Personal Peeves and Propaganda

May 21, 2026

My husband was born with a learning disability. When we were in school and when our children were growing up, it wasn’t one that was discussed at any length.  And, unfortunately, it was something several of our children inherited.  He can’t spell. And, although he scored in the highest groups on reading and reading comprehension tests, he reads well but doesn’t read very fast.

If words in English were spelled like they sound, no one would have ever noticed the problem he had with spelling.  But English is a capricious language, and a lot of words are not spelled phonetically.  So, while he was still in elementary school, his first-grade teacher offered to tutor him in order to help him pass his classes.  At least that is how his parents told the story to me.  They would always talk about how, without the help of this generous teacher, he would not have passed.  And this story was told in such a way throughout his life that my husband was made to feel stupid.  Less than.

I will admit that when I met my husband, I thought he was a brilliant and articulate person.  We would have meaningful conversations for hours about everything important to us and even some frivolous things.  It wasn’t until we were separated for a time and he wrote me letters that I realized the significance of his disability.  His letters did not reflect the articulate person I had come to know.  They were clumsier and more juvenile than he is in person.  I asked him about this years later.  It’s not something you ask a boyfriend in high school.  And he explained that when he wrote things – letters, school papers, and the like; he would only use words that he knew how to spell.

It wasn’t until our children were in about third and fourth grade that this inability to spell well manifest itself in our children enough for their teachers to talk to us about it.  In our oldest child, the tests showed that, although he could spell words from memory perfectly, when he put those same words on paper there would be missing letters.  It appeared that there was a hole in his vision.  And, because he was born with strabismus that was corrected surgically when he was about two years old, the tester attributed his problems to that.  Our child was recommended for a special education program that continued until sixth grade.  The exercises that they did with him were similar to those they used for children with dyslexia, although, technically, that is not what they supposed he had.

Our children’s teachers throughout the years would mention spelling issues from time to time.  Not all our 8 children had trouble with spelling, but I can’t keep straight who did and who didn’t.  I also think, though, that a program in our elementary school helped all of our children to overcome and learn to spell well enough to manage school.  One of the teachers in our school district developed a list of what were called “No Excuse Words”.  I think that there were 200 of them.  They are words that the children were taught to spell on sight because they were the words most spelled incorrectly in school papers.  And if the children learned to spell these words perfectly, the remaining words found misspelled in their papers would be below the number that would affect the grades they received.  It was a program that most of the teachers used that seemed to work to improve spelling scores in schoolwork throughout the district.

But it was what was said during a parent teacher conference for one of your youngest children that was most telling.  That teacher asked us if we had noticed the poor scores she had gotten on her spelling tests.  Of course we had.  And we explained how her father also had trouble with spelling in school.  The teacher kind of dismissed that thought and replied, “What I have learned over years of teaching is that some children can spell and some children cannot.  Computers are the future,” he said.  “And I suspect that spell checking programs are going to make the need to learn to spell obsolete.”  He told us not to worry too much about whether our daughter learned how to spell well. 

His philosophy took the pressure off our daughter.  But there is one little problem with it.  As my husband has often commented, you have to kind of know how to spell to use spell checker, especially with complicated words.  Sometimes spell checker gives you a list of possibilities, and you still must decide which one is correct.

This same daughter shared something with me that she wrote about her challenges with spelling this past week that I had forgotten.  I had always thought that the hole in his vision that gave our oldest son so much trouble was due to the strabismus he had when he was born.  But she reminded me that she was making a poster one time that used the word “Snickers”.  And even with an actual Snickers candy bar sitting there for her to use as a model, she spelled the word wrong.  She left out a letter.  In her mind it was there but in real life it wasn’t.  There was a hole in her vision as well. 

She also found that reading complicated text was a chore she would rather avoid   One of my favorite memories of this daughter (and I think it’s an experience her siblings who were present also remember) was our trip in a car to visit her grandparents when she was attending college.  She needed to read from one of her music textbooks, listen to the companion example on a recording, and then respond to it.  Throughout school when subject matter was difficult to read, she would read it out loud - usually to someone - in order to bring clarity to the text.  This was a particularly difficult textbook for her, and she had been putting off this assignment.  I think that she announced, when she got into the car, “You are all going to help me with this.”  Our oldest commented after the experience that he had learned more about weird sounding music from places like India than he ever wanted to know.

