Papa P.

My father passed away the Sunday before Thanksgiving. He had been declining for a while. During that time, I wrote the following post, but was asked by some family members to remove it for privacy during Dad's illness. To the end, he maintained his sense of humor, his love of Mom P. and his love for his family. I miss him every day, but I rejoice in the life he lived, the legacy he gave to all of his posterity, and the knowledge that he is whole and happy and waiting for us to join him.

(Originally written in August 2013)

For the past two weeks, I've been working through how I wanted to write this post. In January, we lost Dad M. after a serious brain injury. Now Papa P. is experiencing his own form of brain injury, only his will be very drawn out and lingering. For the past several months, we've all notice a dramatic decline in Papa P.'s memory, his desire for physical activity, and walking. He has had difficulty remembering some names and relationships, and he started shuffling instead of walking with full strides, like Tim Conway's Old Man character.

After a series of tests with several doctors over the past five months, we now have an official diagnosis: dementia and some Alzheimer's. He has had many infarcts (mini strokes) that are affecting his motor skills. His thyroid is also slowly dying, which has drastically affected his desire and ability to stay active. He is already showing improvement from the thyroid medication, and Mom P. does what she can to gently encourage him to be active, help around the house where he can, and get out to activities or just walking around the mall.

One of the things that our family doctor told us is that the shuffling isn't his fault. It is actually one of the most common side affects, and therefore signs, of dementia. It's part of the loss of motor skills Papa P. is experiencing. We also need to be careful about taking as good of care as Mom P. as we do Papa P. We do not want her to wear herself out and get sick. Her health is paramount in helping Papa P. manage his illness and live a happy and fulfilling life.

I know it will not always be easy, but I also know that this life is not the end. Even though Papa P. may not remember the music he used to play so effortlessly and he may eventually have to be reminded of my name when I talk to him, one day all that he is and all that should be his will be restored to him. I'm grateful for that knowledge.

I love you, Papa.

I know that my Redeemer lives!

What an amazing statement to be able to make. I love Easter. I am amazed at the knowledge that Christ suffered and died for me. But I love knowing that He was resurrected and lives now. What an amazing thing to know. I'm so glad that Easter has come to mean more to me than chocolate bunny ears, finding eggs, and a new outfit. To me, Easter is the culmination of everything in Heavenly Father's plan for us. Because He loves us, He sent His Son to live and die and live for us. I can never thank either of them enough for this gift.

Thoughts about living as a Christian

I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I'm not shy about my religion, but I also don't try to cram it down other people's throats. We recently had a wonderful weekend of instruction from the men and women who have been called as leaders for the church. A friend of mine recently blogged about her feelings after conference weekend, and I posted a response. I decided that I really liked my response (yes, I'm a bit of a narcissist), so I thought I'd share it here. I'd link to my friend's original post, but I think her blog may be private, so you might not be able to see it anyway.

This is a great post. One thing I've always heard is that there is room in the Gospel for both conservative and liberal political thinking. The doctrines of the church sustain ideals from both sides of the political spectrum. There are many blacks and whites in the doctrine: don't murder each other, leave your neighbor's property alone, be faithful to your spouse. Love God and love others, and you should be okay. Seems simple, but people disagree on what "love others" means. For some, it means that you live the way you think God wants you to and leave other people alone to do that as well. For others, it means that although you don't force someone else to do what is right, you can tell them why you don't agree with what they are doing. And for some (and they are minority, thank heavens) it does mean doing what you can to force everyone to live by your idea of what God's laws are. Sometimes they are correct in interpreting God's laws; sometimes they aren't. But the fact is that God will not force any of us into heaven. You're right in stating that's why the war in heaven was fought: agency is the second greatest gift we have received from Heavenly Father. Interestingly, it is completely and wholly intertwined with the first. Without agency, we would have had no need for the Atonement. Without the Atonement, no choice we make will get us home. To me that's a rather simple and beautiful concept. But where are we when it comes to other people? How do we help without forcing? I think that the "every member a missionary" calling has to be handled on a person-by-person basis. Literally. We have to look at each relationship we have to decide how much "force" we put behind our treatment of that person. I have friends I talk about church stuff with all the time (most of them are members of the Church, and so that makes most of these discussions pretty simple, though at times heated); I have friends who love to talk to me about what they do religiously and spiritually, but don't want to hear anything about my spiritual journey. It can feel like "If I talk to Nancy enough about how right what I believe is, she will realize how wrong what she believes is." These friendships both tickle and frustrate me, because these are people who would completely shut you down if you told them they weren't Christians (because to them, their relationship with Christ is very personal), but have no qualms telling someone else that they aren't Christians (because to them, your relationship with Christ should be exactly the same as their, and therefore not personal). And I have friends who I don't talk religion with at all. With these people, I just live the way I believe is correct, and hope that some of the light of Christ will impact them in a positive way. When they have questions, I answer them. When they don't want to talk about religion, we discuss other things.

