Tag Archives: Family Life

Gum + Kids Doesn’t Have to = Disaster

February 13, 2011

I had a moment of panic today when my husband came home with my 5 year old in the middle of church with gum all over his clothes AND all over her brand new Christmas dress. Ok, maybe the word panic is a bit strong, but I was mad, because I had told my kids ‘NO MORE GUM!’ after my 7 year old spit out gum at church a few weeks ago and got it all over one of the  upholstered folding chairs in the overflow. I was fortunate at the time – or should I say I was blessed – to be able to get it all off.

This worked for a while, but today while I was home sick, my 13 year old

gave Bee a piece of gum again during the sacrament meeting. The result was gum all over a brand new dress, my husbands pants, and a fairly new white church shirt. The total of which to replace all of these would have been close to $100 dollars. For some people, that isn’t much, but for us that is a lot of money. Sure, I bought those clothes on sale, and I didn’t pay nearly that much, BUT those sales are not going on right now, and not having those clothes available for use would definitely be felt.

So, I went online and looked for ways to get gum off of clothes. Gasoline, Goo Gone, nail polish remover, and lighter fluid were not things I keep on hand, and besides I hesitate to use them on clothes since they are highly toxic and could possibly destroy the clothes anyway. One suggestion was to heat apple cider vinegar and then dip the gum in it and use a toothbrush to brush it off. What the heck! It was worth a shot.

The results were FANTASTIC! I LOVE apple cider vinegar. Now I LOVE it even more!

To remove gum from clothes, heat the apple cider vinegar, dip the cloth with the gum on it into the hot vinegar, and then brush it gently with a toothbrush. The gum sticks to the toothbrush, which will be ruined afterward, so use an old toothbrush that you are going to toss out anyway.  Also, the gum loosens from the cloth and can be picked off, or you can pick off a bigger piece of gum and dab it on the other gum bits and they will stick to the gum in your hand and leave the fabric unscathed.

So, that is my derailed disaster of the day 🙂 and I hope this story helps someone else avoid the unnecessary cost of replacing gummed up clothing.

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If I Had a Million Dollars: What the Kids Say

January 29, 2011

So, what if you could ask for a million dollars and someone just gave it to you like this guy:

I asked my kids what they would do with that much money.

7 year old Zee said he would save it until he had 2 million and then he would use it to buy food for his kids. So practical!

13 year old J said that he would buy cows, goats, and some land. . . oh and seeds to plant. Oh and he would get a Wii and some DS games . . . I might be inclined to think that he is telling me what I want to hear, but I know him better than that. I think that he actually WOULD get a farm – probably a full scale vermiculture operation. And a Wii – that is if I would let him.

Well, If someone just gave me a million dollars, I know what I would do. I would donate 10% to the charity of my choice because nothing falls out of the sky like that on its own, and then I would probably find a nice big piece of land – maybe 10 to 20 acres – with a 6 or 7 bedroom, 3 or 4 bath house, budget max of $350,000. Cash should provide a big enough incentive for the seller 😉 If there wasn’t already an art studio and a commercial kitchen, I would have one installed, I would do a lot of the work myself and get it done for under $50,000 maybe less if I could get used equipment. I drool over Hobart mixers and Harsch crocks . . . I would install an actual brick oven and buy cast iron and stainless steel cookware with an amazing set of knives.  I would put $50,000 away for each of the kids for a college fund, and I would put $100,000 in a Roth IRA for retirement. (I still have a few years to grow that before I need it) and I would invest another 100,000 in starting a business – either a bakery or contract IT services, or maybe both. Then I might use some cash and buy newer full size 4 wheel drive pickup truck with a quad cab – not new, and a nicer minivan, I would install a sustainable energy source for my home, and buy some animals (for family food production, not full scale farming), and build up my garden, a small greenhouse, and a root cellar. I figure that would leave me a decent sized emergency fund, which I would stow away in a money market account with a decent interest rate.

So, anyone wanna give me a million dollars? Pretty please?

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Where’s The Beef!?

December 15, 2010

Or should I say “Where’s the blog?” I have really been starting to feel the guilt of a sadly neglected blog weighing down on me lately, and in my defense, since school started this year, for me it really just seems like a few days . . . so, I will give you all a recap of where my last few months have disappeared to.

