Like Mother, Like Son

Anyone who knows me, knows, I'd rather do anything outside than be stuck in the house. So, even though I have 7 very willing, strong sons, I do things like mow my lawn and my moms and the neighbors and I actually like to shovel snowy walks . I'm outside doing something as often as possible and I wave at all the ward members and neighbors as they go back and forth.

A brother in our ward seems to think that embarrassing people will help them do better in the future. One day in a ward council meeting he talked about his calling then ended his comments by saying, " Not to embarrass Sister Smith but..." then he went off for several minutes on how the primary had lost a nursery child.

His grandchild was visiting our ward and had been dropped off at nursery, It was a very busy day, with lots of extra kids, not enough teachers and this little one didn't want to be in nursery, he watched for the chance to slip out and then wandered around the building crying. A sister from another ward found him took him to Priesthood where the Bishopric said he wasn't from our ward and they couldn't think of any visitors. Finally the sister took him to Relief Society where his Mom and Grandma were, they were understandably concerned, the nursery teachers felt really bad and apologized to the Mom . I found out about it after church and went and talked to the bishopric and let them know what had happened (they already knew because they felt like they were part of the problem) I also reminded them that we needed more nursery staff, which we had by the next week.

So this brother airs his concerns, the whole room got that uncomfortable feeling, the Bishop doesn't even give me a chance to defend or explain he takes the blame and moves on. When it's my turn to talk about Primary I bring up one or two upcoming events ask a question and say, " That's all I have, Oh, except we lost a child from nursery a couple weeks ago and are very concerned about that." The room erupts in laughter and the sister sitting next to me says, under her breath, "that was funny!"

Last Saturday it snowed, the boys went out and shoveled our walks but didn't think to do their Grandma across the street. Grandma came over to get something around 1:30p.m. The boys were watching a movie so I visited with my Mom and then walked her out the door; I noticed that her walks needed done so I grabbed a shovel and went over. As I was shoveling the afore mentioned brother drives up, stops to visit at the house next door, then, as he's driving off, he stops and tells me he's going to give my boys a hard time for making their Mom shovel their Grandma's walks, I just laughed and waved, I didn't think he was serious.

The next day in Priesthood meeting he asked Jacob, Joshua and Jeremiah to stand up in front of the whole group, then went on and on about what a good job their Mom did shoveling their Grandmas walks. Josh was mad, Miah felt stupid and Jacob said, " Yeah, she's really good at shoveling walks, you should see her mow lawns!" The whole room erupted with laughter. Poor fella, did he forget who's sons he was trying to embarrass?