June 2006

The Parable of the ROSE

THE PARABLE OF THE ROSE

A certain man planted a rose and watered it faithfully and before it blossomed, he examined it. He saw the bud that would soon blossom and also the thorns. He thought, “How can any beautiful flower come from a plant burdened with so many sharp thorns?” Saddened by this thought, he neglected to water the rose and before it was able to bloom, it died.

So it is with many people. Within every soul there is a rose – the God-like qualities planted in us at birth, growing amid the thorns of our faults. Many of us look at ourselves and see only the thorns, the defects. We despair, thinking that nothing good can possibly come from us. We neglect to water the good within us and eventually we die, never realizing our potential.

Some people do not see the rose within themselves; someone else must show it to them. One of the Savior’s greatest characteristics was that He was able to show people the kingdom of heaven within them. He was able to reach past their thorns and show them the rose.

This is the characteristic of love – to look at a person and, knowing his faults, recognize the nobility in his soul and help him realize that he can overcome his faults. If we show him the rose, he will conquer the thorns and then he will blossom, bringing forth thirty, sixty, or an hundred-fold as it is given to him.

Our duty in this world is to help our brothers and sisters by showing them their roses and not their thorns.

Politeness Put to the Test

It's interesting that this article would be in the new READER'S DIGEST magazine that I just received, because I'm giving a presentation on manners and politeness tomorrow evening for about 30 young men and women. My son Brady will be helping me, as Ken is coaching at a Basketball camp at Utah State University. I will be doing a program similar to one that Ken and I did for our freshman students at Shandong Medical University, where the boys presented a rose to one of the girls and helped them to their seat, but the youth will be served dinner and I'll teach them proper table manners. Hope it's fun!

From Reader's Digest, July 2006 --

Politeness Put to the Test

A woman heads into a popular New York City coffee shop on a chilly winter morning. Just ahead of her, a man drops a file full of documents. The woman pauses, and stoops to help gather the papers.

Six blocks away, a different man enters another shop, but not before politely holding the door for the person behind him. A clerk at another busy store thanks a customer who's just made a purchase. "Enjoy," the young woman says, smiling widely. "Have a nice day." She sounds like she really means it.

Whoa. Common courtesy on the mean streets of a city known for its in-your-face style? Have New Yorkers suddenly gone soft?

In her international bestselling death-of-manners manifesto Talk to the Hand, author Lynne Truss argues that common courtesies such as saying "Excuse me" are practically extinct. There are certainly plenty who would agree with her. Consider that in one recent survey, 70 percent of U.S. adults said people are ruder now than they were 20 years ago.

Is it really true? Reader's Digest decided to find out if courtesy truly is kaput. RD sent reporters to major cities in 35 countries where the magazine is published -- from Auckland, New Zealand, to Zagreb, Croatia. In the United States, that meant targeting New York, where looking out for No. 1 -- the heck with the other guy -- has always been a basic survival skill.

The routine in New York was similar to the one followed elsewhere: Two reporters -- one woman and one man -- fanned out across the city, homing in on neighborhoods where street life and retail shops thrive. They performed three experiments: "door tests" (would anyone hold one open for them?); "document drops" (who would help them retrieve a pile of "accidentally" dropped papers?); and "service tests" (which salesclerks would thank them for a purchase?). For consistency, the New York tests were conducted at Starbucks coffee shops, by now almost as common in the Big Apple as streetlights. In all, 60 tests (20 of each type) were done.

Along the way, the reporters encountered all types: men and women of different races, ages, professions, and income levels. They met an aspiring actress, a high school student, a hedge-fund analyst and two New York City police officers. And guess what? In the end, four out of every five people they encountered passed RD's courtesy test -- making New York the most courteous city in the world. Imagine that.

A for Effort

While 90 percent of New Yorkers passed the door test, only 55 percent aced the document drop. Are people less likely to help others when doing so takes extra effort or time? Not always, the reporters found. Take the pregnant woman who thought nothing of bending down to help us with our papers. Or the Queens woman named Liz who precariously balanced two coffees, her keys and her wallet on a takeout tray with one hand, while picking up papers off the wet pavement with the other. Her reason for helping? "I was there," she said matter-of-factly.

Part of the Job

Nineteen of the 20 clerks who were subjected to service tests passed. Roger Benjamin, the manager and coffee master at a Manhattan Starbucks, acknowledged that the chain trains its employees to be courteous. And some baristas the RD reporters encountered went beyond basic niceties. "You have to feed off people's vibes," said one clerk. "You go out of your way to show customers they did us a favor by coming here." At another store, a green-apron-clad attendant said that while courtesy was part of his job, he sought respect in return: "It's contagious."

Chivalry -- Not Dead Yet

Overall, men were the most willing to help, especially when it came to document drops. In those, men offered aid 63 percent of the time, compared to 47 percent among women. Of course, men weren't entirely democratic about whom they'd help. All of them held the door for RD's female reporter, and were more than twice as likely to help her pick up fallen papers than they were to help our male reporter. "I'll hold the door for whoever's behind me," said Pete Muller, 27, an account executive from Brooklyn. "But I'm definitely more conscious of women!" he added with a smile.

Mother Knows Best

By far, the most common reason people cited for being willing to go out of their way to help others was their upbringing. "It's the way I was raised," said one young woman who held a door open despite struggling with her umbrella on a frigid, sleety day in Brooklyn.

