LDS Witness - #4 Saved from a Dark Street Corner

     When I was a teenager growing up in Portland, Oregon as a high school freshman, was invited to a party by people I thought were my friends. It was on the other side of
     Portland in the west hills, and the hostesses were girls I had known a little from church. My best friend, Dolores, and her boyfriend took me to the party but that was the last I saw of them. I was worried when I learned the girls’ parents were not home. I was suspicious of what some boys from a rival high school were drinking, and I was really alarmed when they turned out the lights and started slow dancing. There was one other girl at the party who didn’t pair off and start dancing. I told her I was going to leave and she too wanted to leave.
     My dad had an extra job on Saturday nights and my mom didn’t drive. We were on our own. We had to take a bus to downtown Portland and transfer to a second bus. Then I had to choose between riding this bus several blocks away from my normal stop and walking about 8 blocks home on a darkened street, or getting off at my normal stop and waiting an hour for a third bus which would stop right across the street from my house. Caroline had to transfer to another bus so we split up. Even though it was about midnight, I elected to wait an hour for the bus that came closest to my home.
     The intersection where I got off had a grocery store with a single light bulb burning in the back. It was on the northwest corner. On the southwest corner stood a small drugstore with a doorway cutting across the corner with a recessed entry. The southeast corner had a very dark gas station and the northeast corner had a beer tavern, which was still open. That was where I had to catch the third bus. I decided to wait in the shadows of the drugstore, where I could watch the oncoming traffic and would have plenty of time to cross the street and catch the bus.
     I waited about a half hour in the doorway. Then a car pulled up at the curb next to the drugstore. Two big men got out and started walking toward me, asking questions about the bus schedule. It may have been my imagination but I think they wore big tan trenchcoats and big floppy hats. I did not want to get trapped in the doorway. I thought if I went over to the tavern that there might be other people there, which meant safety in numbers to me. I stood at the curb waiting for a car to make a left turn, then I would run. Just then the car stopped right in the middle of its turn and a young male voice called out, “Lois, do you want a ride?” I certainly did! Though I didn’t recognize who called, if he knew me, that was good enough! When I got closer I saw that it was my girlfriend Dolores’ brother and his neighbor friend who were a couple of years older than me. Gratefully, I climbed into the backseat and they took me straight home.
     The miracle was that if I had not been standing on that curb at that very minute, they would have driven right past me. I still wonder, how did they recognize me on that dark corner?
     I see it as a blessing of protection from a loving Heavenly Father who recognized that I had left a bad party. He knew my immediate needs and saved me from who knows what?

LDS Witness #3 -Tender Mercies of the Lord in Toronto

When my husband and I were serving a Church mission for the LDS Church in 2000-2001 we inheirited the apartment that the previous missionary couple had lived in. It was on the 8th floor of a 16-story apartment building. We had a balcony overlooking a park with brilliant autumn leaves painting the landscape. That was the positive side of having the apartment. The negatives outweighed the positives; they being the construction of a subway below us with constant pile drivers going from 6 am to 10 pm every day except Sunday; pets in the hallways and elevators that carried fleas which jumped on my legs and bit me; weird cooking smells throughout he building and a man who had the apartment below us who smoked in his bathroom and the smoke came into our bathroom–not a good odor for a pair of missionaries to wear!

We prayed for help in finding a better apartment. That isn’t easy in a city where ALL Landlords work from 9 am to 4 pm five days a week. They never open their doors or answer their phones during off hours. We worked the same hours. Another problem was that they all wanted a year’s lease and we would only be there 11 more months.

But this is what we got: We didn’t have to sign a year lease. The rent fit our price range. We got a carpeted apartment (most apartments had cold, hard floors), located on the second floor, front corner (away from strange cooking odors), only had normal traffic noises we could live with. No pets were allowed except service animals (no fleas). We were low enough that my arthritic knees could climb a flight of stairs in event of a power failure. We had two bedrooms and underground indoor parking (good to have when snow was on the ground six months of the year). We had evergreen trees outside our balcony which reminded us of home, and some playful black squirrels in the yard to watch. We also met some lovely people at Church to socialize with.


