What To Do When You Can't See the Light

A few weeks ago I picked up a book at Deseret Book written by Wendy Watson Nelson. She is a marriage and family therapist who was single most of her life. What would she know about marriage and family? A few years ago she married Elder Russel M. Nelson. I have admired her work for several years and have read many of her books and articles. This particular book has really helped me to find different outlooks into my own personal problems.

This book, Rock Solid Relationships, has helped me to center the solutions to my problems with the Savior and the scriptures. I will just mention a few things right now that struck me again this morning as I looked back through the notes I took when I started reading. Here is a paragraph from her book:

"When we don't know the next step to take, when we can't see any light at the end of our relationship tunnel, the scriptures--the word of God--are the "iron rod" that we can count on and hold onto. The wisdom contained in the scriptures will guide us over the mountains of misunderstandings, through the dark nights of betrayal, and around the mine fields of destructive traditions and legacies of lethal thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. And all we have to do is be willing to seek their wisdom. "Yea; we see that whosoever will may lay hold upon the word of God, which is quick and powerful, which shall ....lead the man (and woman) of Christ in a strait and narrow course across that everlasting gulf of misery" (Helaman 3:20--even that gulf of misery that is created by unhappy and stressful relationship."

She goes on to explain that the scriptures hold to keys to everything, but sometimes we need to keep reading and look before we find it. But we are promised we will find it. "Feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you ALL things what ye should do." (2 Nephi 32:3)

I know when I was in my deepest depression nothing anyone said helped me at all. Looking for answers from others just didn't work. I never felt that angels were sent to help me. That only happened to other people. I felt I was never good enough, never worthy, that God didn't know me and didn't care about me. I felt so alone and of no worth. It took a long time of looking, reading, trusting on the word of others that the scriptures were true, trusting on the word of others that God did know me, and did care. Sometimes even now I slip back into those thoughts and I have to struggle to keep my head where it should be. I just needed to remember that my husband, children, grandchildren, and all my extended family needed me to be my best, however difficult it was each day. I guess it was a "fake it until you make it" type of thing. They deserved happiness, and I was trying so hard to be the one to give it to them.

This book has helped me see what I need to do as I work on my eternal relationships. I still struggle with thoughts of not being good enough. I think it will always be a struggle, but I can say it is worth it because I love my family. They are worth everything I can possibly put into our relationships.

Turn to the scriptures, turn to prayer, turn to Christ and you will receive ALL things what ye should do..

Happy Easter

One of my earliest memories is of buying a new Easter bonnet to wear to church on Easter Sunday. Not only did you have to have a bonnet, but little lacy white gloves as well. I remember trying on the bonnet. It was very tight and was squeezing my head, but I loved it. My students asked me what an Easter Bonnet was. How sad that some traditions have gone away. This is just a fast post to show what Easter in the early 60s was like. Ruanne and I in our Easter bonnets, gloves, and dresses, along with Mom.

Another Birthday

Happy birthday to Alexis. We hope you have an exciting day. I have a gift for you here at home and I will get it to you this weekend. I'll be calling you sometime during the day. Make it a fun day for yourself!

For grandchildren's birthdays this year we have decided to give a gift that they can enjoy all year long. I am finding magazines that children would enjoy and purchasing a years subscription for the birthday child. If parents have any wishes please let me know. Otherwise, I will choose myself. Lexi is getting a subscription to Discovery Girls, a magazine for preteens all about things young girls are interested in. Hope she enjoys it.

Pictures from Arch Coal Awards

Wish I could remember the order of the names. I'll give it a try.
Left to right: Tom Nedreberg-VP of UEA;Janiece Tuttle, Richfield; Ashlee Larsen, Monroe; Lori Labrum, Orangeville; Karen Hansen, Gunnison; Bonny Dahlsrud, Salina; One of the many officials present from Arch Coal (wish I knew exactly which one to give him credit). They were all such nice people.

My family that was able to be there: Julie (my sister), Nancy (daughter), Me, my wonderful husband Garth, Nicky (my daughter). I so appreciate all their support, love, and trust in me. I know other members of my family would have liked to be there, but circumstances made it impossible. We missed them, but know they were there in spirit.

The men in this picture are some of the few I will actually take orders from! If they suggest something I need to do, I'll do it to my best ability. Garth (my husband), Jed Jensen, (Elementary Supervisor from the District Office), and Kirk Sitterud (Superintendent). Kirk hired me to teach at Cottonwood Elementary 26 years ago. He showed great trust and faith in me, and has continued to do so during his years as Elementary Supervisor and now as Superintendent. Jed has been a friend since high school. He give us the latitude we need to do our jobs without too many restrictions, giving us support in whatever we feel we need. My husband is always there to support me and knows why I spend so much time at school. I truly love him with all my heart.