When I think about this daughter, I think about how her teacher told us long ago that computers were the future.  And I can now add the caveat that our computer can read text from a book to us if we want or need to read something out loud.  And our computer can listen to our voice and turn those thoughts into text on a written page; that is if spell checker and predictive text doesn’t turn them into something we didn’t really mean to say.

As for me, I still read and write things in the old-fashioned way.  And I am glad that I am an excellent speller with a penchant for writing well.  This essay was written by hand using a word processor without the help of Chat GTP or any other AI program.

To begin, you have an excellent command of the English language.  Your sentence structure is good and your use of descriptive language is better than average. You obviously have enough skill in the areas of grammar and syntax to be able to write something of substance.   The trouble comes with your ability to actually craft and tell a compelling story.  After reading three chapters, I had no idea what your story was about.  And by the end of the manuscript, I still didn’t know. The pages read like a series of random thoughts about several different unconnected subjects.  I only finished the entire narrative because you asked me to read it.  If that weren’t the case, I wouldn’t have read past the first chapter.  With writing, if you haven’t grabbed your reader within the first page - preferably within the first paragraph or two – you have probably have lost them.

One of the things a writer has to ask himself is, why am I writing this story?  Who is my potential audience?  And what do I want them to understand? It is easy to assume that your audience knows things about a subject just because you know them, especially if you feel passionately about that subject.  I learned early on in my education that when writing about any subject, you should assume that your audience doesn’t know anything.  And you should explain everything in detail as if they don’t know anything.  That is especially true in the format you have chosen for this piece.  There are so many unanswered questions.

There wasn’t really any obvious connecting storyline between the beginning of the book, set in 1835, and the middle chapters, set in 1936, or the ones at the end of the story for that matter. The most important thing to remember when writing is it must be a compelling story.  It must have a beginning that engages the reader.  It must build to some kind of climax, perhaps some kind of conflict for the protagonist to overcome that is relatable to the intended audience.  And there must be resolution.  One of my teachers used to tell us that at the end of the story, we needed to have answered, so what?   Now that you’ve told me your story, what do you want me to do with this information?

That said, my experience writing has been limited to publishing news articles about the church for the local newspapers.  And I was very good at it.  Everything I submitted was published, usually as written with very little editing.  That is a true compliment to my skill.  But that doesn’t mean I would ever even attempt to write something like you produced in your manuscript.  It is far more ambitious to write a chapter book like yours than a page or two about the stake “Just Serve Community Project”.  

A quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln:

Sadly, the current climate in our country lends itself to the practice of holding historical figures to a modern measure of what is appropriate. When I hear people vilify traditionally revered historical figures and call for their monuments to be destroyed, renamed, or taken down, I am ashamed of what we have become. People are not perfect. We are not perfect. Why do we hold our ancestors to a perfect standard?

Unfortunately, in order to justify the modern position, writers of historical fiction often resort to just making things up to fit the narrative. Sometimes there is an element of truth in what they write, which gives an air of credibility. But they also just tell outright lies.

We know from our own experiences that perspective also makes a difference. Standing back and judging others is easy. It is more difficult to try to understand the motivation someone had in the moment and the influences around them that colored their decisions.

I was working - filling out forms for the government. And one of the questions on the form was "race." All day I had been suggesting an answer for my clients but one of them balked at the suggestion I gave. That is not a "race," he said. "That is a "color". So I suggested another option, to which he replied, "that is an 'ethic designation.' Not a "race" either." "So what should I put?" I asked. He had filled out this form before and knew that the choice "other" was on the form and gave me that option. So that is what i put.

He is correct. White, black, and brown are all colors, but not a race. And to put African, Japanese, or Hispanic is a country of origin or ethic background but not a race either. I was stymied by his logic and chose to put "other" or "unknown" on the forms without asking for the rest of the day.

