No Empty Chairs Please......

Many of you may remember the talk by President Eyring when he told about the sister that when she passed away wanted written on her headstone "No Empty Chairs Please" meaning in this life that all the seats in the temple would be filled with her family and that none of the chairs would be empty with missing family members who should be there but aren't.  And that in the next life, that there would be no empty chairs in the celestial kingdom.

In 2009 my daughter Allison was married in the Salt Lake Temple, the same temple that Alan and I were married in and that my parents were sealed in.   That particular Saturday, Salt Lake City decided to shut down 3 of the 4 lanes of traffic (truly only 1 lane was open) from Orem to Salt Lake City, and you were in the middle of the traffic jam before you could know you were in trouble.  And it would take 2 hrs just to get to the next exit to try and get off and come up State Street to get to the temple, some were able to get contacted by cell phone before they got stuck and could get off quickly, but others, like my parents, John's mother (Mother of the groom) and many other family members were stuck and quite literally freaking out that they were not going to get to the temple in time to witness the sealing~

Alan and I were very concerned and of course the person performing the sealing said that we would have to start, it was too busy of a Saturday to wait any longer (114 brides that day)....  Alan and I looked at each other and in our minds we both said, "We are not going to let this ruin this important moment in our daughters life."  "We are not going to let this ruin our happiness at this special time."  Now, if you know me at all, I am not a 'roll with punches' kind of girl usually in this type of situation and I'll I can think is that it had to be the Holy Ghost telling me that everything would be alright.

Another part of this story is to realize that this is 3 weeks before my mother passes away!  Another amazing part of this story is that we were not the only family having this issue obviously, there were many brides and grooms and families trying to get to the temple without very much success of being there on time, then you add that it is pouring down rain, its a recipe for disaster.  Because the temple and the workers were very aware of the issues at hand, the Sealer did something I have never seen or heard of before and probably will never see or hear of again.....he told the temple workers at the door and in the waiting area...."When anyone comes for the Brown/Rex sealing, just open the doors and let them in."

So he starts talking to the family members who are present and the bride and groom and starts the sealing and as people get there the doors magically open and family members and people we love walk in quickly and take their seat.  He then picks up right where he left off and then the doors open and more family members walk quickly and quietly in and take their chairs..... and the sealer continues on without missing a beat.....and as I am experiencing this utter and complete joy as each family member comes in and takes their chair/seat, I think to myself, this is how it is going to be in the celestial kingdom as each family member comes through the veil and the profound joy we will feel of all of us being together again as eternal families and the hope that none will be missing.

So, its getting down to the end of the ceremony and all the chairs are filled, except my parents, Allison's grandparents.  And for just a moment, I cry inside and think "Oh, they aren't going to make it"....when all of a sudden the doors open and in comes my mother in her wheelchair being pushed by my Dad...... in that moment I cry softly, "You made it!"  Heavenly Father answered our prayers and there were no empty chairs.....and my parents were able to witness the sealing.

After the ceremony, everyone said what a spiritual experience this sealing was and that opening the doors and letting people in did not detract one bit from the spirit.  And I know why, it's because there were no longer empty chairs.....

Letter to Aileen from her Daddy!

Dear Aileen,

Daddy Loves you.  AnneMarie, Allison, and John love you also.  But Mommy loves you the most!  Mommy and I hope you know that.

You are very special to us and not because of your handicap.  You teach us daily about patience, trust, and love of simple every day things like a drink of pop, a hamburger, lasagna, a kiss on the cheek, patty cake, and laughter out of the blue.

We know you have a giant spirit and someday we all will get to see that.  But for now know that you are loved by many people including your Father in Heaven, Jesus Christ, and all of your family members.

Love, Daddy

Letters about me and my talents from my husband and my father....