Thanks for the Nice Day

Yesterday was a very nice day, a day when I felt contentment and satisfication with myself. Those days seem to be very few and far between lately, so I really needed yesterday to boost me up to meet the next days.

I spent the day with my wonderful husband, two of my daughters, and one of my sisters, along with many other people who were there experiencing the same thrill with their loved ones. We were in Richfield for the presentation of the Arch Coal Teacher Awards.

Arch Coal owns and operates coal mines in 5 states. There are four counties in Utah with ties to Arch Coal. There are five awards given out in Utah each year. These counties are included in the Arch Coal Teacher awards. Each year citizens of the counties are asked to nominate teachers for this award. The person nominated is sent a very lengthly application to fill out. Instructions must be followed to the "T" with specification of exactly how many lines per page, how many pages for each section, etc. I have received the application for the previous two years and have been awards a runner-up status each year. When the application came this year, I nearly tossed it in the garbage. Then I thought better. Someone appreciated my work and they deserved the honor of knowing I cared about them. I wish I knew who had nominated me, but it really doesn't matter. So, I went ahead and sent in the application forms again. (It really wasn't hard because I just tweeked what I already had on the computer.) You are asked to submit three letters of recommendation that have been written sometime during the past three years, so I picked three from the past two years nominations and used them.

According to the Arch Coal people, the application forms go through quite a lengthy process of grading by many teachers outside our area. The top five scorers are given the award.

I was really impressed with the Arch Coal Foundation. They had everything organized and in detail. The second-in-command official from West Virginia was there, as well as many officials of the company. The vice-president of UEA was there, representatives from our state government, and many other dignitaries. It was nice to see our superintendent Kirk Sitterud and our Elementary Supervisor Jed Jensen there as well. There were several people from different media outlets, including our own ETV and Emery County Progress. I wasn't too happy about talking on-camera with Josie Luke for ETV-10. I love talking with Josie, but not that camera. And you all know me, I cry too easily, so you know what you got!

We were given the awards at an assembly at the K-2 elementary in Richfield. There was a very nice trophy and a plaque, along with a check for $3,500. What a nice appreciation gift! I met with Patsy Stoddard and Josie Luke who both wanted to do an interview, then with another person from another radio station. It was kind of out of my league to be an impromptu speaker. Haven't done that since high school with Mr. Jo.


After the awards were given, we went to a local restuarant for dinner. There we listened to representatives from Congressman Chaffetz, Congressman Matheson, and Senator Hatch. We received personal letters and a flag that was flown over the US Capital Building. (I know, for a total of 5 seconds! But it is the thought that counts.) I have also received letters in the mail from the same congressional leaders. I thought it was kind of funny when the lady from Chaffetz office started to talk. She said "All but one of the award winners is from our district, but we will give her a flag anyway." Wonder who that was? ME! I am a Matheson fan, through and through.

In all it was a very nice day. But the humbling part is knowing that there are so many great teachers who deserve the same award. I look in other classrooms and see so much going on and just hope I am able to do the same fun things with my students.

The other day in my classroom one girl asked for help with an answer. One boy sitting next to her said, "Mrs. Labrum doesn't give you the answers. She asks you questions, then you answer the question, she asks another question, you answer. Pretty soon you have figured it out all by yourself!" I guess that is what teachers do, ask the questions and help the students figure it all out themselves. I hope they can do some of that by the time they leave my classroom.

I'm waiting to see if my daughter took some good pictures for me. The ones from my camera aren't too great. They show my terribly disfigured legs due to the long ride over and water retention. If I get something that I like better I will post it here. But don't hold your breath!

Happy Birthday to Josh

Wishing Josh a very happy birthday. We hope he enjoyed his weekend in the cold, and hope he has a great day!

Happy Birthday, Chantel

A happy birthday wish to Chantel! Hope you are able to celebrate your birthday with happy times. I'm sure your husband and kids will make it a great day, as great as they are able to. We hope all your dreams and wishes for the next year come true. We are so excited to have your family moving back to Utah so we can be together more. (That means steal your children from you :) Thanks for putting up with us the times we have come to visit. And, as usual, your gift is in the mail! (Really, it is and might even be there today.)

Stake Conference

We were blessed with very good sessions of stake conference this weekend. I took lots of notes and really enjoyed the talks. I will write more about them during the next few weeks. But I wanted to share something that went right along with conference.

