Wander With Wayne

The months of August and September, as well as January and February, are my busy times of the year. This year, to add to the load, the First Presidency of the Church extended the pilot for the Emotional Resilience for Self-Reliance course. As a result, besides my typical busy time, I’m also meeting with many stake presidencies and others to train them on the new materials. Emotional resilience is something we need in my area, and apparently throughout the Church. In my area, we’ve seen suicides increase (especially in the Montpelier and Rupert areas). Also, with the Covid restrictions, we’ve seen marriages, that have struggled for years, disintegrate as couples separate (I’m aware of three families in our current ward who have separated during the Covid restrictions). I was also recently talking with Noell’s brother, Thane—who teaches seminary and institute in the Uintah Basin. He said that during these Covid restrictions the youth and young adults are flocking to pornography to cope...

A couple weeks ago, Greg and I tested his chainsaw to see if it was cutting well. It was improved, but still not cutting great. Later, I learned to sharpen the chain and went out to cut up the Russian olive trees in our pasture that he’d cut down. As I went out to cut, I felt nervous. I’ve not used a chainsaw much and don’t know all of the safety precautions. As I was going out to cut, I thought about the time I cut the tip of my finger off with an electric planer. I definitely don’t want to have another accident like that—or worse. I placed my noise-blocking headphones on to reduce the sound. Throughout the cutting I listened to an audio I wanted to learn from. When the chainsaw was started, I had to turn up my audio slightly. Each time the saw was off, I turned down the audio. As I worked on the trees and hauled the small branches to the burn pile, I became more tired. I tried hard to keep my mind focused and thinking about safety. After working in the hot sun for hours, an accident ...

The Harrison family invited us over for water balloon volleyball and homemade ice cream on Friday night. After we ran out of water balloons, we sat in the shade of the back yard and visited with Michael, Karla, and some of their children, while others played around the yard. After we’d been talking for a while, Tanner asked if he could borrow my phone. My children have borrowed my phone for years, but Tanner has his own phone. It seemed strange that he would ask. A couple short minutes later, Tanner handed my phone back to me. The phone was still on and he handed it back to me in a way that I noticed a beautiful sunset photo on the screen. He’d taken several different photos that turned out very nice. I excused myself and walked around to the front of the house to appreciate the gorgeous sunset. I’m grateful for spectacular sunsets, for amazing technology, and for kind children who share wonderful things with me. As we arrived at the Harrison’s my hands were full, so I got one of the...