Is happiness in the church a facade?

[Notatbm]

20 minutes ago, Rain said:

I don't think it was even close to an eagle if done right.  Definitely not while I was in YW (my dad and brothers were in scouts so I could see what they were doing) and closer, but still not as much when my daughter was in.  But Ì was of the mind that the merit badges needed to actually be earned, not go through a merit badge mill or having the adults do most of it.

Yea historically eagles not done right. Lds church has (d) a rep of eagle and mb mills. Personally i saw so much fraud with merit badges and various rank requirements I didn’t see much value in the program. All many kids learned was how to manipulate requirements and or just say you did them. Any kid can read the merit badge pamphlet and compare the requirements with what he actually did and in many cases see the mb counselor just signed stuff off without it Ben’s done. Our stake used to run mb clinics and they would literally waive several requirement s and the counselors would just sign them off. So in my personal experience along with what my daughters did- yea yw award was harder to get. 
 

there’s a reason it used to be said the mother was who really earned the eagle. 

[webbles]

2 hours ago, Notatbm said:

The scouting program was pretty good although it wasn’t for everyone. Any reasonable person who could read could be a scout leader and guide kids though it. The church spent 195yrs in scouting. That was 105years of priesthood leadership that didn’t have to do anything other than follow a manual written by others and they could have a successful program. That said- most leaders ( or n my experience) put forth almost no effort and parents also didn’t care. Once the BSA started discussing allowing girls, gays etc the church started waffling on its support of BSA. Obviously the endless string of lawsuits tied to concealing child molestations perpetrated by the BSA and other major supporting orgs were the straw that broke the camels back. 
 

that leaves the church with 100% of its current priesthood leadership nearly incapable of creating any kind of program because it has always been handed to them. I imagine the Q15 never bothered with getting a replacement designed because they were never really involved in it themselves. 
 

I imagine it will be over a generation before they fix this -if ever. Leaving it 100% in the hands of local leadership is a sure way to guarantee nothing will happen. Every three to five years new leaders will come in and either create a local program, destroy it or implement a replacement. What that leads to is apathy (already here) and its consistency. All the kids see is that there is nothing for them here but chaos. Oh and basketball in the case of our stake. 

I'm actually glad the church left scouting.  I served a mission in Brazil and discovered that scouting is not part of the YM program there.  Since most leaders of the church were (and still are) from the US, I felt like they were used to scouting being the YM program and didn't see what was happening to the countries that didn't have scouting.  So, by leaving scouting, now the YM program is the same everywhere and I do think that is a good thing.  I just wish that they had replaced it with something that had recognition.

[Notatbm]

2 minutes ago, webbles said:

I just wish that they had replaced it with something that had recognition.

Agreed. Also wish they replaced it with an actual program. As of now it is on the local leadership to do “something.” YMMV greatly

[Rain]

1 hour ago, Notatbm said:

Yea historically eagles not done right. Lds church has (d) a rep of eagle and mb mills. Personally i saw so much fraud with merit badges and various rank requirements I didn’t see much value in the program. All many kids learned was how to manipulate requirements and or just say you did them. Any kid can read the merit badge pamphlet and compare the requirements with what he actually did and in many cases see the mb counselor just signed stuff off without it Ben’s done. Our stake used to run mb clinics and they would literally waive several requirement s and the counselors would just sign them off. So in my personal experience along with what my daughters did- yea yw award was harder to get. 
 

there’s a reason it used to be said the mother was who really earned the eagle. 

I saw what was happening and when I could, I made sure my son actually passed off things.  Like the night 100 boys went to the local pool to pass off their swimming and life saving merit badges. I was there that night and saw that my son wasn't passing off most of it so in the end I told the counselor he hadn't passed off everything and asked for the card and his number so he could sign it later. Then my husband and I worked a lot with him so he could pass them off.  He lost interest before he passed off the life saving.  He was mad at me during the process, but a few years later he told me he appreciated it.  It was especially hard on him during those years when other boys who had been there that night argued with him that yes, he had passed off that life saving badge that night.