Her sentiment was echoed by Christine DuBois, a 49-year-old sales manager from Bayside, Queens. DuBois was headed to the gym when she stopped to retrieve a pile of scattered papers. "It's something that's taught to you when you're young," she said.

A few people, including Frederick Martin, 29, credited their mothers' influence specifically. "My mom brought me up like that," Martin said. "It's pure manners."

What Goes Around...

Another reason people are quick to be courteous: "You do what you'd want other people to do if it happened to you," said Christine Rossi, who pitched in on an early-morning document drop. Dennis Kleinman, a 57-year-old doctor and writer, used one word to sum up what drove his impulse to help: "Empathy." He came to the aid of an RD reporter when a middle-aged woman ignored a pile of papers in front of a shop on Manhattan's East Side. "The same thing happens to me, and I appreciate it when someone takes 10 to 15 seconds of their valuable time to help," he said.

Excuses, Excuses

The reporters did run into a few courtesy clods. In one case, while an RD staffer was inside a Starbucks interviewing a woman who'd passed the door test, a dozen oblivious people stepped over a second staffer's fallen papers. Another time, a wise guy offered only a snarky comment on our clumsiness: "That guy had too much coffee!" he cracked.

And just when we thought we'd heard every excuse in the book for not helping, along came Margot Zimmerman. The 44-year-old computer saleswoman was on her way into a Queens Starbucks when a reporter dropped his folder of papers right at her feet. Looking down, Zimmerman stepped gingerly around the papers, then entered the shop. "I'm probably one of the most courteous people," she insisted later. "I pick up every other person's dog poop. I help old ladies across the street. But when he dropped his papers, he made such a face."

Thankfully, such responses were the exception, not the rule. Which makes New York City a pretty darn polite place -- the most polite major city in the entire world, in case you missed it before. We realize this isn't a rigorous scientific study, but we believe it is a reasonable real-world test of good manners around the globe. And it's comforting to know that in a place where millions of people jostle one another each day in a relentless push to get ahead, they're able to do it with a smile and a thank-you. Hey, if they can make nice here, they can make nice anywhere.

World of Courtesy: Ranking of 35 Cities

Below is a ranking of the most courteous to the least courteous -- 35 major cities included in RD's Global Courtesy Test. Figures reflect the percentage of people who passed in each city. When multiple cities had identical scores, they are listed in alphabetical order.

New York USA 80%

Zurich Switzerland 77

Toronto Canada 70

Berlin Germany 68

São Paulo Brazil 68

Zagreb Croatia 68

Auckland New Zealand 67

Warsaw Poland 67

Mexico City Mexico 65

Stockholm Sweden 63

Budapest Hungary 60

Madrid Spain 60

Prague Czech Republic 60

Vienna Austria 60

Buenos Aires Argentina 57

Johannesburg South Africa 57

Lisbon Portugal 57

London United Kingdom 57

Paris France 57

Amsterdam Netherlands 52

Helsinki Finland 48

Manila Philippines 48

Milan Italy 47

Sydney Australia 47

Bangkok Thailand 45

Hong Kong China 45

Ljubljana Slovenia 45

Jakarta Indonesia 43

Taipei Taiwan 43

Moscow Russia 42

Singapore 42

Seoul South Korea 40

Kuala Lumpur Malaysia 37

Bucharest Romania 35

Mumbai India 32

The Power of Truth

I won’t be weighed down by lies….

From Gary King's Lecturer on “The Power of Truth”

Telling even an inconsequential lie weakens the body.

David R. Hawkins, MD, a noted scientist, tested the correlation between LYING and HUMAN STRENGTH on thousands of patients and demonstrated THAT THE BODY REMAINED STORNG WHEN PARTICIPANTS TOLD THE TRUTH AND WEAKENED WHEN THEY TOLD EVEN A SMALL LIE. Now, if the muscles in the body test weak in an inconsequential lie, what do you suspect is going on if in the course of a week you tell up to a dozen small lies? You’re conditioning your body to be weak.

I believe that lying is a form of addiction. Tell the average person, “For the next 30 days, be honest and authentic in everything you do,” and he’ll be over-whelmed. A couple of years ago, I came up with something that’s more doable: the 24-hour truth challenge. For one day, you decide to tell the truth. You don’t lie to yourself or anyone else. This causes a shift in consciousness; you are now paying attention.

But once you get past the initial discomfort of being completely honest, you start to feel something in your solar plexus, a sensation of strength. A lightness and energy and freedom arise. You’ll notice a difference in your courage, the way you walk, the way you stand, the tone of your voice, the communication you have with people you love, the depth of connection with those close to you and with people you don’t even know. If you speak the truth, feelings might get hurt. That is okay – humans are not weak.

YOU DO PEOPLE NO FAVORS BY TRYING TO PROTECT THEM FROM THE TRUTH. IF YOU HONOR THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU, BE HONEST WITH THEM.

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A comment from Miss Becky --- It's most important that we do not LIE to ourself. That only weakens our own character. It's easy to RATIONALIZE our behavior to ourselves. We may feel justified in hurting others or continuing in addictive or negative behavior. But remember that the word "rationalize" could be broken into the two words: RATIONAL LIES. These are the little "lies" we tell ourself to justify our negative feelings and actions. They only weaken us ... they do not help us or others. Honesty is the best policy for a successful, happy life.

