Time Out for Women

Surviving Sundays

Tue, 21 May 2013 00:37:00 -0600

by Alana Holladay

As women, I believe we do things all the time that show our determination to live a little higher. Here’s just one experience I had – a story that could be told a million times over by moms all over the world.

On the way to Stake Conference one morning, I found myself saying a silent prayer that I’d be able to learn something that morning. But had I forgotten what Sundays are like these days?

On the way, my four-year-old daughter started crying really hard and yelling, “I don’t want to go to conference! All I get to do is sit and I have to be quiet!” I explained that most of the time it’s fine for her to run around and play, but when we go to places like church we need to be ready to listen and learn.

My husband and I decided that instead of going into the chapel to watch, we’d find some secluded overflow room so the kids could have a little more space and maybe we could listen to a few words of conference. All was going well until the first speaker got up and we were joined by another couple and their kids, which increased the pressure to keep everyone really quiet.

I ended up taking my two-year-old son out three times and had to nurse my seven-month-old twins. After her crying spell, my four-year-old was in one of her silly moods and even my 6-year-old son couldn't seem to sit still for long. The coloring books and Cheerios just weren't cutting it.

About a quarter way through the meeting, one of the twins had a stinky diaper, but of course we were in so much of a hurry to get there that morning that we had forgotten the diaper bag. So my husband took him out to the van and managed to find a spare diaper. Near the end of the meeting I could tell the other twin was stinky but figured she could wait till it was over. Well, pretty soon she exploded…an “everyone in the room looked at her and chuckled” kind of explosion…so I held her very carefully on my lap until it was over. When we got up to leave, the lady sitting behind us said, “Uh oh…she’s leaking!” Sure enough it was smeared on my skirt and we got out of there as fast as we could!

This is a small sampling, just one example. But we don’t take our kids to church because it’s fun for us. We don’t do it to make them miserable, or because we like torturing ourselves. Nor do we go because we enjoy walking up and down the halls week after week in suits and dresses getting spit up on and wearing out our arms jiggling babies…trying to get them to be happy through nap times and hearing them complain that they’re hungry because church goes through lunch time. No, at this stage in life we don’t take them because we feel so spiritually refreshed when we get home. More often than not we return home with headaches, sore arms and stressed minds.

Then why do we go?

Because we want them to see how important it is to us, how much we love the Lord and want to do what He asks us to do – and for them to develop those desires themselves. We want them to develop good habits of Sunday worship while they are young and make it a priority throughout their lives to put God first.

Women all over the world, in all kinds of circumstances and life stages, similarly do things that sometimes don't make sense from the outside looking in. We do what may be more difficult in the moment with the hope and trust that our efforts will make a difference later. Sometimes much later. To me, that's what living higher is all about.

Behind the Scenes of EPHRAIM'S RESCUE

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:58:00 -0600

by T.C. Christensen

Brought to you by filmmaker and TOFW presenter T. C. Christensen (17 Miracles; Praise to the Man; The Work and the Glory), Ephraim’s Rescue is based on the true story of Ephraim Hanks’ valiant rescue of the Willie Handcart Company at Martin’s Cove. Ephraim's Rescue opens in select theaters on May 31. Find more information here.

Researching these great pioneer ancestors of ours is one of my favorite parts of making these films. One experience I had made it into my journal that very day.

While I was looking for supporting characters to write about for Ephraim's Rescue, one of our historical advisors, Jolene Allphin, suggested I look into Albert Jones. He was a young man in the Martin Company, and she thought I might find some interesting things about him.

Around the same time, I was also looking for more information about Thomas Dobson, who is the other hero of the film (along with Ephraim). There is very little known about Thomas, which is actually the case with most of the Saints in those handcart companies. I have grown accustomed to adding pieces of character and story to round out these people, but anything based in truth is always the best.

I went up to the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers museum in late 2011 and in taking Jolene's advice, I asked for the file they had on Albert Jones. The file showed that Albert was an interesting guy and a faithful Saint, but nothing jumped out at me as something to use in the script. Then, when I was almost to the end of the file, I saw something that DID jump out at me.

It was a small entry about Thomas Dobson (my second protagonist). It contained one small paragraph that noted that Thomas Dobson was called to and worked during the trek as a member of the burial squad.

EUREKA! (For those of you who don't know that word in this context it means - EUREKA!!!)

I hit gold. How amazing! All kinds of possibilities immediately flooded my tiny bald-headed brain. If Thomas Dobson was in the burial squad, that means he would have been there to bury Albert. He would have been there to bury Ester Stock (his love interest in the film). Also, I knew I could do something with this teenage boy being called to be in the squad... the implications and the yuckiness of it all.

