Author Archives: Rebekah Richards

About Rebekah Richards

Born before the internet age, I recall reading my way through the set of encyclopedias in my parents home. In addition to non fiction, I also enjoy a good novel and love the written word. Music was a staple in my childhood home, I love to sing and often sing too loud. When I was 11 years old I went with my grandma and dad to visit Grandma's family in West Virginia where they had lived for generations. I fell in love with "my" people and have spent a lifetime learning their stories. I graduated from Brigham Young University with a BA in History and am passionate about people and their stories, those who have paved the way for the life we live, those who impact our lives daily and those whose lives our decisions will affect. I am the sister to six wonderful siblings, the wife of my best friend and the mother to four very above average children. Most of all I find deep hope in the gospel of Jesus Christ and want to follow Him.

Promises Afar Off

As my son unpacked his mission suitcases, he handed me a booklet.  “Do you remember this?”  It was a letter from me written while he was in the temple receiving his own endowments and I was at home with a runny nose during a pandemic. Reading the letter and seeing the stories I had gathered brought back the sweet feelings I had on that day.
 
My parents served as mission presidents in the Florida Tallahassee Mission.  While they were there, they were given a book on the history of the Southern States Mission detailing the stories of the faithful pioneer saints of the south.  The Florida Conference of the Southern States Mission was organized in 1895 and my great grandpa, William Henry Summerhays, arrived as a nineteen year old missionary in 1896.  There was one branch in all of Florida and the organizations formed were Sunday Schools of that branch.  William kept a journal recording their daily activities as well as those who were baptized, their birthdates and parents names.  Wanting to be close to my son’s experience in the temple, while he and my husband were gone, I scanned the pages of William’s journal and gathered stories from the history of the Southern States Mission and attached the relevant pages to the people they detailed in Familysearch.org.
 
As I did so, I noticed something.  As I looked at the ordinances, I did not see one who received an ordinance beyond baptism and confirmation during their lifetimes though they were faithful their entire lives.  With travel difficult, a trip to the temple in Utah must have been an impossibility for so many of them who sometimes barely had the resources to feed and shelter their families.  As I sat at my computer that day feeling sad that I couldn’t be with my son in the temple, my heart connected with those early saints who because of distance and expense were not in the temple as they desired.
 
Elder Renlund shared the story of his own grandparents who were baptized in Sweden and for similar reasons to the early saints of Florida did not receive the covenants they hoped for in their lifetime.  Like others, his grandmother, Lena, “died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, … [was] persuaded of them, and embraced them.”…Lena lived as though she had already made these covenants in her life. She knew that her baptismal and sacramental covenants connected her to the Savior. She “let the sweet longing for [the Redeemer’s] holy place bring hope to [her] desolate heart.” ….Through covenant, she received the power of God to endure and rise above the depressive pull of her challenges and hardships.” (Elder Dale G. Renlund, April 2023)
 
There are so many blessings we desire in this life, so many opportunities we wish to participate in and see the fruition of, yet like those early saints, some things are outside of our power and choice.  And so we bring our offering, our faith, and our hope to the Lord.  We connect ourselves to Jesus Christ by covenant and allow Him to transform us and make our lives, our offerings, our faith and our hope perfect in Him and through Him we become capable of receiving all that He has. He knows every longing of our heart, every tear we have shed and knows how to fill every empty place.  We can have faith in Him. He is a God of miracles and keeps His promises. 
 

To learn more about your family history, visit Familysearch.org

To learn about more about temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, visit:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/temples/why-latter-day-saints-build-temples?lang=eng

Care for Each Other

In 1896, nineteen year old William Henry Summerhays was called to serve as a missionary in the Southern States Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  He was assigned to the Florida conference and served in many areas of the Florida panhandle.

