19 Sep 2004 #0438.html

Jennifer Ann Roberts

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Dear Paul and Kate, Melanie and Jared, Bridget and Justin, Sara, Ben and Sarah, Heather, Audrey, Rachel, Matt via hardcopy, and Brian,

cc: file, Andrea, Tony Hafen, Sara and Des Penny, & Maxine Shirts

Welcome to "Thoughtlets." This is a weekly review of an idea, belief, thought, or words that will hopefully be of some benefit to you, my children, with an electronic copy to on-line extended family members. Any of you can ask me not to clutter your mail box at any time.

"What with the SEG in Denver, I'm not doing a very good job on getting caught up with these. Since I got behind, we wrote about Ella Dawn's Blessing (0435.html), Red Cove (0436.html), and Audrey's Fire (0437.html). Left to catch up on are this Thoughtlet about Jennifer Ann Roberts (0438.html), Letters Home (0439.html), Poza Rica (0440.html), and Pornography (0441.html). With Stake Choir starting up, and rag week season (read that allergy season) being in full bloom and making me tired all of the time, there is no way I will get caught up with all of these today (17 Oct 04). Oh well! Guess catching up gives me a nice goal for this week.

Loren's call Saturday night (0437.html) was heart breaking. Visiting Joe and Linda on Sunday afternoon after church tore my heart out. Joe does not have a spiritual foundation upon which to stand when facing challenges like the tragic death of a loved one. He was devastated. He could not stop crying. He had called and left a message, a plea for help, and I did not even hear the message until late Sunday evening. But thankfully Matt and I stopped by to see him on our way home from church.

Linda met us first. She was being strong. Joe was in the back room. Tommy Pilitary and a couple of other neighbors were there with Joe. He did not know which way to turn or what to do. Within a few minutes we had a plan. He needed a place to hold a memorial service. I volunteered the church. He needed someone to conduct the service. I volunteered Bishop Camp. He needed to not worry about any of the details. I volunteered to help. Andrea later told me I once again volunteered her to help. I did feel this was unfair. Oh well! Life isn't fair. Someone had brought in some Chinese food and they were just finishing eating. I think a little food helped calm Joe down and to give a little bit of a perspective. We went out on the couch and I had Matt go and get my scriptures out of the car. I read Alma 40 to Joe, ending with verses 22-24:

It was sad, and Joe seemed to be in better control when we left. I think it helped him to talk about it with someone he knows cares about him and his. Jenny was on I-10 at 3:00 in Friday morning. She had been drinking a lot the last few months and at one point Joe had taken her jeep away from her. But she was spoiled and begged and Joe let her have the jeep back. Someone was driving down the freeway about 100 miles per hour and cut in front of Jenny. Jenny reacted, hit the cement median, and the jeep rolled. She did not have her seat belt on and was thrown 40 feet. The accident is being treated as vehicular homicide, and the person who cut in front of Jenny is unknown. Joe is offering a big reward for information leading to their arrest.

I was glad Matt was there to see true grief and to have a strong emotional basis from which to think about the words of eternal life as presented in the scriptures. We went home and I fixed chicken and rice. I also called the Bishop to confirm we could use that building, he was willing to conduct the funeral service, and he was available to go over to the Roberts with me later in the afternoon. He was in agreement on all of my assumptions. He called me when he finished his afternoon interviews, came by and picked me up, and we went over and finalized the arrangements with Joe and Linda. Both Joe and Linda seemed to be doing somewhat better when we went by in the afternoon.

Andrea got home a little while after I got back to the house from my second visit with Joe and Linda. She was pretty stressed out from her quick trip to Utah. Heather and Bob Wrench were busy Saturday afternoon and were not able to see her until about an hour before she had to leave to catch a plane back to Salt Lake from Cedar City. Andrea gets pretty focused when she is under stress, and, looking back, Andrea did not come across as loving as she really is during the brief time she had with Heather and Bob (see 0439.html). Oh well!

Andrea did make the plane to Salt Lake and was able to spend a night with Audrey. They talked about Audrey's fire (0437.html) and what steps Audrey needs to take to get back on track with everything. Andrea agreed to help her get replacements for her Patriarchal Blessing (../0012.html) and SUU Graduation Certificate (../0318.html).