As you may remember in a previous post, our RS had a dinner to celebrate our talents and one of the things that Barbara, our RS President did was ask the husbands to write letters to their wives, and she presented us with those at the dinner.  I felt extra special because I also got one from my Dad as he is in our Ward and was there at the dinner!!  It's nice to hear what my Dad thinks of me as an adult.

From my sweet husband:

Dear Lois,

I'm writing to say you are beautiful and I love you!  You are my everything.  I can't tell you how much you mean to me.  You are the most supportive and optimistic companion.  We have been through a lot together and there is still more to come, but also there are more good times to come as well.  I'm glad you get to showcase your talents because they are many and you have blessed our family with them.

Thank you for all you do for me and the girls and John.  You are the rock in this family.  We tease you, but we all know who keeps this family going.

I love your testimony and the great amount of faith you have.  We have really needed that over the years and you have always come through for me and the family.

I am very serious when I say, you are the most gorgeous woman on the planet.  You are and always will be the love of my life!

Love, Alan


From my Dad:

Dearest Lois,

You will never know how much joy you have brought into your Mothers and my life.  We always knew that we could count on Lois for just about anything or any situation that came up.  No matter how contentious the discussion, you always made the right decision and did the right thing.

I admire:  Your love of the Lord and his atonement; your testimony and commitment to the Gospel; your kindness to others especially the less fortunate and downtrodden; your commitment to do your assigned duties to the fullest for the benefit of those whom you are called to serve; your dedication to family and how high a priority it is in your life; your ability to take a hard blow and still keep on doing the things that are right and punch through to success in spite of the circumstances; your creative ability in crafts, homemaking, calendars, theater, and other work related issues.

You have the voice of an Angel.  It brings such beauty to anyone who has the chance to hear.  I look forward to hearing you sing every Sunday during church services.  I admire your ability to play the violin and piano.  I admire your willingness to continue to work on those talents when time permits.

You are a wonderful mother to Aileen.  No one can know the difficulties of that assignment from the Lord, but the Lord knows and is pleased with your efforts.  Aileen one day will be able to express her appreciation to you in a very meaningful way.  It is amazing to me to see how well we can see her expressing herself to us in limited ways, yet so very clearly.  She truly is a beautiful daughter of God sent to bless us every one.

You are such a good wife and help-meet.  Often you show kindness and love no matter how difficult things seem to be and you have an ability to help Alan become so much a better person which will bring more satisfaction and joy to the marriage.  Keep up the good work.  As your mother and Barbara can tell you its a lifetime endeavor.

You are a very special beautiful daughter whom your mother and I take so much pride in how you live your life and keep your priorities in focus.

Much love,  Dad

I Voted!!

Yes, I did.  It's one of the many privileges I have from living in a free country!!  But others have that same freedom too and I'm sad to say the candidate that I voted for, Mitt Romney, did not win!  It was so disappointing because I really have a hard time believing that so many don't see how much President Obama is hurting our country and our standard of living and so many other things.  I really fret for our country and the future.  But I'm still glad I'm an American and that I am free and that I can vote and try to make a change for the better in our country......we just needed more Republicans to get out and vote, I guess.

I am sad.  But now, I need to pray for our President and hope that he will make better decisions and lead our country wisely, better than he has in the past.

picture: MSN.com

 

It really would have been nice to have a man with integrity running our country.

One Nation Under God.......

Alan turns 57....oh, no we are getting closer and closer to 60!!

I really, really, can't believe that Alan is 57!~  How is it possible that we are now closer to 60 than not!!  But it's true!

Alan's main birthday gift was that I bought him a ticket to go to his Mom's 80's birthday party and he was thrilled that he was able to be there and to also spend time with our oldest, AnneMarie!!

But today, Sunday, Allison and John traveled down from Tyler after their church services were over and Dad and Barbara came over after our meetings and we had a family Birthday dinner!  Alan enjoyed the company, especially that Allison and John would come for such a short visit with such a long drive....and that Dad told him what a great Son-in-law, husband, father, and priesthood holder he was and after all these years still pleased that he joined the family and married Lois!~

So it was a nice family dinner and birthday celebration for Alan and it's really all Alan wants out of life - to be with his family and enjoy that time together!!

