Some Crumbs for Thought

By Laura Harmon, First Counselor

I’m thinking of all I’ve learned so far this year, hoping to plant it deeply enough to be always remembered.  By virtue of where we live, we are sitting at the table of an amazing banquet.  Utah...Provo...Oak Hills...we’re in the very heartland of the latter days!  I want to feast more heartily than ever before. This feeling might be partly coming from the signs of our times, but it’s also because of the many stories I’ve recently heard that make me look at my own stories, at my own baton-passing skills, and at my own faith.  

From Amy Bingham and Ann Rowan I found new faith in all our prophets when they shared how they came to know that their humble, hard-working grandfather was also President Hinckley, the Lord’s prophet.

From stake conference I heard stories in every message: President Handley’s impression in thetemple after doing his brother’s endowment that he felt him saying “they have the best teachers here"; Deidre Green telling us about sharing her own challenges with a Rwandan woman who said “thank you for being strong"; Jennifer Doyle’s daughter telling herself, after she was upset at school, “I am a child of God, and nothing can put me down"; Gwen Davis’ parents listening “in a way that I felt understood” as she shared her problem; Elder Cornish crying at age 5 when he saw a cigarette butt in the toilet, thinking his father might have gone back to his family’s anti-Mormon ways (but it belonged to a workman!)  Such small glimpses into lived experience are like pure gold--now we all own them, and are strengthened almost as though we had witnessed them.  President Blair’s grandpa climbed an apple tree to be close to his parents, who had died when he was very young, and President Lohner’s Swiss ancestors told their daughter’s boyfriend “It couldn’t be worse if you are a Mormon!”  He was.

I attended the First Ward’s Conference last Sunday and heard Lisa Stubbs’s story in Relief Society about her father miraculously finding his mission companion’s wallet on a dark street when his bike tire ran over it.  She had heard this years later from the companion, who had told it over and over as an anchor to his faith.  Her father had forgotten to tell it!

Catherine Parry is unfolding the doctrine of Christ in our Gospel Study Class, bringing the New Testament stories alive to us in new ways.  After seeing the Syro-Phoenician woman’s faith (Matthew 15:21-28; Mark 7:24-30), Catherine asked “what does this story require of us?”  Here’s what I thought: that woman’s faith had become so strong just from “crumbs!”  What does mine look like after feasting at the table?  

When we lived in Africa this was a constant theme to me.  Those people live so far away, have heard the gospel so recently, have so little opportunity--yet these “crumbs” had produced brilliant faith in them.  In the Ghana MTC I got to know missionaries who had memorized hundreds of scriptures and sang every hymn in our book with gusto.  In Madagascar when I taught young women to knit I noticed they learned almost instantly.  They were watching my hands with incredible focus, the same way they do everything! 

I want to remember and add to my stories, and pass them along as the year unfolds.