August 11, 2016 - Thursday in Nauvoo

We are in the middle of a hot and humid cycle.  When we got up this morning at 4:00am, the temperature was 77 degrees... the warmest morning yet here in Nauvoo this year.  After we finished our morning prayers and devotional, we began our four mile walk at a little before 5:00am.  (The temperature had dropped to 76 degrees)...  

Our assignment today was at the Handcart Station.  The first trekkers arrived without a reservation at 7:45am.  It was a good time to get started since the humidity would only increase the rest of the morning.  We had one family I thought was significant of reviewing here tonight.  It was a family who were transferring from Massachusetts to Texas for a new university teaching assignment.

They came up to the Handcart Station and there were seven in the family.  The oldest daughter, about 13 years old, first asked us if she could ride in the handcart.  We told her that is wasn't advisable since the carts weren't built for too much weight.  She said she had hurt her toe and that she could not walk.  Mom and I thought for a minute and said we could make an exception. 

The family, minus dad and daughter, coming up the last hill!

Then she told her dad she wasn't going to go.  It was interesting to see that she would get her way, even though she walked pretty easily from the Visitor's Center, and that, dad especially, gave her preferential treatment.  I suggested that this would be an awesome family experience for all and suggested they have a family council while we got another group checked back in.

Well, they decided that the daughter and the dad would stay behind.  That left mom and three sons and one younger daughter to make the one mile trek.  Even though there were others in the family not particularly interested in the trek, they only allowed this special privilege to the daughter to stay behind.  We took a family picture, and then the dad and daughter walked back to the Visitor's Center, (a total of about a half mile round trip), and mom and the other kids began the experience.

Needless to say, the trek was very successful and satisfying for the rest of the family.  The dad and daughter walked back to the Handcart Station just in time to see them coming up the last hill and having an exceptional experience together.  We gave handcart medals to all but this dad and daughter, and the experience the trekkers had will be talked about for a long time.

The bottom line?  It is so important to treat every member of the family equally.  We have seen, on several occasions, where one child is singled out for doing something in opposition to what mom and dad expect, while other members of the family are doing the same thing, or feeling the same way.  I have often thought that treating one family member differently for doing the same things that other members of the family are doing is a form of bullying.  I shutter to think what that one family member might do with his or her life when they are measured by a different standard, set by the parents, that may be understood to not be equal, or fair, to what the other family members are getting...

And then mom and I had the big roles in the Rendezvous play tonight, and this was our week to offer the prayers and the spiritual thought.  To prep our Emma Hale cast for my thought tonight, I reenacted the handcart picture where everyone yells out, "best day ever".....

Best cast ever!

And this picture went along with a quick story I told about a young teenage boy who started the trek with his family like this, and then shared with me the best part of his family trek.

Here was my thought;

"An apology can never change the past, but it can sure change the future".  I modified this thought from one by Bernard Meltzer; "Forgiveness will never change the past, but it will sure change the future".  Both are pretty interesting thoughts to "ponderize".  

When I asked a young man last week what his best part of the trek was, he quickly replied, "when my sister wasn't pulling her weight on the handcart, I yelled at her.  Then I felt really bad and told her I was sorry.  That made me feel so much better and that was the best part of my trek".  

My feeling is that this young man, and his sister will have a very happy future because he took the time to quickly erase that bad feeling he had of yelling at her!  I know I wrote about this a few days ago when this happened, but it really is a significant thought!   I hope that all the grandchildren will take some time to think about how important every member of their family is.  Please look for ways to be kind to each other and to find the good things that your brothers and sisters are doing.  It is too easy to always see the bad things and yell at each other.

Grandpa was one of those children who was left out of the family gatherings by other cousins.  They did not want to play with me and that left me to do things I probably shouldn't have done.  And I had every reason to be treated more fairly because I was lost for so long by not having a dad to teach me the things I needed to know!

Take care of each other and love each other.  I have found that no other friendships or business associates or even Church members can ever take the place of any member of my family.  United we stand tall and can do anything together... but divided we fall and will never reach our full potential.  Let's choose right now to be a loving forever family!  If you think you need to, find a member of the family, today, and forgive them or apologize to them.  It will forever change your future relationship with them.

And that's the way it was, today, here in Nauvoo for this senior missionary couple.....