A MIRACLE OF LOVE & MODERN MEDICINE

I stared at our seven-month-old baby girl, Chelsea, in the hospital crib. As I tucked up her blanket, my eyes rested on the old Dillon family Bible I kept in the crib with her. It had belonged to my grandmother, who died when I was thirteen. I cherished that Bible as I had cherished my grandmother. She always soothed my childhood hurts and fears; to this day I still missed her. The Bible had rested in her hands during her funeral service. My mother removed it just before the coffin lid was lowered and later gave it to me.

But even Grandmother probably could not have soothed the hurt and fear my husband, Lance, and I now faced. Earlier that day the specialists at University Medical Center in Tucson had finally diagnosed the baffling condition that was slowly but surely draining the life from our first child.

“Chelsea has an extremely rare birth defect called severe combined immunodeficiency syndrome,” our doctor informed us. “SCIDS interferes with the normal functioning of her immune system. She has virtually no natural defenses against infection. Her bone marrow doesn’t produce the necessary cells.”

I stood statue-still and stared at him . . . I had prayed that somewhere in the mighty arsenal of modern medicine was the right drug, the magic bullet that would cure her. The immunologist carefully explained that the only option was a bone marrow transplant – a risky procedure that at best had about a fifty percent chance of success.

The only option.

We needed to transfer her to a hospital that did this sort of operation as soon as possible, he had said. There were only a few in the entire country.

Now as I stood over Chelsea’s crib I smoothed the blanket and pushed the old Bible off to the side. It’s leather cover was worn soft with use. As my child slept I closed my eyes and hoped for a miracle.

The next day we decided on Memorial Sloan-Kettering in Manhattan (New York City) for the procedure because of their slightly-higher-than-average success rate. But now came the enormous problem of transporting Chelsea from Tucson (in Arizona in the south west of our country) to New York (in the northeast) without exposing her to many people. Chelsea couldn’t afford to catch even a cold. Any worsening in her condition would delay surgery. A simple flue bug could kill her.

Driving there was out of the question. She couldn’t be off her IV fluids for that long. Commercial airliners posed too much hazard of contracting contagious disease, and big airports were even worse. We needed a private plane, but Chelsea’s condition was not considered acutely critical – a criterion that had to be met before our insurance company would agree to cover the enormous cost of a jet. The catch-22 was that if Chelsea did become that critical, she would probably be too sick to have the surgery.

Lance and I were at wit’s end. We didn’t sleep, we barely ate. There had to be something we could do. We made countless phone calls. Finally we heard about a group called Corporate Angels, which provides free flights for sick children aboard private planes. The flights conduct normal business travel, and patients hitch along. Corporate Angels found us a flight leaving that Friday out of Denver bound nonstop for New York. A miracle was in our grasp.

“Dear God,” I prayed, “now please help us get to Denver. I know You have Your ways. We’ll just keep on trying.”

Denver (in Colorado) was too far to drive. We got the number of a private medevac (flies people with medical problems for a fee) company. Maybe we could pay for the flight ourselves. But when I talked to Judy Barrie, a paramedic whose husband, Jim, piloted the medevac plane, she gave me the bad news. “The flight will cost six thousand dollars, minimum,” she said. We didn’t have six thousand dollars. Our finances had been stretched to the limit.

I thanked Judy and said good-bye. “Wait,” she said suddenly as I was about to hang up. “I really want to help you. I’m not promising anything, but I’ll talk to Jim. Maybe he can figure this out.”

When I hung up I had the strangest feeling that these people would be able to do something about what was increasingly a hopeless situation. An hour later Jim Barrie called back. “Listen, I’ve got a friend flying back an empty plane from Phoenix (city in Arizona, not far from Tucson where they were) to Denver in the morning,” Jim told me. “If you can get to the field by six-thirty, you can hitch a ride.”

Perfect. Chelsea could handle the drive to Phoenix. But I was almost afraid to ask the next question. “Jim, what will it cost?”

“Cost? Heck, not a thing. This guy’s a friend, and he’s got to get his plane up there anyway.”

I was faint with relief. These total strangers had taken a huge step in saving the life of my child. I didn’t know what to say. The word thanks didn’t seem big enough.

“You could do us one little favor, though,” Jim added. “Judy and I would like to meet Chelsea.”

Chelsea was awake and even a bit playful when Jim and Judy arrived at the hospital. While Jim talked to Lance (her husband) about finding our way around the Phoenix airport, Judy and I chatted. Her eyes kept flitting over to the crib. Then I noticed she was staring at Grandma’s Bible. One time when Judy was leaning over Chelsea, her fingers brushed it. Finally, as they were about to go, Judy asked, “Where are you from?” I told her Pittsburgh (a city in a state near New York and very far from Arizona).

“I’m from Pittsburgh too,” she said slowly. “Well, the suburb Carnegie actually.”

“My mother is from Carnegie,” I said. I felt a shiver go through me. “Virginia Everett. Dillon was her maiden name.”

“Virginia Dillon?” Judy said, eyes wide. “My father was Howard Dillon.”

“Uncle Howard?” I was stunned.

Judy nodded. It was as if a current of electricity had jumped between us. Now I could see why her face had seemed faintly familiar. Judy Barrie was my cousin Judy Dillon. “I haven’t seen you since . . . ,” I stared to say. Judy’s eyes jumped again to the Bible.

“Since Grandma’s funeral twenty years ago,” she finished the sentence. “That’s the Bible she was holding.”