All of those ideas came together and made it into the script and now onto the screen. Thomas Dobson's file says nothing about it, neither does any of the other many, many accounts I read. But here, seemingly misplaced in another persons file, was just what I needed to round out the character of Thomas Dobson and I had "stumbled" across it. Like so many other times before, I was blessed to find what I needed to find.

What LDS General Authorities Say About Their Wives

Thu, 16 May 2013 15:08:00 -0600

by LDS Living, Compiled by Kate Ensign-Lewis

We saw this article from LDS Living and had to share it with you! You'll love the photos, the stories, and the little insights into the lives of these great men and women!

“[She is] a person who has always made me want to be the very best that I can be.” (From "President Henry B. Eyring")

Facts:

-Kathleen Johnson was attending summer school at Harvard when she met Henry B. Eyring, who was in his late 20s. Their oldest son described their courtship as “very romantic”—they played tennis together (she was captain of her high school tennis team), sailed on the cape, and enjoyed summer together after they met.

-When her boys (the oldest children) would fight, she would break out into singing hymns. Her boys would roll their eyes, but they would also stop.

-Her daughter remembers being surprised once by her mother with a drawer full of Skittles—they share an inherited sweet tooth.

Read more at LDSLiving.com.

Food Storage Cooking Meets Real Life: Easy Pantry Pie Crust

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:36:00 -0600

by Megan from My Food Storage Cookbook

Hi, I'm Megan. I have a husband and five kids (ages 14 to 9 months) who like to eat. They've liked to eat ever since I can remember, so thanks to them (and their sometimes picky tastes) I found an interest in cooking and now find it quite fun! To keep tummies happy, I cook regularly from a compilation of recipes put together in a binder we call our family cookbook. Once tried, if a recipe's a winner, it's removed from it's previous cookbook or other location and joins the ranks of "the best" in our cookbook. Many of you probably do the same thing.

Food Storage Cooking Meets Real Life

About three years ago I realized something big. All of the food storage I'd carefully tucked away, trying to be prepared for a rainy day, would be entirely useless to me unless I learned to cook real food with it that my family would eat. Having been consistently urged by prophets for so long (ever since the 1800's) to gather food storage there might be a chance, at some point, of having to depend entirely upon it. This hadn't occurred to me when buying it, but thanks to a friend who decided to find out if feeding a family while relying exclusively on food storage was even possible, I came to realize the necessity of having a plan.

I realized I needed recipes and a system of organizing them. I needed to know exactly what to make from what I stored, which products were good (as well as which ones weren't) and how much I needed to have stored that would equal "a year's supply." Also, another light bulb turned on. If I could find food storage recipes my family honestly enjoyed, there was a built in perk -- the dilemma of using the food and keeping it rotated would be eliminated! Patterned after our family cookbook, my goal became creating a customized family "food storage" cookbook that would be our "go-to" if we ever had to depend entirely on the food we stored. Easier said than done! I quickly discovered this was not going to be an easy project. We tested, we tried, we cooked and many times we tossed...into the trash can.

After much prayer and pleading with the Lord to help me find a way to do this, the recipes I share at myfoodstoragecookbook.com are the success stories. Most, quite honestly, have been brought about due to answered prayers, so I can't take credit for finding or coming up with them. Through all of this I've learned that the Lord cares deeply about the temporal independence of his children and is eager to help those with a desire to be obedient! Because it's been such a gift for my own family, I'm only too happy to share it with others. By seeing what's worked for me, I hope to save people from making frustrating mistakes associated with the learning curve of a completely different way of cooking.

Who Wants Some Pie?

What many people don't realize is that cooking with food storage can sometimes actually cut your time in the kitchen. This recipe is a perfect example of that! A big dilemma for those of us who like to cook but lack the time to do everything perfectly is whether to go to the effort of making a pie crust from scratch or buy a frozen store bought version. If deciding to make your own there are multitudes of methods out there for doing so and every cook and cookbook seems to have a favorite "secret" to get it right.

Well, this recipe, thanks to it's pantry friendly ingredients, is hands down the easiest pie crust you're ever going to make! A food processor isn't necessary (since there's no "cutting-in" of butter or shortening) and it works whether your water is ice cold or room temperature. With a little help, even a child can make this pie crust, which to me is awesome!!

Easy Pantry Pie Crust

Ingredients:
3 cups flour
1 1/4 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
1 TBS sugar
1/2 cup shortening powder
1/2 cup butter powder (*I prefer Thrive's brand)
2 TBS oil
1/2 cup + 2-3 TBS water

Instructions:
Whisk dry ingredients together in a medium bowl. Add oil and water and stir to combine.

