August 5, 2015 - Wednesday in Carthage

We were ready this morning to begin another wonderful day here in the mission field.  Mom and I got ready for our day with our devotional and prayers.  Then we had breakfast and left for Nauvoo at 6:50am for our Wednesday morning training meeting.  I was particularly impressed with the training today by our mission president.  He spoke about marriage and the blessing of being a family together forever.  As many of you know, this is what caught my interest in the Church back in 1971 when my friend Ellen, told me about the temple during my first Family Home Evening in her home.

But the story told this morning by President Gibbons forced me to really ponder about my family.  Here is the gist of the story.  There was a young woman who was interested in marrying one of two young men who happened to be brothers.  This was a story made famous by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

After considerable prayer and contemplation on how to proceed, she decided whom she would marry.  They were very happy together and they had children come into their home.  He was a successful businessman and he was involved in making a very good deal on some merchandise coming in from overseas.   He made the deal and on his return voyage home on the ship, the boat got off course and crashed on a deserted island.  And he was the only survivor.  He had everything he needed on the ship including food and water and other supplies, but he did not have anyone to talk to or any way to contact the outside world for over 11 years. 

Then another ship was taken off course and he was rescued.  He was able to get back home and discovered many things.  For one, he discovered that since he had been gone for 11 years that no one knew him.  For another thing, when he finally found his home, the doors and windows were all boarded up and his family was no where to be found.  

He then discovered that his wife had waited for several years and finally gave up hope that he was still alive, and married his brother.  His old wife and children now had another husband and father and all he could do was look in the window of his brother's home and see his family as no longer his family.  And there was nothing he could do as he felt powerless to interfere with their happiness.

That is perhaps the saddest story about the loss of family.  However, we know that families can be together forever and we must do everything in our power to preserve the family unit.  It is so rapidly being taken from us with the cultural confusion that Bruce C. Hafen discusses in an article published in the August 2015, Ensign.  He talks about how the family is becoming a political object rather than the center of the American society.  

As a people and as a country, we need to pay attention to what is slipping away from us due to political correctness.  We have got to stand for the family, even in a world that might find us standing alone.  There are too many diversions being spread throughout the world that minimizes the family.  However, we know that the family is central to heavenly Fathers Plan and we must stand strong for that precious principle.

We had a good Sunset Play tonight and the Grattons were in the audience cheering us on.  However, I forgot my phone when we left Carthage with Dave and Jackie and Devyn.  As the band was playing the gathering music and the crowds were collecting tonight, I heard Dave yell out from the audience that "Josie is in labor"!!...  Of all the days to leave my phone at home!!  Well, we are back at home and I have the phone right by my side!  

Mom got to talk to Josie tonight about 10:00pm and we are on the Marcie delivery watch as we speak.  We are about to welcome our 19th grandchild into our family.  Macie will be the 11th granddaughter and we now have 8 precious grandsons.  This is the hardest thing for mom to not be there for Josie.  She has been involved in the first 17 grandchildren being born, and now she is in the mission field and not able to be there with her daughters....  Mom is a real trooper and is working hard to bless our daughters lives even while she serves out in the mission field.  We are praying and looking forward to Macie's safe arrival and Josie's healthy recovery.