Author: Rebecca

I always look forward to hearing the words of our Church leaders at General Conference. And Kyle and I have been trying to get our kids to pay more attention too. This time I think focusing on General Conference was even more of a challenge than it has been in the past. In the past, since we don’t have satellite tv or cable tv or anything like that (one less bill yay!) we’ve pretty much been able to get the station showing General Conference by putting a safety pin, or a paper clip in the antenna spot in the back of the tv. Not the best quality picture you could get, but it was good enough that we could see who was talking and hear them talking to us. BUT now that tv has gone digital, that didn’t work, so we ended up listening to conference on the radio. 🙂

So with not being able to SEE conference, and having the distraction of kids that just couldn’t sit still and listen to conference, I did my best to listen, and take notes on things that I found interesting or things I felt I needed to improve on. Such as:

• Provide an environment where the Spirit can be felt daily in our homes, also provide a quiet time, so that we will be able to feel the promptings of the still small voice of the Spirit.

I love Elder Bednar’s talk from the Saturday morning session. There is just so much to glean from it.

• Be more diligent and concerned at home
• Express love frequently, sincerely, say it, mean it, and show it. (How easy is it to fall into the trap of doing all the things that need to be done, and not taking the time to tell your spouse and your children that you love them. I find myself in that position all the time.) 🙁
• Bear heartfelt testimony, mean it, and live it. (I’m not very good at this considering I don’t open up very easily. I generally keep my feelings to myself, which I guess could be the result of being made fun of for so many years.) :/
• Be consistent with family home evening (working on that), scripture study (that needs work too), and family prayer (we’ve got bedtime prayer down, just need to work on morning prayer).

• Neil A Anderson mentioned that repentance isn’t always some big process, but it can also be as simple as quietly striving to change and be better.

• President Henry B Eyering said “When you keep trying, you are doing what Jesus does.”

• Quentin L Cook “Remember that having religious observance in the home is as important as providing food, clothing, and shelter.”

• D Todd Christofferson reminds us to be diligent with family home evening, family prayer, and scripture study (wait! Elder Bednar said the same thing, maybe I really needed to hear that. Hmmm)

It was a Saturday morning, I was upstairs playing ‘school’ with some of my sisters. I, of course, was the teacher. Then, I don’t remember which sister it was, came running upstairs saying ‘Timothy’s BLUE!’ I remember answering “No he’s not. He’s not blue, he’s the same color as the rest of us!” When my sister insisted the Timothy was indeed blue, I went downstairs to see for myself.

I found my mom, sitting on the floor, next to the speaker phone, with Timothy in her arms. He really was blue. And my mom was talking with the 911 people saying our address very deliberately, with a frantic voice. She tried doing CPR as they walked her through it. Then the paramedic arrived, to my 11 year old self I wondered why they had sent a fire truck. (The house wasn’t on fire, my brother was blue). My mom got a neighbor to come over and watch us, and mom went with the paramedic. (I think my dad met my mom at the hospital).

While mom and Timothy were gone, there were some police officers in the house. They had roped off my parents room, for investigation since, being 10 weeks old, Timothy slept in his cradle in my parent’s room.

I remember being scared that day, I didn’t know what was going on. I remember going out into the backyard away from the house, to be alone. I remember kneeling down to pray, to plead with Heavenly Father that Timothy would be ok and that he would be able to come back home to be with us. I don’t know why I decided to go pray, honestly. You see, we weren’t members of the church back then. In fact we weren’t members of any church, and I don’t ever recall my parents teaching us kids to pray. But at that moment, I just wanted to beg Heavenly Father to help Timothy.

I don’t remember anything else from that day. Obviously mom & dad had to come home and tell us that Timothy had died. Nothing the doctors did would bring him back. Timothy would have been 15 years old now. It’s hard to think that my baby brother would now be a Teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood, had he lived. In my mind he is still an infant.

Almost 4 years after his death, my family joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. And two years after that (6 years following Timothy’s death), my family went to the Los Angeles Temple, and there we were sealed as a family, and Timothy was sealed to us. Looking back I can see that Timothy’s life had a purpose and in those short 10 weeks he fulfilled his purpose. He came to help our family get into a bigger home, and he died, to soften the hearts of my family so that we would be ready to receive the gospel when it came our way. I love my family and I love this church. Having the gospel in my life gives my life direction, and without it, I have no idea where I would be today. But I most likely wouldn’t be married to Kyle and living in Utah with our 5 kids, had I not accepted the gospel and been baptized. 😉