Not long ago, my husband and I were watching a Gabriel Iglesias special on TV and he told a story similar to mine. He started by saying that he doesn't want to offend anyone. But he had an experience that taught him that, as hard as he tried, that task might be impossible.

He has performed at casinos that are located on Reservations at what people call "Indian Casinos" in the US and Canada. And he learned at one in California, that many who live on the reservations prefer to be called "Native Americans". But, in Canada, he learned that they call themselves, "First Nation". And, in some parts of the country, they just use the name given them by the first white settlers in the Americas, "Indians" (even though this is not the West Indies like those settlers first thought.) That said, there are plenty of people here who come from India. So to call Native Americans, "Indians" is the wrong thing to do as well. Gabriel made us laugh at how absurd things have become. All in the name of not offending someone.

It began about 1:00 PM on a Tuesday.  My husband and I were preparing to take our usual taco run to Hesperia for Taco Tuesday, when I noticed the cloud smoke that had appeared above our house.  Other observers called it a “mushroom cloud” over our community of Wrightwood.  I went outside and took a picture because it was an unusual color and had appeared rather suddenly. We had been monitoring the Line Fire that started in Highland and had moved up the mountains towards Running Springs, Arrowhead, and Big Bear -  not too far from us. But the fire had not been moving in our direction.  I checked the reports to see if a new fire had started nearer to Wrightwood.  The Bridge Fire seemed to be closest, but the reports showed that it was still miles away.  So, my husband and I went to get our taco lunch.  And going all the way to Hesperia also meant doing a bit of grocery shopping as we were out of a few essentials like milk and bread. 

On the way down, at the intersection of Hwy 2, which is the main road to Wrightwood, and Hwy 138 which travels perpendicular to Hwy 2 and led to Interstate 15 in Cajon Pass, there was smoke pouring up from West Cajon Valley and traveling up Hwy 2.  We wondered where it could be coming from but decided it was probably a product of the fires on the other side of the pass.  Hwy 138 goes over the Interstate and up into those mountains.

When we came out of the market at about 2:30 PM, the South side of the Victor Valley and the San Bernardino Mountains were covered with clouds of smoke.  There were great plumes of smoke pouring off the tops of the mountains on the East Side of Cajon Pass.  My husband and I stopped to take pictures.

Toward the pass was nothing but smoke clouds.  But toward Victorville and North on I-15, it was essentially clear.  However, the wind was quickly moving the smoke in that direction.  And the source seemed to be the San Bernardino Mountains not the San Gabriel Mountains where the Bridge Fire was burning.

When we started home, we were seeing conditions we had never seen before in Wrightwood during any other wildfire we had experienced.  Even the Sheep Fire that started on the edge of town and ravaged the landscape on Highway 2 below our community didn’t produce this much smoke.  And the smoke had a distinct red cast to it. We took photos out of the front window of our car as we drove up the highway.  Soon we were inside the cloud of red smoke and ash.  It certainly had an otherworldly feel as we drove home.  And it seemed much later than the 4:00 PM it actually was when we arrived home.  All the streetlights and business signs were lit.  People had their nighttime headlights on.  And when we opened our car door, we were greeted by the chirping of the crickets who thought it was night already.  We were surrounded by smoke and ash that can only be described as “mists of darkness” that shielded us from the light of the sun.

Ironically, the following Sunday in Sunday School our teacher talked about the mists of darkness in the world that can lead us away from the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  These mists of darkness are described in the Book of Mormon as, “the temptations of the devil, which blindeth the eyes, and hardeneth the hearts of the children of men, and leadeth them away into broad roads, that they perish and are lost.”  (1 Nephi 12:17).

And she shared a quote from our prophet, Russell M. Nelson to help us navigate the mists of darkness in our lives. “Here is my promise. Nothing will help you more to hold fast to the iron rod than worshipping in the temple as regularly as your circumstances permit. Nothing will protect you more as you encounter the world’s mists of darkness. Nothing will bolster your testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ and His Atonement or help you understand God’s magnificent plan more. Nothing will soothe your spirit more during times of pain. Nothing will open the heavens more. Nothing! The temple is the gateway to the greatest blessings God has for each of us.”