I'm sure some YW also didn't actually pass off things like some scouts didn't, so you could say that getting the YW medallion was easier for the same reason. Just because the system was cheated in some way doesn't mean it is easier.

Edited May 21, 2025 by Rain

[webbles]

2 hours ago, Rain said:

I'm curious if anyone has ever studied this as to motivation.  I got the medallion.  While I was really happy to get it, the medallion itself didn't motivate me.  It was the process of setting the goals and getting them accomplished that motivated me. 

Ironically, years later I'm not quite anti goal, but people might think I am.  I just don't like goals for the sake of doing goals.  I'm more of a be the type of person you want to be, which I recognize often includes making goals and that this was what the church was trying to do, but with how the programs were set up they made the end goal what they wanted other people to follow rather than intrinsic goals of where the kids wanted to go.

That's probably where they tried to take the current youth programs. The direction may be a good one, but trying to come up with a system that helps people with internal goals and internal rewards will never be easy. 

Definitely agree that people react differently.  I loved rules and awards as a kid.  As a cub scout, I got every single arrow point possible as a wolf and as a bear (technically, bears can have infinite arrow points which I figured out and stressed about how I want them all but it was impossible).  I got my eagle really early and got most of the merit badges.  After that, though, there wasn't really anything left for me to do in YM.  So going to Mutual became more of a chore than something I looked forward to.  So for me, looking at the current program, it would be really bad for me.

[MustardSeed]

Part of the appeal of the scouting program is that it was recognized outside the church as a positive accomplishment. Claiming to be an Eagle Scout is a feather in the cap, or at least it was before all the pedophile garbage was linked to the scouting program. 
The church could come up with a new program, but it will never be the pride point the Scouts was. 

And nothing created for the girls was ever going to measure up either. 

[bluebell]

3 hours ago, Rain said:

I'm curious if anyone has ever studied this as to motivation.  I got the medallion.  While I was really happy to get it, the medallion itself didn't motivate me.  It was the process of setting the goals and getting them accomplished that motivated me. 

Ironically, years later I'm not quite anti goal, but people might think I am.  I just don't like goals for the sake of doing goals.  I'm more of a be the type of person you want to be, which I recognize often includes making goals and that this was what the church was trying to do, but with how the programs were set up they made the end goal what they wanted other people to follow rather than intrinsic goals of where the kids wanted to go.

That's probably where they tried to take the current youth programs. The direction may be a good one, but trying to come up with a system that helps people with internal goals and internal rewards will never be easy. 

I couldn’t care less about any of the external rewards or the YW medallion growing up. I did most of my personal progress but never finished. I felt like it wasn’t going to make me any different so why bother?  It felt like jumping through hoops. 

[Rain]

11 minutes ago, webbles said:

Definitely agree that people react differently.  I loved rules and awards as a kid.  As a cub scout, I got every single arrow point possible as a wolf and as a bear (technically, bears can have infinite arrow points which I figured out and stressed about how I want them all but it was impossible).  I got my eagle really early and got most of the merit badges.  After that, though, there wasn't really anything left for me to do in YM.  So going to Mutual became more of a chore than something I looked forward to.  So for me, looking at the current program, it would be really bad for me.

I so wanted to be a scout.  While my dad was a scout leader I talked about it enough that he told me he would support me in getting my "eagle". So many of those merit badges looked fun! I seriously considered working on it, but there was so much (camps, comradery, etc) I would be missing that were available to actual scouts plus I would never actually get an award that I decided to not do it - I do think awards are important, but in and of themselves they weren't enough for me. Personal Progress was really disappointing when I compared it to what my brothers and dad were doing. 

 

[Calm]

3 hours ago, Rain said:

I so wanted to be a scout.  While my dad was a scout leader I talked about it enough that he told me he would support me in getting my "eagle". So many of those merit badges looked fun! I seriously considered working on it, but there was so much (camps, comradery, etc) I would be missing that were available to actual scouts plus I would never actually get an award that I decided to not do it - I do think awards are important, but in and of themselves they weren't enough for me. Personal Progress was really disappointing when I compared it to what my brothers and dad were doing. 

