My Mothers

I had such a happy Mother's Day today. I think every Mother's Day will be incredibly special for me (see below on becoming a mother). We had the standard singing by the Primary kids today, we had a special breakfast before church, and I got to to to Relief Society where we had ice cream sundaes!

But once I was home from church and making dinner, my thoughts turned to my mothers. My own mother is incredibly smart, beautiful, talented, and funny. My mother in law raised the best husband in the world and loves her in-laws like her own.

But, perhaps inspired by our discussion of the pioneers in Relief Society today, my thoughts turned to my great and great-great grandmothers Lydia Knight and Johanna Oscarson. I was making some banana bread with our brown bananas when the thought occurred to me that these women went through times when there was no extra food to be used up in some creative and indulgent way. Do we really NEED banana bread? It's just a way to justify buying 10 bananas at once at Costco. I thought about how they took care of their families without husbands around - without electricity and mixers and ovens and church DVD's to keep their kids busy while they made Sunday dinner. I thought about what they would have eaten for Sunday dinner during those hard times.

As I dumped butter into the mixing bowl, I thought about Lydia Knight's story of the tithing and the butter. She had just arrived in the Salt Lake valley and had only one cow with one little patch of grass for it to eat. They churned butter and decided to give it all to their bishop as tithing with the faith that their little cow would produce more milk and give them more butter to last through the winter.

I am grateful for the women in my family who I don't know but who I cannot wait to meet and thank one day. Their sacrifices have blessed me with the light of the Spirit, the peace of the gospel, and the faith to face the unknown.

So, happy Mother's Day to all of you who are in the trenches with me right now, and to those of you who have paved the way to give me all of the blessings I enjoy. I hope I can continue in your tradition of sacrifice and bring honor to you and blessings to my posterity.