My husband was able to play basketball every week, and went to sales where he could buy furnishings for missionary apartments, activities he enjoyed doing. I had a friend who would meet me at the mission office on my lunch hour and take me to a park or a mall. It was a great experience.

Other positives about our mission included saving money in our bank account, letters from our kids and grandchildren, and we had a great cultural experience meeting people from many countries and tasting their foods. We went to an authentic Chinese New Year and authentic Iranian New Year party. We planned a Dominion Day picnic for our ward.

We missed two weddings and two funerals of family members, and welcoming a new grandson but that was something we could deal with.  It was a great experience!

LDSWitness--Angel in a Red Jeep, Post #1

A few years ago my husband and I were driving through the Blue Mountains of Eastern, Oregon headed toward our home in the Portland , OR area. As we came off the steep hill where the sun was shining, we entered dense fog. We could barely see the hood ornament on the front of our car, let alone the highway. I was frightened and said a quick prayer as my husband gripped tightly to the steering wheel. A mile or two later this red jeep with fog lights passed us. It stayed ahead of us at our speed, just enough that we could see its tail lights ahead of us. We traveled through the Pendleton valley for about 75 miles. As we got closer to the Columbia River the fog became a little thinner and the red jeep turned off at the next exit. As we got to that point we could see much better and were soon out of the fog. I do not believe this just happened conveniently, and to this day I believe we were sent an "angel" in a red jeep. It was one of the Lord’s tender mercies

LDS Witness Postings-Miraculous Healing #2

I signed up to put my testimony on LDS Witness.  I'm supposed to write a blog every week.  This was number two:

In 1964 my then 3-year old son, Mark, had an illness that developed into Nephritis, a serious kidney disease. He was hospitalized and put on what I think was antibiotics. Still the white blood cell count wouldn’t come down. He couldn’t understand why he had to stay at the hospital. The doctors were talking about transferring him to Doernbecher‘s Children’s Hospital in Portland, saying he would be there at least six months. I had two other young children at home and it would have been a tremendous hardship on our family to have to travel to Portland every day or two.


His father and another man holding the Melchezidek Priesthood, by laying their hands on his head, and anointing his head with a drop of consecrated oil, gave him a Priesthood Blessing. Within a day his white blood cell count started coming down toward normal. He was discharged from the hospital a week later. He had to take penicillin tablets every day for a long time, perhaps a year, and we were told to keep him in bed for another one to three weeks. Have you ever tried to keep a lively three-year old down in bed if he didn’t want to be? He was up bouncing on the couch the first day!

This young man never had any after effects from this illness. He grew up, served a Church mission in Guatemala, married and fathered five children. At age 51, he now is a grandfather of one little boy. He has two Master’s degrees, is a C.P.A., and has traveled to Holland, the Ukraine, Okinawa, Costa Rica and other parts of the world. He referees kids soccer, sometimes two or three games, one right after the other on a normal Saturday.

I know that he was completely healed because of that Priesthood Blessing. The Priesthood leaders in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have the power and authority to bless the lives of others.

Try A Little Harder

     Nature is an inspiration for many artists. I saw a living, breathing art print a few days ago. The subject was sandpiper birds. Since they are wader birds living near water I was surprised to see them in arid Arizona, but there they were. These short-legged brown birds walked across the "stage" of my wide-view screen, actually a space between two houses. First came the leader walking between the yards in a brisk high- stepping walk. Just as bird number one passed off to stage right of this sandy scene, on came bird number two from stage left, walking in the same brisk manner. Again, as bird number two passed into the wings of stage right, on came bird number three, mimicing his counterparts. Bird number three went off stage right. Then, there was a long pause, and in comic-like staggering, with his little wings beating rapidly but not gaining any altitude, bird number four was anxiously trying to catch up to his fellow marchers. It was like the smallest child calling out, "hey, wait up for me." I hope he made it.
   Sometimes we feel like we're not going to catch up to our co-workers, fellow-students or friends, but with a little more effort we too can reach our goal.