 

Did you ever consider Girl Scouts?  I knew quite a few Brownies growing up iirc, but don’t remember many Girl Scouts.  Brownies would have been in Illinois and Scouts in California, so maybe that was the difference (I am talking about nonmember friends).

My mom started her own parallel Cub Scout merit badge effort for us two girls called Mother’s Little Helpers (I think she was setting it up so we could get badges for stuff we did anyway as her health kept her at home.  It didn’t last very long though.  I think the bandlo was purple.

Anyone else remember these things?  I think my brother had a partial one, but don’t remember having one myself.  I am trying to find when they were discontinued.

I remember the below better than the pictures on the church history site.  Looks like they were discontinued in 1970 when I was 11, so I would likely have had a partial one (missed the last year) where my older brother would have completed his.  

https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/training/library/primary-organization-research-guide/primary-seal-colors-awards?lang=eng

 

Edited May 21, 2025 by Calm

[bluebell]

4 minutes ago, Calm said:

Did you ever consider Girl Scouts?  I knew quite a few Brownies growing up iirc, but don’t remember many Girl Scouts.  Brownies would have been in Illinois and Scouts in California, so maybe that was the difference (I am talking about nonmember friends).

My mom started her own parallel Cub Scout merit badge effort for us two girls called Mother’s Little Helpers (I think she was setting it up so we could get badges for stuff we did anyway as her health kept her at home.  It didn’t last very long though.  I think the bandlo was purple.

Anyone else remember these things?  I think my brother had a partial one, but don’t remember having one myself.  I am trying to find when they were discontinued.
 

 

I was a brownie going up in Wyoming. I’ve always thought that Brownies were the Girl Scouts equivalent of cub scouts, since brownies are young girls. I don’t know if that’s true though.

[Peacefully]

6 hours ago, Notatbm said:

Yea historically eagles not done right. Lds church has (d) a rep of eagle and mb mills. Personally i saw so much fraud with merit badges and various rank requirements I didn’t see much value in the program. All many kids learned was how to manipulate requirements and or just say you did them. Any kid can read the merit badge pamphlet and compare the requirements with what he actually did and in many cases see the mb counselor just signed stuff off without it Ben’s done. Our stake used to run mb clinics and they would literally waive several requirement s and the counselors would just sign them off. So in my personal experience along with what my daughters did- yea yw award was harder to get. 
 

there’s a reason it used to be said the mother was who really earned the eagle. 

My son would have never earned Eagle without me pushing him all the way. In the end, he left his mission early because he didn’t believe what he was teaching, didn’t go back to byu where he had a scholarship, didn’t marry in the temple, and is full-fledged agnostic, however, I wouldn’t trade the time we spent together working on Eagle and I know he is a better man for it:) 

I wish the church had a good replacement for scouting. It was especially good for boys from part-member families and divorced families to have that male influence. 

[Calm]

1 hour ago, bluebell said:

I was a brownie going up in Wyoming. I’ve always thought that Brownies were the Girl Scouts equivalent of cub scouts, since brownies are young girls. I don’t know if that’s true though.

I believe it is or at least was.  My dad turned his nose up at the wimpy Girl Scouts, which is why Mom started her version for us…plus we were too young for Brownies at that time.

I thought the DIY version was later, when we were in Illinois and missed a lot of Primary because of it being too far and no one around to hitch rides with many days, but my sister corrected me as it was when my brother was in cub scouts in California and not when my age group would be doing cub scouts or when Mom’s health was bad, but when she was SuperMom (which is one of the reason her health went bad, I think she likely had fibro after she had two more kids 7 years after me and the age difference plus the additional wear and tear tanked her as her doctors had advised her to never have children due to a messed up insides from a burst appendix when she was 7 that came close to killing her and other ‘women’ stuff, but her biggest dream was being a mom she wanted to have and having lots of kids to mother).

