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Photo by Gerry Avant
President Monson and his wife, Sister Frances
Monson, pause outside the Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple after the first
dedicatory session Aug. 21, 2009, which was his 82nd birthday.
Our beloved Sister Frances J. Monson passed away. We're happy for believing in Eternal Families and we pray for our prophet.
From www.ldschurchnews.com: “Search far and wide, high and low, but it’s doubtful you’ll find anyone less willing to talk about herself than Frances J. Monson.”
In 1998, she and President Monson received the Continuum of Caring Humanitarian Award from Friends of St. Joseph’s Villa, a care center in Salt Lake City. I think she was a bit uncomfortable about being put in the limelight, but she graciously agreed to deliver a speech at the award ceremony. She was a giver who never wanted credit.
“I perhaps would have been content to perform my service in life by raising our children, participating in the Relief Society, and helping others as my time and energy permitted,” she said upon accepting the award. “But because of the Church callings my husband has had throughout our married life, I have, with him, witnessed more pain, more suffering, more need among God’s children than otherwise would have been the case. If I have been able in some small way to help alleviate such suffering, such need, I am most grateful.”
She quoted a famous psychiatrist who gave a lecture on mental health and answered questions from the audience. Someone asked, “What would you advise a person to do if that person felt a nervous breakdown coming on?”
Sister Monson said, “Most people would have expected him to reply, ‘Consult a psychiatrist.’ To their astonishment, he replied, ‘Lock up your house, go across the railway tracks, find someone in need and do something to help that person.’ ”
That is how Sister Monson lived her life. She found people in need and helped them.
She liked this poem by Emily Dickinson:
“If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain.
If I can cease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.”
Sister Monson did not live in vain.
“When the Savior was here upon the earth, He taught, He blessed, He served,” she said when she was honored by Friends of St. Joseph’s Villa. “Now that He no longer walks among us as a mortal man, it is left to us to do His work, to minister to the needs of others. He has no hands but ours.”
Let us follow her example, dear Elders and Sisters.