The Stake Center has been undergoing some very extensive rennovations the past two years. The two wards that go to the building were sent to the other two ward houses during that time. Stake Conferences were held in each building with TV broadcasting to get to all the people. The Stake Presidency offices were moved to the Seminary building, and everything just juggled around. Much like when the old Orangeville ward house was non-existent and we had to do wht we had to do. Well, the work is now all done except for the landscaping. It has changed inside a little bit, with bathrooms in different places, the kitche very different, no direct way out of the cultural hall, a new hallway at on the north side of the cultural hall, a smaller stage, an elevator, and I'm not sure what has happened upstairs.
So today during conference President Sharp re-dedicated the building. He told us during the adult session on Saturday night that we sould be doing that during the morning session. He said he was told that President McKay was here to dedicate the building the first time. That reminded me of a picture I got from Wayne Ware showing Grandpa Guy Ware, Grandma Linda, and President McKay. So I came home, found it, printed it off and gave a copy to him. The picture is dated July 8, 1951. I am sure it was for the dedication because President McKay would not have been in Castle Dale two times that year. So, here it is for all to share.

Grandpa is on the left, obviously, and Grandma on the far right. President McKay has his back to the camera, but that is him for sure. I'm not sure who the other ladies are in the picture. I am thinking because of the window on the house in the background, the picture must have been taken on the west side of the building, on the side near the present stop sign. But then, what do I know! Any other suggestions? Any idea who the other people in the picture are? (And with the new changes on blogspot there is no spell check so pleas excuse any spelling errors!)

Pride vs Humility

We had a very good Relief Society lesson last week that got me wanting to find out more about the subject. I don’t know how the lessons for the fourth Sunday are chosen because they are not in the book, but it was certainly something I needed to spur me into a little bit of study. The lesson material is always from the most recent General Conference talks. This week it was President Uchtdorf’s talk during the Priesthood session about pride.

President Uchtdorf was quoting a lot from a talk given by President Benson back in 1989. After reading these two talks and doing some more studying on my own, I learned a lot about the affects of pride.

I think pride is a lot like humility, in fact, some people might think they are opposites. If we are proud we are not humble. If we are humble we will not be proud. But both have something in common: if you think you are (or are not), you probably are (or are not). You can’t think you are humble and have humility. You cannot think you are not proud without being proud. We should be striving to get rid of one and be more of the other.

President Uchtdorf said there are things that we should be proud of, such as our families. Even our Father in Heaven talked of how proud He is of his Son: “This is my Son, in whom I am well pleased.” There are many scriptures where church leaders talk of how pleased they are with what they see others doing. President Benson said there is no such thing as “righteous pride”, so what is the difference?
It is all a matter of how we center our attention. If we puff ourselves up because family member’s achievements, that is pride. We can be pleased and happy for them, because of their accomplishments, without taking any credit for ourselves without being prideful.

So, it appears to me that we can be proud without being full of pride. So, what is pride and how does it affect us? How can we identify it so we know how to rid it from our lives?

I have done a lot of thinking about President Benson’s talk. He really laid it out for me to think about. These quotes are straight from his talk.



**Pride is a sin that can readily be seen in others but is rarely admitted in ourselves. Most of us consider pride to be a sin of those on the top, such as the rich and the learned, looking down at the rest of us. There is, however, a far more common ailment among us—and that is pride from the bottom looking up. It is manifest in so many ways, such as faultfinding, gossiping, backbiting, murmuring, living beyond our means, envying, coveting, withholding gratitude and praise that might lift another, and being unforgiving and jealous.

**Contention in our families drives the Spirit of the Lord away. It also drives many of our family members away. Contention ranges from a hostile spoken word to worldwide conflicts. The scriptures tell us that “only by pride cometh contention.”

**The scriptures testify that the proud are easily offended and hold grudges.
(1 Nep. 16:1-3) They withhold forgiveness to keep another in their debt and to justify their injured feelings.

**The proud do not receive counsel or correction easily. (Prov. 15:10; Amos 5:10)

**“If you succeed, I am a failure.”

**The proud are not easily taught. They won’t change their minds to accept truths, because to do so implies they have been wrong.

**Our degree of pride determines how we treat our God and our brothers and sisters.

**Think of the repentance that could take place with lives changed, marriages preserved, and homes strengthened, if pride did not keep us from confessing our sins and forsaking them.

**Alma said, “Blessed are they who humble themselves without being compelled to be humble.” (Alma 32: 16)

**We can choose to humble ourselves by receiving counsel and chastisement.

**We can choose to humble ourselves by forgiving those who have offended us.

I like how President Benson linked pride with being humble. Choosing to humble ourselves doesn’t mean we feel guilty of being too proud, but that we are teachable, and want to overcome any problem we may be having, that we want to become a better person.

