Carried by Faith

Marivic grew up in the Philippines, where she joined the Church in 1977. She has been married for 24 years, and is grateful to be raising her two wonderful teenagers. She says some describe her as an atypical Mormon woman, as she doesn’t like baking, cooking, sewing, scrapbooking, gardening, or canning. She does enjoy reading, [...]

Art of Raising Children

Pieta moments I wake up to a small sound at midnight, my Miss Clavell-like mother sensors detecting something is not right. There it is again–a soft sniffle, a low moan. Is someone crying? I shuffle into the hallway, squinting from the scant hour of sleep and still half in my dream. Maddy is crying–a soft, [...]

…a book by its cover (part II of II)

This post has been rolling around my head for a couple of years now, but I’m glad it was the long, lanky and lovely Michelle L. who laid down the genes card first. In her post last week, Michelle asked several questions. I’d like to respond to a couple of them from my perspective. Do [...]

Oh, the Bomb

I only heard my mother swear once. The application had to be postmarked by the end of the day. I didn’t yet have my license, so my mother was going to drive me across the whole town to make it to the post office on time. I don’t remember what happened before, but I do [...]

Love, Not Time Heals all Things

Today’s UP CLOSE guest post comes from Sunny Smart. Sunny is a stay-at-home mom with two part-time jobs, four full-time kids, and one fantastic husband. Those stats aren’t likely to change anytime soon. She loves to bake but hates to cook, loves cleanliness but dreads cleaning, wants to be a vegetarian but really loves steak, [...]

I Get by With A Little Love from my Friends

I climbed the ‘Y’ in Provo with my girlfriends on Thursday. We pounded out the 12% grade, checking our heart rate monitors (to make sure we weren’t dead… you know), we panted and huffed. We laughed and gabbed while we trekked up the hill as fast as we could. We’re trying, us middle aged mommas, [...]

Take a deep breath, and leap!

By the time I hit my teens and had sat through enough Young Women lessons, I had my life pretty well planned out: I’d marry a returned missionary in the temple, graduate from college, have four kids, and stay home with them. Two decades later, my life looks a lot like the plan I envisioned [...]

Fat Girl

the first of a two-part series If you want to see me come undone, just make fun of the chubby kid. BYU. 1989. Religion 324: Doctrine & Covenants Manual pg. 382. My aged instructor read Question A out loud: “Why did God give me a body that is fat and ugly? I’ll never get a [...]

From the Inside Looking Out

I never thought about it happening on a play date. My new-found friend and I had spent a delightful day making bread, mixing soup and baking cookies. While the kids played happily, we talked about art, literature, church, friends and living providently while we swapped funny stories and checked on the kids. We talked [...]

Spiritual Resiliency

Everyone in our ward adored Brother Brown.* His countenance radiated light and goodness; his testimony was firm, sincere, and powerful. He drew us in droves to his gospel doctrine class and then, as a loving priests quorum adviser, he shaped and molded hard-edged teenage boys into men. He was a skilled and busy physician, the [...]

Dark Glass, Energy of Heart

The little boy who sits next to my first grader daughter has been bugging her. “He calls me a baby,” she said. “He says I’m just a little cry-baby. In the lunch line, every day.” “People who make fun of other people are usually insecure themselves,” I said. A little too intensely, and it came [...]

I Cry

Mendy Hunter was born and raised in Pennsylvania. She is the fourth of eight children. Mendy left the lush, green hills of her home and headed west to BYU. After taking a scholastic break to complete a mission in Romania, she graduated with an English degree. Soon thereafter, she married, started a family and moved [...]

Scary Teachers, Scary Parents

I have a child who hates school. He didn’t always hate school. The kindergartener who upstaged all the other tyrannosaurus rexes loved school. The first grader whose portrayal of Medusa delighted audiences at the end of the Greek mythology unit adored school. His first years of learning were joyous and fun. What happened to my youngest [...]

Paths of Agency

Today’s guest post comes from Natalie H. There’s one word that best describes me: novice. A novice at being a wife and mother. A novice at writing. A novice at the world of blogging. And, most of all, a novice at life (still). Luckily, I love learning and maybe… just maybe… someday I’ll elevate my [...]

Take What You Want and Pay For It, Says God

The title of this post is a Spanish proverb I encountered in a really good book I just finished reading, a literary mystery/thriller by Irish writer Tana French called The Likeness. (LDS Reader alert: It’s an excellent novel—both suspenseful and gorgeously written—and there’s no sex and surprisingly little violence, considering it’s a thriller. But many [...]

