Trying to Love Life, Trials and All

This has been a brutal couple of weeks, but hopefully I'm on the mend. It was good to get out of the house the last couple of days and run some errands. Mindi and I went to Target today to look for something for Brookie and Ethan's birthdays, okay, I lied, we went to get some Easter candy to fill our cute dishes. Anyway, it is hard for me to get out of the car and start walking. Once I'm up and going it gets better but I have a slow start that's for sure. I had Mindi go over to get a basket so I had something to hang on to. A guy in a truck stopped and waited for us to limp on across the street. Mindi said, "boy we must look really pathetic the two of us hobbling along." She pulled the muscle in her calf last week playing volleyball. I have decided that if I ever get sick enough to be bedridden I just want to go see Kamber. I would hate being confined to a bed and be in such pain that every time I moved it was excruciating. I guess we don't get to pick when and how we will die, but I hope it is fast and not just wasting away. As everyone knows I love animals and have my fair share. I bought a huge rabbit last summer called a Flemish Giant that I gave away to a friend. Well, she had babies and so my friend gave me two of the babies back. The Mom ended up dying of pneumonia a couple of weeks ago when we had all the rain, so I have felt pretty good about these two still being alive. The dogs haven't even gotten in to kill them yet. I had been noticing when I went out to feed them that they were digging a huge hole. I even took a shovel in the pen and kept trying to fill them up. I finally gave up because it was a new hole everyday. Well yesterday I went out to feed my herd and found my grey rabbit lying in the hole. He was barely alive so I knelt down, even with my sore back and picked him up. He gave out a loud groan and went limp. I found a huge piece of dirt on the back of his head so I guess when he was digging the hole collapsed on him. I am not having very good luck with my animals lately. Rich dug a hole this morning and buried him for me. While I've been down in pain I have been reading a lot. I printed off some of Elder Wirthlin's talks and have enjoyed them. I wish I could have known him and been able to talk to him when he was alive. He was a really good football player and wanted to play in college, but his father felt like he should serve a mission so instead of staying home and attending college and playing football he ended up going to the German-Austrian and the Swiss-Austrian Missions from 1937-1939. His last conference talk he gave before he passed away was entitled "Come What May and Love It." In this talk he explains that the title came from the advice his mother gave him when he was upset over a football game he'd lost. It then goes on to explain different ways that we can cope with life's hardships and trials. I remember when he gave it I kept thinking how much I needed his words of encouragement. Another one of his suggestions is to learn to laugh at mishaps instead of getting angry. He says that this will lengthen our lives and make the lives of others around us more pleasant. Boy could I use a good laugh right now.