Sorry this got so long, but I fully understand where you are coming from. I've been on both sides of that ever-moving political line. I've had people tell me I'm not a good member of the church if I don't vote straight Republican. I've had people tell me that I'm trying to force my religion on others if I vote my conscience. But what else can we do? As members of the LDS church, does voting our conscience mean that we will vote exactly the same on everything? Of course not. We are all at differing points on our journey home. The best we can do is pray and follow the promptings we receive, not the promptings others receive.

Favorite picture from camp

The following is my favorite picture from camp. Thanks to Everyone's Favorite Cheerleader and Camera-tottin' Mama.

Okay, in all seriousness, here is my real favorite picture. Love these women. They are doing amazing things.

Mother's Day

This was the best Mother's Day I've ever had. Saturday, we moved all of the furniture back into the bedroom, so I got to sleep in my own bed instead of on the futon in the basement. It was heavenly. And the room looks amazing, see? (More pictures of this later.)

Mr. Perfect made me breakfast of eggs and sausage (my favorite breakfast meat). I love it when he cooks. Not only does it mean I don't have to, but he's really good at it.

After breakfast, I had a meeting before church. On my way into the building, I got a call from my secretary, who was supposed to teach the Young Women's lesson that day. She wasn't having that great of a Mother's Day. Her daughter had stomach flu and had been throwing up all night. It meant that I had 3-1/2 hours to prepare a lesson in-between meetings, singing in the choir during Sacrament Meeting, and having the Young Women hand out the Mother's Day favors to all of the ladies in the ward. All I have to say is that I love the new youth curriculum the church has put together. I showed a couple of videos and asked them about their favorite scriptures and why. We talked about why it's important to read in the scriptures every day, and also a bit more about their Patriarchal Blessings, the topic covered the week before. The girls all seemed engaged in the subject and the discussion. Score 10 for the Spirit (because it was in no way me).

We invited all of the parents for Mother's Day dinner. We knew it would be a difficult one for Mom M. with Dad passing away in January. Happily, Drama Queen and Game Boy also came for dinner. They had dinner with their mom's family earlier and were able to join us. Mr. Perfect grilled salmon (my request), and we had veggies and a really good salad provided by Mlle Ami. Afterwards, we sat in the updated living room and talked. I snapped these pictures of the kids while they were sitting together.

Oh, they make us laugh.

After everyone went home, we followed Mom & Dad P. to their house for dessert with the P side of the family. Too much good food, but never enough good company.

An Aspostle's Easter Thoughts on Christ

He Is Risen

Christ's Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem

Jesus in Gethsemane

Another video from the last week of Christ's life.

The Last Supper

Easter is the last day of March this year, so I will be sharing videos from the last week of Jesus Christ's life from the Bible Videos produced and distributed by the LDS Church. This one is of the Last Supper.

Stand in Holy Places

New Beginnings

Disclaimer: This post contains a whole lot of terms and phrases unique to the LDS culture. I'm apologizing in advance to any readers unfamiliar with this language.

For those who don't know, New Beginnings is an LDS program for the young women to introduce the girls coming into the program to Personal Progress. Completing the Personal Progress program is like earning your Eagle award in the Boys Scouts. This was my first every New Beginnings. (I don't remember going to one when I was in YW 30-some-odd-years ago.) All of my presidency and the girls did a wonderful job coming up with ideas and running with the them in a way I couldn't begin to hope for. Huge, huge props go to my Beehive Adviser and Camp Director, Most Happy Girl's Doppelganger. She did an amazing job with the small object lessons and activities. And Grandma To 2! made beautiful invitations that everyone commented on.

Our theme was Standing On Higher Ground. The church-wide 2013 theme for the youth is D&C 87:8 "Wherefore, stand ye in holy places, and be not moved, until the day of the Lord come; for behold, it cometh quickly, saith the Lord. Amen." It has been shortened to Stand ye in holy places, and be not moved. Because we believe that mountains tops are holy, we decided that Standing On Higher Ground had a good tie-in to the main theme.

I was charged with putting the program together (and printing it), introductions and handing out awards (two girls and one former leader earned their medallions -- whoot whoot!). Considering that I had just been diagnosed with bronchitis, it was a good thing I didn't have to talk too much. I kept coughing and had no voice by the end of my 2 minute introduction talk. I have to admit, I really liked my intro talk. (Is that bad?) Here it is:

"Hello fellow adventurers, and welcome to Climbing 101. We are excited to see so many interested climbers, specially those who are new this year, and also to welcome their base camp teams. We hope you are as excited about the grand adventure ahead as we are as we tackle this challenge together. We are also very excited for those heading off to Advanced Climbing 850, and hope that they will always remember the importance of a well-equipped backpack and having plenty of drinking water."

I know, aren't I clever? But seriously, Mr. Perfect helped me with it. I also found this amazing quote from Pres. Harold B. Lee:

"You cannot lift another soul until you are standing on higher ground than he is. You must be sure, if you would rescue the man, that you yourself are setting the example of what you would have him be. You cannot light a fire in another soul unless it is burning in your own soul."

After the activities, Another Wisconsin Lover spoke to the girls about her life experiences. She did a wonderful job, and the girls loved her talk. After it was over, PhotoMom's wonderful dirt trifles were eagerly gobbled down, and a lot of picture taking commenced.