Edited May 22, 2025 by Calm

[Rain]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Did you ever consider Girl Scouts?  I knew quite a few Brownies growing up iirc, but don’t remember many Girl Scouts.  Brownies would have been in Illinois and Scouts in California, so maybe that was the difference (I am talking about nonmember friends).

My mom started her own parallel Cub Scout merit badge effort for us two girls called Mother’s Little Helpers (I think she was setting it up so we could get badges for stuff we did anyway as her health kept her at home.  It didn’t last very long though.  I think the bandlo was purple.

Anyone else remember these things?  I think my brother had a partial one, but don’t remember having one myself.  I am trying to find when they were discontinued.

I remember the below better than the pictures on the church history site.  Looks like they were discontinued in 1970 when I was 11, so I would likely have had a partial one (missed the last year) where my older brother would have completed his.  

https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/training/library/primary-organization-research-guide/primary-seal-colors-awards?lang=eng

 

I was a brownie one year.  I don't know why I wasn't in it longer. It was after school at the school.

[Calm]

This is the Bandlo I remember and the one Mom modeled hers after.  I loved those rhinestones.  I can still feel my finger running down them now my memory is triggered.

I completely forgot the Church did these until reminded today.

https://keepapitchinin.org/2011/01/21/bandlos-old-post-new-illustrations/

picture is from Pinterest, replaced a faded version from the link, but better info there, so using that link

Edited May 22, 2025 by Calm

[bluebell]

I found my old sash. I remember you wore it over one shoulder. I looked at the tag on the inside and it says Brownies Girl Scouts, so they must have been connected. I’m not sure why I kept it, I’m pretty sure I was only in it for one year. I don’t even think we were active in the church yet when I was a Brownie. 

[Kevin Christensen]