Alan blowing out his candles - on his White cake with white frosting!!
He slays me...there are so many more fun flavors....but he is
his father's son!!

Allison and John here.....7 months along.....she has made it farther than I ever did
"knock wood" I'm so excited that other than being sick still all is going so well!

Dad and Barbara

Aileen thinking come on mom, enough pictures just cut the cake!!

Me with the love of my life!!  Happy Birthday sweetie!!
 

Blessings during trials.....

Last Sunday, I was asked by the "Teaching for Our Times" teacher in Relief Society to give some examples of times in our lives when we have gone through trials with Aileen or other trials, that we had been able to see the blessings, even during the trial.  This was not something that I was going to post, because I always feel like maybe its bragging and I truly want to be humble with this.  But I also want to remember with gratitude the blessings.  And after today's Gospel Doctrine lesson (3Nephi 22-16) that I taught where it talks about Nephi being commanded to keep a record for a nation, but that we have also been commanded to keep a record for our future generations and then using this quote -  

Orson Pratt taught:

How many thousands have been miraculously healed in this Church and yet no one has recorded the circumstances. Is this right? Should the miraculous manifestations of the power of God be forgotten and pass into oblivion? Should the knowledge of these things slumber in the hearts of those who witnessed them, and extend no further than their verbal reports will carry them? . . . We should keep a record because Jesus commanded it. We should keep a record because the same will benefit us and the generations of our children after us. We should keep a journal because it will furnish many important items for the general history of the Church which would otherwise be lost (Millennial Star: 11:153).

 

I really can not let this opportunity pass me by and not share my testimony with my children, grandchildren, great grandchildren.  And this is what I print my personal history from.....so I will blog!

 

Being grateful for blessings during a trial:

 

Let me first state that I would never call Aileen a trial.   Many trials in raising her have come and gone.  But she is perfect in every way!

 

When we realized that Aileen was not going to be “normal” but a special needs child, we grieved, of course we did, this is normal.  And at first when people would say, “I don’t know how you do it” or “I could never do it” I would kind of blow them off thinking that of course they would do it if they were faced with it.  But later I realized that not all parents/mothers “do it” (take care of these precious children).  So the first blessing in the middle of a trial was that I could truly pray and thank my Heavenly Father that he would give her to us.  To a family that would take care of her and giver her every opportunity to have as normal a life here on earth as possible.  Being able to thank Heavenly Father was the first step in healing.

 

Another realized blessing during all the turmoil of realizing what that meant for us as parents is that Heavenly Father had, had us move to that exact City that had the best autism program in the country for pre-schoolers and that they had just decided they wanted to except 2 yr olds to see if it made any difference starting children younger in their program!  It was at CBTU (Children’s Behavior Therapy Unit) that she stopped only eating baby food; that she learned to crawl and then finally walk for the first time when she was 3, she learned sign language (so did we) etc… she has never been in a school or area that benefited her more.

 

We realized that Aileen was going to be with us for the rest of our lives and the work entailed that goes along with that and because of my having such early births we decided maybe we were done and should do something more permanent about it because we definitely had our hands full…..but then happy surprise we were expecting Allison, and can I tell you Allison brought sunshine and joy back into our lives as a family.  We were so grateful for all the little blessing that went along with her development being normal, her looking at us when we called her name – we called the whole family the day she did that, little blessings that are really huge blessings.  Allison finished the healing process.  And Aileen made us realized how blessed we were to have Anne Marie our 1^st child who had been such an easy baby and did all the right things as a toddler, never any trouble, she was almost a child that was an adult.  My mother told me once that she thought Aileen made me a better mother – because I praised the positive, instead of focusing on the negative which we learned at parenting classes in how to work with Aileen….it carried through in our dealing with our other two children as well.

