Our Bishop

A couple of weeks ago we had a change in our bishopric. Bishop Patrick Garlock was released, and Brother Laurent Betteridge has taken his place. Bishop Garlock had been with us for quite a while, so I wasn't surprised that they are giving him a break. However, the Ward is putting together a memory book for him.



This posed a bit of a problem for me, as I have never been terribly close to Bishop Garlock. In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that he doesn't regard me with total approbation. During his tenure I have done less 'entertaining' at the ward functions than before. Although that might just be because I am getting older - and he DID ask me to sing something at our Halloween Chili cookoff. But I don't have a lot of good memories to put in a memory book.

Ah ha - but I DO have my talent for writing poetry. And I had already thought of a theme. If there is one thing that characterizes Bishop Garlock is that he is very emotional and cries at the drop of a hat. He tries to fight it, and the lines at the corner of his mouth go down so far they practically touch his chin, but he usually loses the fight. He is not unaware of this, and has made jokes about it himself in the past.

So here is my tribute to Bishop Garlock:

THE BISHOP CRIED

When called to be the Bishop,
Brother Garlock knelt and prayed,
“Oh help me, Heavenly Father,
For I am sore afraid.
I need to choose two counselors,
Please help me to decide”
And then he heard the Spirit whisper
“I will be your guide”.
And the Bishop cried

He stood before the congregation,
As a Bishop must,
And saw the faces looking back
Filled with hope and trust.
He felt the Savior’s love for them
Welling deep inside,
And he loved them almost as much,
They were his joy and pride.
And the Bishop cried.

It was his anniversary;
He thought back through the years,
Of all the memories that they shared,
The laughter and the tears.
He thought of all the vows they made
The day the knot was tied
And knew he still felt doubly blessed
To have her as his bride
And the Bishop cried.

It was the Bishops birthday and
His children gathered near
To stand before him, one by one,
And whisper in his ear
“We love you, Dad, you are the one
In whom we can confide.
We’ll try to be the best we can
And hope you’re satisfied.”
And the Bishop cried

The sinner sat across from him,
Wracked with guilt and pain.
He vowed he had repented,
And would not sin again.
“What shall I say?” the Bishop prayed,
And then the Spirit replied
“Tell him that he has been forgiven,
For he has not lied.”
And the Bishop cried

And when the resurrection came
He with many others
Stood before the Holy Throne
Amidst his righteous brothers.
The Savior said “These are the ones
Of whom I prophesied.
Thou good and faithful servants,
Come stand here by my side.”
And the Bishop cried

He's come a long way.

We have been raising our grandson, Timothy, ever since he first came home from the hospital as an infant. We have been, in every sense of the word, his parents since day one. When he was two years old we legally adopted him, and later had him sealed to us in the Temple. Although it can make for a bit of confusion, as Maleen is both his aunt and sister, and her children are both his cousins and nieces, we have kept things simple. He calls me Grandma, and Bill Grandpa, and his biological mother (Miranda) is Mommy.

Tim is not a very social person. He has quite a few quirks in his personality, and there have been times that we could only shake our head in disbelief at some of the antics he has displayed. In Primary he would pull his coat over his head and pretend that he wasn't there. During Primary presentations (in the chapel), instead of singing he would be down on the ground between the pews, or making faces and disturbing the children next to him. During Sacrament meetings he would be writhing around on the seat, or down on the floor (again!). No amount of bribes, punishments, wheedling or threats could change this. He was definitely his own person!

When he discovered the joy of electronic games (GameBoy, Play Station, Computer) we at last had something we could hold over him, as if he had his way this is all he would do. Now we can use 'screen time' for rewards (or loss thereof for punishments), although this still didn't change much of his behavior. It gave us a handle, but he still continued to be his own kind of kid. The writhings on the church seat stayed off of the floor; he still wouldn't sing for the Primary presentations, but at least he would stand there instead of being down on everybody else's feet. When it was time for him to give his vocal presentation, one of the teachers would rush forward to be there in case he needed prompting (which he usually didn't) so I guess his behavior in Primary still wasn't perfect, although he had stopped pulling his coat over his head in primary.

Tim was in his very last Ward Primary Presentation last Sunday. He will be turning 12 next month, and will become a Deacon and move up into Young Men. I watched in proud amazement as he stood there SINGING the songs with the rest of the kids. He didn't look particularly thrilled to be there, but he was standing quietly instead of down inspecting everybody's shoes. When it was time for him to give his talk (which he had written himself) he did a magnificent job. The number of people who talked to us afterwards to tell us how wonderful it was could not be counted. In private, Tim told me that he had felt the Spirit as he gave his talk.

Don't get me wrong - he is far from being a perfect kid. The battles between him and Bill send me cringing from the room, and 'screen time' is still uppermost on his list of things to do. But when I think back on how we despaired of him ever being 'normal' - or at least as normal as anybody in OUR family can be, I am so grateful for the progress we've all made. I am SO grateful that the Lord brought this child into our lives and gave him to us to raise, and I hope we can do a decent job of it. And here he is, doing what he loves best.

Who do YOU believe?