Roll about half of the mixture between a flexible cutting mat and wax paper (or between two sheets of wax paper, I like the cutting mat base because it's sturdy while rolling out the dough, plus it saves me a sheet of wax paper).

Once rolled, flip over and carefully peel back the cutting mat. Fit the dough with wax paper into a pie dish and peel off the wax paper. Repeat for the top crust.

If wanting to make a lattice top, use a pastry wheel to cut lattice strips, removing from the flexible mat using a metal spatula.

Bake filled pie in a 400 degree oven for 40-45 minutes until crust is golden brown. After 15-20 minutes of baking, cover crust edge with strips of foil to prevent excessive browning.

If planning to bake (without electricity) using a sun oven, use a spray bottle to spritz the top of the pie with water before baking. Ideally, the sun oven should be heated to at least 300 degrees. After placing pie in the preheated oven, use a pencil to allow steam to vent from the closed oven door and bake for 90 minutes.

Cool at least an hour before serving.

In The Army Now

Tue, 14 May 2013 16:19:00 -0600

by Ellie Young

I am Ellie Young. I am a wife and a mother to four wonderful young men, but that is the extent of what became of my planned "normal" life. I am a doctor, a captain in the Army and an educator.

Ever since we were married in June of 1996, my husband always encouraged me to finish school. I never imagined the wisdom behind that decision. I graduated from Utah State University when my youngest was six months old while my husband was an Army Reserve Recruiter in Logan, UT. But before I could begin graduate school, the Army told us we would be moving to New York where he would be a Medical Recruiter for the Reserves.

After we had been in New York for three years, the Army decided my husband was not healthy enough to continue in the service but not broken enough to warrant a medical retirement. The deteriorating condition of his health changed our family structure. He was no longer able to hold a full-time job due to the constant pain.

At that time, we prayed and felt that being an audiologist in the Army would be right for our family. This choice was further confirmed when I was accepted from among the many applicants for one of only three openings in the Audiology Internship Program.

I don't know if all women that have to work outside the home feel like I have since I have joined the Army, but overcoming the guilt of not being home all the time has been really hard for me. I never imagined myself as having a career other than mother when I was younger. Finding the balance that keeps me sane comes from obedience to gospel principles.

I find when I am struggling the most with guilt and imbalance it is because I have gone on a "spiritual diet". Taking the time to balance my work commitments with the many things that have to be done at home (which includes taking care of our small farm), I sometimes end up with spiritual malnutrition.

Twice a year when I am required to pass a physical fitness test, I find myself stressed out for about a month and a half prior to the test, trying to hurriedly get back into shape to be able to run the two miles and do the sit-ups and push-ups within the allotted time. It is a lot more difficult to get physically fit enough to pass the test than it would be if I regularly exercised all year long and maintained my physical stamina.

The same principle can be applied to my spiritual health. I know that maintaining a healthy spiritual fitness of prayer, daily scripture study, family home evening, and service would not only be sufficient to maintain my spiritual health but would also be sufficient to maintain the balance I strive to maintain overall.

I have decided to reach HIGHER and set my spiritual health goals HIGHER by maintaining my spiritual fitness with more consistency.

Parenting Tips from NASA and Nurses

Mon, 13 May 2013 12:32:00 -0600

by Hank Smith

My wife and I were walking out of the temple one evening when she said something I knew I'd always remember. As we walked she said, "It isn't right to judge yesterday's mistakes with today's knowledge."

She was right. It isn’t fair (or right or healthy) to judge the decisions of the past with the knowledge you have now. The Lord doesn’t do that to us. We shouldn’t do that to ourselves.

It seems many of us, especially parents, have a tendency to look back on what might have been when we gain a new insight into parenting. We think, “What if I had known this back then?” “What would have happened if I would have done it differently?” “Perhaps my child wouldn’t be making the decisions they are now.” When these thoughts come, please remember these three little words of advice from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland: Dismiss the destructive.

Your loved ones need you to be present today, not lost in the “what if’s” of the past. Sitting alongside Harry Potter, Professor Dumbledore said, “It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.” Couldn’t that also be said for the dreams of changing the past? Let’s not allow that to happen to us. Let’s focus on what is in front of us – the future.

Creating a Culture of Openness

One of the most fascinating studies I’ve read was conducted by Amy Edmonson, a professor at the Harvard Business School. As she was studying low and high performing nursing units, she found that higher performing units report higher numbers of mistakes. She was baffled. How could stronger teams have higher error rates? As she revisited the data, she found that it wasn’t that the strong teams were committing more mistakes, they were only reporting more mistakes. Edmonson concluded that great teams have a “climate of openness.”