We fell into each other’s arms. I knew then that all would be well with Chelsea. The odds against this crossing of paths were simple too great. This was meant to be.

Chelsea got her bone marrow transplant and four months later she left the hospital with a healthy immune system. She is, as they say, a medical miracle.

And then there was the other miracle. I like to think of it as my grandmother’s miracle. In a sense, even twenty years after her funeral, she was reaching out to comfort me and assure me that with God all things are possible.

By Cheryl Deep

Comment: The power of love is no less potent than that of modern medicine. In the right hands, each serves as it’s own instrument of God’s healing.

TASK OF THE TEACHER

TASK OF THE TEACHER

No printed word nor spoken plea

Can teach young minds what men should be

Not all the books on all the shelves

But what the teachers are themselves.

Today's REAL HEROES . . .

For many years Ben Stein has written a biweekly column published in many newspapers across America called "Monday Night At Morton's." (Morton's is a famous chain of Steakhouses known to be frequented by movie stars and famous people from around the globe.) Now, Ben is terminating the column to move on to other things in his life. Worth Reading!!!! Be sure to read to the end, as there he identifies the most important thing in life ... I know his statements are true and the principle of serving others has been a guiding light in my life.

Ben Stein's Last Column...

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How Can Someone Who Lives in Insane Luxury Be a Star in Today's World?

I have been doing this column for so long that I cannot even recall when I started. I loved writing this column so much for so long I came to believe it would never end.

It worked well for a long time, but gradually, my changing as a person and the world's change have overtaken it. On a small scale, Morton's, while better than ever, no longer attracts as many stars as it used to. It still brings in the rich people in droves and definitely some stars. I saw Samuel L. Jackson there a few days ago, and we had a nice visit, and right before that, I saw and had a splendid talk with Warren Beatty in an elevator, in which we agreed that Splendor in the Grass was a super movie. But Morton's is not the star galaxy it once was, though it probably will be again.

Beyond that, a bigger change has happened. I no longer think Hollywood stars are terribly important. They are uniformly pleasant, friendly people, and they treat me better than I deserve to be treated. But a man or woman who makes a huge wage for memorizing lines and reciting them in front of a camera is no longer my idea of a shining star we should all look up to.

How can a man or woman who makes an eight-figure wage and lives in insane luxury really be a star in today's world, if by a "star" we mean someone bright and powerful and attractive as a role model? Real stars are not riding around in the backs of limousines or in Porsches or getting trained in yoga or Pilates and eating only raw fruit while they have Vietnamese girls do their nails.

They can be interesting, nice people, but they are not heroes to me any longer. A real star is the soldier of the 4th Infantry Division who poked his head into a hole on a farm near Tikrit, Iraq. He could have been met by a bomb or a hail of AK-47 bullets. Instead, he faced an abject Saddam Hussein and the gratitude of all of the decent people of the world.

A real star is the U.S. soldier who was sent to disarm a bomb next to a road north of Baghdad. He approached it, and the bomb went off and killed him.

A real star, the kind who haunts my memory night and day, is the U.S. soldier in Baghdad who saw a little girl playing with a piece of unexploded ordnance on a street near where he was guarding a station. He pushed her aside and threw himself on it just as it exploded. He left a family desolate in California and a little girl alive in Baghdad.

The stars who deserve media attention are not the ones who have lavish weddings on TV but the ones who patrol the streets of Mosul even after two of their buddies were murdered and their bodies battered and stripped for the sin of trying to protect Iraqis from terrorists.

We put couples with incomes of $100 million a year on the covers of our magazines. The noncoms and officers who barely scrape by on military pay but stand on guard in Afghanistan and Iraq and on ships and in submarines and near the Arctic Circle are anonymous as they live and die.

I am no longer comfortable being a part of the system that has such poor values, and I do not want to perpetuate those values by pretending that who is eating at Morton's is a big subject.

There are plenty of other stars in the American firmament...the policemen and women who go off on patrol in South Central and have no idea if they will return alive; the orderlies and paramedics who bring in people who have been in terrible accidents and prepare them for surgery; the teachers and nurses who throw their whole spirits into caring for autistic children; the kind men and women who work in hospices and in cancer wards.

Think of each and every fireman who was running up the stairs at the World Trade Center as the towers began to collapse. Now you have my idea of a real hero.

I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters. This is my highest and best use as a human. I can put it another way. Years ago, I realized I could never be as great an actor as Olivier or as good a comic as Steve Martin...or Martin Mull or Fred Willard--or as good an economist as Samuelson or Friedman or as good a writer as Fitzgerald. Or even remotely close to any of them.

But I could be a devoted father to my son, husband to my wife and, above all, a good son to the parents who had done so much for me. This came to be my main task in life. I did it moderately well with my son, pretty well with my wife and well indeed with my parents (with my sister's help). I cared for and paid attention to them in their declining years. I stayed with my father as he got sick, went into extremis and then into a coma and then entered immortality with my sister and me reading him the Psalms.

This was the only point at which my life touched the lives of the soldiers in Iraq or the firefighters in New York. I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters and that it is my duty, in return for the lavish life God has devolved upon me, to help others He has placed in my path. This is my highest and best use as a human.

Faith is not believing that God can. It is knowing that God will.

