Good Luck Stories

Good Luck Stories

October 18, 2015

      Our little Livi Flake turned eight this week. She was baptized yesterday in Show Low by her dad, Dan. This is our third convert on our mission. They have been Max Gaylord, Jett Walker, and now, little Livi. Our heart was there. She looked like a little angel in her picture. We love this little girl.
Later in the afternoon, it was reported to me by our daughter, Lindsay, that she missed it also. Her family got there for the tacos after the baptism because she had the wrong time in her mind. After she told me her story about her blunder, her final words to me were, "I know you can relate to all this, Mom".  Of course I can.....it brought back a story about other little girls and birthdays.
     I dropped a much younger Lindsay to a little friend's birthday party many years ago. I distinctly remember waving from the car when the mom opened the door and then, driving away. I knew from the invitation that this mother would drop off my Lindsay after the celebration was over. Real names will be not  used in this story to protect the innocent. The evening activities were busy so it wasn't until we were all at the breakfast table the next morning that I asked Lindsay how the party went. She told us all very matter-of-factly that she was the only one there and there was no cake. No games were played either, but her friend did like Lindsay's gift to her. The most fun they had was playing with all the birthday gifts the little girl got the day before. The light started coming on......After an embarrassed phone call to Birthday Girl's Mother, I see I was a day late and a dollar short. She was very polite about it. Our little family had a pretty good laugh about their silly mother, namely me. That incident was so me.
     Another memory from our lives in Show Low walked in the mission office this week. Mark and Laraine Eddington with their friends from England. They were on their finals days of a three-week tour of church history sights from Palmyra to end in Winter Quarters. It was so wonderful to visit with them about our time serving together in the old Show Low 3rd Ward. We were so busy talking at dinner that evening that we forgot to take a picture when it was so quickly over. Darnit.  Such good people.
     Isn't that the another wonder of the gospel? Friends we make serving together are our friends for life. The Lord sent another friend home to Idaho this week, Elder Taylor. He had been in the office quite a bit serving as an AP at one time. He would brace himself before coming into my office to ask me to do something on the computer for the mission. We both knew by the time we got through completing the task "together",  he could have completed it and many other assignments several times over. My computer is off limits to the missionaries. I will always hear his voice ....."hold it, hold it....move it up, up, up....Oh, ok....let's start over"......He was always so excited for me when "we" did something right. He never ceased to tell me he wished he could have been in my kindergarten class because he just knew it would have been a good time. He and I both silently knew it was his way of complimenting me for something and it was not my computer skills.
    I know when our little Livi looks at her baptism pictures and sees that Lindsay and her family were only in some of  the pictures and Papa and I were in none of them, she won't mind. She knows we all love her. Some of us were just busy.

My love, love, love,
Sister Seaman ......aka Grandma, Grams, Mom

 

More Short Stories

     Do any of you remember what a good luck load is?  It is when you have a load of mixed clothes that need to be washed but can't wait for a full load of just that kind.  Or a good luck meal. Or a good luck story.  This weeks blog is just that.  A little of this and that.
     Last Sunday evening I was assigned to speak at a ward missionary fireside.  Just  5  minutes about missionaries and missionary work and bear my testimony.  Piece of cake, right?  I had a short talk already to go. An Elder Holland story or two.  We left the apartment in time to arrive at the Stake Center at a quarter to seven.  When we pulled up to the parking lot, it was full.  A little tingly feeling runs up my back. My phone goes off with a message, "Are you coming? You're up next."  I answered, yes.  On our way in, the VC Director is walking in and he asks, " Are we late?"  I don't know for sure but it doesn't feel right.  We walk in and the chapel is pretty much full.  We wander through the chapel as the Ward Mission Leader is thanking everyone for their part on the program and then he says, " I see that Elder Seaman has arrived and we will now hear from him."  I was so rattled that I could not even remember the talk.  It was horrible.  I mumbled and stammered and repeated myself a few times, bore my testimony and sat down.  There was a talk after me and then the closing hymn and prayer.  We were done by seven.  The meeting had been changed from seven to six but nobody had told us.
     That reminds me of another story similar in nature.  It takes place a few years ago, when I was serving as a Stake President.  I have changed the names to fictitious names to protect the innocent. 
     One of the toughest things that a Stake President has to do is take a bad-news call from a Mission President.  The call goes something like this.  "President, this is President So-and-so from the Independence Missouri Mission.  I am calling to inform you that Elder So-and-so will be coming home early.  His flight will arrive in Phoenix at 12:00PM tomorrow.  Will you please arrange for someone to pick him up.  Please notify his parents that he is coming home.  Thank you."  I received one of those calls one morning and had my executive secretary make an appointment with the parents for a meeting that evening.  The parents showed up with anxiety all over them as they knew it was some kind of bad news about the son. I very bluntly gave them the bad news.  They looked at me for a long moment and then said, "Something is not right here.  Our son has been home for several months."
     I had given the executive secretary the wrong family's name.  Oh, the last name right but it was the wrong family.
     I could go on and on with these kind of stories.  It seems to happen to us all.  Just remember that the Lord is in charge and we are not and never will be perfect in this life.  I am so thankful for people who are very forgiving and especially for the Savior's Atonement.  Which will include all of the "times like this" things that just happen.  He fills in the gaps and helps us be better than we are. So don't you ever give up.  You get back up and back in the saddle or the bike or whatever it was that you fell off of and continue on your way back.  You will make it and I will see you there.  I love you all.

Sincerely,

Elder Seaman