A Happy Way to Live: For Muriel Christensen on her Centennial
By Kevin Christensen
In announcing plans for a celebration of Mom’s approaching centennial, my sister sent an email saying that “Mom made it clear that she would rather be known for something other than being OLD,” and has asked for memories.   I will gather a few memories here.   In gathering them, I want to put them together in light of comments Mom has occasionally made about the gospel as “A happy way to live.”  I’ve recently read a few articles on a Harvard Study of about eight hundred people over sixty to eighty years that focused on the decisions and actions people took that most contributed to their happiness.    So I will compare my memories of Mom with the six issues that the Harvard Study found as most important in contributing to happiness.  
First:  Avoid Smoking and Alcohol
Well, no surprise here.   That has been one of the perks of LDS culture, though, it should not be forgotten that it is not as though such choices were not always available.  Dad’s side of the family offered some cautionary tales on that.  And Grandpa Harry, we know, died of lung cancer, not because he smoked but, as I recall, due to second hand smoke on busses.  But the article also goes on to say “Maintaining a healthy weight increased lifespan and regular exercise boosted both longevity and happiness. Plain and simple: those things you know you're supposed to do to stay healthy? Do them.” 
When we were little, I remember Mom putting on the Jack LaLane work out show on TV, and joining him in his exercise routines.  And one of the reasons we had a push mower for the lawn rather than a power mower was so that we would get some exercise.  Mom got us outdoors to play stink base, or pomp, or Any I Over, or No Bears Are Out Tonight, and she got us out in the winter, dragging our sleds up the hill, and in summer, camping and hiking in the mountains and canyons, and on Memorial Days, hiking back from the Cleveland Cemetary.  In Kansas City Mom and Dad used to go to Malls to walk.  When they worked at the Church Office Building, they were known as the Roadrunners for taking the stairs, and walking round the neighborhoods.   We’d come to visit in the winter and find Mom in her 90s shoveling snow because it is good exercise.  And we should not forget the garden and our fruit trees as a fixture running through all of our memories as a constant presence and reminder of the cycles of life: weeding, and tilling, raking, planting, more weeding, and eventually the harvest, and canning.  And that effort contributed to well-planned meals, that included fruits and vegetables, and always balanced and sensible nutrition.  
Mom embraced the notion of living healthy, and continues to lead by example.  And I can remember from a very young age being impressed by the obvious differences in the life of neighbors where such things had not been embraced.   
Second:  Education
The years of education improved the health of everyone in the study, regardless of where they began, or where they went to school.  So Mom graduated from BYU, and got a teaching certificate.  And she encouraged us to do so as well.  So we all got degrees of one kind or another, however quickly or slowly we did.  Emphasis on education started early, with Dad reading books to us, and with Mom and Dad seeing to it that we had books in the house.  Thanks to them. we had encyclopedias, our own hardbound Wiki, our own little pre-internet in the family room where we could browse a wide range of topics, and read at random, letting individual curiosity guide us.  I remember the arrival of a box of records, containing not just music but programmatic commentary, giving us an in-house history of music and culture.  That was our YouTube.  Mom took us to libraries from an early age where she let us load up with books, and she took us on trips to zoos and Pioneer Village, and to Dinosaur Monument, and the Cleveland Lloyd Quarry.  And she saw to it that we did not watch too much TV by setting limits, especially during the school year, and more importantly, setting an example.  Mom and Dad both read, conspicuously, avidly, and joyfully.  And she told stories.  I have very early memories of Brian and I in our bed, and Mom coming in to try to settle us down with Three Little Pigs, and my favorite, Three Billy Goats Gruff.   I remember laughing uncontrollably as Mom acted out the Big Billy goat butting the Troll off the bridge, clutching her hair in my fingers, basking in the feeling of being loved, as she left the room, and turned out the lights on another day.
Third: A Happy Childhood
Mom grew up in Cleveland Utah, a tiny little town in Emery County, with a little bit of side walk by the two little stores, and the church, and the post office, and the school.  And then the lines of poplar trees, and the open irrigation ditches, and the wood and wire fences, and gardens, and stacks of coal in the yards, and the milk weed and wild asparagus.   Harry and Myrtle Mortensen had four girls, Arvalu, Muriel, Ona, Lael, and  the boy, Boyd.  Mom has such fond memories of growing up that I have heard her say wistfully that she wishes they could have all stayed at home and lived together forever.   She talks about going out for a church activity that amounted to gathering around a campfire and having a baked potato.  She grew in a little desert town during the Roaring Twenties, missing the roar, and spent her teenage years during the depression, saying, “We didn’t know we were poor.”  One of my favorite Mom stories comes later, when grandson Rob and Mauvia’s daughter, Jamaica was in about third or fourth grade, and they had been asked to come and do a report for her class on what it was like to grow up during the depression.  So Mom and Dad prepared, and when they got there, found that all the walls dividing the different classes had been moved aside, and their presentation was for all the kids, not just one class.  Undaunted, Mom tells us that she brought out a shoe box and asked the kids if they knew what that was.  
“A shoe box?”
