Tuesday Thoughts

Mom and I soaked every minute out of our day yesterday and Dad pampered us like no other. I'm telling you, I want a "Dad" of my very own. He fixes breakfast, cleans up, fixes us popcorn while we watch a movie, did the dinner dishes as well! Wow! And he's funny besides. Love them both to death!

Today we are having lunch with my sister-in-law, Cher. We have to be careful around each other because we'll start laughing and shoot drink out the wrong places (mouth, nose, etc.)

Then this morning I am working on my talk for tonight. I'm speaking at a Ward in Tigard, Oregon for their birthday social. Cynthia asked me to give my "BYU" Women's Conf. talk or "whatever" so I'm doing a mix. I'm a different person after 3 years. Hopefully we all are. But I'll use some of the same material, talking about joy and gratitude and recording them (Elder Eyring's last Conference talk, "O Remember, Remember.)

I know many people who read this journal read Heather White's, my cousin Zella's daughter. Heather recently posted something her mother sent to her....and I just thought it was marvelous. It is talking about stress management....but I used a similiar analogy in my BYU talk about sustaining. When people have a calling (like the Prophet, our Bishop, the RS President), it is like holding a burden out in front of them for a long, long time. To me, sustaining is when we help lift or support that burden. And, then, as I read this article, I also thought of the atonement. That it also applies to those of us carrying unnessesary burdens of guilt or sin. We need to "put them down." "Take care of them."

A lecturer when explaining stress management to an audience, raised a glass of water and asked, 'How heavy is this glass of water?' Answers called out ranged from 20g to 500g. The lecturer replied, 'The absolute weight doesn't matter. It depends on how long you try to hold it. If I hold it for a minute, that's not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I'll have an ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day, you'll have to call an ambulance. In each case, it's the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes.'

He continued, 'And that's the way it is with stress management. If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, as the burden becomes increasingly heavy, we won't be able to carry on. ' 'As with the glass of water, you have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again. When we're refreshed, we can carry on with the burden.'

'So, before you return home tonight, put the burden of work down. Don't carry it home. You can pick it up tomorrow. Whatever burdens you're carrying now, let them down for a moment if you can.'

So, my friend, put down anything that may be a burden to you right now. Don't pick it up again until after you've rested a while.

Here are some great ways of dealing with the burdens of life:

* Accept that some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue.

* Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.

* Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.

* Drive carefully. It's not only cars that can be recalled by their maker.

* It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply be to kind to others.

* Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you won't have a leg to stand on.

* Nobody cares if you can't dance well, just get up and dance.

* The second mouse gets the cheese.

* When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.

* Birthdays are good for you. the more you have, the longer you live.

* You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.

* We could learn a lot from crayons... Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull. Some have weird names, and all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box.

*A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.