Dancing with Daffodils

On May 9, 2006, my husband and I came home from being out all day to learn that my brother-in-law had passed away in an accident.  It was devastating news to think that my dear sister was suddenly a widow and her three boys were now without a father.  I felt such overwhelming grief for my sister and her position; that her life had turned upside down in a matter of minutes. I felt a great need to be there with her, especially to help out with my nephews.   My sister lives in Michigan and I was living in Utah at the time, working at the university while my husband was in school.  First I had to arrange the time off and then I had to figure out how in the world to pay for a last-minute airline ticket to fly across the country on a very student kind of budget.  No one else in my family would be able to make it to Michigan for a few more days.  I just had to get there but the cost of tickets was overwhelming. Then the phone rang.  We didn’t have call...

On September 11, 2001, I was in the Missionary Training Center (MTC) for my church. I’d been there for not even a week and was still adjusting to missionary life. This includes always being with a companion but also no television, email, computers, phones, radio, non-sacred music and access to only a few books. As a missionary you are to focus on the scriptures, learn the doctrines of the gospel of Jesus Christ and prepare to teach them, often in another language. I was trying to figure out the Cyrillic alphabet and getting used to being with another person all day every day. The MTC has been referred to as a compound or a bubble because you are intentionally isolated from the rest of the world for 2-12 weeks (depending on language) in order to prepare to be a missionary. So it was in this circumstance that I came to class on that Tuesday morning to find my teacher drawing a diagram of buildings on the chalkboard. Once we were all there he told us how planes had crashed into buildings ...