Its All About the Dash

28 January 2017

Yesterday we got to attend the Oquirrh Mountain temple, about 21 miles south of us. It’s a lovely temple, and it’s always interesting to see how each temple is “managed” a little differently. This one is a small temple, like Raleigh, as far as seating, but, it’s very tall, (the celestial room is at least two stories high.) It has a grand staircase, plus a chapel that people gather in before the session begins. When you enter, they hand you a little plastic, imprinted tag that shows the time of your session and you must turn that in to get on that session. For instance, we thought we were getting there in time for the 10:30 a.m. session, but, they’d already given out all the tags/seats for that session and the earliest we could get was 11:15.

Since we had a 2 pm phone call appointment we decided an 11:15 session might not work as well for us, so we ran some errands, had lunch, took care of our business call from 2-3, then went on the 3:45 pm session. It’s always good to be in the temple.

Bob and I spoke in the mission-wide devotional on Monday, introducing ourselves and sharing our testimonies. Afterward, it was nice to receive good comments from President Tate about how effective he thinks we’ve been as zone leaders. We work mostly with President Hansen, the second counselor, and weren’t sure President Tate was all that aware of us.

I’ve been debating with myself about whether to include my talk here and finally decided I will.

We were limited to 3 minutes to tell all about ourselves. J Here’s what I said:

“Good morning! My name is Betty Crenshaw. I grew up in a small town in Missouri, in a rather spectacularly dysfunctional family.

My husband, Bob, and I met in college, while he was dating a friend of mine. We married in the summer of 1968.

Just over a year later, he entered the Army, and after he finished training, was assigned to Berlin, Germany. A few months before his enlistment ended, we were tracted out by two young Americans who were serving a German-speaking mission. Only the Lord would know to send a farm boy from Paul, Idaho and another one from Wellsville, Utah all the way to Germany so they could teach and baptize a young couple from Missouri. That was in 1972, and, of course, joining the church was the single best decision we ever made!

Although we’ve moved a lot in our 48 years of marriage, and, have lived in many places, we came on our mission from North Carolina – which is where our six children and most of our 13 grandchildren live.

I returned to college after our kids were all in school, and finally completed my degree a few months before I turned 50. Since then, I have worked as a graphic designer in the creative services department at IBM, and then, at a private women’s college. Later, I had my own free-lance design business.

I love our Savior, Jesus Christ, and His glorious gospel. I am filled with gratitude for the many ways in which we have seen the Lord’s hand in our lives.

In March of 2008, I was diagnosed with cancer and underwent surgery and radiation treatments. Then, about the time I finished my treatments, my husband took a job in Brisbane, Australia, and . . . we met many wonderful people there.

In November of that year, on my 60^th birthday, I wrecked a motorcycle. As a result, I had seven broken bones and a severe laceration near my right hip. Besides a six-week hospital stay, and multiple surgeries, I was in a wheelchair or on crutches for more than six months afterward. Again, the Lord’s hand was evident in the healing I experienced, and for that I am truly grateful.

Back in the U.S., and about the time I turned 63, I wanted to do something that would challenge my body a bit, so I took classes in rock climbing. I really enjoyed it, a lot, but, unfortunately, I didn’t have anyone to go climbing with, so that didn’t last very long.

After that, I took up quilting. I set a goal to make a quilt for myself, my husband, and each of our children and grandchildren. So far, I’ve completed 9 of those 21 quilts and it gives me great joy to plan and make each one.

I know that our Heavenly Father knows and loves each of us, and He wants us to be happy.”

And, of course, I closed in the name of Jesus Christ.

I’ve been using this blog for most of my journaling for several years, now, but, trying to condense my story into a three-minute talk helped me realize how important it is to record more of my life experiences. There’s a great initiative on the Family Search Blog called “Define Your Dash - #52Stories Project” (dash = the dash between the years on most people’s headstones) and it gives 52 prompts for telling parts of our life stories. Since memories are not particularly structured or orderly, the article encourages everyone to just add one story a week to our life story and not try to write about ourselves chronologically. I should give it a try. . .