Yesterday was Meg DeYoung Bostwicks funeral. Today is her 28th Birthday. She is my cousin Susan DeYoungs only daughter. I went to the funeral in Ogden. I'm so glad I did. It was an amazing spiritual feast. My Smith cousins are the best people on earth. About 2 1/2 weeks ago, they discovered that Meg had brain cancer. She was six months pregnant. She went into a seizure and that's how they discovered it. She was in the hospital for about 1 1/2 of the last two weeks of her life and she died of a brain hemorrhage. They took her unborn baby and she weighs two and a half pounds. She has a 20 month old sister. Meg and her husband were in the process of building a home. They bought the lot last September. They had finally sold their home near Susan and had moved temporarily into an apartment in Preston, Idaho with Scotts parents until their new home was ready. The builder was slow and wouldn't begin digging on the new home. They were getting very frustrated with him. Apparently, the contract they had with the builder stated that the contract would begin on the day that the builder began digging, since he never dug, they had no contract for the new home. So Scott is now under no obligation to go forward with the home, which he had no desire to do. Their other home was under contract, and empty for the new buyer, however, also, after Meg died, the financing failed, and Scott was able to move back into his home. This allows him to be able to be near Susan, and she can help with the kids. So...when Ann told be these miraculous things, I was so impressed. It built my faith so much to know that our Heavenly Father was watching out for this little family, even in their greatest distress. Scotts talk at the funeral was priceless. He is truly awesome. Susan's talk was also so inspiring. I am thankful that I made the effort to go. Their Bishops talk was also one of the most wonderful things I have ever heard. It was mostly from this Ensign article. On the night of the funeral, I had to get home to give a talk in evening Relief Society about trials and Joy. I wish that I had known about this talk before my talk and I would have just given the points in this talk. It is one of the best things I have ever read. I love my cousins, they are simply the finest people that I know. I am thankful for the knowledge that I have and that no one can take that from me. The other day, Jenny said to me "If you knew what I knew, it would destroy you!" She has been reading stuff about Joseph Smith and I'm not sure what all. But I was able to look her it in the eyes and stay, "It would not destroy me!" Nothing that she says could destroy me. If my son taking his own life did not destroy me, then I feel like I am indestructible. Its a great feeling! I'm so grateful. Ultimately, it comes down to one person and that is me. I am in charge of my own feelings and making my own way. Yes there are people to help, but they may falter, and if they do, it does not mean that I have to falter as well. I can be strong, certain, happy and joyful. I believe that I am all of those things. I love my Heavenly Father for all that he has given to me. He has given me everything that I need to be happy and for that I eternally thankful.
Karol B. Stokes
Joy and Spiritual Survival - Russell M. Nelson
Life is filled with detours and dead ends, trials and challenges of every kind. Each of us has likely had times when distress, anguish, and despair almost consumed us. Yet we are here to have joy?
Yes! The answer is a resounding yes! But how is that possible? And what must we do to claim the joy that Heavenly Father has in store for us?
Eliza R. Snow, second General President of the Relief Society, offered a riveting answer. Because of Missouri’s infamous extermination order, issued at the onset of the grueling winter of 1838,7 she and other Saints were forced to flee the state that very winter. One evening, Eliza’s family spent the night in a small log cabin used by refugee Saints. Much of the chinking between the logs had been extracted and burned for firewood by those who preceded them, so there were holes between the logs large enough for a cat to crawl through. It was bitter cold, and their food was frozen solid.
That night some 80 people huddled inside that small cabin, only 20 feet square (6.1 meters square). Most sat or stood all night trying to keep warm. Outside, a group of men spent the night gathered around a roaring fire, with some singing hymns and others roasting frozen potatoes. Eliza recorded: “Not a complaint was heard—all were cheerful, and judging from appearances, strangers would have taken us to be pleasure excursionists rather than a band of gubernatorial exiles.”
Eliza’s report of that exhausting, bone-chilling evening was strikingly optimistic. She declared: “That was a very merry night. None but saints can be happy under every circumstance.”8
That’s it! Saints can be happy under every circumstance. We can feel joy even while having a bad day, a bad week, or even a bad year!
My dear brothers and sisters, the joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives.
When the focus of our lives is on God’s plan of salvation, which President Thomas S. Monson just taught us, and Jesus Christ and His gospel, we can feel joy regardless of what is happening—or not happening—in our lives. Joy comes from and because of Him. He is the source of all joy. We feel it at Christmastime when we sing, “Joy to the world, the Lord is come.”9 And we can feel it all year round. For Latter-day Saints, Jesus Christ is joy!
