3 Year Tumorversary

Today is my 3rd "tumorversary", which means that 3 years ago today was the day my brain tumor was removed. I was able to "celebrate" my day by going to the burial service of Caden Aleksander Schultz who is my nephew. My sister, Tina, carried him for 17 weeks before finding out that he had died at about 14 weeks. He was born on June 18 at 3:40am. He was 5 inches long and weighed 1.6oz. He was very tiny! He didn't survive because he had a lot of fluid in his head. My mom and I were able to be in the hopital with Tina and her husband when she delivered the baby. It was definately an emotional night, and a long, emotional week. Rest in peace little Caden Aleksander, your family loves you!

Adversity In Our Lives

The other night I realized that I haven't blogged what I did on Sunday. Just to give everyone something to read, I'm going to start from the beginning which is almost 3 weeks ago...

Seminary graduation was on May 24th so the young women's president and I went to support our young women and young men who were graduating. While we were eating refreshments when it was over, the 2nd counselor in our Stake Presidency (who is a cousin of mine) asked me if he could talk to me for a minute. So, not thinking anything bad would come of that (haha), I agreed to let him talk to me. I wasn't nervous until he led me into a room and closed the door so that he could talk to me in private. Yikes. He then said to me, "I have the priveledge of asking you ... (I was really nervous at this point).... to speak at Stake Conference?"

Are you kidding?! Why me?

Then he told me that they wanted me to speak on how God is there for us through trials and adversity in our lives. I have no experience with that, right? ;) Monday morning I saw the 1st Counselor in our Stake Presidency and in trying to get out of this I asked him if maybe they asked the wrong person. He told me that when they talked about it as a Stake Presidency, my name was the first one mentioned and "it made sense". Didn't sound like I was going to get out of it so I started preparing that day.

So, I want to share part of my talk here because as I was researching my topic I found some great things. Here it is:

Elder Wirthlin, in his talk “Come What May and Love it” asks, “How can we love days that are filled with sorrow?” He then tells us, “We can’t—at least not in the moment. But I do believe that the way we react to adversity can be a major factor in how happy and successful we can be in life. If we approach adversities wisely, our hardest times can be times of greatest growth, which in turn can lead toward times of greatest happiness.”

Learning to endure times of disappointment, suffering, and sorrow is part of our on-the-job training. These experiences, while often difficult to bear at the time, are precisely the kinds of experiences that stretch our understanding, build our character, and increase our compassion for others.

Because Jesus Christ suffered greatly, He understands our suffering. He understands our grief. We experience hard things so that we too may have increased compassion and understanding for others.

The Lord compensates the faithful for every loss. That which is taken away from those who love the Lord will be added unto them in His own way. While it may not come at the time we desire, the faithful will know that every tear today will eventually be returned a hundredfold with tears of rejoicing and gratitude.

President Eyring said,"The Lord will rescue His faithful disciples. And the disciple who accepts a trial as an invitation to grow and therefore qualify for eternal life can find peace in the midst of the struggle."

Living the gospel does not mean that we will never have adversity. Instead it means that we will be prepared to face and endure adversity more confidently.

Elder Pino said, “Often we do not know what we can endure until after a trial of our faith. We are also taught by the Lord that we will never be tested beyond that which we can endure.”

Elder Maxwell has told us; “Life is designed to give us experiences that will test our faith, and if we endure them well, having faith in Christ, the blessings and growth we will receive is incredulous!”

**(Doctrine & Covenants 121:7-8:) “My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high."**

I have never had a favorite scripture until reading the above scripture while researching for my talk. I am very grateful for the opportunity that I had to be able to share what I found, along with my own experience with being faced with brain cancer. I really was blessed in SO many ways that I never could complain about the trial my family was dealing with.

For those of you reading this, I hope that instead of asking, "Why me?" when you are faced with adversity, you will accept the trial as an invitation to grow and qualify for eternal life, and gladly say, “Why NOT me?”.