1. A new school year, always means new teacher drama for me as my very active and gifted son, Zee, adjusts to a new school year and new teachers. Let me recap – Me: Zee, school is starting up again next week. Zee: complete and utter melt down, involving kicking, screaming, etc. Me: You have to go, I can’t leave you home alone, blah, blah, blah, and all kinds of other reasons that mean absolutely nothing to him, while in my heart I am wishing I could quit my job and homeschool him so he could have an education from someone who really appreciated his genius, even though it is trying at times, (like when he took the door handle and latch on the sliding glass door apart and reassembled it backwards when he was 3.)

Time lapse – school has started and I am once again getting daily notes and phone calls from the school. A new teacher who I had so much hope for at the back to school night, because she had rotating classroom assignments, which is always a good thing for Zee, because he is just one of those kids who needs a special job. But no, it seems those only apply to a certain part of the day. And the teacher insists that he must do worksheets and readers – the really mundane ones with two or three words to a page. He has been reading words since he was 2. He hates the readers and tears them up on the way home from school so I won’t make him read them. They send home 6 a week, each one to be read 3 times each. HELL. Not that he can’t, but he wont. He got a zero on his reading assessment, and was in the 95th percentile for comprehension. HOW does that happen? I can tell you, the but teacher is ‘puzzled.’  I call the teacher and tell them we will be opting out and reading Charlotte’s Web instead. It is a book he picked out on his own and has been reading a little at a time already, even though it is hard right now for any book to hold his attention for very long. More notes and phone calls – he is hiding under his desk, pretending to eat gravel on the playground at recess, not staying in his seat, chewing on paper, talking to himself at his desk (probably on some Calvinesque adventure) turning the lights on and off, not bringing his ‘stop and go’ slips back to school with my signature, etc., etc, etc.

Then they call me in for a meeting with the teacher. She informs me that he is not behind, but that she is worried that he might fall behind at some future point. It would be terribly unjust of me to not take him to the doctor and put him on meds because if he falls behind it could jeopardize his entire school career. Me: He is board. I am not going to have him medicated for being board. Teacher: No, he is not board, he just refuses to do his work. He needs to be on medication. It’s not fair for you to not medicate him! Me: Over my dead body will this kid be medicated. They bring in the school councilor who says that he has been observing him over the last week and that he was only on task for some percent of time. Me: did you send him back to his seat? Teacher: I can’t be sending him back to his seat all the time. Me: did you give him a special job like I suggested? (That really helped last year) No, they did not. can they give him more challenging material? No, the district requires this set of readers and this stack of worksheets for every second grader in the district. Me: Kids are not cookie cutter replicas of each other. This is not working and something has to change! They say that they know this but their hands are tied. The district dictates it. (Yeah, bs!) I tell them I don’t give a crap about what the district says, I will not medicate my son for the reasons they stated, and if they can’t find a way to fix it, they will just have to deal with it.

canning tomato sauce

I go home and dig up research and info on the law about a teacher suggesting medication in the great state of Utah and the law is on my side 🙂 I print the legislation and research studies and other information. (The Australian.com: Kids on ADHD Drugs Do Poor at School) look into other schools for him. A week later I am called in again, this time to meet with the principal and a district special ed specialist. I am armed with my husband, a voice recorder, and all the papers I printed out. I was pretty sure that they were going to bully me into medicating. I had an “Acceptance of Responsibility” form ready for them to sign just in case they pushed it that far. It turns out that the district specialist didn’t know about the medication issue, and the principle was hoping to keep it that way. I didn’t give her the pleasure. At the same time, I didn’t end up needing the form – the specialist said he had observed Zee and agreed with me that he was board and didn’t need to be medicated. I let them know that there would be a legal issue if it was ever brought up again, and that was the end of that. Now the teacher is doing ‘interventions’ or more plainly, alternative learning activities instead of worksheets. But I am sure she wasn’t excited about having to do one more extra thing. Especially for the kid who asked her if she was going to shave her mustache. It was an honest question – really he didn’t mean to be rude! (but I did have a talk with him about tact and appropriate ways to ignore other peoples unsightly features.)  Now the drama has gone back under the surface, but I am pretty sure that next year it will resurface and rear its ugly head once more.

