Sheri Dew

I don't know what our area did to merit a visit from this wonderful woman, but the 4 stakes on the Washington Peninsula were blessed with the rare opportunity to have Sister Sheri Dew come speak to us.  For anyone who might not know who Sister Dew is, she was once a counselor in the Relief Society General Presidency and was appointed by the prophet to be the president of Deseret Book.  She is an amazing lady who has done so much good and been such a positive influence in so many lives. 

I felt truly blessed at this womens conference and I wanted to put into words some of my thoughts, experiences and things I learned. 

I felt the Lords loving hand before I even arrived at the conference.  My love had signed up to help clean the church that day and was bravely going to take the 3 girls by himself to help clean the Lord's house while I attended the womens conference.  The night before the conference (and the night before that), Shortcake had woken up not breathing very well.  She has caught some sort of head cold and has consequently been very croupy at night.  My love had to bundle her up and take her out into the cold night air to give her some relief. 

Once we finally got her to a point were she could once again sleep and rest, I realized there was no way we could go with our original plan of waking the kidos up before 8:00 so that they could be fed, dressed and ready to haul to the church by 9:00am.  My sweet little baby needed what sleep she could get and she needed to spend a restful day at home, not be at the church while daddy tried to wrestle her and a vacuum. 

However I felt we could not just cancel and bail out on our commitment to help clean the church.  I've been there before when no one else showed up and had to clean mostly by myself.  It's a huge job for 1 or 2 people.  But . . . . . this was SHERI DEW we're talking about.  This isn't something I could just "catch the next one."  So in the dark of the night I lie awake in my bed trying to figure out what would go down the next morning.  I came up with a plan B and my love groggily agreed. 

Originally my friends were going to pick me up at 8:00.  But since my love is the webelos leader, he has a key to the church.  So he got up early enough to be to the church by 8:00 and put in an hour of cleaning before everyone else got there at 9:00.  The plan was he would then come home and if all the girls were still asleep I would just drive myself to the stake center.  Not ideal as parking was going to be scarce and I might have to walk a ways to get to the church.  BUT, if the girls were awake, the whole family would go for a pajama car ride and drive me there and drop me off at the door. 

The closer it got to 9:00 the more I thought I would for sure have to brave the parking situation.  But just before 9:00 all 3 girls woke up.  We had just enough  time for them to go to the bathroom, change a diaper, and walk down to meet Daddy as he pulled into the garage.  It was timed perfectly down to the second.  Which for other individuals might not seem like such an amazing feat, but for me, I am NEVER on time.  No matter how early I start prepping for a departure, it ALWAYS takes me longer than I anticipate.  But our plan B flowed like water from a tap.  A small an insignificant thing in the smallest corner of the universe, but I felt my Heavenly Father was mindful of our morning and of my desire to be both Martha AND Mary.  I was able to arrive at the church by 9:30 and only missed the first 1/2 hour instead of the first 2 full hours.

Sister Dew shared a short video clip and I found it and would like to post the link here.

She said several things about what could be taken from this video but the part I liked the most was she pointed out that it is not possible to not have influence on those around you.  Which I actually like.  I want to have influence.  I want to feel like I am helping someone and making difference in the world.

A lot of her morning talk was about women of the church in general and I think a quote from President Hinckly that she shared sums it up pretty good:

"People wonder what we do for our women. I'll tell you what we do. We get out of their way and look with wonder at what they're accomplishing."

The afternoon session was more powerful to me personally though.  She started off the session by asking all the sister missionaries in the room to come and stand with her in front of the audience.  And thanks to the big age change at last General Conference, there was a HUGE group of sisters on the stand with her.  She talked about how wonderful it all was.  And here is where it gets real personal for me. 

When I was a youth, two of my aunts served missions at the same time.  As a family we supported them, wrote them, sent packages and in return received letters and recorded tapes telling of their experiences as missionaries.  My aunts were such wonderful examples and had such an influence on me.  My sisters and I would listen to one of their recorded tapes every night.  We would listen to them huff and puff on a bicycle as they shared their adventures and more importantly their testimonies and the testimonies of those they were serving and teaching, as we drifted off to sleep night after night after night.   

Needless to say it is no surprise that from a young age I had a strong desire to serve a mission as well.  But at the age of 14 I received my patriarchal blessing and realized the path my life would take would not include serving a mission as my aunts did.  Oh how I cried.  And cried and cried again every time I read it and devoted any kind of thought to it.  But knowing that in advance helped me to not get stuck and determined on it and when the time came to be sealed to my love, I knew that was my path and a path that would be pleasing to the Lord. 

