Blessings and a Broken Head (Literally)

Please note the "I bleed true blue" shirt he is wearing :)

Last weekend I had an unexpected surprise.  On Friday evening while we were in the middle of a lesson, my companion Elder Fallentine mentioned that my Mom was messaging him on facebook.  I was a little confused at why she was messaging him until I heard the message, that my brother was currently in the emergency room here in Provo and my Mom was asking if I would be allowed to go and give him a blessing.  I was informed he had fractured his frontal lobe, but was ok.  With that little information my imagination did begin to wander very much.  What exactly does ok mean?  And how is it ok with a broken head?  Is ok simply that he isn’t dead, or he is conscious?  Or does ok also include significant brain damage?  And at the front of my mind, I needed to find out if I would be able to go and see him and give him the priesthood blessing, which I was.

In an effort to keep ourselves focused on serving the Lord, correspondence with our family is usually limited.  Although this is not the first time I have seen my brother, (as you can read here, Teaching Experiences with Cassia) I was blessed to go and see him in the hospital and I was able to give him a priesthood blessing.   He is recovering well, and many of the worries I had have been alleviated.  While the real purpose of going to see my brother was to bless and help him, I feel I was the one who was blessed the most.

A Rock, a Hard Place, and Moving on

The concept of a halfway rock is something that I learned about in scouting on hikes.  Most of what I remember about scouting hikes is walking up and down hills in the dirt, mostly staring at my shoes as I was too tired to lift my head, getting in trouble every time I tried to go off the path (something about preserving nature, which I never really understood), and all with a backpack which was too heavy and filled mostly with things I wouldn’t need.  Inevitably, as the hike would progress the fun would quickly fade to be replaced with fatigue and exhaustion.  I am sure it must have been equally tiresome for the leaders who had to listen to the “How much further?” every 100 feet after the first half a mile.  A combination of these circumstances is what I assume gave birth to the halfway rock idea.