You know, this is a completely different thing for you than you've had all your life.
Because you tell us about all this stuff and it's always, you know, I had to get a job immediately.
I was always working, always laboring, always, you know, going for it.
And now you're having to deal with this. It's a totally different experience for you.
And I completely understand the learning thing because I enjoy learning and when I'm not I feel bad about it.
But I think that this is also a learning experience because you have to learn how to deal with downtime.
And not, you know, not laboring, not doing those things.
Not doing those things.
You have a point. It's a whole different way of life.
Learning to be alright with relaxing.
Yeah.
You were so, you know, 12 hour days forever.
14.
You have a good point then.
Yeah.
You got too good at that.
Is it on?
Okay.
Is it on?
So what times in your life truly tested your mettle?
And what did you learn about yourself by dealing or not dealing with them?
Truly tested my mettle.
Yeah.
Well, of course, this is one of them right now.
As we just discussed, I was active and now I'm not active.
By that I'm not working.
I'm not even physically walking that much.
I walk with a walker.
It's like I feel like I'm totally limited in what I can do.
I'm probably seeing it the wrong way though.
But it's testing my mettle alright.
It's like, you don't have a choice so to get through it because you're the one experiencing it.
I mean, what choice is there?
Either you can give up, you know, you can say, well, I'll just commit suicide, but that's not really a choice.
That's just a way, I don't know, that doesn't alleviate anything.
So the choice you have is how you're going to face it.
And hopefully I've chosen to face it in a positive manner, but it's difficult.
It's very difficult.
To not be able to do things, so to speak, for myself in the past.
Like in the past, if I wanted to get the garage clean, I could do that.
Now it's like, well, I don't think I can do it on my own, I'd have to have help.
And I can't get help, you know, because everybody else is involved with their stuff.
Brad has a family.
Sid has a job family.
Andy's out of the state.
Glenda has a job.
You know, Marla doesn't feel well.
It's just looking at it from that perspective, so this is hard.
The other time it was three times that were hard.
Or just any times, any number.
Ten.
You know, there's been twice when your mom was sick.
The first time was when she had fibromyalgia.
We didn't know what she had.
And she was basically bedridden.
And she just really, pretty much her attitude was she didn't want to live.
And I didn't know what to do.
I didn't know how to change that.
There was like, how do I change that?
How can I help her?
I literally didn't know what to do.
I would pray, and we gave her blessings.
And so the first blessing I gave her said that she would be healed.
But it wouldn't be fast.
And so I clung to that blessing for years.
I think it was five years or so that I clung to it.
Because your mom was, it was just difficult.
It was difficult financially because I ended up,
I can't remember if I quit Terminex or retired from Terminex at that time.
And then I was doing the insurance at night.
Because I couldn't work during the day because your mom was at home and I was taking care of her.
That was a difficult time.
And so I clung to the blessing from the priesthood that I had given her.
And subsequent blessings that she received both from me and from other people basically said the same thing.
And so that first one is what I hung onto for years.
Because I knew it would come true. I just knew it.
And it did. I mean, you know, they found out what it was.
And then she took impact training, which totally changed all our lives.
Totally changed our lives. And I think it changed it for the better.
And that was a difficult period too because we had Marlowe was at home with us.
Pepper was off the deep end.
It was just a hard time.
Another time was hard is when, you know, when Pepper left.
And this was before she got pregnant.
And we decided as a family that we would, you know, if she couldn't follow the rules in the family, she would have to leave.
And we had a family council, I remember.
And we all said, it's better that she leave than it disrupts, than it tears apart the whole family.
And that was, and it came down to that to where she actually ended up leaving for a while.
And we actually did better as a family when she did for a time.
But you, everybody agreed to that. You made that individual choice.
Sid, Brad, and Andy, you made that.
And Mom and I, we made that choice when the time came.
We just told her she had to leave and she did.
And as a result, it was, we did better as a family.
And it was during that time that she was gone that, you know, eventually she came back and says, I'm pregnant.
And so we had another family council that said, look, a lot of times this will tear our family apart.
We could choose to be together and choose to support her and make it work or not.
And we chose to take her back in and make it work, and we did.
That was a tough time, but I remember we did as a family, took family council and we said, we're going to make this work.
And we did. You know, when she had Bartle and it was a great time, when he was young and that, it was just a great time.
It was difficult for her, but we did.