2.In the midst of all the teacher troubles, I am on a quest for real food real cheap, since we are also broke, and I refuse to resort to the use of artificial food-like substances to feed my family. I found a lot of good stuff in the classified ads, and all organic and locally grown! Woohoo! It felt pretty good to have something going right! I got 6 bushels of heirloom tomatoes, 24 sugar pie pumpkins, 200 lbs of potatoes, 30 lbs of onions, also organic, 2 huge banana squash, 7lbs shelled walnuts, 1 quart jar of no sugar pectin, a 25lb bag of brown short grain rice (the only thing not local) all for less than a regular grocery shopping trip. And I just scored a quarter of a grass fed beef for $1.50 a lb cut and wrapped! We will be set for groceries for a while 🙂 Looks like I found the beef!

3. Canning, freezing and preserving all the food

4. And, I made a nice big batch of my Momma Nature’s No More Owies (or Owie Cream as my kids like to call it)

5. Not to mention work. Did I mention work?! 🙁 I have one question – How did I survive?!

6. Up next, helping the kids with their homemade Christmas presents. I just helped my oldest daughter refinish her dresser so she could sell it so she could have money to buy her friends presents. It looks amazing!

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Bee’s Door Knobs

July 4, 2010

Bee had her hair done up this morning in what she is calling “door knobs.”Bee's Door Knobs

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7 Good Alternatives to Processed Sugar

June 17, 2010

Anything natural is better than artificial sweeteners, so nix on the Splenda, sweet ‘n low, and aspartame 🙂 but you already knew that.

Even refined sugar is better than all of those nasty things, but then when you get into the research, you can see that sugar does a lot of damage to our bodies by causing tooth decay, insulin resistance, yeast overgrowth, and weight gain among other things. So we start looking for alternatives so we don’t have to feel bad about treating ourselves (and our kids) to treats every so often. I think that anything – even if it was once natural- if it is over processed,  and even though it may be better than fake sugar, is still something you want to avoid. Things that fall into this category are refined sugar, most brown sugar (which is often just white sugar with molasses added back into it), high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), and sadly the onetime favorite of many health conscious individuals, agave nectar. I am also very skeptical of Xylitol for this very same reason. Even refined white sugar is still better than HFCS, because the processing that HFCS goes through causes molecular level changes that have turned out to be REALLY bad. (Think cocaine, and then think crack cocaine – This may be an extreme example, but the basic idea is there)

So what sweeteners are ok, or even good for you in small amounts? My take on this is that if God didn’t want us to have sweets, there would not be dates, bananas, honey, maple syrup, or many of the other good sweet things we have that are naturally sweet with no monkeying around. Of course, we need to use sweeteners in moderation, and you can overdo any good thing. So when it comes to sweeteners, the more natural and the less processed the better.  Here are 7 good alternatives to processed sugar:

