Talents

My mother was a simple farm girl from Soda Springs, Idaho.
Her only claim to fame was that their farm abutted Ezra Taft Benson’s.

My mother didn’t think she was anything special.
She didn’t think she could write.
She didn’t think she was a speaker.
She didn’t think she was artistic or creative.

I think my mother was mistaken.

My mother always had me write the family Christmas cards because she didn’t think she could write very well. Her small, even penmanship reflected the steadiness and consistency of her character. The notes she wrote on birthday cards were always the best part of her thoughtful gifts. When she did write a talk or memory, it was interesting and well-written. And she wrote daily in a diary for much of her life. I think of my mother as a writer.

I don’t remember my mother giving formal speeches, but I’ve heard her bear her testimony and have read talks she’s given. In her quiet, sweet way she spoke articulately and confidently, with humor, of those things that meant the most to her. I think of my mother as an orator.

Maybe my mother didn’t draw or paint, but using her eye for color and design, she decorated our house many times. She created several memorable Christmas cards with family pictures. Her hobby was shopping and her fetish was to have everything match. She knew the names of every shade of brown and beige there is. I think of my mother as an artist.

Mother may have admitted to being a musician, though only a fair one. She was the ward organist most of her life. She collected music and took us to concerts. But she never mentioned the beautiful alto voice she sang so softly with.

My mother thought that all of her children were smarter than she was, but she was a college graduate in a day when few women went to college. Mother was smart and wise.

Mother was a wonderful cook. She loved pretty dishes and fussed over presentation. I shared many hours in the kitchen, in front of cooking shows, and reading cookbooks with her. It was her love of cooking that made cooks of her daughters, and now her granddaughters.

My mother was over 30 when she married, and she still tried to get as many souls into this world as she possibly could. Mother never wavered in her faith and testimony and duty where the Gospel was concerned. She single handedly reared eight children, all faithful still.

I sometimes describe my mother as “an old shoe,” a regular kind of girl.
But she was anything but ordinary.


Like my mother, I think my children are smarter and more capable than I am.
Someday they may realize that their talents and abilities, their intelligence and their values, lived long before they did. The seeds in the parents blossom in their children.

I hope my children will have the opportunity and the determination to magnify what they have been given.