Human Waste Bag Humor

the phone rings

my grandma answers it

a few minutes later we hear-

"You want me to get a human waste bag?"

"You want me to get a lot of human waste bags?"

"How many?"

At this point my mom, my grandpa Kelm, and my brother Devin, and myself are laughing hysterically.

"You need a permit number to get them?"

A permit number to go # 2?

"How many times can you use them?"

"You have to carry them out?"

The more we laughed, the harder my mom laughed, and the harder my mom laughed, the harder Devin was laughing at her.

Thank you Jared for calling your mom and requesting human waste bags for your scout trip to the Narrows while we were present in the room. Simply hilarious!

"Why are ye so fearful? How is it that ye have no faith?"

Recently I threw myself a giant pity party. I attended a "Singles" event that sent me home in tears. I won't go into the details of that, but I've got plenty to say on a personal level as you read on.

After the event I got home and put on my comfy pj's. I got out peanut M&M's and a peanut butter cup and smashed the life out of them. My sweet mom said, "what are you doing?", my reply, " crushing candy to put over some ice cream".  I'm sure she was referring to the force to which I was smashing the candy, but I didn't want to start crying by talking. Then I watched a few Gilmore Girl's episodes. When my parents had gone to bed, I let the crying come. I'm talking big tears and inconsolable sobbing. Just before midnight after deciding that crying was stupid and I couldn't breathe of out my nose, I washed my face then laid down and tried to go to sleep. As the clock struck midnight I heard a faint- "beep beep beep, beep beep beep". My lost watch! I popped out of bed and ran down the hallway listening for what room the sound came from. I suspected the TV room recliner had eaten it, but the sound came from the bathroom. It stopped when I got there but I knew it was in the bathroom. I started opening up drawers. Finally, in a basket of hair accessories under the sink, my watch was found!

The next morning with a dull, tender heart, I started reading the Sunday School lesson. In Mark 4:36-41 is the account of Jesus asleep on the boat and being awoken in the storm by the distraught disciples. He calms the sea and in verse 40 he says, "Why are ye so fearful? How is it that ye have no faith?"

It spoke to me. How is it that I let fear wipe out the good things? The day before consisted of a great workout at my favorite class with my best friend, followed by a DELICIOUS brunch with my best friend, followed by 2 hours of holding a teeny tiny baby. Seriously, not too shabby of a day.

Back to the watch. There I was crying, praying for peace, and yet my pride was actually preventing me from feeling peace and being comforted. When I finally was still, I heard my watch alarm. As I've thought about this I've come up with two lessons. One, seeing as it was a watch, "It will all come to pass in my timing, not your timing". Two, it was as if my Heavenly Father told me- no, I can't give you what you are really asking for right now, but I'm in the details, see, here is your lost watch. Why are ye so fearful? How is it that ye have no faith?

I'm missing hope right now. I'm seeing a future that I desire fade. Where is that faithful husband who will raise kids with me? Thankfully I know that fear does not come from a loving God, and what I'm feeling I can almost entirely blame on fear. 

Why are ye so fearful? How is it that ye have no faith?

Yesterday was a top notch Women's Conference.  The topic was hope. I seriously walked away thinking- duh, life is hard, so what? It is still joyful when you have hope.

2 Nephi 31:20
Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.

I need to find and hold on tightly to hope.

Luckily, this week was full of my path crossing the likes of Jamie Peterson, Heather Larsen, Jessica Wyeth, Rachel Knight, Margaret Hanson, Melissa Smith, Kristin Allington, Virginia Elizondo, Nadia Ali, Marisol Sauceda, Jefra Rees, Lisa Anderson, Sandra Spencer, Rebecca Jackson, Darelene Cluff, Tonia Kelm, Danielle Krause ...and on, and on, and on... there's a lot of reason to hope.

So, I'll press forward, searching for my perfect brightness of hope...

Margaret Konteck

Once upon a time, in the city of Berlin, there was a woman named Anita Kelm and a woman named Margaret Konteck. Somewhere in the 1930's Margaret shared with her the message of the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ with Anita. Frau Konteck was an insurance client of my great-grandfather Helmut Kelm, Anita's husband. As was the custom of the day, Margaret came to the house to pay her insurance premiums. In 1939 the missionaries began teaching Anita and her children, Wolfgang and Gisela. The story of these three is well documented. They are even mentioned in the book "In Harm's Way, East German Latter-Day Saints in World War II" by Roger M. Minert.  Helmut Kelm was not so keen on the church and would not give permission for his family to be baptized. In 1945 while he was off in the war and Berlin was experiencing air raids, and Anita was taking her children to church. In the words of my opa Wolfgang Kelm, as recorded in "In Harm's Way", on February 3, 1945,

 "There was no public transportation in operation, so we set out early to walk to the meeting room on top of some building on Thaerstrasse. After walking for over an hour through the still burning ruins of Berlin we arrived at our destination, only to find it in ruins too. Young as I was in years [twelve], I had a feeling of great loss. The Church was literally gone out of my life."

