At a recent family reunion, Jeff's father asked each of his children and their spouses to share their testimonies. After we and his siblings had shared, Jeff's oldest son offered to share his testimony. He is the oldest grandchild and looked up to by all the younger grandkids. The pre-teens followed him around all weekend, […]
On Independence Day, Cathy and I went to Freedom Park in Orem, which is part of the Freedom Festival in Utah County. As usual, they had a lot of people dressed in colonial era costumes explaining Revolutionary War events, reenacting the Battle of Concord and Lexington, and demonstrating such colonial era trades as blacksmithing, barrel […]
For me, the loneliness began before the formal separation as I watched my former wife disconnect and disengage. We lived in the same house, on different floors, for about 18 months. It created a toxic atmosphere that I found depleting both emotionally and physically. After I moved out of our home, it occurred to me […]
A reader of my weekly column in Meridian Magazine recently wrote in asking for "an article regarding the men/women that are left behind after many years of marriage. A stage that many of us have never gone [through] before of being alone." It's a good question. For me, the loneliness actually began before the formal […]
F amily O ccupation R ecreation M e During my mission in Australia, one of the mission leaders, Elder Mick Jupi, used to teach a formula for talking to potential investigators. He said to remember the acronym "FORM" for Family, Occupation, Recreation, and Message (which I changed to "Me" for dating FORM). The idea was […]
This weekend we hosted our first ever LILY Dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory in Trolley Square, Salt Lake City, Utah. It was SO much fun and we had such a great turnout! It was fabulous gathering all these wonderful people together in one place and getting to know them better. As requested, we signed […]
When I first met my step-kids' dad, I asked him his parenting philosophy and he said, "expectations." I think many if not most parents would say the same. That was also the answer my dad gave to the same question. (By the way, I consider both of these men pretty good fathers in many ways.) […]
Lately, I have been hearing a lot about people feeling jealous and left out when they see social media posts about their friends off having fun with other friends at events they were not invited to. I knew this was a near obsession among some of our youth, but was surprised to hear that many […]
Cathy and I had an instant bond--though it took us a long time to figure out what we were going to mean to each other. Looking back, I won the lottery on Saint Patrick's Day 5 years ago. Sometimes we meet kindred spirits and we know they are meant to play a part in our […]