Let’s give them something to talk about

We had our stake conference this weekend. Usually, I get almost nothing out of Stake Conference, as trying to keep two little kids sitting in a pew for 2 hours must qualify for one of Dante’s seven circles of hell. But this time, I was called to speak in the adult only Saturday session, so [...]

On Hair

I went to the hospital a few weeks ago to visit a friend. I asked for her room number at the information desk, then weaved my way through the halls until I found it. It was not a private room. I glanced in and saw that each of the four beds held a white-haired patient, [...]

Does my moral responsibility start now, or can I get a new couch first?

We came into the house this evening, carrying 1/3 of a snickerdoodle cake and a pile of wet clothes. We’d spent the day at my in-laws’ cabin, the men glutted themselves on football in the family room, the women fretted over kids and callings in the kitchen, the kids stomped in the suddenly-freezing creek water, [...]

A Limited Perspective

Today’s UP CLOSE:Death and Dying post comes from Connie Boyd. Connie Boyd is the mother of six grown children and six grandchildren. Since her children live from coast to coast and north to south, she is fond of travelling. She also enjoys religious research, church service, swimming and writing. Connie teaches eighth grade science in Worcester, [...]

Learning to Walk

There is, in our culture, an interesting pressure about correctness, about avoiding errors. It shows itself in words like competence, excellence, and perfection. It shows itself in how we treat each other in our friendships, in our families, in our professional lives. We are largely expected to behave without error as we navigate through our [...]

Declaring War

I don’t know when I decided to be an adult. I suppose there must have been a decision that meant I chose to “grow up”, but I cannot remember what that decision was or when it happened. I know that I am an adult, with the responsibilities and demands that such involves, but how much [...]

To Hope For That Which Is Not Seen

I have a question. It is a hard question. Sometimes I am embarrassed to ask it. But it is the kind of question that deserves an answer, so I am going to ask it right here. Right now. It is this. Is my life really better when I do what the Lord asks? Obviously, the [...]

Rich Girl

As a BYU freshman living in the dorms, my daughter made up an excuse every time I invited her and her roommates over for Sunday dinner. When I finally pinned her down, she confessed that she was embarrassed. “I don’t want them to see where we live,” she said. It was the same when she [...]

The Business of Making Friends

Yesterday we spent the day traipsing from one side of Manhattan to the other. Our long-time friend is in town, my hubby had the day off of work; it was the last day of summer so we decided to make a day of it. We explored a new City park on the abandoned tracks of [...]

Sticks and stones

As summer unofficially ends and the school season begins, here’s some food for thought: an (unedited) essay written by my daughter Christine, age 9. Normally, I wouldn’t care about the word “Retarded”. But when Thomas came along, that all changed. Thomas was born ten weeks early. Because of that he started out with health problems [...]

Wanted: Voices from the Dust

The derecho, an angry gang of thunderstorms packing hurricane force winds poured across the plains, leaving smashed trees and destroyed lives in its wake. Sailing on a lake, my parents saw the black clouds surging across the pale green sky. My parents reached the dock, but as my dad yanked down the sails, the [...]

How do I judge thee? Let me count the ways…

Bishop Brown stood in the common, legs crouched, hands held ready. As the disk sailed across the clear blue sky, he leapt and caught it with a loud, “Yes!” His wife, Peggy, laughed as he held it above his head like a trophy, then readied herself for her own catch. Soon, they settled into an [...]

What He Needs

It was the first time one of my best friends said, “Well, it’s not like you can expect them to give him his very own curriculum.” I stood in silence, my stroller next to hers as we prepared to walk home, batting my lashes, blinking and stunned. I didn’t bother to tell her, “Yes I [...]

Cider and Donuts

Maybe it’s just me but a lot of my memories involve food. This time of year, this almost-autumn-not-quite-summer, always takes me back to Michigan where I grew up. Michigan flip-flops with New York as the #2 apple-producing state in the country. Meaning that cider mills across my home state are springing into action right about [...]

Inside a Goddess’s Toolbox

On Sunday I taught the lesson in Relief Society on President Eyring’s talk on “Adversity.” And he says this: “With all the differences in our lives, we have at least one challenge in common. We all must deal with adversity.” So I know you’re here with me on this. My latest bout comes in the [...]

Beauty In The Age Of Plastics

I didn’t have many Barbies growing up. The ones I did have were gifts from friends at birthday parties because my mother was never especially keen on Barbie’s exaggerated, oversexed proportions (part of my parents larger plan to do their darndest to teach me to fill my head more than my closet). As a mother of all boys, [...]