I saw another quote on a blog that I usually read. I thought it went right along with my thoughts this past week: “Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars; you have to let go at some point, in order to go forward.” Sometimes you just have to let it go, agree to learn, and go on. Look, listen, learn, and leave it alone.

I admit there have been times lately that I have felt justified in my pride when thinking that I am right and others are wrong. I recognize that might not be the truth and that my pride has caused contention. I am striving to change that part of my thinking, and hope that others will help me let go of the monkey bars so I can move forward.

These are all things I will be working on from this point on. But please remember, I am a work in progress. Don't expect perfection for quite a while. :)

My Egyptian Friend

As I have been watching the news unfold in Egypt I have been praying for the safety of my Facebook friend who lives in Cairo. I want to share my story about him with anyone who may be reading because I think it is special, at least to me.

Sometime last year, around April or May, I "liked" a page on Facebook where they send you pictures of LDS temples randomly through the month. One of the first pictures I saw was a beautiful shot of the Manti Temple taken from the cemetery at the foot of Temple Hill. This is a special cemetery to me because one of my ancestors is buried there. I thought the visual idea of the cemetery headstones and the temple was very fitting. There were only a few comments so I clicked on them to see what people were saying. It was the typical "I love this picture" type of comments, but one really stood out. His name was Adam Smith, and he said he didn't know this building but got such a warm feeling when he saw it, and he would like to know more if anyone would be kind enough to send him any information. It was evident from his sentence structure and word choice that he was not from the United States, although his English was very good. I continued to read comments thinking that surely someone would comment on his comment, but no one did. I went back to his comment and clicked on his name, which sent me to his Facebook wall. From what I saw there I assumed that he had just started up his Facebook account because there wasn't much there, and very few friends. I noticed he listed his home as Cairo, Egypt. That was a shocker!

I left him a message on his wall, offering to answer any questions I could about the building and the church it belongs to. He wrote back in just a few minutes, saying he didn't know what to even ask but wanted to know about that building, and that no one else had responded to his request for information. Then he added, "Just let me pray for a bit and then I will know what to ask." (Paraphrasing from what I recall.) In our next exchange I asked him if he had a Bible, which he said he did, but it was in Arabic, which he speaks along with English. He did look up lds.org on the internet but couldn't find any church near him in "this desert I live in." He then proceeded to tell him how much he wanted to leave the area and get to some place safer. That is when my warning signs took over. "If he asks for money, I'm gone!" But he never did, not even suggesting any such thing.

He continued asking questions about the church, asking several every day. He soon started posting links to church videos, and asking for a Book of Mormon. During this time his friend list was growing a bit each day, as he added more LDS friends that were beginning to respond to the questions he posted on his wall. He was just yearning for information about the church.

During the next month he told me in private messages that he would be in danger if anyone found his conversations about an American church, that his believes were so different from the Muslims in his country. He admitted that his name was not really "Adam Smith" but that he had made that name up because he sounded American, and perhaps it would be not followed by the authorities in his area. He gave me his real name, and his national number "so if you have need to find me you might be able to." Here is a quote from one of his messages:

i tried to have the political asylum to usa to feel safe when i change my dogmatic background but no body care in embassy with me cause im just normal one from 75 milinos people live in egypt so i have to be someone vip or politician or bussiness man so im losing the hope day after day. by the way happy happy birth day

I was still worrying about him asking for help and was ready to step back if he did, but he never has.

He has asked so many questions about the church, some very funny ones. One day he wanted to talk to the modern prophets and tell them they need a temple in Egypt so the people could go there to pray. He said he couldn't find their email addresses on lds.org so he wanted to me send him a list of their email addresses. I explain that would not be possible, but I was sure they wanted a temple there as well. Many times he mentioned that one day he would love to be in an LDS temple to pray. He continued to post links to LDS pictures, videos, and music. Along with music like Frank Sinatra! He just seems like a very special guy that want to learn. He wanted to know if Mormons believed in send flowers to people because he heard we did not. I told him not to let my husband know because he always sends me flowers! He responded with laughing saying how could he be so unbelieving when God created beautiful flowers of course his people would give them to each other.

Sometime during the summer we were finally able to get a Book of Mormon to him, which he loves reading. He commented several times on how special he "felt" when he read that book. Then in October all communications from him stopped. In December he returned and said that he had spent two month in jail for his "dogmatic' believes. He had a terrible time but didn't share what had happened.

You can find his Facebook page from my facebook page. He is listed as one of my friends. I am really concerned for his safety. I can envision him as one of those early church pioneers that the Lord places in areas to plant the seed of the gospel. I hope that he can continue to learn about the church, and someday be able to enter the temple to pray.