Let's Talk About....

I grew up in a house where the "S word" was never talked about. Everything I learned about intimacy, I learned on the school bus or the playground. I remember one time, I think I was a freshman in high school, we had a substitute teacher in one of our classes. We had a test that day, and I was sitting at a table with three boys. They thought it would be funny to write sexually charged answers on the paper, rather than the real answers. As they would think of something they thought to be funny, they would say it out loud, and the rest of the table (including me) would laugh. At the end of the class period, one of the boys wadded his paper up and threw it in the garbage. About an hour later, I got called to the principal's office, where I was reprimanded for being part of this group. The substitute had retrieved the paper from the trash can and shared it with the principal. He showed me some of the vulgar things that were written on the paper, and he told me that he had called the boys' parents to explain what they had done. As he talked to me, he said that he had decided not to call my parents, because he could tell that I had no idea what most of the things on the paper even meant. I had just been laughing with the others as to not give away my naivete. I was embarrassed that I didn't know what everyone else seemed to know.

On my wedding day, I wasn't much more knowledgeable. For some reason, my aunt tried to give me a quick primer in the temple parking lot (talk about feeling uncomfortable!), and I didn't dare ask my new husband the questions that were on my mind. Thankfully, he was much less uncomfortable with the topic, having grown up talking about it.

Elder Hugh B. Brown has noted: “Many marriages have been wrecked on the dangerous rocks of ignorant and debased sex behavior, both before and after marriage. Gross ignorance on the part of newlyweds on the subject of the proper place and functioning of sex results in much unhappiness and many broken homes.

“Thousands of young people come to the marriage altar almost illiterate insofar as this basic and fundamental function is concerned. …

“If they who contemplate this most glorifying and intimate of all human relationships [marriage] would seek to qualify for its responsibilities. … if they would frankly discuss the delicate and sanctifying aspects of harmonious sex life which are involved in marriage, … much sorrow, heartbreak, and tragedy could be avoided.” (You and Your Marriage, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1960, pp. 22–23, 73.)

I got lucky. If my husband had felt as uncomfortable as I did, there could have been many opportunities for sadness and misunderstanding over the years. I have been more careful to be open to my kids' questions about intimacy, which - fingers crossed - will help them avoid the sorrow, heartbreak, and tragedy that Elder Brown spoke of.

Let Me Tell You Something

Let me tell you some things about my husband...

When I tell him someone's name, I have to repeat it at least three times before he hears what I'm saying. "I met someone named Isla today!" "Mira?" "No. Isla." "Ella?" "No. Isla." "Twila?" "Sure." Ok, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but not a very big one. For some reason, sometimes things get lost in translation in the time it takes the sound waves to leave my mouth and enter his ears.

He folds the towels wrong.

He never - and I mean NEVER - answers texts from me. I have the kids text him or call him if I need to get an answer. It works 87% of the time.

In his New York Times Bestseller, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, John Gottman says that 70% of the things we don't like will never change. H. Wallace Goddard said:

 "We can be mad about that. We can feel cheated. But Heaven seems to have constructed that percentage...what a wise design! Rather than re-working our partners to our liking, we are invited to cover their weaknesses with our charity! God is serious about cultivating our charity..there are no right words when our hearts are wrong."

Let me tell you something else about my husband. He is the single most charitable person in my life. He will drop everything to help a neighbor or a stranger in need. In this picture, he had just stopped and picked up a stranded family. He was on a road trip, hundreds of miles from home, and he noticed this family with a disabled vehicle on the side of the freeway. They had been there for nearly 8 hours, waiting for someone to stop. They didn't speak English. Their kids were tired and hungry. He drove them two hours in the opposite direction, arranged for someone to fix their car, contacted someone from the local ward, and made sure that they were fed and warm. That's who he is.

So, the other day, when he decided to "help" with the laundry, instead of shaming him for putting things on hangers inside out and folding the towels the way that he was taught when he was growing up (instead of the way that I do it), my mind went to the charity that he was showing me. He was unburdening me. He was looking past my annoying need for things to be done the way that I want them to be done, because he knew that I needed help. He probably expected me to say something, yet he served me anyway. That is charity.

I'm grateful for the chance that we both get, each and every day, to learn charity and truly grow in our love for each other.

"We will continue to be annoyed by our spouses unless we are humbled enough by our own limitations to call on Heavenly grace." (Goddard)

One Word.

On this day two years ago, I was a different person. I was angry and bitter and miserable. Less than a month earlier, my son's mission was delayed so that he could resolve something. When he first told us that he thought it would be delayed, we speculated on the length of time. Three months? That would be hard, but we could do it. Six months? That would be SO hard. We were sure we could do it if we stayed focused and motivated. But wow, would that be hard. So, when the bishop told us that the missionary department in Salt Lake City had decided that Dylan would have to wait at least a year before he could serve, we were devastated. I don't even know if devastated is the right word. It felt impossible. How could we keep an 18-year old boy in "mission mode" for twelve months? So, I was angry. I was most angry at the mission department. In my mind, there was some guy in a suit whose job it was to take file after file filled with teenage boys and girls who had made mistakes and decide on their "sentence." When he got to Dyl's, he barely glanced at it before he stamped it with this big, red "ONE YEAR" stamp, and moved on to the next. Of course that's not how it happened - the guy in the suit was a figment of my imagination. But oh, how I hated him. How could they do this to my son?

And so it was for weeks. And then months. So much anger. I am not an angry person by nature, so this was a really foreign feeling. I didn't like it. I knew that I had to change, so I turned to the scriptures. I scoured them. I listened to conference talks, especially talks about missionaries, trying to glean any bit of advice from modern day leaders. I prayed. And still nothing. There was no peace.

And then during an early morning scripture study with my kids two months later, something happened. We were reading in Mosiah, chapter 27. This is the chapter in which Alma the younger is struck dumb by an angel who had called him to repentance. "He became weak, even that he could not move his hands; therefore he was taken by those that were with him, and carried helpless, even until he was laid before his father." Usually, we take turns reading two verses each until we get through the chapter. It came around to me again, and I started verse 21:

"And he caused that a multitude should be gathered together that they might witness what the Lord had done for his son, and also for those that were with him."

I couldn't read the next verse, because I was overcome with emotion. I began to cry. Alma's son had just been laid at his feet, seemingly lifeless. And what did Alma do? He gathered people together and he said, not "look what the Lord has done TO my son", but "look what the Lord has done FOR my son." For. One word - out of 273,725 words in the book that I had read several times previously - changed me. For. I knew at that moment that the Lord was in charge and that He would do anything for Dylan, His son, "and also for those that were with him" - me. Suddenly, it didn't seem so impossible.

Today is Dylan's "hump day." One year since he left to serve the people of Osorno, Chile. He is happy and thriving, and he has grown more than I ever could have imagined. He calls that one year delay his "personal conversion story" and he has shared it when teaching other missionaries. I am so proud of him.

Hey, everyone...look what the Lord has done for my son.