Tori-age 11

This is Tori at age 11.

Save Tori from the bully!

My precious, sweet granddaughter needs help! Please post your advice, experiences and comments so that Tori can read this everyday and be given confidence. My first advice to Tori is to remember that she has more people who love her then one little bully. She has her family, her friends who are kind and Jesus. When the bully is doing things to make you feel bad, picture all of us in your mind and then you will instantly feel better. In this photograph, Tori was sealed in the temple to her parents and the rest of us in the Redlands, California Temple (May 2009). What a special day and a wonderful vacation to California.

Fitting in with the World

My father said to me many times to be in the world, not of the world. That is easy for me to do because I often feel like a misfit. In fact, I try to be different. I think it is fun to do things to embarrass my children. I like these thoughts from Ezra Taft Benson.
The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature.

The Serenity Prayer

My mother embroidered a sampler entitled the "Serenity Prayer" in about 1964. It hung on the walls of every home we ever moved to. Many people who came into our home commented on how much they liked my mother's handiwork and the message it eluded to. I felt proud that my friends thought that my parents were cool to display their beliefs. My parents believed that God would bless us with peace, courage and wisdom. I was given a gift of faith to believe at a young age. I knew that if I followed the teachings of Jesus that he would bless us and help us with our trials. My mother often commented on how all her five children were so good. We all seemed to mature young and make correct choices. She said that she and daddy did not mature until they were in their forties. This is when they settled down, joined AA and a church. This sampler will be item two in my nest egg.

The age of my awakening.

At age 14, I realized that the very people (my parents) who were making my life challenging were the very same people who gave me the tools to help me with the challenges. How ironic! My dad was on a year long drinking binge and my mother did all she could to do the basic things to keep the family together. But, that was not enough for me.

We had moved so many times during my teenage years (from Alaska to Arkansas and many places in between) that I quit trying to make friends. So what I did was put my nose in the books. I tried my very hardest to get good grades in school. I had low self esteem and wasn't eating properly. This is probably why I got mono. I remember only getting out of bed long enough to eat and go to the bathroom. I was so sleepy that I didn't even feel like doing my hair. I was discourage because my grades were dropping and I didn't understand the algebra that the tutor who came to my house was trying to teach me. Of course being too tired, I had to quit early morning seminary which was the only church I was getting at that time. I loved to go because my teacher was nice to me made me feel good about myself. I also loved what he taught. What I probably was loving, was feeling the spirit of the Holy Ghost.

Dad did what he could to provide for us after having a brain tumor removed when he was 45 years old. This surgery left him legally blind and with chronic head aches. I believe that he made the moves all across the country because he never gave up. He was always looking for something better. Because of our poverty, I have never been a worldly person. I have always looked for happiness through other means.

Now (at age 53), when I think of my parents, I can only think of how blessed I was to have had them. My struggles through my childhood has made me a strong adult. I look back and realize that my parents instilled in me a strong faith in God which has sustained me throughout my life. I have this amazing inner strength from the truths that they taught me. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER did my dad who struggled with a disease and poor health ever deny that God lived and that Jesus was the Christ. In fact, he was probably closer to God then most of us because he depended on God to help him through his trials.

And so, the first egg in my "nest egg" is my Savior. My belief in him is what I am all about. If you take him away then I am nothing and I would rather be nothing then to live without him. Correlating scriptures:

Phillipines 4:7 And the peace of God which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ.

Isaiah 40:31 But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

Treasures in my nest egg.

The first item in the nest egg is a golden egg representing the Savior.

The second item is the Serenity Prayer embroidered by my mother.