BYU Students Returning to Jerusalem Center

Brigham Young University (BYU) is very close to our hearts. My father was a student there and later in his life worked for the BYU Alumni Association. It was at BYU that Ken and I meet as undergraduate students, fell in love, married, graduated and began careers in areas that we loved. Both our daughters have earned degrees from BYU. It was the BYU China Teachers Program that brought Ken and I to China. Brigham Young University is a private university owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The BYU motto is: "The World is Our Campus" and "Enter to Learn, Go Forth to Serve".

BYU has developed one of the BEST language training programs of any university and attracts many foreign students because of it. One of the unique features of their program is requiring the students majoring in a language, to live in that language house ... for example the GERMAN HOUSE. There would be a native speaker of German living there to help the others and all the students living in the house are required to speak GERMAN totally in the house, where they live, prepare meals, eat all together. There are houses for Spanish, French, Chinese, Japanese, etc.

There are many students on this campus with great language skills because they have served missions for the Church. These young men and women have learned the language by living and serving the people in different countries all over the world for 18 to 20 months. In that length of time most of them become fluent in the language because they HAVE to use the language as they live and serve the people. It's hard at first but most do really well if they continue to study and work hard. Three of our five children had this experience ... one served in Norway, one in Portual and one in Germany and each became very fluent in those languages. One son served here in the USA, but was assigned to work with Spanish speaking people. He did not become as fluent as the others, mostly because he lived with English speakers and did NOT have to use Spanish as much.

This is why we encouraged the "Give Me Five" program in our teaching of English is China ... the more you use a language (listen, speak, read, write and think) the more fluent you will become.

BYU also has established several "study abroad" programs. Our daughter, Kara, was able to spend a semester studying in London, England and had a great experience studying English literature there.

One of the most unique BYU "study abroad" programs takes place in Jerusalem, where the University and Church built a very beautiful facility on the Mount of Olives facing the old Jerusalem city. My daughter, Amy and I visited Jerusalem in 1993 and had a wonderful experience there. Classes cover ancient and modern Near Eastern history, Near Eastern languages and cultures, and the Gospels in the New Testament. Students live at the Jerusalem Center, study and travel to historic sites.

BYU sent students home a month early from a semester at the center in 2000 after violence in Jerusalem's streets made it unsafe to remain in the area. Here is the article announcing that BYU will start up the program again this fall. I'm happy to see this....

BYU STUDENTS RETURNING TO JERUSALEM CENTER

By Autumn Linford

Deseret Morning News

PROVO — Brigham Young University announced Friday that students will return this fall to the school's Jerusalem Center for the first time since 2000, since the program was interrupted due to violence in Jerusalem.

Brigham Young University will resume student programs at its Jerusalem Center this fall.

The decision to hold fall semester classes at the center, located in east Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives, was made after consulting with government and leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which operates BYU.

Administrators had hoped to provide the study abroad program at the center since the program was interrupted in 2000 due to violence in Jerusalem, said Jim Kearl, BYU assistant to the president for the Jerusalem Center. "We always wanted to return, of course," he said. "Having it closed denied a whole generation of students a marvelous opportunity to study in the area. For young LDS members of the church, the Old and New Testaments just come alive when you study them in their historic and geographic setting. Now looked like a good time to go back."

The announcement to reopen student programs this fall came somewhat as a surprise because Israel remains on the U.S. State Department's travel advisory list, which cautions U.S. citizens to carefully consider the necessity of traveling to the area.

Kearl said that despite the advisory, BYU feels it is safe to bring students back to the Holy Land. The advisory applies more to the West Bank and Gaza, rather than to Israel proper, he said, and the BYU program will limit its travel to the safest areas. The program might include visits to Jordan or Egypt, but BYU has not yet made a decision.

Kearl said the program will also be more tightly structured this year than in the past. Students accepted for the fall 2006 program will live at the Jerusalem Center and travel to historic sites but will have less free time to wander the streets and will spend more time under direct supervision of center personnel, he said. Classes will cover ancient and modern Near Eastern history, Near Eastern languages and cultures, and the Gospels in the New Testament.

The center will be staffed this fall by two BYU faculty members, the executive director of the center, an Israeli and the associate director, a Palestinian.

The structure of the program will also be slightly different than in the past. Only about 40 students will be allowed in this fall, whereas more than 150 were selected before the closure, and only BYU juniors and seniors will qualify to apply.

Kearl said BYU set the limitations mainly for safety and staffing reasons. By limiting the numbers to 40, the center can take all the students in one bus.

"Part of it is the logistics of getting a program together by fall, and part of it is about being cautious," Kearl said. "Things have changed a lot in the Holy Land in the past 5 1/2 years. We need to relearn how to do this."

The program will expand if there is interest.

BYU sent home 174 students a month early from a semester at the center in 2000 after violence in Jerusalem's streets made it unsafe to remain in the area.

The students had been kept inside the center for more than a month before being sent home.

Kristy Bott, who was a BYU student in Jerusalem that semester, said even though she saw a bus explode and violence, she never worried about her own safety while in the Holy Land.

"There's always trouble over there, and I don't know if anyone would ever think it's a perfectly safe thing to be there (in Jerusalem), but I was never scared," she said. "When we were there, it got worse and worse, but I felt completely safe. I knew they (BYU professors and Jerusalem Center administrators) would take care of us. Maybe I was completely oblivious, but I was never scared. I was just so excited to be there." Student programs have remained suspended since Bott's group was flown back to the United States in November 2000.

It was the second time the program shut down since its opening in 1987. It was closed once before in 1991 during the Gulf War.

