Mother's Day

Mother's Day is soon approaching.  The question that always comes up is, "What should I get my Mom for Mother's Day?"  But really, what is the best way to show our Moms how much we appreciate them?  There are so many ideas, but none of them will fully show/say all we want to.  But I'll give it a shot:

M - Made me things:  This ranged from food to a list of chores to do.  Either way, it made me a better person, and made me into who I am today.  Nothing compares to the nurture of a mother.

O - Others oriented:  She was never thinking about herself.    Never have I ever heard my mom talk about herself.  Her life was revolved around others, especially her family.  She juggled sport events, seminary, work, house chores, and tons more, and still made time to be Mom.  No ordinary woman could do that.

T - Teacher by actions:  She showed me what was truly important in life, not by her words, but by how she lived her life.  Actions truly do speak louder than words.

H - Humble: Again, my mom never talked about herself.  And never did she boast (except when it was about her kids).  But she never took the credit.  It was always about us kids.

E - Encouraging: She made sure all of her kids knew that she was their biggest fan.  She was always the first one to cheer for us, and was by far loudest one at our sports events.  Nothing could stop her from standing on the bleachers and cheering for her kids.

R - Real Friend: This was one of the most important things that she did for me.  More important than her making me food!  My mom was a real friend to me.  Not just a friend that I can hang out with, but one I can talk to.  One that I can ask advice for, share stories with, laugh with, and have petty arguments with.  She was definitely a real friend.

These are just six of the bazillion things that my Mom does for me.  I've only scratched the surface.  She's totally awesome.  Nothing I do or say will fully explain what she means to me.  Just one last thing to say: Happy Mother's Day!

The Crotchety Old Man

I recently had an eye opening experience that made my testimony grow.  It's a story that I have titled "The Crotchety Old Man."  Here it goes.

So my companion and I are about to visit someone in these apartments.  We just have about 20 minutes, so it's going to be a shorter visit than usual.  We pull into the parking lot for the apartments and start to walk up to her place.  We hear a voice from the distance that says, "You can't park there!  It's residence parking only.  Can't you read the sign?"  After looking around and seeing how empty the parking lot is, we respond with, "We'll just be in there for a couple of minutes."  He's not having it.  He says, "No, you have to go park in the street."  Not wanting to cause any trouble, we move our car to the street.

While we're moving the car, I keep thinking to myself, "That's one crotchety old man."  There's no other word to describe him except crotchety.  After we park the car on the street, we try again to go up to her apartment.  Right as we're walking up to her place, she's just getting back from the store.  She invites us in and we are able to have a good visit.

Later in the day, I realized that the crotchety old man was really a blessing in disguise.  If that crotchety old man wasn't there, we would've gone up to her apartment, knocked on her door, and left before she got back from the store.  But since he delayed us those couple of minutes, we showed up just in time.  Ever since that realization, I've been able to turn things that I thought were an inconvenience, into a blessing.  I am able to see the hand of the Lord in my life more and more. 

The Lord knows all things, though he does work in mysterious ways.  2 Nephi 2:24 states, "But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things."  There are "crotchety old men," so to speak, in our lives everyday and everywhere.  I challenge you all to look for the reason that crotchety old man is there, because there is always something to be learned from it.