Happy Mother's Day

Today is Mother's Day, the day when we celebrate moms of all kinds for the hard and all too often unhearalded work that they do. It's a typical tradition in most wards in the Church to give a gift to all the women over 18 on Mother's Day. I always knew that they did it that way so they wouldn't make women who weren't able to be married or to be moms feel left out like they might if they just gave things to the women who actually had children, but before I was married at the age of 24, I always felt a bit silly getting a present. This year, we were given a little tile that said, "Who I am does make a difference."

I thought of my mom and the difference she made in my life. I have a great mom. She did her best to attend all our soccer games, even when all 6 kids had games on the same day. She was always there when we needed her and is still there to take the oars when we need someone else to worry about things for us for a while. I will always attribute my sense of humor to my mom, as well as my ability to laugh at some of the little stupid things I do sometimes. I honestly think that there were times my friends came over to hang out with me just so they could hang out with my mom. I really have been blessed with a loving, caring mom, one I wish I could be more like. So thanks, Mom!

I've also been blessed with many wonderful church leaders and now a Mother-in-law who have always supported me and given me strength and advice when I need it. When I think of all these women in my life, I think of one of my favorite quotes from a General Conference. It was in a talk titled, "Because She Was a Mother" by Jeffrey R. Holland. He said, "Yours is the grand tradition of Eve, the mother of all the human family, the one who understood that she and Adam had to fall in order that 'men [and women] might be' and that there would be joy. Yours is the grand tradition of Sarah and Rebekah and Rachel, without whom there could not have been those magnificent patriarchal promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob which bless us all. Yours is the grand tradition of Lois and Eunice and the mothers of the 2,000 stripling warriors. Yours is the grand tradition of Mary, chosen and foreordained from before this world was, to conceive, carry, and bear the Son of God Himself. We thank all of you, including our own mothers, and tell you there is nothing more important in this world than participating so directly in the work and glory of God, in bringing to pass the mortality and earthly life of His daughters and sons, so that immortality and eternal life can come in those celestial realms on high."

So thank you to all the wonderful moms and women I've had in my life. I couldn't have gotten here without you!