Wheelchair Integrity

Okay, I can totally tell I've been sick because I messed up my days more then normal and forgot to do my Conference Story yesterday, so I will be doing that Friday. (and to continue the quote) but since today is Tuesday it doesn't really matter. -partly quoted from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. :)

A young mother of eight children was left without a husband.
The oldest child was twelve, the youngest barely one, and one daughter was confined to a wheelchair.
This mother moved to a ward that was close to her family and friends.
Being single and divorced, she feared that she might be ignored or shunned.
However, as she was moving in, ward members streamed in to welcome her, bring food, and offer assistance.
She hardly had time to direct those who were unloading the moving van.

After getting settled, she and her family received innumerable expressions of service and love.
Her home teachers repaired her appliances and other household items.
Her visiting teachers kept very close and made sure she never had to go alone to a Church activity.
At Christmastime, she found money left anonymously on her porch or had it given to her in a handshake.
She received hundreds of dollars toward the purchase of a wheelchair-lift for her van.
After being out of town briefly, she returned home and found that ward members had renovated her kitchen.

Her parents, brother, and sisters provided financial and emotional support.
They helped take care of her children, accompanied her to the emergency room with a daughter who was very ill, built a ramp to the front door for the wheelchair, built shelves for food storage, and helped with yard work.

All of this kindness lifted her spirits and gave her courage to meet the trials and hardships of each day.
Those who looked after this young mother practiced "pure religion" because of their integrity.
Let us "go, and do ... likewise," as the Savior taught in the parable of the good Samaritan.

The rewards of integrity are immeasurable. One is the indescribable inner peace and serenity that come from knowing we are doing what is right; another is an absence of the guilt and anxiety that accompany sin.

-Joseph B. Wirthlin -Personal Integrity -April 1990 General Conference

Until you next read these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi

The Dream

-I really don't like those dreams where you wake up scared stiff and afraid to move because you're afraid if you do, then they will find you and/or you will die....sooo at some point during my dreams this happened. I just don't remember where.

So. I'd been 'kidnapped' by a group of people reminiscent of that gang from Pete's Dragon, because I had that 'talent' again -like last night- and they wanted me to use it to find a certain treasure or use a power to help them take over the world...that sort of thing. I had tried multiple times to escape, to no avail, but the family decided to be nice and let me say 'goodbye' to my family. So I hopped out of the car to my family waiting on the porch and had a tearful reunion with them, even though my brother totally 'nearly ruined' my Itouch because he was using it as a cutting board and got red paint on the screen and I cracked the red cover hitting him in the head with it making the case a bit useless...and they thought that I hadn't been able to update my Itouch in ages and that I still had the ISOS3 that the ipod came with though I was pretty sure that I had the 6 version. In any case my reunion with my family was cut short as I told them that I had to go with the people to help them. Though I didn't want to at all. So I got into their car squeezing into the back seat with...the fat lady from The Lorax...hmm the people were kinda like that family in that movie as well. And we went racing off. Only cops and people were following us trying to catch us so that they could rescue me. Which meant that the male driver drove a bit crazy. (shift) I was in a car with my old leader Tiffany and another person, and we weren't wearing seat belts and I didn't have a seat for myself when up ahead I saw the flashing lights of a police car. We couldn't just drive by a police car when I was totally in an illegal position in the car, so I jumped out of the car and told the people that I would meet them later. They thought I was overreacting and continued to drive up Center to Orchard. I was tempted to believe them, but as I looked at the police car I noticed that it was dark green in color, not the normal white--and just then two other cars one white and one blue screeched in out of nowhere. And these cars. Had guns. The 'cop' car fired at Tiffany's car as it drove past -idk if anyone got injured or not. And then came after me. I ran -rather slowly which was agonizing- up past Walkers and up the street before my home taking different turns as fast as I could so the blue mustang/racecar wouldn't see where I went. I took a corner and rolled underneath some pine bushes in the house by the red picket fence along orchard (though it wasn't on orchard in the dream) just as the car went racing by. But I think the person in the car had been watching for me for the car skidded to a stop as I pushed the bushes back down. I laid stiff in the darkness terrified that they might find me, that they would just start shooting, that they had seen where I hid -I woke up here-
Back with the first group of people (i might be skipping around a bit as I try to remember this) we were in this...idk...older type of town. Where all the women were in dresses and such...And they were obsessed with a particular dress that was cursed that had pink frills and such...this was the dress the people were after that I was with. We were in a building...now I with some FBI agents... trying to find the location of this dress....when...we went stiff and I was told to run. I had a gun in my hand and we ended up running down this hallway full of doors, and in every doorway were people -fellow agents- with guns who were shooting to kill us. So as we -a group of younger people- ran we had to shoot the agents before they shoot us in whatever way we could. The odd thing was...is that we persisted in running this gauntlet of death like four times as it seemed like the agents were always alive. Until a girl like Pepper Potts got hurt and another pretended to die...and it came out that they thought we were betraying them, and we thought they were betraying us, but really we were on the same side. Back to the first group. In the older town they were trying to decide who were the bad people. They had a sort of simple device. Like a rod and string that would sway towards the person and snap back if they weren't involved in finding the dress and didn't know its location, but if the person was involved the rod wouldn't snap back. I knew that I was involved as we stood in wells...at least the top of the wells to face judgement. Near my turn I left my well I was in and walked to a person and asked them where the bathroom was. She gave me a crazy look and pointed behind me in the direction that I had come. "It's over there." I gave her a sheepish smile of "Oh, I hadn't looked there." and went into this old school house looking building in order to avoid being tested and having them find out who I really was. It was definitely an 'old' bathroom meant for children because there were wooden chairs with holes in the middle of them in two rows in a square formation with no doors inbetween chairs. I stared at the chairs in consternation. Because there were holes in the chairs...but no holes in the floor. So...I wasn't quite sure how to work these old fashioned things. Plus the whole place was exposed and what if someone came in. So I chose to go find a different bathroom and went back outside just as everyone was running off to go find the dress. The red haired mother figure who had kidnapped me was on the side of a hill and panicked screaming "No they can't find the grave!" as she tried to cover a freshly buried corpse..of a princess I think....with a blanket, but the fresh sawdust on the ground where there was only grass all around it, gave it away. I joined in on the chaos trying to get some string under control that was floating through the air and to get the dress...I almost had the sense that I was wearing the dress.....

When the unholy tones of daylight pulled me away....
and I became myself again. :)

-S.N.D