Category: Extended family

Advent Day 7

This December, my Advent theme is Hope. It’s my plan to share something each day leading up to Christmas. On this day, I include some words of women in my family about enduring difficult times. Knowing these stories and others from my family history gives me strength and hope to endure my own difficulties. I thank my Heavenly Father for these stories of hope.

“…We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things…”

The Articles of Faith 1:13

My Great-grandmother Della Griggs Stewart, who lived during the flu epidemic of 1918:

“The influenza epidemic broke out and [my husband] Del was very ill for two weeks. This was a terrible time for everyone. The high school was closed and turned into a hospital, cots were sent in and everyone available was called in to nurse the sick. I helped what I could, nursing some and helped take care of children whose parents had died or who were very ill. We had to wear masks; no one could come into town or leave. Our friends and neighbors were dying two and three per day. Our families were spared.”

My Great-great-great grandmother Fanny Fry, who traveled without family as a sixteen-year-old across the plains, pulling a handcart in 1859:

“At the Elk Horn River, my feet were so swollen I could not wear my shoes. Then when the swelling went out, my feet were so sore from the alkali that I never had on a pair of shoes after that for the entire journey…

“We had to pull up quite a long hill, and part of it was steep. In climbing we got behind one of the teams for the oxen to help us, for it was all we could do to keep it moving. Captain Rowley came up and called us lazy, and I did not consider we were at all.

“While pulling this heavy load, I looked and acted strange. The first thing my friend Emmie knew I had fallen under the cart, and before they could stop it, the cart had passed over me, and I lay at the back of it on the ground. When my companions got to me, I seemed perfectly dead. Emmie could not find any pulse at all, and there was not a soul around. They were, she thought, all ahead, so she stood thinking what to do when Captain Rowley came up to us. ‘What have you got there, Emmie?’ he said. ‘Oh my, Fanny is dead,’ she said. It frightened him, so he got off his horse and examined me closely but could not find any life at all. He asked Emmie to stay with me and he would go and stop the company and send a cart back for me, which he did.

“When I came to myself, my grave was dug two feet deep, and I was in a tent. The sisters had sewed me up to the waist in my blanket, ready for burial. I opened my eyes and looked at them.

“I was weak for some time after. I did not fully recover during the rest of the journey. Through it all I found I had a great many friends in the company.”

My mother, who had a brother wounded in the Vietnam War when she was a teen in 1968:

“I was 14 years old and Doug was 11. We were home alone because Mom and Dad were out on a Sunday drive, and two Marines knocked on our front door. Finding out that our parents weren’t home, one asked if they could wait in our living room. I stayed in the back TV room with Doug and was dying inside and praying so hard for Mom and Dad to get home. They did arrive a little later (seemed like two years) and when they pulled into the driveway, they saw the Marine Corps car and wouldn’t get out! Finally, I heard them come in the front door and from the hallway I heard, “He’s not dead!” That’s when I lost it and ran to the back room again. We learned that my much-idolized-by-me big brother was barely hanging on to life. I couldn’t speak. Well, that’s when the daily telegrams started that always ended: ‘RECOVERY QUESTIONABLE’. Weeks later, when my mom was at least 10 pounds lighter, the ‘RECOVERY EXPECTED’ telegram came. Elder Bruce R. McConkie, an Apostle in the LDS Church had been in Vietnam at that time and had given David a Priesthood blessing. Elder McConkie told Grandpa Que later that David’s healing was a gift from God and a miracle.

“David recovered and honorably served for twenty-nine years in the Marine Corps.”

The Lord hath Comforted His People

“I am optimistic about the future. It will be filled with opportunities for each of us to progress, contribute, and take the gospel to every corner of the earth. But I am also not naive about the days ahead. We live in a world that is complex and increasingly contentious. The constant availability of social media and a 24-hour news cycle bombard us with relentless messages. If we are to have any hope of sifting through the myriad of voices and the philosophies of men that attack truth, we must learn to receive revelation.
“Our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, will perform some of His mightiest works between now and when He comes again. We will see miraculous indications that God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, preside over this Church in majesty and glory. But in coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost.”

-President Russell M Nelson, Revelation for the Church, Revelation for our Lives, April 2018

This is the phrase that stood out to me most from this passage:

“Our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, will perform some of His mightiest works between now and when He comes again.”

This is an exciting time to be alive. There is hope and comfort to be found in Jesus Christ. Some days I live from prayer to prayer, trying to stay focused on light and goodness. This week has been mentally challenging for me, and the message that kept coming to my mind was to humble myself and reach out for some counsel and comfort from Richard and my parents. As I did this, I found the stepping stones I needed to cross this deep water I am navigating.

I am going to California tomorrow with my parents to bring my grandmother to Utah. This will require finesse, love, and angels. I don’t like to leave my family, but my illness this year has taught me that they are strong. I have done all I can to prepare and to be healthy as we take this big step. Our extended family has come together in prayer and fasting to prepare. My prayers for my grandmother are for her comfort and peace, and that we will know, step by step, what to do and say. I lay my burden at the Lord’s feet, his glorious feet, every few hours, all day.

Isaiah 52:7-10:

7 ¶ How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!
8 Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion.
9 ¶ Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem: for the Lord hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem.
10 The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God

The glue of traditions and memories

2020: all together and a new son-in-law

All of our children at the cabin (first time since 2017)✔️ River runs✔️ Wildlife✔️ Wildflowers✔️ Extended family ( ) Memories and thoughts of extended family✔️✔️

Our 2020 Sanchez family reunion is being done in shifts, with each sibling and my parents invited to take a day at the cabin. Memories and traditions fill voids when we can’t be together. This year is just a blip in a very long story.

This is the usual crowd at the cabin each year:

2019 (Daniel was in Chile)
2018 (Paige was in New York)
2017 (the last time all of our children were at the Weber with us)

What did we do with our 24 hours at the cabin this year? We read, played a couple of games, went on walks, collected rocks, and went tubing!

On Living in the Covid-19 Age

My mom, cousin, sister, and I gathered outdoors for a socially distanced movie night with a projector and screen (we are pictured behind the screen for light). We were responsible and cautious and happy.

My friend shared this, and whether the quote and citation are perfect, I do not know, but I like these ideas from C.S. Lewis. Just read Covid-19 in the place of Atomic Age and there you go. We have permission to live joyfully.