Here are some fun pictures from the evening. Mr. Perfect was my official photographer for the event.

And my favorite (though we're really not sure how Mr. Perfect got this one):

Friday YouTube video

To let you know what has been going on

I know it's been a while since my last post. A lot has happened in the last week and a half. But it really started a week earlier.

On December 28, Dad M fell while in the living room. We aren't completely sure about what happened, but we do know he fell and hit his head hard. Very hard. So hard that it cause a massive concussion from which he never recovered. On January 9, 2013, he passed away peacefully, surrounded by family in the NCCU at IMC in Murray, Utah. It was peaceful and devastating. We have no words to fully express our deep love and gratitude to the staff who cared for Dad during this time. They were all wonderful.

The funeral was on Saturday.

We love you, Dad. We will miss you, but we joy in the knowledge that this life is not the end. We will see you again. And we look forward to that day.

The Manger of Bethlehem

I wish I knew the name of the boy who is singing. What a pure voice. The composer is Rob Garnder, and he is the head of an organization called Spire Music. Thank you for this amazing song and video.

Elder Bednar and my piano

Stake Conference this weekend included a new Stake Presidency. No biggie, right? These things happen every weekend somewhere in the world. For our stake, it was quite a big deal, because the visiting General Authorities included Elder David Bednar or the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. It used to be common for a member of the Quorum of the Twelve or the First Presidency to preside when a stake presidency was changed. Not so much anymore. You see, Elder Bednar told us that this past weekend, while he was with us, another apostle was in Africa helping to organize the 3000th stake in the church. Yup, 3000 Stakes of Zion spread across this amazing world. He said that if the growth of the church stopped where it is now, and if apostles attended stake conferences each weekend for all of the existing stakes, you would have an apostle come to your stake conference every 27-30 years. At the rate of growth the church is experiencing right now, it won't happen again in our lifetime.

Some of the highlights from his two talks (Saturday Evening Adult Session and Sunday Morning General Session):

• Primary children are spiritual giants compared to the general population of the world. Everything you need to know about the gospel, you learn in primary.
• If you're feeling a little unsure of your bearings, visit primary.
• The GAs who come aren't there to pick new leaders; they are there to find the leaders Heavenly Father has already prepared to lead. If corporations tried to use the same method the church uses to put new leadership in place (minus the prayer and spiritual guidance), it would never work.
• Even though Christmas trees and lights started as pagan traditions, Christ is the Tree of Life and the Light of the World. If you can keep those two truths in mind during this season, you'll never look at your Christmas decorations the same way again.
• The piano I bought about seven years ago used to belong to the Bednars.

Okay, he didn't really mention that last item in either of his talks, but it turns out to be true. When I bought my piano at the Summerhays Music piano liquidation sale (they don't sell pianos anymore), the salesman told me that it had belonged to the Bednars, and that Sister Bednar had traded it in on a grand piano. He mentioned it to me after I had already decided to buy the piano, and we were finalizing the deal. I'd always thought that was a sweet idea, but had no way to verify it. After the adult session on Saturday evening, I was able to ask Sister Bednar about it, and she confirmed that the piano sitting in our living room sounds like it was indeed their old one, and she even stopped Elder Bednar and had him meet me. It was an amazing conference, and not just because I now have actual bragging rights to a Bednar connection.

Beautiful Heartbreak

A sweet family in our ward is going through a very difficult experience right now. The father was diagnosed with cancer a couple weeks ago. This week, he started the long, hard process of treatments. When trials and difficulties hit us, we don't know why we have to go through them. We have to believe that Heavenly Father is aware of us and knows each of us and what we need in order to return to Him. The Gospel is simple. Living it isn't always easy. The more we follow Heavenly Father's way, though, the easier it becomes.

I have friends with little or no understanding or patience with faith or God, who may think that I'm naive or brainwashed. Only I know the experiences that have brought me to my beliefs. I can't share that with anyone else, but everyone can have their own experiences. It is what makes faith so amazingly wonderful, and also so hard for skeptics to accept.

If anyone is interested in participating in a 40-day fast for my friends, please check out Fasting for the Philpotts on facebook.

Genius Child #3 comes home from Massachusetts

It's so strange that two years have passed so quickly. It seems like only a few weeks ago, we were sending Genius Child #3 off into the mission field to serve the Lord in the Massachusetts Boston Mission. And now he's home.

This picture is from Genius Child #3's farewell. I hope to have an updated photo soon.

He looks good. He has that wonderful "just home" missionary glow. And he plans on keeping it. He was an amazing man before he left, and he has only grown in spirituality and understanding. We loved reading his letters. We were excited when investigators set baptismal dates. We cried with him when people just couldn't make the changes necessary to accept the Gospel as the road map for their lives now.

Thanks, Genius Child #3, for letting us share these experiences with you. We will miss reading your letters, but we're glad to have you home for a little while before you leave for school.

We plan on watching with joy and anticipation as he starts the next phase of his life. Watch out, BYU-Idaho. You have no idea what's coming your way.

Wordless Wednesday

The Will of God