BE YOURSELF



The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Europe Area Office
Frankfurt am Main
Germany
December 22, 2014
A friend and former colleague (Jennifer - you know who you are)

I got to the office.  I was sick,  I was exhausted.  I had no idea what I would be doing for the next 22 months.  I was frightened (yes, really).  I was handed an envelope addressed to ME!  Was this a mistake?

No.  Jennifer had sent a card to the address I had given her - it went to Salt Lake City, then into the Frankfurt Germany mailbag, and then to my office - and the timing could not have been more perfect. 

How true the words are - and particularly meaningful to me as I was in a new country with all new people with whom I have no history - more than ever it was important for me to be myself . . .

I share this today as I think about the work I am doing here in Germany.  Many young members of my church (typically aged 18 - 22) are serving as proselyting missionaries throughout the world.  The missions I advise are in the United Kingdom and Scandinavia.  I do my work over the phone or via Skype.  Young people are referred to me by their mission presidents (I work with nine mission presidents) because they are having a difficult time for some reason.  Some of the most common issues are adjustment issues including homesickness, dealing with stress of a new completely different lifestyle, sometimes a new language, different food, different cultural norms, etc. etc.  It's tough (I know - I'm sort of doing it too and I'm much, much older than they are).  And of course there are some with more challenging issues:  perfectionism, depression, anxiety.

Anyhow, I often talk with the missionary for 45 minutes or so and then send them a follow-up e-mail.  The first e-mail I send almost always includes this picture (thanks again Jennifer) and the following video clip (many of you may have seen the video since I used it for girls' camp last year).

and I say to each "I know that you are a child of God.  He knows you - your good qualities AND your bad qualities.  And He loves you.  He wants you to be yourself.   He doesn't want you to try and be something that you are not.  But He wants you to develop and grow and become the best person that YOU can be.  That is different for every person.  Aren't you glad God created you and knows you?  so that you don't have to try and be someone else?" 

As I send this message, I try to let it reach inside of me and remind me that it doesn't matter where a person is 20 or 64 the message is still the same.

So Jennifer, thanks for the card and the important message.  The words have become a daily reminder that I can be myself and that is good enough! 

A Single Yellow Rose

 Two of the missionaries here in Frankfurt are digitizing journals and family history records from various areas in Western Europe.  As they are nearing the end of their missions, they were asked to speak at a conference on Wednesday.  They shared a story about a single yellow rose---

The story was told by a 95 year old woman from Sheffield, England.  She said that over 30 years earlier her husband died.  As a part of her grief, she began to volunteer at Hospice.  For several months she made regular visits to a couple who were preparing for the death of the wife.  During the time they became good friends.  One day she received a call from the husband asking her to come because his wife was nearing death.  As she was getting in the car, she felt prompted to pick a rose from her garden and take it to them.  She was in a hurry so ignored the feelings.  However, as she drove out of her neighborhood she felt the prompting again.  So she turned around, went into her house to get scissors, and went to the yard to choose a rose.  As she was looking for the rose she again had a prompting that the rose should be a yellow rose.  She dismissed the idea because she didn't remember having planted yellow roses.  As she walked to the garden, she was surprised to see a perfect yellow rose on the first bush.  She immediately picked the rose, got into her car, and drove to visit the couple.  When she got out of the car, the husband saw her and rushed out to meet her with tears in her eyes.  "How did you know?"  he asked her.  She was confused and questioned him.  He replied, "It is our 70th anniversary today.  I have given her a single yellow rose on our anniversary every year.  This is our last anniversary together I wasn't going to be able to get her rose." 

In 1967 I received my first corsage from a boy - my future husband Roger.  As the picture shows it was yellow roses.  The next year he came home for my senior dance and gave me another corsage - yellow roses.  After our marriage, any time Roger got me flowers they were yellow roses.
Even after he was ill and could no longer drive, once in awhile he would call the florist and have a yellow rose corsage delivered to me at work.  I love yellow roses!  Always have - always will...


My blog post about single yellow roses would not be complete without another Hospice story - a story that also featured a beloved wife who was a Hospice patient and her husband... a patient as well.  It was made possible by their son who I was seeing for anticipatory grief counseling.  I'm calling him Joe (not his real name).  He first came to see me when his father was hospitalized and admitted to Hospice.  His mother had been a home Hospice patient for several months.  We had only had two sessions when his mother died.  His father was in the hospital, unable to be transported other than on a stretcher.  Joe came into the office for a counseling session and was upset because his father was apparently inconsolable that he could not see his wife before she was buried. 

We got on the phone:
*  The funeral home - yes, if we could get his father there they would have his mother ready in her casket for viewing. 
*  The hospital - yes, if we could get an ambulance ordered they would have his father ready to go visit his wife.
*  The ambulance - yes, they would pick him up at the hospital, help him into the funeral home, wait until his visit was over, and take him back to the hospital.

Joe and I were waiting at the funeral home when he arrived.  When they brought him into the viewing room on his stretcher he was holding a single rose in his hand.  The stretcher was lowered so that he could kiss his wife on her cheek, and put the rose in her hands.  After gazing at her for a few minutes, he looked up and said "Isn't she the most beautiful woman you have ever seen?"  

He died two days later.