A climate of openness will bless your family, especially if you have teenagers. How do you create such a climate? There are many ways. To keep it simple we’ll only talk about one today: reward voluntary confession.

When a low level engineer admitted to Wherner Von Braun, a director at NASA, that he’d made a mistake that caused an embarrassing and almost fatal missile test failure, Von Braun sent he and his entire unit a case of champagne. Why? Von Braun understood the value in having a culture of openness. He was sending a message to everyone in his organization, “We don’t hide our mistakes, we learn from them.”

What kind of message does your reaction to confession send to the rest of your family? A parent who loses their temper when a child confesses is telling the rest of the family to hide their mistakes.

My five year old daughter came to me one afternoon and said, “Daddy, I think I made a mistake.” She led me to the kitchen and showed me how she had drawn on one of our cabinets with a permanent marker. My first thought was, “Ah! No! She has to be punished!”

But then I remembered Von Braun and thought this could be one of those “culture of openness” moments. We sat down and had some ice cream together as we talked about what a great decision it was to come and tell me. After the ice cream, we scrubbed the cabinets together. It really wasn’t the five year old girl I was thinking about; it was the sixteen year old that she’ll soon become. I pray we’ll have the type of relationship where she knows she can come to me and say, “Daddy, I think I made a mistake.”

Take 3 minutes and watch this Mormon Message on the family:

i Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, BYU Devotional, Jan. 13, 2009

ii Edmondson, A. C. "Learning from Failure in Health Care: Frequent Opportunities, Pervasive Barriers." Quality & Safety in Health Care 13, no. 6 (December 2004): 3–9.

A Mama's Song

Fri, 10 May 2013 00:41:00 -0600

by Aleisha Beckstrand

My first piano recital was when I was ten years old. The recital was held in a small room located on the top floor of an old, local book store. Two baby grand pianos--shiny and ominous--sat on a carpet-covered stage at the back of the room. Fruit punch and Milano cookies were laid out on long tables draped in white tablecloths, refreshments to be served at the conclusion of the program.

After sitting through a variety of pieces--everything from "Mary Had a Little Lamb" to "Canon in D"--it was my turn to perform. My stomach was in my throat and my heart was racing. I slowly crept towards the piano bench, dragging my Mary Jane-clad feet. They felt as heavy as cement.

I distinctly remember thinking, as I sat on the bench, that the slick, black and white piano keys looked enormous and foreboding! The keyboard--like a toothy monster anxiously waiting to swallow me whole--appeared to be wickedly grinning at me, daring me to place my tiny, ten year old fingers at Middle C.

I began to play an off tempo version of "Pop Goes the Weasel." The choppy way I played the song was blatant evidence of my terror. I had never been more nervous in my life! There was a "repeat" at the end of the song, so I was to play through it twice. The first time through was barely decent, and the second time through the song was unrecognizable. I didn't even play the same ending! I hit a couple of wrong notes, then stopped abruptly. I took a bow and quickly got off of the stage.

I felt a sense of relief when I sat down next to my parents. But the relief soon turned to disappointment. I had made many mistakes. My parents encouraged me to avoid dwelling on them and to move forward. At that moment, I decided to practice more and to work hard. I would grow and improve, and then I would do my best.

I occasionally think of that recital, and how the experience I had then is similar to my life now. I have "taken the stage" to perform my own rendition of "motherhood"--a role that plays like an extraordinary song--and I am scared! I am going to have to work hard, and it is going to be difficult. There will be mistakes--discordant notes of worry and doubt, choppy and off tempo melodies of fear and insecurity and adversity--but I can choose to learn from them. I can choose to keep moving, keep "practicing."s I will grow and improve, and then I will do my best.

If motherhood is like a song I must learn to play, I know it will be my most challenging piece.

I know it will be my greatest performance.

My name is Aleisha, but my zany and adorable five-year-old calls me "Mama Leisha." My secret for getting through the "crayon on the walls, apple juice spilled on the floors, laundry piled as tall as Everest, toilet clogged with Fisher Price 'Little People'" kind of days? DIET COKE. (And a side order of fries!) Aleisha blogs at She Calls Me Mama Leisha.

A Look at Motherhood: Favorite Quotes and Pictures from TOFW Presenters

Thu, 09 May 2013 06:18:00 -0600

For Mother's Day, we thought it would be really fun to collect some of our presenters' favorite quotes and pictures of motherhood. We hope you find the quotes as inspiring as we did. And we hope you enjoy the little glimpses into daily mothering that capture the adventure of it all.