Fast forward several years and 3 kids later.  The wonderful announcement of the change in the age requirements for sister missionaries.  I am FAR from perfect.  Despite my best efforts, something that still tugs at my heart strings, is the fact that had the age been different 10+ years ago, I would have served that mission.  I am weak, and not perfect, and have had to work really hard to fight feelings of jealousy towards all these young warriors taking to the field to fight satan's army.  As I sat listening to Sister Dew talk about how wonderful all these sister missionaries were I was giving myself a pep talk in my head trying really hard not to feel jealous.

Then the sweetest tender mercy gift from the Lord happened.  As if it was just for me, and my silly, immature, un-christ-like jealousy.  Sister Dew was talking about how the Lord is gathering His elect, then she paused and said "it takes the elect to gather the elect."  And started talking about young mothers holding their babies and how they were responsible for raising and making these children elect.  (Tears started to roll down my cheek.)  She read Revelation 12:3

 13 And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child.

Because mothers are so important.  What I have been called to do is just as important as what all those young sisters with name tags have been called to do.  The tears continued to roll silently down my cheek as I felt undeserving of that tiny tender mercy and gift to me and the unimportant weaknesses I fight.  

Sister Dew talked some more about the importance of motherhood and told a story of a young mother of 4, and pregnant with her 5th, sitting next to some person being honored at some banquet.  This person turned to her and asked her what she does and when she told him about how she is raising children and keeps her husband going in his career.  The honored person simply said oh, and turned to talk to more interesting people.  Sister Dew then talked about how this sister should have said: "I'm nurturing 5 children on the path to exaltation how bout you."   

She spoke some more about fearlessly building Zion and reiterated again, that a woman with a babe in her arms is fighting fearlessly to build Zion, and a young woman with a name tag is fighting fearlessly to build Zion.  Which, by the way, is SO beyond kind of her to talk about.  When her own heart aches because she has not yet had the opportunity to marry and be a mother in this life, yet she speaks to those of us who have been given that gift and selfishly forget to be grateful for what has been given to us.  

So here I was sitting enjoying this tender gift that I had been given, and the camera shot changes.  (You see, Sister Dew was in our building during the morning session, then spoke in the other building in the afternoon session.)  At this new camera shot I could see a sister sitting up front interpreting in American Sign Language for another sister.  It was all I could do to keep my heart from sinking into my stomach.  I wished the camera had never moved.  Here I had been given a gift I didn't deserve and seeing someone else get to do something else I have LONGED to do was hurling me right back into my selfish, ungrateful, jealousy!  I was so frustrated with myself and my silly weaknesses.  I have been given the gift of motherhood, the best gift of all.  My love and I are VERY happy living where we do in our little corner of the universe, but there is flat out NOT a need for individuals who know sign language here.  It's not something I need.  It's silly for me to cling to this language that I simply do not need to use.  I began to self-asses myself and wonder if I was finally to a point emotionally where I could let this dream go.  

I let my thoughts wander.  I thought about the hours and hours and effort I have put into cultivating this talent.  I thought about how when I "watched" my scriptures just this past week, they were talking about the war strategies used by Moroni and others, and there was so much I didn't understand.  I thought about how I feel like I understand my sign language scriptures so much less than I used to.  I thought about how it must be because I don't put at much effort and study and time into it as I used to.  I thought about how I must be loosing my talent that I once loved so much.  I continued to entertain the thought of just letting go.

Then they began to sing one of the closing songs.  I'm not sure why but I stared doing something I used to do all the time, but haven’t done in a long time.  I started trying to interpret the song in my head.  Thinking my way through what signs I would use and how I would interpret the concepts in proper ASL sentence structure and not just beginners word-to-word.  I began to perform my signing dance in my head.  Much to my pleasant surprise, the signs flowed.  As I tried to make those brain connections and remember what signs went with what words and what word order would be best understood yet still look as beautiful as the song sounded, it all came flooding back to me.  For the second time that afternoon I found myself fighting back the tears as I realized that I hadn't "lost it."  It was all still there.  I have not yet lost what I worked so hard to get.  

Even now as I write all this, I feel badly.  There are so many people I love and care about who are dealing with REAL hardships.  Here I sit in my own perfect world, feeling the way I do about silly little dreams that I have had to set aside.  I have been given so much, I have no right to be jealous or long for anything.  Yet the Lord loves me anyway.  He never ceases to pour out His blessings on me. 

So if anybody other than myself is reading this, this is what I hope you get from all these thoughts that have run from my brain and out my fingertips.  

Things that are important to you, are important to the Lord.  Because He loves you.  Oh how He loves you.