A Good Intrusion On Privacy

Long years ago, when I served as a bishop, I received notification that Mary Watson, a member of my ward, was a patient in the county hospital.
When I went to visit her, I discovered her in a large room with so many beds that it was difficult to single her out.
As I identified her bed and approached her, I said, "Hello, Mary."

She replied, "Hello, Bishop."

I noticed that a patient in the bed next to Mary Watson covered her face with the bed sheet.

I gave Mary Watson a blessing, shook her hand, and said, "Good-bye" but I could not leave her side. It was as though an unseen hand were resting on my shoulder, and I felt within my should that I was hearing these words: "Go over to the next bed where the little lady covered her face when you came in."
I did so.
I have learned in my life never to postpone a prompting.

I approached the bedside of the other patient, gently tapped her shoulder and carefully pulled back the sheet which had covered her face.
Lo and behold!
She, too, was a member of my ward.
I had not known she was a patient in the hospital.
Her name was Kathleen McKee.
When her eyes met mine, she exclaimed through her tears, "Oh, Bishop, when you entered that door, I felt you had come to see me and bless me in response to my prayers.
I was rejoicing inside to think that you would know I was here, but when you stopped at the other bed, my heart sank, and I knew that you had not come to see me."

I said to Kathleen McKee: "It does not matter that I didn't know you were here.
It is important, however, that our Heavenly Father knew and that you had prayed silently for a priesthood blessing.
It was He who prompted me to intrude on your privacy."

A blessing was given, a prayer was answered.
I bestowed a kiss on her forehead and left the hospital with gratitude in my heart for the promptings of the Spirit.
It would be the last time I was to see Kathleen McKee in mortality--but not the last time I heard from her.

Upon her death, the hospital called with this message: "Bishop Monson, Kathleen McKee died tonight.
She made arrangements that we were to notify you, should she pass away.
She left for you a key to her basement."

Kathleen McKee had no immediate family. With my sweet wife accompanying me, I visited her humble apartment.
I turned the key in the door, opened it, and switched on the light.
There in her immaculate two-room apartment, I saw a small table with a note resting beneath an Alka-Seltzer bottle.
The note, written in her own hand, said: "Bishop, my tithing is in this envelope, and the Alka-Seltzer bottle contains coins covering my fast offering.
I am square with the Lord."
the receipts were written.

The sweetness of the night has not been forgotten.
Tears of gratitude to God filled my very soul.

-Thomas S. Monson -Christ at Bethesda's Pool -October 1996 General Conference

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

-Sarnic Dirchi

The Dream

Involved me waking up to it being after 3pm and realizing, "Crap! I have to get to class!" So I got ready for school, only I was having problems putting my eye liner on right, It would smear under my cheek bone, under my lip, but not around my eye. I just couldn't seem to put it in the right place. Then my drama teacher and some of my classmates came into my parents bedroom to go over skits, and I kinda joined them, panicking for a test I might have missed, as I desperately tried to remember what other classes I was in...

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

-S.N.D