In the end Wrightwood was spared any major destruction. Although no evacuation warning came, by 5:00 PM there was a mandatory evacuation order issued for our entire community. As we left, most of us feared the worst as did many of the responding firefighters. According to the official reports, it was probably only the cooperation and prior preparation of our community that saved our homes. (There were several news stories done about this including the one from the LA Times featured here: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-09-23/bridge-fire-wrightwood-wildfire-protection-home-hardening

It wasn’t the fire we knew about and could see in front of us that ultimately almost destroyed our community. It was the fire we couldn’t see that displayed "uncharacteristic behavior" that rapidly advanced toward our location. And probably because we were committed enough to be prepared, our neighborhoods survived.

Modern scripture tell us that, when the mists of darkness we call life’s challenges come, preparation is the key. We have been told that “If ye are prepared ye shall not fear” (D&C 38:30).

The primary preparation needed is also set forth in the Doctrine and Covenants, wherein it says, “Wherefore, stand ye in holy places, and be not moved, until the day of the Lord come” (D&C 87:8). And the most holy place of them all is the House of the Lord – the temple. That is one reason why my husband and I volunteer to work there once a week.

I remember when they went to the switches on the column VERY vividly.

My husband had gotten stuck at work while I was visiting my mother. We always drove "vintage" cars (and that is putting it kindly) that often broke down despite my husband's constant vigilance to try to prevent getting stuck. But this time he was pretty certain that he had left his car lights on and needed a "jump". As I was at my parents house I asked them to let me borrow their new car to go rescue him.

By this time it was getting dark again. After we got his car started, my husband asked me to follow him just in case. I turned the lights on in the new car and the indicator showed that they were on bright. I looked everywhere for that toe switch but couldn't find it. In no time at all, my husband pulled over and demanded to know why I hadn't lowered the headlights from bright and I explained why. He instructed me to get out - sure that I was being ridiculous. While he was searching every inch of the driver's side floor for the switch, I got in the glove compartment to read the owner's manual and learned how to adjust the headlights from bright to low and visa versa in my parent's new car.

We both got an education that day. He apologized for being so testy with me. We put the headlights on low beam. And we drove home.

It has begun again.  In 2016, when Donald J. Trump was running against Hilliary Rodham Clinton, the members of my church were divided.  Many were pro Trump because they remembered the policies of the Clintons when Bill was President and the record of Hillary in the years following including, most recently, as the Secretary of State under Obama. And these people didn’t want her to win the election.  Trump was not a politician, and he was supported by Evangelical Christian Leaders and by proxy the members of their churches.  Most believe that their support was because his promised policies reflected more closely their Christian Values.  That said, there were a lot of people, me included, who didn’t think enough of what has historically been termed Judeo Christian Ethic was reflected within Donald Trump’s personal behavior.  During 2016, listening to the old interviews of Donald Trump that circulated on the Internet during which he stated, “I don’t want to be President,” made me believe that the rumors might be true; that he might not be the kind of man our country would want as our President.  That he might be like many other celebrities who then and now indulge in inappropriate and lascivious behavior.  In short, I didn’t think that he was a righteous man who at least tried to follow a code of conduct.

In 2016, the debate was carried out online in social media and even within the halls of our churches.  A prominent Senator from Utah and a former presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, who was a registered Republican, spoke at a conference during which publicly announced his lack of support for Trump as the Republican nominee.  He told the American people that Trump would not make a good president and outlined the reasons why he believed that to be so and, remarkably, he also made it clear that he wouldn’t support Hillary Clinton either for similar reasons.  Romney said that in his opinion she was no better than Trump.  When both candidates won their party’s nomination, the citizens of this nation, it seemed, needed to choose between the lesser of two evils.  And for me that was an impossible choice. 