On July 8th, 1896, William and his companion, Elder Fisher, had arranged to speak at a meeting in a home in the “Burnett Settlement” just south of Live Oak, Florida.  As they travelled there, they visited homes along the way.  In this way, they met Mr. Lees, who “was having some very sad sickness in his little home.  He had buried a 14 year old girl yesterday and had two boys now at the point of death…we offered to assist him any way we could…We promised to come back and sit up [tonight] after meeting…One of the little children during the night kept telling us he was going to die in the morning and sure enough when morning came he began to sink and in a short time he was dead.  We tried to console the parents as much as possible.” (Journal of William Henry Summerhays)

It may seem that on this night there was no miracle, no healing. Instead, I find myself pondering a loving Father who sent someone to stay through this most difficult night with this little family. 

Elder William H. Summerhays far right

 And I am grateful for the miracle of the gospel of Jesus Christ that inspires a nineteen year old boy and his companion to walk into and not away from a situation of deep grief, that inspired them to forsake a good night’s sleep to care for the sick children of a family they had never met and console bereaved parents.  The gospel of Jesus Christ teaches us to reach out.  Perhaps their efforts did not change the outcome, but their efforts meant that a husband and wife in a tiny settlement had someone to help them carry their sorrow and two young men grew in love as well.  Their service was changing their hearts to be more like His.

Today we welcome home our third missionary son, who served in the same areas as his great great grandfather, marking six consecutive years that our family has had a missionary serving and I have witnessed the truth that “Men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover the He can make a lot more out of their lives than they can.  He will deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their minds,…lift their spirits, multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities, comfort their souls, raise up friends, and pour out peace.” (President Ezra Taft Benson as quoted by President Russell M. Nelson, October 2022)

As we give ourselves to Him, He will change us to be more like Him.

Find stories about your ancestors at Familysearch.org.

Learn more about the missionary program of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at:

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/topic/missionary-program

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/comeuntochrist/belong/share-goodness/10-things-to-know-about-missionaries

More Than Me

I am a people watcher and I’m afraid I also eavesdrop on people’s converstaions in public. One afternoon, I was standing in line at a clothing store behind a couple with two young children, a boy whose shoe size was 12 kids and a girl who wears 4 youth.  As they came to the register, the mother and daughter left to look at a different store and the boy and his dad remained to pay.  As the cashier folded and sorted the clothes, the boy stated, “She has more than me.”  As a mother, my first instinct was to reassure the boy that things would even out but the dad didn’t hesitate, “Dude,” he replied in a matter of fact tone, “She is always going to have more stuff than you, you just need to get used to it.”  I almost laughed out loud!  Wisdom passed from father to son.

It is easy to compare, to measure what we have and what we think others have.  “It is not a constructive exercise for us to try and compare our circumstances to another….The Lord tells us that there is going to be adversity along the way and He even suggests to us that our afflictions will be consecrated for our gain….Ultimately we can be reassured that the promise of eternal life is for everyone.  Everyone will be rewarded for their faithfulness equally.  If you endure to the end, you’ll be blessed.  It might be hard today and tomorrow and the next month, but it will not always be hard.  You can do this as you exercise faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement….’Be of good cheer for I will lead you along.’  That’s a promise from the Lord.” (Elder Gary E. Stevenson, No blessings denied the faithful)

There will always be someone who is going to have more stuff than you.  There will always be someone who seems to have endured too much or who seems to sail easily through life.  There is so much we don’t know, so much we don’t see but we do know that our Heavenly Father knows, He loves us, and He has a plan for all of us to have “all that [our] Father hath.” (D&C 84:38)

D&C is an abbreviation for Doctrine and Covenants, Learn more at:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/doctrine-and-covenants?lang=eng

Better Together

I think everyone who can remember September 11, 2001 knows where they were and what they were doing on that day.  I was in my kitchen with my two young sons feeding them breakfast when my husband called to tell me a plane had flown into the Twin Towers.  Not wanting my young sons to absorb too much, I turned on the radio and listened to the unfolding events.  On that tragic day, political affiliations, religious persuasions, education, social classes, and ethnicities were forgotten.  We were all Americans bonded by our common grief and horror.  
 
On Saturday, we, like many of you, gathered to commemorate 9/11 with a “Day of Service”.  Members of our community created “Pantry Packs” to feed the hungry, they gave blood, helped clean up parks and trails and in the morning, more than two hundred and fifty gathered to participate in a 5K with the entrance fees all going to the local children’s justice center. 
 