  1. Raw Honey: My first choice is all natural raw honey, straight from the hive, maybe run through a strainer, but that’s it. (make sure that the bees have not been fed sugar water – that changes the whole composition of the honey and that is a whole ‘nother story!)
  2. Maple Syrup or Maple Sugar: My next choice would be natural maple syrup, or maple sugar, which is dehydrated maple syrup. These are much less likely to cause your blood sugar to fluctuate – that is the major problem with sugar and that is what leads to insulin resistance.
  3. Raw Cane Sugars: Other good sweeteners are made from raw cane sugar, which is basically dehydrated cane juice, like mascavo, rapadura, turbinado, and sucanat. These can be coarse, medium, or even ground finely into a confectioners sugar, but still has the natural brown color to it, with a lot of vitamins and minerals that are typically removed during processing.Make sure that you get organically grown, otherwise any benefits of vitamins and minerals in the sugar will be outweighed by negative factors, such as pesticide residue.
  4. Blackstrap Molasses: Molasses is another better alternative to sugar – it is the stuff removed from the sugar during processing. You would want to get good quality, again, the less processed the better.
  5. Date Sugar: There is also date sugar, which I have never tried, but I have heard that it is very good and easy to use as a substitute for sugar in baking. But it is really expensive – nearly $50 for an 11oz package! Ouch!
  6. Coconut Palm Sugar: Like cane sugars, organic coconut palm sugar is also very easily used in baking, and is comparable in price. It is more expensive compared to honey, but can be substituted 1:1 like cane sugar. It is not nearly as expensive as date sugar though. You can get an 8oz package for between $6 and $10, depending on the brand. Coconut palm sugar is a darker brown sugar and tastes more like brown sugar than cane sugar. There are questions for some people as to the sustainability in the production of coconut palm sugar, for example they say that carelessly harvested palm sugar can damage the coconut trees from which it is harvested – if all the flowers are removed, no coconuts will be produced, and then no new trees can grow, resulting in fewer and fewer coconut trees, and therefore fewer coconut products like coconut oil, etc. Traditional harvesting methods of palm sugar ARE sustainable, and actually improve the yield of coconuts, and is more friendly to the environment than cane sugar production because it requires no artificial irrigation. There are other types of palm sugars other than coconut palm sugar, but I do not know enough about those to comment on them – see comments for more info on other types of palm sugars 🙂
  7. Stevia Leaf Powder: Then there is stevia. This is also 100% natural and doesn’t cause your blood sugar levels to fluctuate, and a little goes a loooooong way. It is up to 30 or more times sweeter than sugar, and can be used in recipes instead of sugar in very small amounts with the same sweetness. However, I don’t like the flavor of it, as it can leave a bitter aftertaste, and darn it, one of the only good reason to eat sweets is for a treat, so don’t use it if you don’t like the taste – it defeats the purpose!
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Out of the Mouths of Babes

April 24, 2010

I think every mother has a nightmare of having her child get a tooth knocked out. I had this lovely opportunity today – Bee was running down the cement steps to our back yard, tripped and fell and came back up minus a front tooth! Much of the edge was taken off on this for me, since the tooth has already been dead for a couple of years, as the result of getting headbutted (accidentally) by her older brother Zee when he was her age.

Unfortunately, since it is Saturday, our dentist is not open,

and she will have to wait . . . but I really doubt there is anything that they can do anyway. If the tooth had been alive, I think they can fix it, but with a dead tooth? I’m not so sure. But for now, the tooth is in a Ziploc bag with some ice in the refrigerator.  Just in case . . .

After cleaning up the blood and giving her a piece of ice to suck on, her take on the whole thing? When asked if she wanted the tooth fairy to bring her money,  she said “No way, I want candy!”

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Cursed!

December 19, 2009

This morning, as I was getting everything to go to a Christmas party at my sister’s house, I dropped a plate of 2 dozen hot coconut macaroons on the floor. I had just gotten my kids in the van . . . an ordeal in itself! Child#1 changed clothes 3 times, because she couldn’t wrap her brain around the fact that this was a breakfast PAJAMA party. Child 2 screamed for at least a half hour because he wanted to go to the church primary party that was also that morning and since we had to choose, family came first. Finally after he realized that the family party would be longer (more games, more treats, etc.) he got in the van, quite happily too. (grrr) I on the other hand after trying to get them going, had not quite been able to get it all together and I was still trying to round up cookies for the Christmas cookie exchange. So now the kids are waiting for me while I am scrambling to get the cookies out of the oven and onto a plate, which I then dropped on the floor . . . lovely!

So, I scooped them up, all mashed and broken and left them on the counter to cool. (We fed them to the chickens when I got home — I hope they don’t die . .)

When we got there, we were short on graham crackers for the little gingerbread village the kids were making.  So I went to the store to get more. And as I am waiting for someone to back out some hot guy in a red fire bird swoops in between me and the row of parked cars and steals my parking space!  It wasn’t even a packed parking lot. I mean there were plenty of available spaces, that one just happened to be opening up and was a little closer to the door, so I was like hey! maybe something will go my way this morning! (because it really was super cold outside) BUT NO! So I rolled down my window and yelled “Merry Christmas! I Hope it’s an emergency!” and he looked at me and said “It is!”

