Mary's Final Sacrament Meeting Talk
Brothers and Sisters,
As I stand here before you I do so with great humility for the blessings that I have received. It was four weeks ago today at this very time that I had emergency surgery, looking and feeling like I might be delivering a new baby, but I knew that was an impossibility because I hadn't seen or had a new star shine on me from the East even though my name is Mary; instead I delivered a dead gall bladder with about fifty to sixty little children or as I would call them nasty little stones and also had a hernia repair. Thanks to the blessing given to me from my Heavenly Father through the priesthood of my dear husband and eldest son Doug, I was able to spend only four days in the hospital and have been on the mend ever since. My health certainly seems to be upward bound after many year of problems. I truly give thanks to my Heavenly Father for that. He knew I had promised a wedding to be held at my house and with his help and Don's unselfish help and that of my daughter Susan's we pulled it off. We had a beautiful day Monday at the temple and a lovely day Tuesday at my home.
The bishop asked me to tell a little bit about our family, but that could be a little dangerous but I'll try to do my best.
I was raised in Brigham City. Don was raised in Gunnison, Utah and later moved to Logan. Don has one sister and has been the spoiled little brother according to her. I have two brothers, myself being the middle child and obviously the only girl but I wasn't spoiled; isn't that right Louie.
Don and I met on a blind date at Utah State and I'm sure we were blind because you probably couldn't find two people in the whole world as different or stubborn as we are and still be living together for forty-six years. But obviously we were taught commitment and have been committed to make it work. Bad times and good times but most of the time we try to focus on the good not the bad. Notice I said most.
We have six children, fifteen grandchildren, our youngest gave the opening prayer and our oldest will be giving the closing. I guess you could say that last shall be first and the first shall be last. We have two daughters living in South Ogden, one son in Brigham, and one son in Scottsdale, Arizona.
My father was a farmer and brick layer, we lived in Howell, Utah in the summer and in Brigham City during school. My older brother used to call me his screaming, spoiled little sister, but since we've grown up we have become very best of friends and I know I can count on him and his family for anything. They are all very special to me. It is his oldest daughter Ann and the oldest of fourteen grandchildren of our parents who will sing today.
My younger brother LaVar and I are very close in age and he is not able to be here today but is also a very special brother to me. We don't ever remember having a fight or an argument in our whole life. He was a popular boy in school as was my older brother. For the Senior Ball I didn't get a date so who should take me. Yes, my younger brother; something very special and dear to me. He does and always will have a special place in my heart for that act of love and the many others he has shown me.
When Don and I got married he was a senior at Utah State and when we finished getting his Masters and PhD and my PHT in chemistry and physics from BYU, we had four little ones under the age of five with number five on the way. Money was very scarce but we still think of those day as wonderful times. He used to tell me that by the way I shopped and cooked I must have brought home about $300 a month in equivalent pay. Now he tells me to quit buying everything that I think is a great bargain. Anyway I worked hard hanging out about eleven dozen cloth diapers and all that goes with it to freeze in the winter hoping they would thaw and dry when I brought them in. Don worked hard to get his PhD and taught full time his last year while he was finish his dissertation We finally graduated and moved our family to Livermore, California which is south-east of San Francisco to work for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory . While there we had many opportunities to visit exotic places. We visited Yakutz, Siberia in 1973 during the lukewarm or Cold War with the USSR.
Don was asked to present a paper on permafrost to scientists from all over the world. What better place to give it than in Siberia where it gets eighty below in the winter. Sometimes when I got upset I told my kids I was going to Siberia and not return, but after being there I was hoping it wouldn't come true, but what a wonderful experience for a young couple to have.
We also had the opportunity to live in Brisbane, Australia for a year where Don did research at the University of Queensland. I didn't go over until our fifth child finished his senior year on the basketball team. Our youngest son Rick got to experience eighth grade in an Australian school.
Before the boys and I went over I kept receiving letters from Don and each one seemed like it was from a missionary. I thought he had gone on a mission instead of a job but that's the place where he said he changed and gained his testimony. So in that case it was the place the Lord had sent him on a mission for himself. We came home and had another opportunity to spend three years in Washington D. C. where Don really found out what the bureaucrats do with your money. It's called waste. While there we were called to work with the Southeast Asian people in the Dulles branch for two years. One boat lady named Moni Sung came from South Vietnam. She swam at night to reach a boat so she could escape. She was between age sixty-five and seventy but she wanted to come to the U.S. for her freedom. She joined the church and fellow-shipped and encouraged around one hundred people to join the church. What a wonderful two years we had helping these people. They were so appreciative for what they had. Material means were small, but spirits and hearts were large. A time we will never forget.
We moved back to California and planned on staying, but after three years Don got the opportunity to retire early so I (bugged) him back to Utah. We have been in this ward five years now and on a service mission for two years in city center Ogden; where we had the opportunity to meet many wonderful and loving people.
Hearts and spirits are large but sometimes material goods are meager. Our city center friends have always been so kind to us. We love visiting them and they seem to love to have us come. Krista can tell you I don't give up easy. I told our one little boy who is here today how cute he was and he told his mom to tell me he wasn't cute, that he was a cool dude so now Quintin is a cool dude to me.
I'm going to say a little about our parents who passed away many years ago. They set a great example for each of us. One that has always stuck with me. They were always willing to share and help, though not really active in the church. Many times I saw my mother make sandwiches and cold drinks and take them out to people she didn't know, they would sit under our trees in front of our house because we lived across the street from he hospital. She always saw that the elderly and less fortunate had something to eat and a visit on our street.
I can see my dad with his buckets of vegetables from the garden asking people as they walked down the street if they could use any. "He didn't have to know them to ask." If anything was needed for the church they knew they could ask my Dad, Brother Douglas, he would always help out if he could with missionary money, building money or he would help with the work on the church. He helped with two churches at one time, building a chimney and laying brick on the Howell ward and donating money and helping with the 4th ward in Brigham City. My parents were a great example to us of service and helping others. All was not wonderful in our home but I choose to look back at all the good and forget the bad. Our parents left us with the blessing of integrity and that you can do things for others without expecting something in return, just a simple thank you. One thing I know and believe is that in God's eyes we are all the same, no matter what station in life we think we are in or may be in, not one of us is any more important than another. We all need to be cared about, we don't need to know a person to say "hello" or "how are you" or just "have a good day." It takes so little to try to make another's day a little better and if we don't we have really failed.
I love and appreciate my immediate and extended family very much. They are very special to me and I thank and love them for coming. I love my friends, we are now all scattered but we all call each other every weekend and always end our conversation with "I love you." Because at this age or any age you never know when it is the last conversation. I lost my sister-in-law, Carol Lee, about three years ago and those were our last words to each other. What a beautiful way to leave this life. I want to close with the words from one of my favorite hymns: "have I done any good in the world today?"
I thank my Father in Heaven for sacrificing His only begotten Son, our Savior on my behalf. May I take advantage of the blood he shed for me and do unto others as I would want them to do unto me. I say these things in His name the name is Jesus Christ who is our Savior. Amen.