Despite the closure of the student program, the Jerusalem Center stayed open, hosting concerts, workshops, tours and visitors. Bott said she had no doubt students who applied to this year's program would be kept far from harm's way. "Honestly, as long as they follow the rules and only go to the places where they're supposed to go, they'll be fine," she said. "It's never going to be completely safe, but if they trust the faculty and people with them, they'll be kept safe. I think the more people who get to go and experience it, the better. I'm jealous. I want to go back."

BYU officials expect the announcement will create some excitement around campus. This summer is the first time applications have been accepted since 2001, when BYU stopped taking names for future enrollment at the center after the 9/11 attacks. "I just have to figure out a way of going without my girlfriend getting mad," said Jonah Barnes, a junior at BYU. "Of course it's not going to be as safe as the United States — nowhere is. But to experience the Holy Land, to really see the place you talk about so much in church—that would be awesome."

The future of the student program will depend on the political climate and events in the Middle East, Kearl said. If things go well, it is possible the program will again expand to its previous size.

Fill the World with Love

Love is the most powerful force in the universe. Love blesses both giver and receiver and resounds in hearts forever.

It's true that we're all born with differing interests and capacities, strengths and weaknesses. But one thing we all need is to receive and give love. We need it in order to grow into the kind of people we're capable of becoming more loving, more courageous, more loyal. All virtues have their root in love.

A father of modest means who has now passed on left little of the world's possessions behind, but he left a legacy of love that his family still cherishes. A mother who often feels inadequate, worrying that there's so much she cannot do well, knows she can nurture with love which is, after all, the most important gift she can give. Children remember warmly and clearly those loving moments long after they leave the home. Truly, we never forget love.

This old world, which has seen much of sorrow and suffering, much of tribulation and difficulty, needs love. It's so simple, so essential and although it's common sense, it's often not common practice. We can each do our part by filling our little corner of the world with love. We can join in the song by Leslie Bricusse, "Fill the World with Love":

"In the evening of my life I shall look to the sunset,

At the moment in my life when the night is due.

And the question I shall ask only I can answer:

Was I strong and brave and true,

Did I fill the world with love my whole life through?"

Music and the Spoken Word, May 7, 2006

"Loss and Gain" by Longfellow

This little essay including Longfellow poem, is more meaningful for me today after visiting Boston, where we walked throught "Longfellow Park" to Church and there is a big bridge in Boston named for him as well.

"Loss and Gain"

The life of beloved poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is proof that good can come from sorrow and difficulty. He received great honors for his many successes, but—like all of us—he also knew his share of heartbreak and grief, including the tragic death of his wife.

From the losses he suffered, however, Longfellow gained insight and strength that found voice in his poems. Longfellow's poetry lives on today not only for its rhyme and rhythm but because it expresses courage and optimism, even in the face of disappointment.

In his poem "Loss and Gain" Longfellow writes of regret, of longing, of the wisdom born of humility, and of the hope that can come when we have faith in the future.

When I compare

What I have lost with what I have gained,

What I have missed with what attained,

Little room do I find for pride.

I am aware

How many days have been idly spent;

How like an arrow the good intent

Has fallen short or been turned aside.

But who shall dare

To measure loss and gain in this wise?

Defeat may be victory in disguise;

The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.1

Life is full of wins and losses. But no loss will be in vain if we do our best to learn from it and then forge ahead with all the courage and optimism we can muster. We'll often find that life's inevitable stumbling blocks can become our greatest stepping stones.

1 The Complete Poetical Works of Longfellow (1893), 359.

From Music and the Spoken Word, March 26,2006

Be YOUR Best Self

"Making the absolute best of ourselves is not an easy task. It is a pleasurable pursuit...but it requires patience, persistence, and perseverance." --Sarah Ban Breathnach

Hello from Boston ...

Ken and I arrived in Boston, MA yesterday afternoon. We left our home in Logan, Utah last Sunday (May 28th) and have been driving our daughter's (Kara) car across America to bring it to her here in Boston on the east coast. She has been living here since last August and is working on a PhD in Education at Boston College.

Kara just moved to a new apartment closer to her university, but not near the subway or "T" as they call it, so it takes her about an hour to get to school, as she takes two or three buses. She also needs her car to travel to some of the public schools in Boston where she will be doing some teaching and research projects next year. Kara had left her car at our home this past year and used public transportation. Ken drove her car while he was living and coaching in Las Vegas last fall and winter. It also costs more to have a car in Boston, but at her new apartment there is room to park a car (at the old apartment she would have to pay $150 a month for a parking place).

So, Ken and I drove Kara's car to her. It was a nice, interesting and long (almost 3,000 miles) trip.

It was cold the morning we left Utah as we had been having a lot of rain and even some snow in the high mountains. We drove through the canyon in the mountains just east of our home, through the corner of Wyoming (a neighboring state) and then back over the state line into the north eastern corner of the state of Utah. There we stopped for a couple of hours so I could visit with a lady that I've been working with who had been transferred from the Cache County Jail (in Logan) to the Daggett County Jail near the Utah border. I had not seen her for about five months and we had a good visit, while Ken reorganized some of the things in the car that we were bringing to our daughter, so he could see out of the back window better. He also did some walking and sleeping!!!