And then the other time, it was hard though when Mom was sick of that because we had not only financial problems,
we had marital problems because it was hard in our personal relationship as a husband and wife.
And we ended up calling the bishop and going to, I think we went to counseling two or three times.
It was hard enough for me just to call the bishop or Mom, I can't remember which one of us did,
but finally agreed to, okay, let's go do it because I thought I want to save our marriage.
I'll do anything, kind of like from this morning, whatever it takes, I'm going to do it
because I didn't get married to get divorced. So I'll do whatever it takes,
even if it means going to counseling, which I saw as a weakness and swallowing my pride, but I did it.
That was a very difficult time.
And then the other difficult time was, you know, when Mom had her tumor in her brain surgery,
the brain surgery, and then afterwards her recovery, you know, and she's still trying to recover.
And that was hard. That was hard for me because again, as I explained before,
I've always seen when people get sick, I've always viewed it as a weakness
because I was never sick that much. And I had a hard time relating and I always thought
that's part of my challenge is learning to live with people that are sick
and finding that it's not a weakness to you. It's whatever, it just happens for our life
and you need to learn to be giving and willing to change your views on it and to assist them.
And that was very hard. That's been very hard for me.
And now all of a sudden the roles are reversed and I'm the one that's sick and your Mom's healthier than I am, so to speak.
She's still not fully recovered and that's very difficult to see that, you know, she cooks the dinner,
she does the breakfast, she does, she pretty much does everything and that's very hard for me to see
because when she was sick, I could do the laundry, I could do the dishes, I could do that stuff.
But now there's days where I physically, I physically can't do it.
I'm either too tired or I just don't have the willpower to get up and do it and these are hard times.
I guess it's coming to the realization the hard times are realizing that you can't do it on your own.
You need help and you need to rely upon bottom lines.
You rely upon Heavenly Father and he works through other people usually to assist you.
But it's realizing that and taking the assistance that you get from other people.
That's the hard part for me.
Is that what you take away from the other stuff? Is that a common theme for you?
Yeah, it is. It has been, yeah.
Yeah, it's like, even though you've thought all your life that you could do it on your own,
that you didn't need anybody else, you could be an island unto yourself.
No, you can't.
It's design, life is a design, Heavenly Father has set up that we need to serve one another.
And that's how we grow and we learn and that's how we make it in life.
Because if we don't, if we choose to try and go it on our own, it doesn't work nearly as well.
It usually doesn't work.
And I personally see that in different instances in our lives,
but I see that especially in Pepper's life.
She does need assistance, she does need help,
but there's times when she would say, I can do it on my own, I don't need anybody else,
I don't need a boyfriend, I don't need any of the psychages.
But the truth is that we need one another.
That's the bottom line, we need to assist one another, that's what we're here for.
It's about relationships.
And if we do that, then it's bearable, then it's doable, then it's livable.
But if we don't...
It's better, hopefully, than that.
If we don't, we just say, oh, I can do it on my own, I don't need anybody's help.
You soon learn one way, you learn after a while that that's...
No, you need Heavenly Father's help.
You just can't do it all on your own, there's just no way.
You think that you're doing it all on your own, but in reality you're not.
There's so many people that are assisting you and helping you,
and you think you're doing it on your own, but you're not.
And even that attitude that you're doing it on your own, it's really not an attitude that serves you.
It doesn't serve.
You know, we're actually...
It helps other people to allow them to be able to serve and give.
It's a benefit to them as well.
It is. It just, it really is.
But if we don't learn that, we get the lessons harder and harder and harder.
You know, when we're either going to learn it or it's going to kill us.
But yeah, I would say that's a common theme.
You have to learn that you just can't do it on your own, that you do have to.
And I think that's why we have families, because you have...
You know, we serve one another in our families.
And when you're little, a little kid can't take care of themselves.
They can't do all the decisions. They can't go out and buy the food.
It's just, that's all part of the process of growing up.
I think it's a...
Maybe, like, I think you are trying to say it's maybe, like, I think it's a really good thing, too.
Like, I think sometimes, like, taking it from you can't do it on your own, it can feel very weak.
Like, but I want to do it on my own.
But I think that's, like, what you're saying with family.
Like, we're set up because, like, it's best to not do it on our own.
I think that's, like, the Lord puts us into families.
Families are eternal.