Volunteers were there before the sun was up and as runners began to assemble, energy built.  Friends greeted each other, strangers introduced themselves.  As people warmed up a few broke out into dancing.  A family gathered in yellow shirts all running with their 85 year old father and grandfather and everyone else cheered for him too.  Veterans and current military service men and women came to help us remember those who put their lives on the line to protect the freedoms we enjoy every day.  The high school drum line played and as the national anthem was sung, we all turned to the flag flown from the ladder of a fire truck with our hands on our hearts.  
 
This time it wasn’t sadness and grief that united us.  Instead we felt what one runner expressed as the “power of gathering.”  Every person brought the strength of their presence and the combined capacity was tangible.  “The children of God have more in common than they have differences. And even the differences can be seen as an opportunity. God will help us see a difference in someone else not as a source of irritation but as a contribution. The Lord can help you see and value what another person brings which you lack. More than once the Lord has helped me see His kindness in giving me association with someone whose difference from me was just the help I needed.” (President Henry B. Eyring, October 2008)
 
We are surrounded by children of God who carry portions of His talents, gifts and capacities.  Together, we are more like Him than we are by ourselves and together we can create and strengthen the community that lifts us all.  
 

Take My Hand

Our neighbor does triathalons, running, biking, and swimming.  He’s been an Ironman multiple times so he’s in pretty good shape.  A few years ago, his daughter decided that it would be fun to do an obstacle race so she signed him and her brother up and the three of them ran it together.  One of the obstacles was an A-frame structure that had ropes hanging down to help you climb up and over. 

By the time they reached the obstacle, they were wet and muddy and tired.  His daughter went up and over making it look easy but as he began climbing, he found it wasn’t as easy as she made it look.  As he got closer to the top, he found that because the rope is attached to the top, you have to reach up and over without the rope.  So he let go of the rope, reached for the top and found himself sliding back down the slope to the bottom.  His son came to him with concern, as did many others who had witnessed his fall.  He was fine, but embarrassed and discouraged.  He told his son to go and he would consider his options.  He knew that he would have the same problem the second time and to try again would risk falling again, something he didn’t want to repeat. 

As he contemplated, he moved further down the A frame and then made another attempt.  It was harder the second time than it had been the first but soon he was almost to the top and faced with the same challenge when he heard a familiar voice, “Take my hand, Dad”.  His son had gone up and over, but he hadn’t gone down.  He had stayed on the other side and worked his way down as his dad moved his position so that when he came up the slope his son was there to help him over the obstacle.  

There are some things in life that are more than we can do and while the Savior walks with us always, He sends additional help as we keep trying.  His eye is always upon us.  “For the eternal purposes of the Lord shall roll on, until all his promises shall be fulfilled…and as the Lord liveth He will remember the covenant which he hath made with them…He knoweth their prayers….He knoweth their faith…”  (Mormon 8:22-24)

He knows you, He knows me, His hand will be there to lift and sustain us.

Hope for the Shattered

It is football season which brings great joy to some of the members of my family.  With football season, came a memory of my maternal grandma.  Grandma was a tiny woman standing 4 feet 11 inches tall and weighing about 100 lbs.  She had beautiful skin, platinum blonde hair, and looked like a porcelain doll.  A smile most often graced her features and perhaps it hid the fact that my grandma was as tough as they come.

Grandpa and Grandma had a cabin in Island Park, Idaho and I have so many happy memories of spending time with them there.  One year they had stayed at the cabin into the early fall and on a trip into town had noticed a preseason nine on nine football scrimmage of the local high school team.

They thought they would stop and watch for awhile.  As they made their way to the grandstand, a play ran out of bounds and my little grandma was hit in the knee by the helmet of a teenage boy running at full speed.  The medical care she needed was not available there so Grandma’s leg was put in a splint and they began the painful drive back to Salt Lake City, Utah.  The doctors told her they could do surgery to mitigate the pain and part of her knee would heal, but the damage was too extensive, she was too old and most likely she would never walk again without assistance. 

