Sunday Stories

I grew up in a large family, at least in the worlds standard of family size. I have 4 sisters and 1 brother. No family is perfect, and ours was no exception. For me, I am grateful for the experiences I had growing up and have many more fond memories than bad ones.

Today a wonderful lady(Margaret Dana Jorgenson) gave a great talk in church. The topic was "Service in the family." She choose to talk about the service we render to our posterity and those who have come before us. She expressed at one point how important it is for us to document the stories that happen in our lives. Perfect! Soooooo........


For posterity sakes I will have "Sunday Stories" be a time where I document stories that have happened in my life thus far. These stories are from my own perspective. The great fun with memories is all who may have been involved will undoubtedly have different ones.

First Memories- Part one

One of my first memories I have as a child (2 or 3 yrs old) is of a home located in the small city of Clawson Michigan. I remember the lighting in the whole home being dim. I do not know why I remember this but it is what sticks out in my mind. Maybe that is how all old homes were.


I remember a bedroom with bunk beds in it. I do not recall if this was my two older sisters room or if this was my twins and mine. Nevertheless I remember liking to play on the bunk beds in this room.


We nicknamed this home "The Mouse House" because I guess they wanted to share the home with us, and took the command to multiply and replenish the earth seriously.


I remember one such experience with a little mouse wanting to come and play. My sister and I were on the stairs playing and in my mind I recall a mouse coming out of a crack in the corner of a stair. My sister and I then screamed and ran into the aforementioned bedroom, and flew onto the bunk beds.


I could see the stairs from the bunk bed I was on, and so when I saw my Mother coming up the stairs, I also got to see her reaction to the little mouse. As she came running and screaming into the bedroom she jumped on the beds with us. The next thing I remember is my Mother laughing so hard she could hardly breathe. I remember thinking how strange it was that she was laughing, because I felt so scared inside, but then thinking, " if she is okay with it, I guess I will be okay with it too."


I remember frequently taking walks with my Mother to elderly neighbors' homes and checking up on them. I owe a lot of my love for working with elderly people to my Mother. She always seemed to be involved in doing some kind of extracurricular services in my years of growing up.
What a treasure for me to know even at this very young age, that there were others outside of myself that needed help.


I am sure she had her own reasons, but I would like to think that, for her, being a Mother of 4 very young children was somewhat demanding and it probably felt nice to get outside of her own worries and visit those who otherwise may not have gotten many visitors. I did not recognize this at the time, but this was the beginning of her teaching me one of life's great lessons, how to serve.

My Wonderful Mother