As I discussed my concerns with my daughter, she asked me why I felt that I had to vote for one of these two candidates.  If people of conscience continue to choose to vote for the candidate that they feel is the lesser of two evils because the two principal parties choose poor candidates for bad reasons, things in this country will never change.  She encouraged me to choose the best person for the job even if that candidate couldn’t possibly win.  And I did.  I can say that I never voted for Donald Trump or any other candidate that I didn’t think reflected what I personally believe is best for our country.   

The debate in 2020, and again this year has been much the same with members of my church each pointing fingers at the other side claiming that those who do not agree with them are denying their faith and choosing evil over good.  Many believe that our country is headed for a show down and that it will be Blue (Democrats) against Red (Republicans).  But I believe that they are wrong.  In the end, I believe that the battle for the soul of our nation will be between those in this country who believe in God and those who do not.   And I have a precedent I can share to support my belief that ultimately people of conscience will all have to make a better choice.

In 2008, the State of California put Prop 8 on the ballot, an initiative which was intended to eliminate the right of same sex couples to marry.  The Catholic Church and the leaders of many of the other denominations of Christian Churches in California all banded together to support Prop 8.  And, in the end, the Proposition was passed with 52.24% of the votes.  The news outlets, using exit polls, discovered something that they didn’t anticipate.  While the Republican Party Leaders came out in support of Prop 8 and the Democratic Party came out against it, the supporters of the winning side were not exclusively Republican or Democrat – not red or blue.  They were, for the most part, people who were religious.  While a majority of those who did not support Prop 8 were not.

The battle for the future of our nation will not be between the Republicans and the Democrats. It will be between those who believe in the good that comes from a higher power than ourselves - a belief in God and those who do not.

According to the experts, "Caffeine is a naturally occurring central nervous system stimulant belonging to the methylxanthine class and is widely recognized as the most utilized psychoactive stimulant worldwide. Although this drug is most commonly sourced from coffee beans, it can also naturally occur in certain types of tea and cacao beans and as an additive to soda and energy drinks." (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30137774/) 

During our vacation we listened to news from home and heard a news report that suggested that parents need to monitor how much of this drug their children are consuming. Shortly after listening to this report, I watched two young boys at our motel pour themselves and drink a full cup of the complimentary coffee provided for guests - complete with cream and sugar. They looked to be 8 to 10 years old, definitely not teenagers, and their parents were nowhere in sight. The KNX report stated that "The American Academy of Pediatrics discourages caffeine use at all" or at the very least limiting the intake of caffeine in children to 100 mg per day. But a team at the University of Michigan reported that in a survey of parents of children 13 to 18 one in four parents said that their children consume caffeine every day or nearly every day. And too many of those parents have no idea what the recommended limit for their child is. And definitely how that limit translates into cups of coffee or other caffeinated drinks so popular amongst that age group.

In the KNX report the reporter shared that, "Too much caffeine in kids can affect their mood, sleep, and school performance, can cause headaches, stomachaches, and heart palpitations, and can lead to dependency over time."

(https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/teen-caffeine-daily-limit/?intcid=CNM-00-10abd1h)

The message. Steer your children away from caffeinated drinks. I wish that I could have shared this information with the parents of the two young boys I saw pouring themselves a cup of coffee.

Coincidentally, in my GoodRX Newsletter this week there was an article about prescription drugs that interact negatively with caffeine. And I think that I take all of them including levothyroxine. I have always tried to steer away from caffeinated beverages. I guess it's not just children who should avoid caffeine in their diet.

My husband and I first learned about “the baby swap” when were at an amusement park together without our children.  Before we learned about this strategy, when we took our children to one of these parks one of us would have to wait by the exit of the ride with the baby – a little bored and sad – while the other parent had fun taking the rest of our children on the ride.  And we had to wait in line twice if both of us wanted to ride, which we never did.  I think that I always knew that there had to be a better way. 