She came to stay at our house through her surgery and recovery and though I am sure she had her moments of fear and heartache, I never heard her complain or whine.  What I do remember is the constant whir of the machine that kept her knee moving after the surgery to promote healing.  I remember the set of her jaw as she did the physical therapy sets she was assigned without shirking a bit.  I remember her listening to cassette tapes of the Book of Mormon while she alternated ice packs and followed her doctor’s regimen with precision believing that God would magnify her efforts.  And a year later and for the next twenty years, I watched her walk without any sign of a limp or injury.

Sometimes we pray for immediate healing. Grandma had fervently believed that she would walk again and clearly a gift of healing was granted to her, but I am grateful that the healing of her shattered knee was not immediate, not so much for her, but for me and for those of us who got to watch her and learn what the daily effort of faith looks like.  Daily faith requires consistent effort in little things, trusting God, focusing on what is and can be and not on what has been lost. When we move forward with faith, the results are often not immediately seen and yet they come.  There is hope in consistent effort and the power of our Creator who knows how to help us grow and heal.  

Discover stories and memories of your ancestors at Familysearch.org

The Blind See

My mother took me to the eye doctor in third grade.  I was not seeing well and was fitted for my first pair of glasses.  I was not enamoured with them but I did see better.  In junior high I traded my glasses for contacts and have been wearing them ever since.  My prescription hasn’t changed much over the last few decades and I just keep ordering new contacts.  However, as I age, the words on the pages in front of me are getting harder and harder to read so I made an appointment with the ophthalmologist to see if we could adjust my contacts to help me continue to read better without reading glasses.

Over the years, I have taken my children in for regular appointments but apparently hadn’t been as careful about  my own appointments as my prescription was not found in their system.  For the first time in a long time, the technician started at ground zero to get an accurate prescription.  As I sat staring at a white screen, the technician kept asking me which was better 1 or 2 and I had to explain that I couldn’t see anything.  She finally presented a capital E that was as large as the screen and I could see a faint shadowy outline of it.  

As she honed the machines and my vision cleared, I realized again that I am a blind woman who can see because of the miracle of modern medicine.  There are so many miracles in our lives:  Bodies that so often move and act in accordance with our will, faces transported to a device across the world to see and communicate with those they love, hearts that change and are softened by love and kindness.  We live in a day of miracles!

“Each of us has received gifts that we could not provide for ourselves, gifts from our Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son, including redemption through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  We have received life in this world; we will receive physical life in the hereafter, and eternal salvation and exaltation-if we choose it-all because of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.  Every time we use, benefit from, or even think of these gifts, we ought to consider the sacrifice, generosity, and compassion of the givers.  Reverence for the givers does more than just make us grateful.  Reflecting on Their gifts can and should transform us.” (Elder Dale G. Renlund, April 2020)

I can see and when I pause to be grateful, I am changed.

Conflict can be Temporary

This week I attended the funeral of our longtime neighbor and friend, Daryl.  As I listened to the stories told by his children, I was once again struck by how much the gift of our time and presence means in the lives of those we love.

As his children recounted a few memories, Daryl’s oldest son, Russell, told that one of the things he learned from his dad was the principle of forgiveness.  During Russell’s teenage years, he and his dad had many occasions to butt heads.  It would usually end with Russell grounded but after an hour or so, his dad would come to his room and say, “Do you know why you are grounded?”  If Russell understood why he was grounded, he said his dad would look at him and say, “All is forgiven.”  The grounding was over and his dad really did forgive.  It wasn’t brought up again.  He learned that conflict didn’t need to be permanent because of forgiveness.

Similarly, his son, Brent, shared how his dad loved to tease, whether it was about his imaginary pet rhinoceros or something more real, he was a “tease.”  One night Brent and his wife returned from time with family and he found that his wife had been hurt by the teasing of his dad. He mustered his courage and called his dad to tell him the teasing had gone too far.  His dad immediately apologized and the next day when he returned from work, he found a box of Krispy Kreme donuts on the counter, a gift to his wife from his dad who had left work early so he could apologize in person to his daughter-in-law.  

