Pitty Party

For the last few months I've been giving myself a pitty party. Don't get me wrong I love my calling in my church. I get to teach the children in my ward who are ages 18 months to 3 years of age. It's fun to play with the toys and try to help them know who our Savior is. Yes it can be very hard and it needs lots of energy. We have 23 children in our nursery (that is what the class is called). Being in nursery I don't get to see very many people who are in my ward. It's a calling that takes you away from the companionship of the other sisters in the ward. When people move in and I go and introduce myself I find that they've been living in the ward for a few months. Then I tell them that I work in the nursery and I'm sorry I didn't notice them before. So in my pitty party for myself I had started to complain about it. How I felt left out of things. How I didn't know when activities were. And how I didn't feel loved or apart of the wonderful organization of Relief Society anymore.
So when it was the annual General Relief Society Meeting this past weekend I was less than excited about it. I really didn't want to go, let a lone listen to the speakers. I had a bad attitude, and it was all my fault. My mom called me at the last minute telling me what channel it was on t.v. So I decided I probably should just watch it. I started watching with a bitter heart, something that I was even surprised at. I love General Conference! It is an amazing time and opportunity we get to hear what the Lord would want us to hear through his prophets. I've had countless prayers answered by listening to their words and then studying them later when they come into print. My heart finally started to open so by the time President Uchtdorf spoke I was ready to really listen to what he had to say. His talk was just for me. He talked about the 'forget me not' flower and how it was his favorite flower growing up. He listed 5 things we needed to remember when ever we saw this flower;
Forget not to be patient with yourself;
Forget not the difference between a good sacrifice and a foolish sacrifice;
Forget not to be happy now;
Forget not the "why" of the gospel;
Forget not that the Lord loves you.
We went into more detail with each of these 'forget me nots'. It was the most beautiful talk. I learned so much from it. My heart was softened. I was humbled. I was once again reminded that Heavenly Father loves me and has not forgotten about me. What a blessing it is to hear His words through His prophets here on earth. Now I am happily waiting until this coming weekend when I will have the opportunity to listen to the rest of General Conference.
If you would like to watch his talk go here.
If you would like to read highlights of his talk go here.

Blessed

This past week has been another hard week. Besides my little trip to the ER (almost 2 weeks ago now) I was feeling really good. Not many nights with pain. Well this week has been a different story. Since Sunday night, when I up until 3am with pain, I've had lots of pain every night this week. Usually when I'm up with a lot of pain I tend to struggle the next day as well. So when I have several nights in a row with pain I'm usually not able to do my normal day to day tasks. That has been a different story as well this week. Two days, so far this week, my sister has needed help with her son because she was called into work. I felt just fine when she called and asked for help. I was able to watch him and we even went to the park one day. On another day, one of my friends that lives near by wanted to help her neighbor who has been sick. The only way she could do service for her neighbor was if I watched her children. Again I felt really good when she called so I was able to help her help her neighbor. Looking back it was amazing, a true blessing and tender mercy from the Lord. I was able to feel good during the times of those days that others called for my help and I could help them who needed it. I struggle with the concept of being labeled as a person with "poor health". Though I do have poor health, that is not who I am. It doesn't define me. I've had a hard time with people asking me about my health lately. I don't want people to think of me that way. The Lord knows that I've been struggling with that lately. So this week when it really was a bad week for my health and I was struggling, I didn't have to tell anyone about it. I was able to say 'yes' when others needed my help. To help others is such a blessing. A blessing I have wanted and needed to be able to give to others. That in and of itself is an amazing tender mercy sent to me from my loving Heavenly Father.