 

Another time that Heavenly Father made circumstances so that we were living where we were supposed to be was our move to Texas, and I’m not going to lie, our life had fallen apart financially after 9/11 we had lost everything, and that was why we were moving to Texas to live with my parents…..How embarrassing is that!!  But when Aileen turned 18 and we had to go to court and be made her legal guardians, because of Aileen’s estate, which was nothing, we did not have to pay, where in Georgia where we had lived before it was going to cost us thousands of dollars.  Heavenly Father has blessed us continually throughout Aileen’s life.

 

There are so many more experiences, but these are the few that popped into my head when first given the assignment I hope this is what Yensy wanted.  But the biggest time for us that we just went through was Alan’s unemployment for a year…..who would have ever thought?  You get all your education and experience so this sort of thing doesn’t happen and then when you do get laid off, you think it will only be a short time and then you will be o.k……never with how amazing my husband is, his experience, and talent did we think that we would have a year of unemployment, but we did.

 

And all through that year, even though we did get discouraged at moments, we could not deny the great blessings Heavenly Father poured out on us so that we were able to make it without having to ask family or the church for any help.  A huge blessing!  One that I will never forget.  One that because we had followed the counsel of the prophets about not being in debt, made it possible.  One that when things broke down, there was someone who could help us, or some other amazing blessing happened and we could take care of it.  Or someone was prompted to help us  and they listened to that prompting and helped us without us having to ask.

 

During this year of Alan’s unemployment our Anne Marie had the nursing program pre-req’s change at her hospital that she works at so that she could get in sooner and will be applying in the spring.   Allison and John graduated from BYU and John got a Graduate Assistant’s job (masters program) in Tyler, Texas so that they are closer again.  But really the getting the masters program was a great blessing as well, because with the economy the way it is, they are fewer and harder to get as jobs are we found out.  We are expecting our first grandchild something we have waited a long time to get to experience.  Really it was a fabulous year and then the miracle of how Alan got his job…..really such amazing blessing.

 

Throughout my life, heavenly father and my savior have been merciful and loving and by us through every trial that has come our way and our testimony has only been strengthened as we have watched the miracles unfold in our life that is living proof that we our Children of a Heavenly Father who loves us and is there for us at all times.  I’m grateful that in the moments of self doubt and struggle I can pray to and pour my heart out to my Heavenly Father, and my Savior and know that they are listening and there for me.

 

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Mom Brown's 80th Birthday!

Saturday was Mom Brown's 80th Birthday and there was a  big celebration planned in Ogden, Utah for her.  So for Alan's birthday, which is tomorrow by the way, I got him a ticket to be able to fly out and be there with her and the family!!  Alan said it was a beautiful day and I am so glad because if there is any one that deserves to be celebrated it is Mom Brown!!  Happy Birthday Mom!

Mom with her children, L to R: Kevin, Alan, Mom, Kris
and missing Larry.

Mom with her sisters, L to R: Helen, Mom, and Ann.

The Grandchildren that were there:  L to R: Becky, AnneMarie, Stacey, Shelley, Sandi,
Laura, Sarah, Ryan, Jill.  And in front Robert.

The 2 pregnant granddaughters that were there:  Shelley Lamb and Sarah Darrington
It's Shelley's 4th and Sarah's 2nd.  Not able to make it but also
pregnant is Allison Rex with her first!

and the newest great grandchild - Oakley Haney with her mom Casey
She is only 2 wks old if that!!

my beautiful daughter AnneMarie with her cousin Stacey and her son Tucker.
AnneMarie and Stacey were only 2 wks apart and all their lives growing up we have
pictures of the two of them together!!

 

MaryAnn put together a slide show on Mom's life.  Joy had everyone in the family make a scrapbook page then put them together in a book as a gift for Mom.

I know that an added bonus for Alan was that he was able to spend time with Anne Marie for some father/daughter time!!  He came home full of news and happy to have been able to spend time with his family!!