But the Church was not really out of his life. On February 25, 1945, Anita, Gisela, and Wolfgang were among the last convert baptisms into the Church in Berlin during World War II.

"It was decided to forgo the customary permission from the father and husband of baptismal candidates and baptize [my family] before the world came to an end. At this time the Russian armies stood at the gates of Berlin, awaiting the order for the final assault on the capital of the crumbling Third Reich. So on February 25 1945, in the little pool in the factory building in Berlin, my mother, my sister, and myself were baptized by one Fredrich Wernick. The water was 7 degrees Celsius. Even though I was young, I did not like the cold water much."

The Kelm family survived the air raids.  They survived Russians. Miraculously their apartment survived the destruction of Berlin while they had a brief escape in Poland. They went on to immigrate to Canada, and then on to the United States.

There is today a continued legacy of multiple generations still seeking to have the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints as a dominating influence in their lives. Just last week, my father, son of Wolfgang, reconnected with a man he taught the gospel to in Brazil in the late 1970's. This man's daughter is waiting for her own call to be a missionary. This tree of influence continues to spread it's branches. For the Kelm family it started with Margaret Konteck.

Sadly, we have very little information about this lady. Her story seems to have vanished. I'm putting this blog out into the world in hopes that maybe, just maybe, somebody will know who this lady was. Because she shared the gospel with a friend in the 1930's, the influence of the descendants of the Anita Kelm's family has touched Germany, Canada, the United States, Brazil, Argentina, Japan, and beyond. Thank you Frau Konteck, we hope to meet you one day.

Anita and Helmut

Wolfgang, Anita, Gisela

Anita 1975

My feeble attempt to express the feelings of being single

I've spent the last 3 days contemplating my assignment in the Austin Stake as the mid-singles representative. I've had a lot of conversations with a variety of perspectives from single members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. My questions have been what are your needs as a single member of the church? are they being met? and, if not what could be done to meet those needs?  My knee-jerk reaction to many woes and negative perspectives of the difficulties of life is to say buck up! Loose yourself! Take responsibility for your own happiness!  I'm trying to learn compassion for those that have a different perspective and life experiences from my own. Being single in a family-centered church is hard, but so is being married. The problems aren't more or less for married or single Latter-Day Saints, they are just different.

Some singles feel they have been cheated out of something in life because they are not married.
Some singles feel they can't make friends in a ward because people think they are weird.
Some singles feel slighted because nobody comes to sit by them at church.
Some singles love teaching their primary class each week and learning from 6 year olds.
Some singles are the DJ for the monthly Youth dances and get to teach teenagers why although a song contains no profanity it can still be inappropriate.
Some singles don't attend a Friday game night with other singles because they volunteered to babysit so a friend could have a much needed date night with her husband.
Some singles don't attend ward singles family home evening groups because they are in charge of bringing the treat to the family home evening of a family in their ward, and next week they are in charge of the lesson for another family's home evening.
Some singles cringe at the term "Single's Program" because it makes them feel like they are something broken that needs to be fixed, and yet they find their life very satisfying. 

Some married people feel cheated out of something in life because their husband stopped coming to church.
Some married people feel they can't make friends in a ward because their crying 6 month old won't let her go to Sunday School or Relief Society each week and she has to stay in the hallway.
Some married people feel slighted because nobody comes to sit by them at church.
Some married people love it when a friend offers to watch their children so they can go out for the evening and have adult conversation.
Some married people don't talk to the new ward member because they have 4 kids to get off to primary, then a lesson to teach in young womens and wish they could meet a new face because they could sure use a friend.

Single people don't have the market on feeling lonely and left out, and being happy ever after is not specific to married people. 

What I have learned in all my contemplations is that healthy involvement in a ward, where love, compassion, and forgiveness is both given and received, people don't divide by marital status. Needs are met, lives are blessed, and spiritual, emotional, and social needs take care of themselves. At least that is what we should be striving for in living the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We all have a long way to go, but I believe a huge part of the answer is found in serving/being served in a loving ward.  Am I making this sound too simple? Perhaps, but I still think it is the key. The key to change, progress, and growth, and I am going to keep trying to figure out my role as a mid-singles rep can use this nugget of insight to bring about substantial change.

Hopefully that helped empty enough thoughts from my head so that I can now to to bed and get some sleep!