Quick to repent, quick to forgive.  It is the little things that are the big things in life.  When we practice repenting and forgiving we open our hearts for the Savior, Jesus Christ, to show us “a more excellent way”. (1 Corinthians 12:31)

Friendly Rats

On a trip to West Virginia, my family and I took a tour of an old coal mine and town that have been turned into a museum.  Our tour of the underground mine was done by a former miner.  He showed the progression of mining from the early days when a candle on the front of a helmet provided light and a pick harvested the coal to the machines they use today.

Seeing a vein of coal and knowing where to blast and where to shore up as the coal is removed takes skill and nerve but there were a lot of other things I had never considered.  

The men in the mine usually had a place where they left their lunches, an area where it was high enough to stand up.  They didn’t bring their lunches in plastic lunch boxes.  They were metal because they weren’t the only ones in the mines and rats eat through plastic.  Before we could be properly horrified over the rats that would eat through a plastic lunch box, the miner said that every miner makes friends with the rats.

If you have any leftovers or a burnt part of a biscuit or roll, you take it off and throw it to the rats.  As annoying or filthy as the rats might be, every miner wants to see them in the mine, and every miner keeps an eye out for any strange movement among the rats.  

Even with the growth of technology and monitoring, the rats can smell a gas pocket better than the sensors, they can hear the rumble of the earth long before a cave in and so if a miner sees a group of rats start to move, the smart miner will follow without wondering where they are going, he just follows them to safety and then looks back to see what he’s missed.

I’ve been wondering what the “rats” in my life are.  What are the things that have been annoying, uncomfortable and sometimes just plain vermin-like in my life that have been a blessing and led me closer to safety.  As I have thought, I have felt to be grateful for some of the most long running difficulties of my life, the kind that are always present and aren’t going to go away and which I can do very little about.  But perhaps it is the very long term nature of their presence that has opened my heart, given me more compassion, caused me to focus and see more as the Savior sees and therefore, led me closer to safety.  As the miner conveyed, only the foolish would wish the rats away.  

I get off now!

Several years ago, my sister and her family who live near Boston, Massachusetts were planning a trip to Utah.  My then two year old nephew was so excited at the thought of flying across the country.  He pulled a roller suitcase around their home and took it out to the car, ready to go on this journey.  They boarded the plane, took off, and about ten minutes into the flight, he announced, “I get off now!”  The flight was not the experience he anticipated.  He was strapped into a seat, unable to move at will and it was so much longer and more uncomfortable than he wanted it to be.  I feel that way sometimes as I face certain challenges and I want to call, “I get off now!”  Yet, every challenge is a chance to take a journey to a new place to learn and grow.

As my sister was planning to visit, we were grappling with my dad’s stomach “issues” when a biopsy came back showing cancer cells growing in his stomach, killing the tissue and creating a “giant” ulcer.  Her visit coincided with his surgery to remove half of his stomach.  No one likes to hear the word cancer and I still don’t but through the process of his surgery, chemo and recovery, I spent many sweet days with my dad on drives to the hospital where we often spent time sitting and waiting.  My siblings and I connected in a different way as we tag teamed our efforts to provide Dad and Mom with the support they needed.  One early morning, I was in the waiting room while Dad had a PETscan.  I was the only one there until a woman walked in, clearly anxious.  We began to talk and in that waiting room, I put my arms around a complete stranger.  Our shared experience connected us in a way nothing else could.  Blessings come even and especially in difficult days.

So often, when our experiences are not what we anticipate, we want to call out, “I get off now!” but that thought does not help us see the vision of where this uncomfortable journey may be taking us.  Staying on the plane was the safest, most effective way to get my nephew where he was going and though it was uncomfortable for him, the pilot knew exactly how to get him there.  “I testify that you are beloved.  The Lord knows how hard you are trying.  You are making progress.  Keep going.  He sees all your hidden sacrifices and counts them to your good and the good of those you love.  Your work is not in vain.  You are not alone.  His very name, Emmanuel, means, ‘God with us.’  He is surely with you.” (Sister Sharon Eubank, April 2019). Jesus Christ is our pilot.  Though we may not see Him, or understand the flight path, He is with us and taking us to our destination.