Sam and Sally go to the Bishop

*Previous installments of Sam and Sally can be found here and here. *Sally and Sam Seymore took your advice (or ignored you) and went and saw the Bishop together. In talking to them, Bishop Smith understood that Sally and Sam had problems beyond differing feelings about the church. He also realized these were problems beyond [...]

Where Credit Is Due

If I won an Oscar (which I won’t I am no actress) I would have to say I got where I did because of the love of a good man. While it sounds so not PC, it’s true. For me marriage and family life has been liberating, not confining. There is a power in fidelity - in having [...]

Touching the stove to see if it’s really hot

I. A few years ago I was visiting my children’s elementary school, catching up with a friend of mine who teaches there. She asked about my older children who used to attend there and I told her they were mostly doing well, but recounted a difficult experience (now long forgotten) we’d been through with one [...]

Let God In

I’d cried through all my Kleenex. My brother strode up to the podium in the temple chapel and pulled out half the contents of the tissue box. Settling next to me he divided the stack and whispered, “Put as many in your pocket as you can. I’ll keep the rest for you.” Mopping my face, [...]

To judge or be judged

You’ve all experienced this to some degree… to judge or be judged. I remind myself today that We are all fighting a hard fight. About others, we do not know the whole story. Others do not know the story of our struggles. A good friend told me that she tries to keep this thought in [...]

The Rain Falls on the Just and the Unjust

Laguna Beach, 1993. As fierce wildfires fueled by 70 mph Santa Ana winds swept through the Laguna Canyon and hurtled towards their neighborhoods, several families in our Laguna Beach ward found themselves literally racing to escape the 200-feet-high flames. When it was over, the fire had claimed 366 homes, and, though most of our ward [...]

Our Children Can’t Have Coats!

Right around the time when I was starting to get into the rhythm of the speaker’s talk, my 2 year old lost it. His brother, having stolen the black crayon, affected a wide-eyed innocent look that I scarcely had time to enjoy before I whisked the 2 year old out of the chapel. We walked [...]

My Body, Ourself

Little has been said or done by the ubiquitous “reality” television “star” Spencer Pratt that gives me much hope for the future of humanity. Not to mention television.

Sam leaves the church

*The first installment of Sally and Sam. Despite her best efforts fasting, praying, and nagging nudging, Brother Seymore just isn’t leading spiritually like Sally was hoping! In fact, it’s gotten worse! Brother S. doesn’t want to attend church. He’s started looking at anti-Mormon literature on the internet.

Speak Now, or Forever Hold Your Peace

1. When I was a kid, I was a hand-raiser. I remember once in the 4th grade almost bursting out of my seat, palm flailing, wanting wanting wanting Mr. Poulsen to call on me. His eyes kept scanning the classroom from one end to the other, settling on my eager face for a moment then [...]

How Anne of Green Gables helped me get my groove back

I’ll admit, I’m in a slump. This Haiti thing has sort of made me sick to my stomach, and last night I made the wretched decision to watch a foreign film in German on Netflix. My husband is out of town, and if there is ever a movie he would never consent to watch, it’s [...]

All Good Things

When I was a teenager, things were pretty black and white. Good was good, bad was bad, and I thought I could tell the difference between the two. One of the things I categorically defined as “bad” was LDS pop music (this was the late eighties, so cut me some slack). It bothered me when [...]

Haiti

Vast tragedy makes me feel numb. I have a good friend who weeps over wars and inhumanity elsewhere. But I feel… numb, unable to wrap my head and heart around so much pain. Or, if I’m not numb, I watch the news and feel like a voyeur. The camera lingers on a woman sitting in [...]

The Vibe

Today’s fantastic guest post comes from Whitney Archibald. Whitney, the mother of three boys (one of which will officially arrive in a month) and a freelance writer and editor, is currently attempting to emit the Vibe through layers upon layers of winter clothing in Rochester, MN. She is excited to change her Segullah status from [...]

Impending Doom?

Life is good right now, in fact too good. Everyone in our family is healthy, including my parents. My husband has a very stable job with a great work life balance. Our marriage is solid. We’re comfortable financially. My boys are having a good year in school. I am in a good creative groove. Really does it [...]

Users Manual: Handle with Care

Several years ago, I was called to serve as the Relief Society President in our ward–a very green, inexperienced, quite overwhelmed and over-her-head Relief Society president, to be more specific. The bishop of the ward was a wise and patient man. In our first meeting together, he didn’t unload all the juicy details of the [...]

Presiding Spiritually in the Home

Sister Sally Seymore is making New Year’s resolutions. She wants to regularly hold Family Home Evening and have daily family scripture study in her home this year. She loves The Family: A Proclamation to the World. Sally’s husband, Brother Sam Seymore, isn’t the spiritual leader she hoped he would be. She doesn’t want to embarrass [...]

It’s a good thing . . .

Last January I sorted and purged and rearranged my children’s bedroom. We have three kids in a relatively small room and after getting rid of old toys and trying to assign homes for the new toys that had resulted from Christmas I had taken everything apart and decided maybe there was a better way to [...]

The Fan

It was a cold November Saturday, and we’d been dating about two months. We’d gone to football games together before, but this time, things felt different. We weren’t in the student section; he’d convinced his dad to give us the “second-best” of the family’s seats at Cougar Stadium. Without the spirited chants from Cougar Pride [...]

Weekday sisterhood and Relief Society meetings

My first day as a Relief Society sister was my first Sunday after moving away to college. Where earlier that week I had been excited and hopeful, after five days away, I was now lonely and sad. The opening hymn of Relief Society was one I’d never heard before (and have since heard oh so [...]

I’m so offended!

Today’s guest post comes courtesy of Laura Day Lewis. Raised in the land Bountiful, Utah she now resides on the Lewis “Farm” outside of Boston, MA. She is wife to one, and called “Mom” by 3 boys, 1 girl, and a dog. As the best hair stylist around, a visit to her chair is filled [...]

Your Bum is Showing

I live in a place that has a relatively nice winter climate. Consequently there is quite a large population of panhandlers (or hobos, as my kids prefer to call them). Usually they wait at freeway exits and stoplights with their handmade signs stating the reasons I should feel extra sorry for them (I’m a veteran! [...]

A Lovely January

I get a small chuckle from the collective conscious that hits right after Christmas in the form of pining for springtime. It seems the only winter we want is the couple of weeks around Christmas, the pretty stuff, the stuff that enhances the festive scene. But right after that? No more snow, no more cold, [...]

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

At five something tomorrow morning I will hear classical musical eminating from the Wave Radio, gradually growing louder until I realize it’s not part of my dream and fumble for the alarm remote on the top of my headboard. Exhaustedly, I will roll out of bed and trip into the bathroom, shivering and banging into the dresser along the way. With [...]

Dare to Dream

When’s the last time you dared to dream? Last night, probably. But what about waking dreams—those personal ambitions each of us have (or used to have, at least, before life got in the way)? Those goals that speak to the very heart of who we are and who we want to become? The start of [...]

Over the Precipice with the Birds and The Bees

Today’s guest post comes from Laurel Peterson Wicke is a former English teacher and actress who currently stays at home by choice as mom to three adorable and busy children. When not acting as cook, maid, and laundress, she spends her time volunteering in her older children’s classrooms, serving at church, and coordinating community HOA [...]