiath by following the counsel of our church leaders. Our bishop has asked us to become a more Zion-like people and to be more friendly and fellowship those that come here. May we be blessed through our service and kindess to outhers in our church, neighborhoods and work. I pray that we can take heed to our prophet's counsel in the last general conference that we will be more vigilant in keeping our families strong in the gospel.
And I say this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