The rest of that day (Sunday) was spent driving to Denver, Colorado where we spent the night at my sister Sue's home. Did you know that Denver is called the "mile high city" ... because it is a mile high, over 5,000 feet. In getting there we drove through some very high and beautiful mountains ... the highest elevation was over 9,000 feet above sea level At that point we experienced a snow storm. That day my sister's daughter, Anne, went into labor giving birth to her first child five weeks early. Anne's husband was out of the country on business, so my sister went to the hospital with her and stayed with her for the birth. Ken and I arrived at her home that evening before she and her husband had returned from the hospital. All is going well for the mother and baby, which weight over five pounds -- good for a pre-mature baby.

The next morning Ken and I stopped to visit with my youngest brother, Brad, who lives near Sue in the Denver area. It was neat to see them and I especially enjoyed learning more about my sister-in-law's little home business ... I promise to do a article on it and post in the future. After getting gas, we were on the road again.

Monday, it was different driving. There are are freeways all across America. A freeway is a highway or major road that has no stopping on it ... there are no traffic lights or stop signs. There are places where you enter the freeway and places were you leave or exit the freeway, but there is no stopping, so you can travel at rather high rates of speed and can get places much faster than driving on roads where there are more cars, traffic lights and stop signs. That day we drove on a freeway across the rest of the state of Colorado and all across the state of Kansas (the landscape was lots of agriculture land, fields, farms, very flat with no mountains or hills) to Kansas City which is located on the border of Kansas and Missouri. We stayed that night in a hotel on the Missouri side of Kansas City.

Ken did most of the driving and I enjoy reading and sewing (cross-stitch embroidery), listening to music and sleeping as he drives. When he gets tried, I drive and he sleeps or checks the road map to find the best way for us to travel, and sometimes he reads as well.

On Tuesday, we travel across part of Missouri to the city of Columbia, the location of the University of Missouri, where one of our Chinese friends is a graduate student. We stopped at that campus and tried to locate him, but were unsuccessful. We continued across the state of Missouri (all on the same freeway that we had traveled on from Denver) to the city of St. Louis which is on the border of the state and that border is the Mississippi River ... the largest and longest river in America running from north to south (starts near the Canadian border in the north and runs the length of America to the Gulf of Mexico in the south). We took another freeway now and drove south, crossed the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers and entered the state of Kentucky. This is where my husband, Ken, was born and lived until his family moved to California when he was 15 years old.

Ken was born in an old family home on Bizzel Bluff, a very rural area of the southern most western part of Kentucky. Paducah is the largest city, near his home area. We drove through there, got some dinner and then drove to his cousin's home for the night. She had gone to North Carolina for her sister-in-law's funeral, but had told us we could use her home, which is located on "Mitchell Road". This area is very beautiful, green, rural and quiet. You can not see the nearest neightbors' home from her house. The second night we were there, I was unable to sleep, so decided to get up and read for a while. As I got out of bed, I noticed lighting in the sky and looked out the window to see many fireflies or we also call them "lighing bugs" ... they have a "light" in their tail section that goes on and off and in the dark night all you see is the light going on and off. A couple of these bugs had even gotten inside the house and their lights were going on and off in the dark room. It was so beautiful ... like a fairy land ... I just stood and enjoyed the sight. I had never seen such a sight -- very unusual for me because we do not have this type of insect where I live in Utah. Our climate is too dry for them there. I've only seen this type of insect in the east and southern parts of America.

Wednesday morning, Ken and I took a long walk over the country roads that he had walked as a child ... the only difference was that the roads are paved now and when he was a child the roads were all dirt or gravel. It was beautiful, green with rolling hills and soooooo quiet ... a very nice experience! The rest of the day was spent visiting and talking with several of Ken's relatives and friends. One of his cousins, who was like a brother because Ken spend many summers at his home as a boy, is still working ... he's over 70 years old and has worked for this company for almost 50 years!!! I always enjoy coming here and listening to the people talk ... I always learn more about Ken and his early life.

Thursday morning, we left the Paducah area and drove north east across Kentucky. This is a very beautiful state ... many hills, lots of green forests ... both sides of the freeway. There are also lots of horse farms with green meadows, miles of white fences and nice barns or stables for the horses. We also saw lots of very nice homes. We arrived in Lexington, Kentucky early in the afternoon and met one of our special Chinese friends from Jinan. Her name is Dong Bei, some of you will know her. She has been at the University of Kentucky for a few years working on her PhD. When she arrive in America, she came to Utah and visited us at our home on her way to Kentucky. We had been able to contact her ahead of time on our cell (mobile) phone so we met them at the Medical Center on the U of K campus. It was great to have lunch with her and meet her husband, who is a very fine Chinese man she met here. He was a student at Shandong University at the same time that she was studying on the Shandong Medical University campus, but they did not meet until here at the University of Kentucky where they were classmates and both working on PhD degrees. They returned to China in June of 2004, met each others families and married there. Now they are expecting the birth of their first child in August. Her mother will come to help care for the baby the first six months so Dong Bei can continue her research work and his mother will come the next six months. It was soooooo great to see her again and share in her joy and happiness at this time of her life.

Late that afternoon, we left Lexington, driving north east toward Boston. Just outside the city there was an accident on the freeway and all the traffic stopped for over an hour. We stopped the car and got out ... Ken visited with the man whose car was in front of us and I took the opportunity to take a walk. I walked down the road pass all the cars in front of us, as we could not see what that problem was. I walked close to a mile and got to a point where I could see the road ahead where the accident was. I talked to some people there and then started walking back to Ken and our car. On the way, I talked to several people who asked if I had been able to see the problem, so I told them what I had seen. Soon after I returned to our car, the traffic (all the cars) started moving ... it was really slow for a while, but once we got past the site of the accident, we could drive faster.