Lost

I coach my oldest son's soccer team. Last night we had a game. During the games my husband helps me coach the team on two fields. My other two children watch from the sidelines. Last night my mom came with one of my nieces to watch. Towards the end of the game my daughter and niece took my youngest son to get a drink of water. When the game ended we couldn't find my son. My daughter and niece forgot him at the drinking fountain. The place where they have the games is a gigantic complex. Just to get to the field we played on we had to walk for almost 5 minutes. There are always tons of games going on with a lot of people everywhere. So when they didn't know where he was I got scared. Of all the places to get lost, this was almost as bad as a mall. We ran and searched and searched. Panic set in and then I remembered to say a silent prayer for us to find him and for him to be okay. I don't remember how long it took us to find him and my husband was the one to find him. He was standing behind a mini van in the parking lot. Relief came but I was still a little scared. I have never lost a child like this before. Then the 'what ifs' started to set in. What if someone hadn't seen him and they backed up their car? and so on. Then I remember that I said a little prayer and the Lord heard it. Everything was okay and I didn't need to think about the what ifs because he was safe. My other two children were still so scared they cried most of the way home and wanted to sleep with him last night. So all three children slept in the same room while my husband and I were able to sleep peacefully in our room. How grateful I am that the Lord kept him safe, answered my prayer and we were able to find him. My three children are three of my most wonderful blessings in this life. And I am so lucky that I have all three of them still here with me.

Embarrassed

I wasn't going to mention this to anyone. It was a little embarrassing, but I was blessed, so I'll share my experience.
Last Friday night was 'girls night out' with some friends of mine. So my husband decided to take our three children camping. My oldest didn't want to leave me so he stayed and was going to go to the baby sitters. Just as my husband was leaving I got a phone call saying that girls night was canceled. My first thought was, 'maybe I should go camping with my family?' But I really didn't feel good about it. So the three of them left and my oldest and I went out for a date. We got home a little after 7 and ate dinner. We were then going to pop some popcorn and watch a movie. Every time I eat I have to take digestive enzymes to help digest my food. If I don't I have tons of pain. My whole life I have been able to swallow a lot of pills at the same time. Once I had a friend dare me to see just how many I could get down. I finally did it with 20 pills in one swallow with no problem. So when I needed to swallow 8 or 10 after eating Friday night I didn't even think twice about it. Well for the first time in my life they got stuck. I could feel them with my hand on my neck. It hurt so bad. I took a few sips of water, it moved the pills a little and made things worse. Now I couldn't breathe very well and my body started dry heaving trying to get them out of my throat. I called my dad and he and my mom were at my house it less than 5 minutes. They called my brother. He came and they gave me a blessing. Then my dad rushed me to the ER while my mom stayed with my oldest.
They saw me right away as I continued to dry heave. They gave me some water to sip and I started to throw up the water. Still nothing from dinner that I just got done eating. The hospital we went to didn't have the right equipment for the tests they needed to do. So I was sent to another hospital. It took them an hour to finally see me, the whole time I was still dry heaving but it had slowed down a little. I was so tired by this time. Finally I was sent to radiology where they gave me some really nasty liquid to drink while they took extremely fast x-rays while I swallowed to see if the pills were still stuck. They came back clear with a little swelling in my throat. I threw up the nasty liquid and continued to dry heave. So they gave me what they called a 'GI cocktail' to help calm my body down and numb my throat. After 30 minutes I stopped dry heaving and was able to go home. If I was still having a large amount of pain I was supposed to return to the hospital in the morning for more testing to see what and or if any damage occurred in my throat.
I swallowed my pills around 7:45pm and returned home at 11:30pm. After dry heaving for a little over 2 hours I was extremely tired.
I set my alarm for 8:30am to see how bad the pain was. It hurt to talk and swallow but I was just so tired I couldn't make myself go back to the hospital. I went back to bed and my dad came and woke me up around 11am. All day Saturday all I could handle was liquid. Sunday night I had my 1st solid food, mashed potatoes and over cooked noodles.
Today my throat doesn't hurt to eat. I can only swallow 1 pill at a time and I'm drinking some stuff to help the healing process along.
Only a handful of people know about this story, until now. It really is embarrassing to even think about how it happened. And then it was embarrassing to dry heave in front of so many people. But I need to share this with you because of the many blessing that I received. It would have been so much worse if I was out with my friends when this happened. Only the Lord knows what would have happened if I was up in the mountains when I took my pills. I was blessed to be able to stay home, have my parents and brother live so close, to have a priesthood blessing, have the first hospital see me so quickly, and have everything turn out okay. Once again I was preserved by the Lord and I am so thankful for the tender mercies he continues to send me.