Well I didn’t buy that crap for a second! So when I went in the store and saw him there I walked right up to him and looked him in the eye and said “So, what’s the emergency?” He said something lame about getting a money order for his wife and I said, well there were lot’s of other open parking spaces. He looked uncomfortable and I just turned around and walked off. Maybe there was some kind of emergency that required a money order, sure, I can see that, but how much longer would it really have taken to park the next row over? It’s just that I was already quite obviously in position to take that spot. It’s like a plate of cookies sitting there, and I reach out to take one and he snatches it up off of the top of the pile just because he can. What a JERK! I thought of so many good things I could have said later of course — like “Thank you for reminding me what a great husband I have. I hope that money order keeps your wife happy, ’cause you don’t have much else to offer.”

So, I’m really fine with it. Maybe his wife is really horrible. Maybe I should feel sorry for the poor guy . . .

Did I mention that I had also toted along a casserole for the church Christmas dinner? I took it with me so I could bake it at my sister’s house and have it ready to drop off at the church by 4pm.

Again I am trying to round up my kids so I won’t be late dropping off the casserole. Again, I am invisible. I say get in the car, and they are out jumping on a snow covered trampoline 2 seconds later. Is what I am asking really that horrible? Because I am looking at the snow out there and that is not my idea of fun! By the time we are actually on the way, it is 3:45 and we are a good 45 minutes away. I drove fast and made it there only 15 minutes late. And someone had put their hand in the casserole. There was a big dent in one end where the foil had been completely mashed in.

“Who did this?”

“Not me!”

“Not me!”

“Not me!”

Three innocent pairs of eyes are staring at me.

“Come on, it was hot. There is no way you could do this and not notice!”

“Not me!”

“Not me!”

“Not me!”

blink, blink, blink.

So I pull out the guilt trip.

“An honest person would tell their mother if they did something like this.”

“Not me!”

“Not me!”

“Whaaaa ok, it was meeeeee!”

Now it’s my turn to feel bad for yelling. But I don’t. Not really. Ok, maybe a little . . .

I told the lady I handed it to to just stick the serving spoon in there and maybe no one would notice, and then I left. very quickly.

I took the kids home and had them change. We went to the church for dinner — No way I was going to try to cook after all that. And my casserole was already out on the serving table, and there was only one serving left.

I guess it wasn’t such a really bad day . . .

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Mom’s Twelve Days Of Christmas

December 16, 2009

Here is a really cute version of the 12 days of Christmas that I think any parent can appreciate! Thanks Mindi 🙂

Mom’s Twelve Days Of Christmas
Lyrics thoughtfully revised by Mindi K. Flowers at B.A. Bookworm

On the first day of Christmas, my children gave to me
A chance to be a referee.

On the second day of Christmas, my children gave to me
Two hugs with love
And another chance to be a referee.

On the third day of Christmas, my children gave to me
Three accidents
Two hugs with love
And another chance to be a referee.

On the fourth day of Christmas, my children gave to me
Four joyous moments
Three accidents
Two hugs with love
And another chance to be a referee.

On the fifth day of Christmas, my children gave to me
Five handmade things
Four joyous moments
Three accidents
Two hugs with love
And another chance to be a referee.

On the sixth day of Christmas, my children gave to me
Six temper tantrums
Five handmade things
Four joyous moments
Three accidents
Two hugs with love
And another chance to be a referee.

On the seventh day of Christmas, my children gave to me
Seven children’s pageants
Six temper tantrums
Five handmade things
Four joyous moments
Three accidents
Two hugs with love
And another chance to be a referee.

On the eighth day of Christmas, my children gave to me
Eight hairs-a-greyin’
Seven children’s pageants
Six temper tantrums
Five handmade things
Four joyous moments
Three accidents
Two hugs with love
And another chance to be a referee.

On the ninth day of Christmas, my children gave to me
Nine ornaments crashing
Eight hairs-a-greyin’
Seven children’s pageants
Six temper tantrums
Five handmade things
Four joyous moments
Three accidents
Two hugs with love
And another chance to be a referee.

On the tenth day of Christmas, my children gave to me
Ten songs-a-singin’
Nine ornaments crashing
Eight hairs-a-greyin’
Seven children’s pageants
Six temper tantrums
Five handmade things
Four joyous moments
Three accidents
Two hugs with love
And another chance to be a referee.