From Kentucky we drove northeast across part of the states of West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and into the state of Massachusetts where Boston is located. Thursday night we drove through some mountains ... not as high as the mountain in our home state of Utah, but very beautiful and green. We chose to drive most that night. About 2:00 am Friday morning, we left the freeway, parked the car and slept in the car for about three house. Then, I felt rested enough to drive and drove while Ken slept some more. Three hours later, we stopped for breakfast and to get gas and then Ken drove the rest of the way. We arrived at our daughter's apartment that afternoon just in time for her to drive her car to the campus for a summer class that she is taking!

After Kara's class, we went out to eat and then she took us dancing ... she love "swing" dancing and it was fun ... bought back lots of good memories for Ken and I, as we did a lot of dancing when we were dating and courting. There was a "Big Band" playing for the dancing and it was so fun to see Kara dance ... she's really a good "swing" dancer. This summer she tells me that she is planning to take a "tap" dancing class with a friend. Kara's really a fun person, great teacher/student and really loves to learn and try new things.

Kara and I both slept in late this morning (Saturday) and it has been raining here all morning as well. So Kara has been doing some studying, I'm writing this message. Ken has taken one of Kara's roommates to get some things she had purchased since she does not have a car and he will be taking Kara to get a new chair as soon as we have some lunch. I hope that the rain will stop by tomorrow so we can do some sightseeing here in Boston, as Ken has not been here before. We are planning to visit Kara's campus on Monday, which is really a beautiful campus and looks a lot like the campus of Oxford in England. Then on Tuesday, Ken and I will fly home to Utah.

It has been a good trip and nice to be with Ken ... our life has been so busy and we have been separated most of it during the last couple of years, so now we need to get reacquainted!!!

LDS Church Responds to Indonesian Quake

The following article tells how the Church I belong to (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) is assisting the victims of the world's most recent natural disaster, the earthquake in Indonesia last Saturday.

My church has a wonderful "welfare" system and humanitarian effort designed to help people, all over the world, who are in need. In a future article I will tell you more about this organization. There are huge storage buildings to prepare and store food, clothing, books, medical equipment, etc. that can be used by others all over the world located in Salt Lake City, Utah. Then our Church works in cooperation with other churches, governments and humanitarian organizations all over the world to ship and get the basic things to the people when needed. There are members of our church all over the world and it's the local members who really do a lot to help those in need when disasters strike ... like last year when Katrina sruck here in America, one of our Church buildings was damaged, but the others were used as a refugree center and we served meals, got people clothese, etc. before the government was into action.

Within hours after the Indonesia earthquake last Saturday, May 27, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints turned a local chapel (a chapel is what we call our church building where we meet to worship and learn together and also have social activities there) in Solo into a food kitchen. By Sunday night, the food kitchen was relocated to a chapel in Yogyakarta, the city that suffered most of the destruction.

The Church has responded with assistance to 177 major disasters between 1985 and 2005, including such efforts as Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, the Africa measles vaccination campaigns in 2004 and 2005, and the Florida and Caribbean hurricane relief in 2004. Within the last 20 years, the Church has also distributed 51,480 tons of food, 7,697 tons of medical equipment, and 68,923 tons of clothing.

Church Responds to Indonesian Quake

By Abbey Olsen, Church Magazines

A 747 cargo jet full of emergency supplies is expected to arrive in Indonesia today, May 31, as part of a combined effort by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) and Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW) to respond to an urgent appeal by Indonesian government officials after a 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck Indonesia on Saturday. The quake killed more than 5,500 and left tens of thousands injured and homeless.

“Our timely reaction here is really going to save lives,” said Mokhtar Shawky, a member of the board of directors of Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW).

More than eight semi-truckloads of medical supplies, hygiene kits, and other supplies from the Church's welfare and humanitarian storehouses in Salt Lake City were loaded into the cargo jet on Tuesday afternoon. The Indonesian Embassy has indicated that upon arrival, helicopters will take the items from the jet and move them to areas most in need. The Indonesian government and IRW have teams working together in Indonesia to continually assess the situation and then communicate the needs in the area.

“We're coordinating it all so that we're not duplicating what other organizations are doing,” said Garry R. Flake, director of humanitarian emergency response for the Church's Welfare Services Department. “It's a very relevant response and a very quick response.”

After the quake struck near Yogyakarta, Church leaders and members in Indonesia immediately responded by preparing and serving 2,000 meals for people in need, as well as distributing hygiene kits and purchasing and providing cots, mattresses, and blankets to an orthopedic hospital where hundreds came seeking medical attention.

The quake, which struck 230 miles from Jakarta on the island of Java, isn't the first natural disaster to bring the Church and IRW together to provide relief to victims. They also teamed up to help after the tsunami in 2004 and the earthquake in Pakistan last year.

“It's a tremendous relationship,” Mr. Shawky said. “We really appreciate what the Church is doing. We feel like we complement each other. . . . The end result is helping more people in more parts of the world. . . . Nothing compares to that.”

The IRW, under its mission to eliminate poverty and suffering, works to first provide relief and then help people rebuild their lives.

The Church's ability to respond with supplies so quickly is due to donations from Church members and Church leaders' emphasis on preparedness and reaching out to help people in need.