It has been a while, and so the events of this week as now somewhat tumbled up in my mind. The following was published as an obituary in The Houston Chronicle:

I had agreed to put the program together. However, by the time Andrea and I got to Joe and Linda's house on Monday night the job had been taken over by other friends. Tommy Pilitary was printing the program, and so he went with Andrea and I to the lady's house who was putting it all together to go over the contents. It turned out very nice. The words said:

The memorial service was very nice. Andrea spent most of the day cleaning up the windows and the church, meeting those who were brining food, setting up for a reception in the cultural hall, and everything else involved in something like this. People just kept coming. Andrea and Matt ended up setting up all of the chairs that were in the cultural hall, which went back about a third of the way to the back. There were probably about 600 people in attendance.

Friends had put together very nice treats. People stayed at the church for over an hour after the hour long service. One lady got the dust mop and swept the floor with her high heels. I was busy helping, playing with Colby, holding Taylor, and cleaning up. Rob helped put up chairs and clean up and I took him home. As you can imagine it was a very emotional few days. I wrote the following song, which I sang for Joe, Linda, and her parents on Sunday evening the 19th of September:

My introspection of the whole event was also hard. I have a strong faith and belief in the resurrection. I have seen so much death in my life, particularly because of Nelson Meat Packing Plant, that in some ways I am immune to death. In other ways I'm immune because I truly do believe we have a personal Savior and I know from a spiritual witness that we will be resurrected. In other words, I know we will each overcome physical death because of Jesus Christ.

However, I have not allowed myself to develop this same faith relative to repentance, forgiveness, and overcoming spiritual death. When I see someone I love refusing to pray, taking God's name in vain, worshiping money or clothes or houses or cars, not attending church or not keeping the Sabbath holy, not honoring their father or their mother, supporting abortion, having sexual relations outside the bonds of marriage, stealing, lying, sneaking, marking their bodies with tattoos and piercings, being more worried about a tan line than the modesty tied to properly wearing temple garments, drinking beer or other alcoholic beverages, smoking or using any addictive drugs including coffee and tea, not reading the scriptures regularly, viewing pornography, and other things which demonstrate separation from God, it truly scares me. Spiritual death scares me more than physical death. And this is probably because I take too much responsibility for other people's choices. I expect this is due to my own weaknesses and my inability to share the message and the gospel of love in a way that is meaningful to those I love so much and care the most about. Oh well! Maybe I am wrong to worry, and if I'm not, maybe the fact I do worry will soften hearts and turn those I love back towards those principles I have strived so hard to teach.

On September 15th I received a message from John Bennett who I taught the gospel to in Ipswich. He is getting remarried. His letter included:

I responded with:

And he immediately came back with:

On Saturday Matt had a game party and pot luck dinner for Taylor Choir. Andrea and I went, and had a good time. After the party we drove down to Minute Maid Park for the Astro's game. Lots of beer. There were 40,408 attendees. Being as I am not much of a sports fan, it seems really surreal to see this many people wasting this much time and money. However, the Astros won the Milwaukee Brewers, and as I expect most of you know by now they made the playoffs.

Sunday, September 19th, there was an interesting article in the Houston Chronicle about the latest hurricane, Ivan, to hit the east coast. There was a big picture showing all of the flooding on main street of Harmony, Pa, on Saturday. Harmony was where Jospeh Smith lived when the Aaronic and Melchezedic Priesthood was restored. Seeing the photo reminded me of a revelation in the Doctrine & Covenants. Joseph and Emma had moved away from Harmony and were in Kirtland, Ohio when he received the following revelation regarding events prior to The Second Coming:

Sunday was the primary program in Sacrament meeting. The theme was `My Family Can Be Forever.' The program was very nice and the kids did a good job. The key to me was the message. I wish I knew how to present the message so Joe and Linda Roberts could see in their hearts and their minds that their family can be forever, and that they will again see and hold Jennifer Ann Roberts."

I'm interested in sharing weekly a "thoughtlet" (little statements of big thoughts which mean a lot to me) with you because I know how important the written word can be. I am concerned about how easy it is to drift and forget our roots and our potential among all of distractions of daily life. To download any of these thoughtlets go to http://www.walden3d.com/thoughtlets or e-mail me at rnelson@walden3d.com.

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Copyright © 2004 H. Roice Nelson, Jr.