The Barricade
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 with their stresses.
Suicide, addictive tendencies, and marital separation are symptoms of emotional resilience needs. While I'm certain that the Emotional Resilience for Self-Reliance course won’t fix all the problems in our area, I believe it will help strengthen the members spiritually and emotionally and by so doing, they’ll be better able to weather the storms of Covid and other difficulties that are here and coming our way.
In March I received a copy of the manual and shared it with Noell. We glanced through it and briefly discussed some of the topics that were covered. Tanner was seated in the room and surprised me when he said, “I’d like to go through that group.”
At that moment, in addition to blessing adults, I felt this could also be a great blessing to the youth. I’ve shared my experience with several stake leaders. They all seemed hesitant to have the youth involved in the groups (or at least weren’t sure how they would run groups for youth). They all felt they would focus on the adults. While I’ve appreciated that they want to get this started, I keep feeling that the youth need help building their emotional resilience.
On Thursday night I was in Paris Idaho visiting with the stake president, his counselor, and their stake welfare and self-reliance specialist. While I was training them on the course, they asked, “How do you feel about this being used with youth?” I shared my experience with Tanner. The stake president then said, we’re dealing with an increase in suicides and have a high number of missionaries return from their missions early because of emotional struggles. The conversation immediately shifted to discussing ways they might use this to strengthen the youth in their stake.
They shared something else that I thought was interesting. They said this might help with what we call our “ditch digging problem.” They explained the problem this way, “When the older people in this room grew up, the families needed to irrigate the fields. The families would go out together and work side-by-side digging ditches with shovels and as they dug they talked. The children and youth knew they were helping and they grew closer to their parents and grandparents as they listened to stories and shared their own. They felt that things like digging ditches built emotional resilience in the families.
In today’s world, fathers (and often mothers) leave their families during the day and return from work tired. There’s no longer ditch digging. Ditches are rare and when they are dug, machines are used and seldom is there time to visit as a family. It makes me think about how I take time as a family to dig ditches or do other things to build my family’s emotional resilience. I really feel that this is an area where I need to improve.
On another note, this week Tate and Dawson discovered that the hearth seat, for the fireplace is just the right height for them to climb on. They climb on it and crawl across it. Often, they stand up and try to grab things on the wood burning stove. Noell’s been especially worried that they will fall. So, last night, Tanner and I built a barricade to prevent them from climbing on it.
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 with their stresses.
Suicide, addictive tendencies, and marital separation are symptoms of emotional resilience needs. While I'm certain that the Emotional Resilience for Self-Reliance course won’t fix all the problems in our area, I believe it will help strengthen the members spiritually and emotionally and by so doing, they’ll be better able to weather the storms of Covid and other difficulties that are here and coming our way.
In March I received a copy of the manual and shared it with Noell. We glanced through it and briefly discussed some of the topics that were covered. Tanner was seated in the room and surprised me when he said, “I’d like to go through that group.”
At that moment, in addition to blessing adults, I felt this could also be a great blessing to the youth. I’ve shared my experience with several stake leaders. They all seemed hesitant to have the youth involved in the groups (or at least weren’t sure how they would run groups for youth). They all felt they would focus on the adults. While I’ve appreciated that they want to get this started, I keep feeling that the youth need help building their emotional resilience.
On Thursday night I was in Paris Idaho visiting with the stake president, his counselor, and their stake welfare and self-reliance specialist. While I was training them on the course, they asked, “How do you feel about this being used with youth?” I shared my experience with Tanner. The stake president then said, we’re dealing with an increase in suicides and have a high number of missionaries return from their missions early because of emotional struggles. The conversation immediately shifted to discussing ways they might use this to strengthen the youth in their stake.
They shared something else that I thought was interesting. They said this might help with what we call our “ditch digging problem.” They explained the problem this way, “When the older people in this room grew up, the families needed to irrigate the fields. The families would go out together and work side-by-side digging ditches with shovels and as they dug they talked. The children and youth knew they were helping and they grew closer to their parents and grandparents as they listened to stories and shared their own. They felt that things like digging ditches built emotional resilience in the families.
In today’s world, fathers (and often mothers) leave their families during the day and return from work tired. There’s no longer ditch digging. Ditches are rare and when they are dug, machines are used and seldom is there time to visit as a family. It makes me think about how I take time as a family to dig ditches or do other things to build my family’s emotional resilience. I really feel that this is an area where I need to improve.
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