1. Whitney Permann

There is no one perfect way to be a good mother. Each situation is unique. Each mother has different challenges, different skills and abilities, and certainly different children. The choice is different and unique for each mother and each family....What matters is that a mother loves her children deeply and, in keeping with the devotion she has for God and her husband, prioritizes them above all else.
--Elder Russell M. Ballard, "Daughters of God," General Conference April 2008

2. Emily Freeman

If we wish away the moments, they will be gone.

--Jaroldeen Edwards

3. Kris Belcher

You are doing God’s work. You are doing it wonderfully well. He is blessing you and He will bless you, even—no, especially—when your days and your nights may be the most challenging. Like the woman who anonymously, meekly, perhaps even with hesitation and some embarrassment, fought her way through the crowd just to touch the hem of the Master’s garment, so Christ will say to the women who worry and wonder and sometimes weep over their responsibility as mothers, “Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole.” And it will make your children whole as well.”

--Jeffrey R. Holland, “‘Because She Is a Mother’,” Ensign, May 1997, 35

4. Jenny Oaks Baker

I don't want to drive up to the Pearly Gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails.

I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp.

I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbors children.

I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden.

I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder.

I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived.

--Unknown

5. Sandra Turley

Motherhood is not a hobby, it's a calling. You do not collect children because you find them cuter than stamps. It is not something to do if you can squeeze the time in. It is what God gave you time for.

-- Rachel Jankovic

Ethiopia: The Middle of My Story

Thu, 09 May 2013 02:19:00 -0600

by Tara Cook

Photo from Britt Mitchell

Her expression was soft and her face clouded only by smile lines. She slowly glanced around the small room and her eyes seemed to spark as she caught each woman’s attention. Through our translator we asked her what made her so happy.

“My children,” she simply replied.

Three of her children, still in their school uniforms, were seated together in the corner, politely submitting to the scrutiny of eleven strange visitors.

I was in Ethiopia with a group of women from my university. We spent Spring Break building houses as volunteers for Habitat for Humanity. This beautiful woman is raising her nephew and four children alone in a two room house with no running water or electricity. As a single mother, she works hard to support her family and is on the waiting list for one of the Habitat for Humanity homes. In spite of many difficulties, she sends all the children to school.

We don’t need an interpreter to understand the determined expression on her face as she assures us that, unlike herself, her daughters will finish high school.

Her countenance shines, despite having endured a past too horrible to recount, as it is not my own story. I am still struggling to make sense of this woman’s calm sweet spirit. I rage against challenges in my life, always wanting to accomplish more, to move faster, and to be better, NOW.

Not wishing to tax the hospitality of this generous woman, my classmates and I thank her and step out of the small unlit room into the bright sunshine. Rushing onto the bus, the girls immediately begin discussing what we have just seen, speaking rapidly in Arabic.

This is where I have a little more explaining to do.

I was the girl who wanted to travel, see the world, and earn a Master’s degree. Contrary to these ambitions, I met my husband during my first two months at college, and we were married three months later. My father was not impressed by my impetuosity, and to be honest I was a little bit frustrated that God couldn’t have put Doug on hold for just a little while so I could accomplish some of my goals before marriage.

Fast forward ten years: we had four beautiful children, my husband was about to complete his PhD, and I was a mostly-happy stay-at-home mom. Exotic travels consisted of 28 hour drives along I-80, and my husband joked that I had earned a PhD in Stretching a Very Small Family Budget. We lived in a cute little house with a garden and had made many good friends in the middle of the American green belt. On Saturdays the kids and I walked to the farmer’s market, and we spent many afternoons at the public library across the street from our house. Other than our grad-student income, this life seemed ideal. But with graduate school drawing to a close, the job search began in earnest.

My husband is an engineer, and if you know any engineers, you know that there is an organized and systematic way to handle every problem. We carefully prioritized the factors which we believed were most influential on the happiness of our family. We analyzed company structures, city planning documents, and cost of living summaries. All this research went into a case file for each potential job. In the end, my husband applied for only four jobs. This was a crazy thing to do, but we wanted to be in the right place! In our minds, the “right place” consisted of small town living, a farmhouse, and several acres of property.

But as we were finishing our search, a very unusual position caught my eye. It was a job that required living in New York City, followed by relocation to Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates.

And so my journey, at least this one, began.

VIDEO: Ann Romney on Motherhood

Wed, 08 May 2013 17:10:00 -0600

by Ann Romney

Take a moment to hear from Ann Romney as she shares her own little secrets to the magic of mothering.