I love being married

A few nights ago Les and I were able to go to our Stake Bishopric dinner that was held at the Jospeh Smith Memorial Building. We had a great time - the food was really good, the company was great, and John Bytheway came to speak to us. (he is one of my favorite ever speakers - does that make me a teenybopper - or do they say tween now?)

His talk was about marriage. Several times throughout the night he said "I love being married." I remember when Les and I first got married we said that all the time. We told everyone - marriage is wonderful, we love being married. However, it has been a long time since I said it. I'm happy to say that although our marriage has had its adjustments with the addition of Gus, I still LOVE being married.

When I first fell in love with Les I saw him as the most sincere, genuinely kind person I'd ever met. And now that we've been married for 6 years...wo ho let me tell you... He is still the most sincere and kind person I know. I trust him immensely. I look up to him, he has so much wisdom and perspective.

My eldest cousin Sheryl is currently in China undergoing a very painful and arduous process of a stem cell transplant (which is the last hope for her rare and supposedly "incureable" disease). For the last 40 or so days she has been in what they call "the box". This is an 8x8 room which must be completely sterile. Only the doctors and nurses can come in after sterilizing themselves completely and covering up with several layers of clothing. With there 6 children at home, her husband Lon has been in China with her throughout the ordeal and while she is in the box he can only see her and talk to her through a glass window. Here is a part of his most recent email:

For the past 40 days, as Sheryl has either been in the box or with so many tubes and pain that I have not been able to be with her, it is hard to look thru the glass and not be able to hug her. The phone doesn't work most of the time for Sheryl- so I can hear her but she cannot hear me. Many of you have offered to fly over and see Sheryl and me - we had to say no. I truly feel that I am alone and in prison. I have never felt so all alone as I do now. Yes, I feel the peace of the Lord, yes, I have the scriptures, yes, I have prayer-but I am alone and Sheryl is all alone. The people here at the hospital speak either no English or very broken. We speak no Chinese so it is hard to have a conversation. Last night I took Sheryl a sliced apple, some yogurt and a piece of bread. Her nurse microwaved it all for a long time! Of course, it was ruined! So I tried one more time and thru charades the nurse got it right the second time!

(I just had to include that part about the microwave because I thought it was so funny)

He continued writing about how grateful he is for eternal marriage and how hellish eternity would be if he couldn't be with his wife for the next, I don't know, trillion years. They have hope and faith that this treatment will work and that she will be coming home in a few months. It's intersting from an outside perspective to see these, what I saw were perfect people, who had everything in the world going for them - so many blessings- to now be tested by fire and to watch them truely mold into even more saintly purified beings.