Come What May

Two years ago I was sick in bed--bored, friendless, and depressed--when my little brother came in the room to cheer me up.   "Lexie," he said very pensively, "on a scale from one to ten you are a six!" followed by rapid gasps from his hysterical laughter.  He's a keeper.  After my flu shot this week I thought I'd take a shortcut home over a very small fence. With my keys in one hand and important papers in the other I started one foot over the fence until my shirt got caught and I suddenly realized I didn't have any more hands. I came back down and spent an awkward minute rearranging my body position, trying to decide if I was capable of hopping a fence without ruining my clothes. Come on kid, you aren't 7 anymore you can do this!  Needless to say I looked foolish.  Although, not quite as foolish as when a few hours later I was riding my bike home from work and thought: I can make it over that curb. Ooooh. Nevermind. I can't.  My...

"The grateful man sees so much in the world to be thankful for, and with him the good outweighs the evil" (Joseph F. Smith).    This summer in Ecuador the mosquitoes have caused quite the epidemic.  As it so happens I have been in Ecuador. I have also been bit by mosquitoes; so as is the natural conclusion I too have contracted the disease. Just recently I found out that my chikungunya virus is causing liver inflammation; that means hepatitis, baby. It's a mild case, but at least it explains the joint pain, headaches, and fatigue; it even explains the raging hormones that have taken me back to my middle school days a time or two. The good news according to my medical professional: I am emotionally stable. That's gotta make you feel good.     During the initial flu symptoms a couple months ago I left my bed exclusively for food and the bathroom. For each small venture beyond my cave I was given plenty of warm lime water to drink. Yum. Each time I thought: I do...

As I sat quietly at my desk studying, my fellow freshman roommate passed through the doorway with my Anatomy and Physiology textbook open in her hands. In response to my curious look at her nervous giggles she burst out courageously, “I have questions.” Unbeknown to me my inquisitive roommate had spent the past 45 minutes pouring through the chapter on reproductive systems. For the next two hours I found myself answering question after question about genitals and the “miracle of life” as our other blushing roommate shook her head quietly in disbelief. That day I realized that learning appropriate terminology and discussing sexual terms as a family had influenced my healthy thought processes regarding sex. My mind flashed back to the first time I understood how sex worked. My mom and I were reading a children’s reference book called The Human Body . Mom was very frank with me: “This is a uterus,” “That is a penis;” and just like that we talked about sexuality. Throughout the years we ...

"What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?" (Luke 15:4). Not so very long ago after a long hard day of watching movies on Netflix I called up Momma for a little chat. Our incredibly stimulating conversation basically consisted of me complaining. She listened sweetly like a good mother. I knew it was coming but after just a few short weeks walking the dusty streets of a small Ecuadorian fishing village I was already impatient by the questionable quality of health care, mediocre local government, mosquito-borne illnesses, the lack of animal control and seat belts, and ineffective trash pickup. On this particular day I was suffering with the rest of town from bouts of fatigue and arthritic sensations brought on by my unfortunate contraction of chikungunya. By the time I finished unburdening myself to my poor mother my irritability levels were highe...

"I rigged up a beam with a pulley at the top of the building...and filled the barrel with extra bricks. Then I went to the bottom and cast off the line. "Unfortunately, the barrel of bricks was heavier than I was, and before I knew what was happening the barrel started down jerking me off the ground..." Life is like that—ups and downs, a bump on the head, and a crack on the shins. Gordon B. Hinckley Last week a lady came in with an injured coccyx (that’s your tailbone if you don’t speak anatomy). It's not a happy place to have a broken bone and I was supposed to give our patient a massage.  Unfortunately for her I have never handled an injured coccyx.  I know what it looks like, I know where it is, but for some reason the practical application just wasn't hitting me. Poor woman. After some time she at last succeeded in explaining to me that I needed to lift the buttocks and massage in the crack to lift up the bone. Of course. Silly me. I need to massage y...

“I love and revere the Lord. His power and peace are real. He is our Redeemer, and I witness He lives. And because of Him, our hearts need not be troubled or afraid (see John 14:27), and we will be blessed to hush our fears” (Elder Bednar). One cold July night near the bottom of the world I was a missionary in southern Chile walking home with my small, dainty 19-year-old companion. I always got tired after a long day of walking, but when the world started spinning below me I decided it might be a good idea to sit down.  After collapsing onto the pavement I put my head between my knees and tried to regain balance so the little Ecuadorian beside me could stop worrying. We made it home, I ate a snack, we planned our day, I built the fire, and then it was off to bed. Earlier that day we knelt down together in prayer and began a fast for the sick newborn baby of our friend’s 16-year old son. We wanted to ask Heavenly Father for a special blessing of recovery and health for h...

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And the wisdom to know the difference. (The Serenity Prayer, Reinhold Niebuhr) The past few months I’ve been able to work as a direct care technician in a care center for intellectually disabled children and adults. I’ve discovered that sometimes life is not so pretty. Some feet are webbed, some eyes are blind, some backs are crooked, and some people eat their poop. Sometimes when I look at my sweet boys and girls I just want them to be normal. I want them to be able to get out of their wheelchairs, to walk around the block when they need some fresh air, to taste food, to stop playing in the toilet every half hour. I want them to enjoy simple pleasures of life and most especially I want them to go home and be with their families more than is now possible. I know there are others with even more difficult lives and it is hard for me to imagine. These boys and girls are special people....