And it's, like, Satan's plan was kind of, like, I'll do it and I'll make sure everybody gets back and I'll get all the glory.
God's plan is more like, everyone's going to help everybody else out.
And no, like, and nobody is going to take all the glory to themselves.
Yeah, exactly.
Everyone's going to be helping everybody else out.
And that's, like, that's also how we will actually be the happiest, is if we're working together as a family.
Yeah, that's it, exactly.
Like, that's, like, it's the plan.
And it's also the way to be the most happy, is to be helping each other out, to serve and to allow yourself to be served.
Even when it's really hard.
It's like, I want to be able to do this on my own, but also accepting service.
So yeah, that is it.
That's it in a nutshell.
It is the plan.
It is the plan.
I know there was, another hard time was with Pepper.
It's been just a few years ago, but I remember saying to the Lord, I can't do this anymore.
I've done everything that I can think of on my own.
And this husband and wife have done everything.
I don't know what else we can do to assist her, to help her.
And so I told Heavenly Father in her prayer, I said, she's your daughter too, and she was your daughter first, and you love her better than I can, because you know her better and everything.
I said, so I turn this over to you, because I know that you love her and that you'll take care of her.
And I said, that doesn't mean I'm going to stop trying.
It just means that I realize that I've reached my limit and that I should let go, let God see that it's important to realize that yeah, I do need Heavenly Father's help.
And I remember the day that I did that.
That's the day where she had five miracles occur in her life that saved her life.
Do you remember that, Glen?
Like Lynette, what was her name?
Berlinda's mother.
Berlinda's mother saw her.
She hadn't seen her in five years in one day.
And that day she's driving on the street and she sees Pepper.
And there was five separate miracles.
I don't remember the actual miracles themselves anymore.
I knew I'd forget them.
But I remember there was five individual miracles and they were miracles that occurred that day.
And the chances of those occurring were like, that's impossible.
But they occurred and it saved her life, every single one of them.
And the last one was that they found her in the park.
The police did and she attempted suicide and they found her before she died and they took her into the hospital.
But five things occurred that day that saved her life.
And I remember thinking, yeah, Heavenly Father just showed me that, you know, I realize that he is aware of every single one of us.
And that he cares about each one of us and he loves us in that.
You know, we do the best that we can do when he makes up the difference.
And we just need to be willing to assist, to be part of his plan, to be willing to do our part but let him do his part too.
Again, not try to do it all on your own because you can't do it all on your own.
And so you have these individual things that occur.
But I remember that day, I had said that prayer that morning and five miracles occurred.
Because we really thought that that day we would discover her dead.
That we were going to have to bury her and everything.
And we had even gone to the bishop earlier that week, I think, and found out it was the church view cremation versus burial because at that time we didn't have a lot of funds.
I mean, that's how sure we were that she was going to die.
And I think that's part of the reason that she's here, is to help us teach us lessons.
I think we'll find out that was part of her mission in life, was to allow us to learn these different things.
And she was happy to be the...
She volunteered for that.
She was the only one that chose that.
You know, because she loves us.
But yeah, those are the hard ones when you think that you have to do it on your own.
And what gets you through is that you realize that, no, there's only Father.
It's usually through other people.
You know, and different things occur when...
They've occurred when I've had this illness.
Usually it's from you guys.
You say something or do something and it seems...
You're not aware of it, but I'm aware of it.
It makes a difference.
It makes a difference to me.
I think that happens a lot.
That we don't realize that these little things that we do for one another, that they...
Not just our immediate family, but with other people it affects them.
It might just save their life.
Linda had that experience with one of her friends.
Remember, she was going to commit suicide.
And you just happened to call her.
Yeah, I called her to do some volunteer work for me.
She thought, oh, I'll go do that volunteer work with Linda and then I'll go kill myself.
So she came and didn't kill herself.
Yeah, that's cool.
So yeah, so I...
So as a result, I think it's important that we pay attention to the promptings that we receive.
And that we act upon them.
Like when Mark Lemery got baptized yesterday.
Mark contained the Lemery and I just felt strongly that I wanted to be there to witness it.
I don't know why.
And so I went.
And I still don't know why, but I just felt good about it.
Yeah, I think these little promptings that we receive, something may flash into our heads and we just...
Sometimes we just blow it off. We're too busy.
Those are the things that are important that we need to pay attention to.
And act upon them.
Okay, well I'm done.