On the eleventh day of Christmas, my children gave to me
Eleven presents peeking
Ten songs-a-singin’
Nine ornaments crashing
Eight hairs-a-greyin’
Seven children’s pageants
Six temper tantrums
Five handmade things
Four joyous moments
Three accidents
Two hugs with love
And another chance to be a referee.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my children gave to me
Twelve smiles heartwarming
Eleven presents peeking
Ten songs-a-singin’
Nine ornaments crashing
Eight hairs-a-greyin’
Seven children’s pageants
Six temper tantrums
Five handmade things
Four joyous moments
Three accidents
Two hugs with love
And another chance to be a referee.

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Milestones for Mommyhood

December 5, 2009

I am hitting some mommy milestones this year . . . I just turned the big 4-0 in November. That is taking me some time to adjust to, but it’s not so bad now. Also, in November we celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary. That sounds so long to me, but really it seems like we were still just starting out, and technically, I suppose that 18 years of marriage isn’t really a milestone, but it sure feels like one to me.

Some other milestones — J just turned 12 on Wednesday! He will be ordained as a deacon tomorrow, which he is really excited about — he really is looking forward to passing the sacrament in church. Also, his teacher in school has recommended that he test for the gifted and talented program this upcoming week so he can take honors classes in Jr. High next year. Jr. High! (help me!) He is really excited and is crossing his fingers to get back into a good chess club again. It’s been nearly two years since he has had a good chess program, and he misses it a lot. I think it will be really good for him. I really do . . .

And Alex is turning 15 in January . . . this is a milestone because, as she has been reminding me since last year, she will be able to learn how to drive. YIKES!! and next year, dating . . . but . . . deep breaths . . . one thing at a time . . . breath, breath, breath . . . OK. I’m OK now . . . I think I am OK now. Can you please hand me that paper bag?

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Childhood Ambitions

October 23, 2009
This entry is part 4 of 5 in the series Kid Quotes

Alex came to me today and said “Z said he wants to be an author when he grows up.”

This was news to me, because last time he told me about his life’s ambitions, he said he wanted to be a fireman. He has actually wanted to be a fireman for a couple of years now. He is 6.

Z’s first childhood ambition was a lot more interesting. After his second Christmas, he went around saying “Ho, Ho, Ho!” in a loud voice, and then he declared that he wanted to be Santa Claus when he grew up. He was 22 months old. I assured him through suppressed laughter that he could be that and many other things. He continued with the Ho, Ho, Ho-ing for several months — It was a real holler.

Then at the age of 3, he saw the movie Fat Albert, and he decided that was what he wanted to be when he grew up (“Hey, Hey, Hey!”). At 4 he saw his first fire engine, and was duly impressed. Other than a Jedi Knight, that has been his one ambition that he keeps going back to.

But an author is a new one for him. I didn’t even know he knew that word, although it shouldn’t surprise me, since I write, and have taken the kids to a few book signings to meet authors that they have enjoyed, so maybe his wanting to be an author and write stories wasn’t such a stretch after all.

I looked at him and raised my eyebrows. “Oh?”

“I want to be an author. I want to write books,” he declared.

“What kind of books do you want to write?” I asked.

“Church books. I’m going to be the holiest man on earth.”

At this point I am sorry to say that I was unable to help myself, and I nearly choked on the mouthful of the apple I was munching on. Z is the one kid that I have had to drag out the door kicking and screaming “I don’t want to go! Church is so boring!”

“But you can’t stay home by yourself, it’s too dangerous, and there won’t be anyone to take care of you. It will be just as boring here,” I always tell him, shivering at the thought of coming home to a burning house or some other equally frightening scenario.

“The holiest man on earth?” I ask, struggling to keep my voice even.

“Why? Who is the holiest man on earth?” (He is totally serious.)

“Probably the Prophet,” I tell him.

“Well, then I’ll be the second holiest man on earth, ’cause I am really trying to be like Jesus.”

At this point I wondered if, at the age of 6, Moses’s or Elijah’s Mothers ever thought that their sons would take their turn as the holiest men on earth. Or Alma the younger, or Saul of Tarsus — what would their mothers have said?

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