On that trip together without our babies, we were introduced to that better way.  We were both feeling elated because we were both going to be able to ride for a change.  No one had to wait at the exit with the baby.  But there was a couple in front of us in line that had brought their baby with them. And I wondered what they would do when they got to the front of the line and the ride operator wouldn’t let their baby ride with them.  Then something happened that I didn’t expect.  The father waited patiently with the baby while the mother rode and, when the car came back, the father passed the baby to the mother while he climbed into the car so that he could ride too.  They only waited in line once and no one had to wait at the exit without riding at all.

In Stake Conference, our visiting General Authority, talked about how he and his wife used this resourceful solution to attend the temple regularly.  They lived a 2-hour drive one way from their temple.  So, they would take their family to the temple together and he would babysit the children while his wife did temple work inside and then they would swap places while he went inside.

Dear Sister,

Your mother told us how you were chastised by the mission president for doodling during a meeting.  When I was a bit younger than you I took an accounting class from my father.  And I spent most of my classes doodling while he was giving his lectures.  But that was my practice in most of my classes.  He told me that I was being rude to my teachers (including him).  That I needed to pay attention in class.  I didn't have an answer immediately but realized later that doodling helped me to concentrate on what my teachers were saying.  It focused my attention on what was being taught. Except for in my dad's class, I kept doodling in class.  

Some time later, I read an article somewhere that said the brightest, most effective students in school tend to doodle during their classes.  The theory was that doodling - particularly nonsensical figures like I did helped students focus on the lessons being taught.  I usually doodled some repeated geometric patterns during my classes.  I wish I could remember where I read that article.  I would send it to you.  But I wanted to share.  If it helps you focus in those meetings and sort out the important information from the not so important, I would say to keep doing it.  It helped me.  I got really good grades in college.

I can still remember the first time I ever had tacos. I was 14 and our family had just moved from a predominantly white community - where my school had gotten its first student of color ever the previous year – to a more diverse one that fostered the birth of the first Del Taco fast food restaurant in the United States. Our church youth group was planning a beginning of the year activity, and the leader of the young women’s auxiliary told my parents that my sister and I would each need to bring a dozen tacos to the activity. She told our mother that it was Tuesday so the tacos would be discounted at the local Del Taco restaurant. Our mother didn’t quite know what to do with that information, but she dutifully complied. We followed the directions we were given to the Del Taco on First Street, and my sister and I stood in the very long line to get our dozen tacos. I think that our mother was just grateful that this youth mixer was being sponsored by the young women’s group and not the young men or she might have had to supply 3 dozen tacos – another dozen as my younger brother’s contribution. With a family of seven children to feed, having just spent quite a bit of money to move to a new town, it would have been an even greater challenge.

In our new home in California there was a rather large population of Latino immigrants from, for the most part, Mexico. These immigrants moved to the U.S. to work for the railroad. According to reports on immigration to California, “Between 1960 and 1995, the number of immigrants living in the state increased from 1.3 million to eight million, and tripled as a percentage of the state’s population, from 8.2 percent to 24.1 percent.” 1.

During that era, a lot of Mexican immigrants also chose to work on the California farms where most of the produce in the United States is grown. “Over a third of the country's vegetables and nearly three-quarters of the country's fruits and nuts are grown in California.” 2.

I remember listening to a television news report about the political debate this raised sometime during this period in which a Latino California State Assemblyman quoted the statistics about the growing Latino population and predicted that his community would “take back California.” By 1994, when California’s proposition 187 was passed, which was also known as the “Save Our State referendum", “ militant Mexican- American groups [embraced the challenge] and vowed [publicly] to take back California” 3.

My grandparents lived in a farming community in the central valley of California where our family also lived when I was younger. The changes in the membership of our little branch of our church illustrate graphically this change in dynamic in California. In the 1950’s and 1960’s, the population of this town was largely non-Latino. And the membership of the branch of our church was mostly white. But as the Latino farm workers, Mexican American and others, began to dominate the work force on farms in California, the number of Latino members of our branch increased proportionately. My grandparents stopped going to church because every other week the lessons were in Spanish not English. And, she complained, when the lessons were in English, someone would translate for the Spanish speaking members. But, when the lessons were in Spanish, they did not reciprocate by translating the lessons into English. It was difficult for her to attend church when she didn’t understand a word. My aunt and uncle who also lived there moved away for much the same reason. My aunt said it was hard to attend a church where English wasn’t spoken any more.

