Thoughts and stories, by Pal

I'd love to hear your comments about what I write.  If you'd like to e mail me, notice on the right where it gives a short bio and my small picture, and at the bottom it says:  "View my complete Profile".  You can click on that, and it says how to contact me (by e mail I think).  I don't know how the "comment" thing works at the bottom of each entry -- If you know, you can do it!  Love to all for a happy day!

Thanksgivings past, and "The Suet Pudding Story" My father, Orson Pratt Miles, (no relation to Orson Pratt of early Church history.) had problems with eating, after World War I, and couldn't eat spicy or rich food, often eating food like baby food.  After the War his nerves and stomach.were very bad.  He said he had been poisoned by German sauerkraut while in the War.     But we did have good food, with the trimmings on Thanksgiving.  Often he would invite some lonely person to Thanksgiving Dinner.  That has become a family tradition that we have tried to follow, (but not as well as he did!)  Often we had our mother Ruth's sister and her husband, Adelia and Earnest Tobler, plus Ruth's mother Levinah, to dinner, and we children would usually go to an afternoon "matinee".  Movies in those days were all "G" and usually on Thanksgiving, and often on Christmas, that was the afternoon entertainment for the children.  I still don't feel the tr...

"They are closing my book" --  by Ruth Allen Miles. Today is a story from my mother's journal -- on pages 246-248 in the book of my ancestor's lives.  It is one of my very favorite stories of her life!--- "Two main tragedies happened during my last year at Dixie, both involving my mother, (Levinah Emeline Wilson Allen).  Just before Thanksgiving mother (Levinah) was alone and either fell or perhaps fainted and fell between the stove and the wall.  (Remember this was a coal stove.)  On the stove was a pot of boiling beans which tipped over and dripped over her, burning her badly, particularly around the breast area of her body.  Oh, the agony she went through with this! She was still under treatment and wearing bandages for this when in March she was going to Panguitch with some Temple workers and a newly returned missionary who had come to St. George to visit his sister.  They were in a wreck and mother was the sole survivor .   With a broke...

Learn from the past, prepare for the future, live in the present. --  a quote from our Prophet Thomas S. Monson. And a poem written by my mother: Ruth Allen Miles, who was a school teacher for 40 years.  First President Monson's quote:  Very wise words : "I have chosen to provide the three pieces of your treasure map to guide you to your eternal happiness. First, learn from the past. Each of us has a heritage—whether from pioneer forebears, later converts, or others who helped to shape our lives. This heritage provides a foundation built of sacrifice and faith. Ours is the privilege and responsibility to build on such firm and stable footings. Second, prepare for the future. We live in a changing world. Technology has altered nearly every aspect of our lives. We must cope with these advances—even these cataclysmic changes—in a world of which our forebears never dreamed. Remember the promise of the Lord: "If ye are prepared ye shall not fear." Fear is a dead...

Achieving balance in life:  I have decided that I wanted to state a theme for each post so it will show when you read it.  I have always loved the scripture in Mosiah (Book of Mormon) chapter 4, parts of verse 26, and verse 27:  Page 157. For the sake of retaining a remission of your sins from day to day, that ye may walk guiltless before God -- I would that ye should impart of your substance to the poor, every man according to that which he hath, such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and administering to their relief, both spiritually and temporally, according to their wants.  (Those things are very much needed today in today's world!) And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength.  And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize; therefore, all things must be done in order.     When we go...

Wayne and Blaine were born  identical twins on September 18, 1930 in Murray, Utah.  I was born October 6, 1934, in St. George, Utah.  The twins were not expected to live the night and so were given a name and a special Priesthood blessing that night.  They were blessed then to live a mature life, and fulfill their missions on this earth.  Blaine fulfilled his and has passed on to a better place.  Wayne has had open heart surgery, a hip replacement, cancer, and a 12 day stay in intensive care with respiratory failure.  But at 83, he still does two Temple shifts each week in the St. George Temple, and we both do a lot of indexing.  We'll tell more about that later.  It is late on November 14, 2013, and I want to start blogging.  I'm not sure how to do this, so we'll experiment!     This was in their high school yearbook, Blaine on the left, Wayne on the right, I believe in 1949.

  I kept a journal for many years, sometimes not writing for a year or two -- one time 5 years !  Raising 9 children can be very time consuming, and at times writing in a journal didn't seem as important as fixing meals, changing (and washing) around 100,000 diapers, etc.  But I am encouraging all of you to write now and then, because the day will come when your family will want to read about you !  Memory isn't always reliable, but a journal will jog your memory.  I do believe in writing your life story!  And if you are the happy recipient of any life stories of ancestors, they should be available for the young generations.  I have wonderful stories of Wayne's and my ancestors, and will share some stories at times. Today, my thoughts, for the next week will probably be on many things I am thankful for -- (but not really in the right order, I think.)  My prayers lately begin with a long list of what I am thankful for.  I guess that may ha...