Today, when I went upstairs to change for church, I heard a persistent beeping noise. In fact, I heard TWO beeping noises. I went to Tim's room first and found his alarm merrily trying to wake up somebody who wasn't there. It was pretty dark, so I had to turn on his head lamp in order to find the switch to turn his alarm off.

Then I went to our bedroom where our alarm was stubbornly trying to alert somebody (anybody!) that it was time to get up. I use this alarm a lot myself, so even in the dark I know how to turn IT off. I thought I would certainly get a kick out of teasing the 'men' in my life that they don't know enough to turn off the alarm.

Much to my amazement, instead of showing any kind of contrition, they both strenously insisted that they HAD turned their alarms off. Both of them had woken up early (so THEY say), and had virtuously turned off the alarm before they left their respective rooms. From this position they would not budge. They HAD turned off their alarms, and if they really had been on (were they doubting my word?) then somebody must have turned them on again.

As they had watched Ghostbusters together the night before you can imagine what kind of ideas they came up with. They didn't quite have the chutzpah to call me a liar, although they came pretty close.

I have to admit that I had a great deal of sympathy for Joseph Smith. After all, I HAD heard two alarms going off, and I HAD turned them off myself, and no amount of criticism could change that fact. So I ask again - who do YOU believe?

Definitely sick!

Just an add-on. I woke up with such a sore throat this morning (and swollen glands) that I actually went to the doctor and discovered that I have strep throat! They were amazed that I had been fighting it off on my own without antibiotics for so long. I guess all those immuno-enhancing pills that Bill gives me do help. So now I'm on antibiotics, and should be able to go back to work Saturday night.

I should have guessed I was really sick - I haven't had much appetite.

What is sick?

In our house, probably the most dreaded phrase in the English language is "I am sick" closely followed by "I don't feel well". My husband is misophobic, which means he has an abnormal fear of germs. I cannot count the number of nights that I have gone off to work 'not feeling well' and he has been mad at me because he thinks 'I'm sick'.

To my mind, the only times that you are 'sick' enough to stay home from work are 1) You're throwing up 2) You have severe diarrhea and can't stay away from the bathroom for more than 10 minutes 3) You are coughing and sneezing non-stop or 4)You have an extremely high fever.

Last Saturday night I went off to work not feeling very well. Primarily I was very cold and just felt crummy. In fact, I crawled home Sunday morning, fell into bed, and slept for 10 hours. I continued to feel bad and cold for the next couple of days, sleeping fitfully off and on most of the days and nights, but nothing I could put my finger on, so I went off to work Tuesday night as usual. It was a bear of a night because two of our three lab aides weren't there and I worked for over 8 hours before I even got a break. So I came home feeling ultra-crummy.

Wednesday morning my husband got suspicious about my 'feeling cold' and insisted I take my temperature. Horrors - it was 99.8. A sure sign that I was at death's door. He said there was no way I could go to work that night, and I said it depended on my temperature when I got up. I said it would have to be over 100 before I would stay home.

I slept about 9 hours, and when I got up my temperature was exactly 100. A mammoth argument ensued that included me, my husband (Bill), our grandson (Tim) and the boarder (Bob), (whose wife was off to Mutual and he was bored and had wandered upstairs). Both Bill and Tim insisted I had to stay home, I insisted I had to go to work, and Bob (wisely) kept out of it, other than to suggest that we google 'fever' on the Internet and see what the official definiton is.

I retook my temperature about 45 minutes later and it was up to 100.5 and Bill put his foot down and declared I was NOT going to work. I finally gave in. I called work to find out that the two lab aides weren't going to be in AGAIN, so there would only be two of the five workers there. Wow - not a good scenario.

However, I slept another 9 hours last night (drifting in and out of semi-hallucinatory dreams), and this morning my temperature was up to 101.5. I might have to admit that I really am 'sick'. However, I will be taking my temperature again this afternoon to decide if I'm going to work tonight. I'm not throwing up, I don't have diarrhea, I'm not coughing or sneezing - so everything hinges on the fever.

I have a gut feeling that even if my temperature is totally normal this afternoon, Bill (and probably Tim) are going to put a lot of pressure on me to stay home and 'recuperate'. In Bill's mind this means watching movies with him! Anyway, I need to get into the kitchen and do dishes. When I'm sick Bill always tells me that they can wait until I feel better, but by then just looking at them makes me sick all over again!

What's really scary?

Around our house, Halloween is a big holiday. My husband's birthday is the 30th, and when he was growing up, his birthday decorations were always black and orange. Over the years, we have collected an impressive array of 'scary' things, and this year we actually dug a lot of them out and put them up for Halloween.

We went to the local Spirit of Halloween store but were sadly disappointed. Everything was cheap-looking, sleazy, and over-priced. So we didn't buy anything new. In fact, we went to Walmart to get Tim's costume (vampire cape and matching teeth). So here are some pictures of the Halloween decorations we had in our living room. If you look carefully you'll see some of last year's Christmas decorations that never got taken down - including the Christmas tree!

However, I don't think anything we used to decorate the house is quite as scary as my daughter, Miranda, dying her hair blue. I think it looks really, really cool - although I'm not sure I'd have the nerve to do it - even though blue is my favorite color.

I thought about including a picture of our kitchen sink, but I don't think the world is ready for that!