Because of my family’s experience, you can imagine, I was not too surprised when, in a regional meeting of our church, our visiting church authority shared some statistics about the future of California and The Church.  He began by saying that we should not leave California.  It has a great legacy, and we should stay to be a part of it.  But  we could expect that not too long in the distant future, instead of translating the meeting into Spanish for the Spanish speaking members as was being done on that day; the meeting would be held in Spanish and the translations would be into English for the non-Spanish speaking members.

                He also shared that The Church is growing in Africa like it was in the 1980’s and 1990’s in Central and South America.   Right now, more members of the church live South of the Border in Mexico, Central and South America than anywhere else.  And Spanish is the predominant language spoken by members in the world.  But, the predictions are, that will change.  That, by 2040, French will be the predominant language of the members of the church – the language spoken by many of the nations in Africa where the church is growing.

 I don’t know if I think that his predictions will actually stand.  There is still a great deal of work to be done in mainland China.  And maybe, ultimately, the church will have growth in Asia that will surpass these two milestones.

What I do know is that I am getting too old to learn Spanish, French or Chinese.  I am lucky that I can manage English.  At my age though, maybe I won’t have to. Besides my husband sometimes talks about leaving California to escape.

****************************************************************

(Steven A. Camarota, “The Impact of Immigration on California: Summary and Analysis of Immigration in a Changing Economy,” Immigration Review, no. 32 (July 1998): 1-6, accessed March 4, 2014, http://cis.org/ImmigrationReview32-ImmigrationinCalifornia.)

(https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/Statistics/)

I would like to share a story of faith that my daughter shared with me this past year.

“I was recently reminded of how important it is to have an arsenal of spiritual songs as I found myself hiking up a mountain. I have often heard it said in talks that the Primary songs, in particular, have given many the spiritual boost at trying times. It was a Primary song that came to my rescue this past summer.

Amongst all the things planned for this summer, I had agreed to go on a hike in Norway with my brother. It was meant to be a bit of nostalgia for us as we used to love hiking together in the mountains where we grew up. My brother had warned me that I needed to train for it and that it was not to be taken on lightly. I assured him that would be no problem as I do a lot of walking already. I didn’t pay too much attention as I generally keep myself in good shape and I had the preparations for other activities taking up a lot of my focus. As the time grew near, I did not get to do as much preparation as I had planned, and the physical exertion of doing my other summer activity was not as intense as I had hoped.

Let me just take a moment to explain exactly what it was that I had agreed to. The hike we went on was a 20 km hike. Just purely based on the length of it, it is classed as an expert level hike. Now bear in mind that it is in Norway which is a land of many tall, majestic mountains. The trail consisted of a steep incline for a full km. Nearly everywhere we stepped we were navigating over rocks of varying sizes and we had full packs on our backs as we were staying the night at the top of the mountain. I was feeling very confident all the way up until I walked a very short and steep distance from the road up to our hotel the night before the hike. I found myself out of breath and my legs burning after just that short distance on a prepared road. I found myself saying how am I going to go 20 km when I can’t even do one without feeling tired?

Although it would have been a bit embarrassing to have to admit that I couldn’t manage the hike, I was most concerned that I would be preventing my brother from experiencing the hike he had so carefully planned and trained for. It was for this reason that I found myself praying fervently that I would be able to make it up that mountain. I felt my heart sinking as we were only five minutes into the hike and I was already feeling my legs burning and I was breathing heavily. It was at that moment that the Primary song “Do as I’m Doing” popped into my head. We were hiking with a group and as we went in a somewhat single file line, I found myself singing that song and just focusing on following in the footsteps of the person in front of me. I have no doubt that Heavenly Father answered my prayers that day as we didn’t just make it to the top but did so in record time.” (In her own words as told to me by my daughter.)

