Something on my mind

"God does notice us, and He watches over us.
But it is usually through another person that
He meets our needs.
Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other in the kingdom."
- President Kimball

My Grandma gave me a tile with this quote on it for Christmas this year. I look at it all the time and I've been thinking about it a lot lately and how true it is. I've been thinking about those angels in my life who have helped me along. I'm very grateful for my wonderful husband and a supportive family, but today's post is about how grateful I am for wonderful friends.

It has been over a year since Ben and I got called to be in the singles ward. Although it turned out to be a wonderful experience, at the first I was a little scared and not that excited about the calling. I loved the married ward we were in and I loved my calling there. When the Bishop told me that I was being released as Primary President I almost started to cry, and then he added that although we'd be serving in the singles ward our records would stay in their ward and we would still be home taught and visit taught in that ward. Immediately I felt better. My visiting teacher was one of my good friends in the ward, Ashley, she is visiting teacher extrordinaire. She never missed a month of visiting teaching, and her visits always lasted over an hour because we always had so much to talk about. She made me dinner during finals week, she helped me clean my apartment when we moved, and she was just an awesome friend and example. I never felt that she came visiting teaching just so she could check it off her list for the month. Every time she visited she lifted my spirits and motivated me to be a better person. There have been many times in my life where my visiting teachers never came, which was fine, but during this time of my life I was so thankful for a wonderful visiting teacher.

Becoming a mom was wonderful and brought along with it a whole new spectrum of stresses. My friend Heidi Goodyear had a baby a year before I had Chase, and although she moved away last summer she wrote me in an email expressing that she knew how challenging this would be and that I could call her any time for advice or support. When Chase was 5 days old and still not eating well I was starting to get very frustrated and worried. Then I remembered what Heidi had said about calling her. I gave her a call and talked through everything with her. She had great advice and just talking to her made me feel so much better about things. It was just the lift I needed that day.

There was another week that I was just feeling a little lonely. I felt cooped up in the house all day with this brand new baby and RSV season, Ben and my mom and dad are gone at work all day, and I was so tired. My friend Meghan called out of the blue and asked if she could bring her baby up and hang out with me for the day. It completely made my day. She drove up from Provo and we spent the whole day together with our babies. It was just the distraction I needed.

A few weeks ago I was still feeling a little stressed about one aspect of feeding Chase that still was going well (although he was doing so much better than that first week). I had been frustrated and worrying about it for a week when I had a thought to call my cousin Heather, who has four young kids and is one of the nicest people in the whole world. Technically she isn't even my cousin, she's married to my cousin(How Rich got so lucky I'll never know), but I love her so much I claim her anyway. She is the type of person that I just can't have a conversation with and not feel amazing afterwards. She had wonderful, helpful advice on my problem and after 45 minutes on the phone with her I felt not only good about things, but confident and awesome about life. That's what Heather does when you talk to her.

Without any of these people and experiences I would probably be fine. Things would have been a little hard and then life would go on. With these wonderful people, many of my burdens were made lighter. I choose to see it as the Lord's hand in my life. He's blessed me with amazing friends- and this is just a short list of the wonderful blessings friends have been to me. There have been many other people, recently and not so recently, who have touched my life and lifted me. Hopefully I can be that angel in others lives, to lift them the way I've been touched.