Last Sunday, a member of the Seventy spoke at our Stake Conference. He told a personal story about taking the Young Men in his Stake on an overnight hike up Mount Adams in Washington while he was the Stake President there. His experience was similar to my daughter’s in that he thought that he was prepared for such a hike but he was not. And, just like my daughter, he had to repent and never attempted a trek up Mount Adams so ill prepared again.

One of the things he did to prepare for future hikes was ask a friend, who was an avid hiker, for help. His friend asked him, “Do you know about the “rest step”. He did not. His friend said to google it. So he - and I did. This is what Wikipedia says about this hiking strategy:

Rest step In mountaineering and hiking, the rest step is a human walking gait used in ascending steep slopes. Its essential characteristic is a pause of motion with the rear leg vertical and fully extended, while the front leg is relaxed except as needed to adjust the balancing of the climber's body and burden on the rear leg.

On the recommendation of my daughter, I recently listened to a podcast with “The Laundry Evangelist” as a guest.  He talked about using laundry soap (like old fashioned Ivory Snow Soap Flakes our mothers used to buy) instead of detergent.  And he told the audience that it would get their clothing just as clean as a detergent, like Tide.  I’m sure that there were many in his audience who found that statement hard to believe.  But I’m not one of them.

When I was a young woman, I attended an Emergency Preparedness Event with displays about being prepared for a disaster and displays about Home Production of all kinds of goods including a woman who made her own lye soap.  She had a family of 12 children trying to live on an elementary school teacher’s salary and made a lot of her own household goods to save money.   That included using a grater on the lye soap she made herself to produce flakes to use in her washing machine instead of using expensive detergent.  She knew that there weren’t very many women who would want to produce their own soap.  But, she explained, if you want to get your clothing exceptionally clean, especially white clothing, use soap instead of detergent.

I never tested her premise but listening to the laundry podcast from Huffington Post reminded me of her advice.  And I wondered, again, if I should listen to that advice.   Her children's clothing were always clean. In a world where you can buy anything on Amazon, I wouldn’t have to make my own soap to wash with flaked laundry soap instead of detergent. I know from personal experience that using white vinegar on yellow perspiration stains on a white shirt as suggested by Patric Richardson, aka The Laundry Evangelist, in the podcast works. Why not soap instead of detergent?

At a local event, I had the opportunity to attend a Q & A session by C. D. Michel, an attorney and  writer of the book California Gun Laws: A Guide to State and Federal Firearm Regulations.  In the forum Mr. Michel was asked several questions about concealed carry regulations within California but he did not answer them directly.

Instead, he began by asking the question, “What are the qualifications to be on a jury in the state of California?” 

There is a legal answer that is a bit more involved and which many members of the audience gave. But the simple answer he gave was, you only need a driver’s license.

He then said, "With that in mind, before you use a gun, whether it is concealed or in any other circumstance, would a jury, whose only qualification is that they have a driver’s license, find your actions reasonable or not?"

Unfortunately, in most circumstances, there isn’t time to answer that question in the moment. Are my actions reasonable or not?  Events move too quickly. But he wanted the audience to think about gun use in terms of the final outcome and maybe make better decisions about how they view responsible gun ownership.

  My husband was actually faced with such a decision years ago.  He had a concealed carry permit. His work at the time involved moving large sums of cash and he had been robbed before. So, he decided to get the permit. He also installed additional alarm systems in his car, including a “silent alarm” that isn’t typically used, because it seemed prudent. 

My husband was staying at a motel for the night, when he was awakened by the “silent alarm” that alerted him to an intruder inside of his car. The potential car thief had obviously bypassed all the other alarms on the car. In the moments before my husband went out to confront this intruder, he asked himself, if the person resists, was that person’s life worth more than the about two thousand dollars his car was worth? My husband decided that he would not shoot the intruder and risk that person’s life to save a two-thousand-dollar car.

On the other hand, my husband is a pretty intimidating individual.  And the car thief wasn’t sure whether or not the man holding the gun on him would actually shoot.  Before the thief had time to decide to run, the police arrived to take him into custody.