“No,” says Mom, “This was my doll house.”  And she showed how she cut out pictures from catalogues to make her dolls.  And she showed them how she did it, demonstrating with people she had cut out for that occasion.  And Dad showed how he used a spool and nail and an elastic band to make a racing toy.  And they were off telling about the ways they made their own fun.  She says that the teachers probably expected to hear all sorts of deprivation stories of hard times and suffering.  But by the end, Mom finished by saying, “So, do you think we had fun during the Depression?”  And all the kids shouted in enthusiastic unison, “YES!”  
The Aging Well Study directly says that “for both the Inner City men and the Harvard men the best predictor of a high income was not their parents' social class but whether their mother had made them feel loved.” 
The Study also says that:
So if your childhood was less than perfect and your adolescence felt like a bad reality show, does this mean you're doomed? 
No. What went right in childhood was much more predictive than what went wrong.
And finally, for those who had a lot go wrong:
And there's even more reason for hope. Sometimes love and support come late — but that can be enough to heal old wounds. 
When people found a loving spouse or trusted friends in adulthood, the damage of a tough childhood could be undone.
Mom has also offered love and support to many that has helped undo the damage in a rough childhood. All of us have had our difficulties, either imposed on us, or as a consequence of poor decisions we have made on our own at times.  But Mom has always been a steady source of love and support.  I am told that when I was very young, I had asthma, and there were nights when Mom stayed up with me all night to make sure I would make it through.  That is tough on a parent, but they endured, and better days came. 
On one occasion when Merilee needed to get a shot, Mom and Dad decided to smooth the way by saying they were going to get ice cream.  Well, Merilee is still mad about that and so parents have to learn from their mistakes.  
The Aging Well Study says:
It is not the bad things that happen to us that doom us; it is the good people who happen to us at any age that facilitate enjoyable old age.
For example, once when Mom played the flute in the band in her little high school, about to settle into her chair, a thoughtless boy pulled the chair out from under her, so she sat down hard on her tailbone.  It hurt a lot.  Well, she later married the culprit.  It’s important that she told him that he had hurt her and that he never did it again.  That too is part of living in a happy way.  Being able to forgive, and accept forgiveness.
Their love story has remarkable aspects.  Dad had gone into the army in 1941, and was due to get out in 1942, which turned out not to be a good year to get out, thanks to the U.S. entry in to the war.  There were Depression Era rules that if a single woman got married, she could not have a job.  And a soldier had to get permission to get married.  And there was the looming prospect of war itself.  But as Mom told us, Grandma approached her and said that she had a strong impression that she should marry Wally.  So, Mom considered the situation, and then proposed, arrangements were made, and they met in Ogden for long enough to marry before Dad went back to his duties, and Mom went back home alone.  Once married, Dad, who at that time was company clerk, decided that he ought to become an officer to better support his family.  And that led to a series of serendipitous events that led to Dad going to Europe in a Tank Destroyer Battalion, rather than to the Philippines in an Infantry division that became part in the Bataan Death March. He survived his time in North Africa, and the war in Europe, and returned to his wife to begin a family.  She’d write to Dad, and say, I hope you aren’t in this action, and he’d write back, “That’s just where I was.”  But he survived.  In late life, Mom has reconsidered the importance of following that inspiration.  A passage in the D&C says, “Let no man count them as small things; for there is much in futurity… which depends on these things.”  There is a vast difference in results between acting on impulse, not considering the consequences beyond the moment, and acting on inspiration.
Fourth: Relationships are Everything
The Aging Well Study directly states:
Successful aging requires continuing to learn new things and continuing to take people in ... a widening social radius at age 50 was just as important to successful psychosocial aging as emotional maturity.
One of Mom’s most visible and extraordinary talents is that she knows what is going on in everyone’s life.  She knows about the lives and circumstances of all of her children, their spouses, their children, and their children’s children.  One of the effects of that ongoing love and interest on her part, is that so many take a reciprocal interest in Mom.  My daughter Karina named her second daughter Muriel, because, as she says, “Grandma is amazing!”
The Aging Well Study says:
What's one of the biggest mistakes we make when it comes to relationships? Not working hard enough to create new ones when the old ones fade away.
Mom has known losses.  I remember after Grandma Mortensen’s funeral driving past the home that was setting for her childhood, and Mom commenting that with Grandma’s absence it looked “like a house with a broken heart.”  And she has lived past many more losses since then, outliving her brother, several sisters and just a few years ago, her husband.  But she characteristically learns new things, and embraces changes as she guards her traditions, and nurtures new relationships. 
After Grandma Mortenson died, Mom reports being in the Temple.  At this time, daughter Merilee had grown and was pregnant again, after having six boys.  Mom reports that she very clearly heard Grandma say, “It’s a girl!” as though the secret was too good to keep to herself.  Our losses aren’t the end of our joys.
One of my favorite memories with Mom is when Karina brought her little namesake to see her.  When we’d say, “Muriel, do a somersault,” and the little darling did so, Mom laughed and laughed as though she didn’t have an almost uncountable hoard of other grandchildren, and great grandchildren, seen over decades of life, celebrating that moment for itself and the joy and newness of it.
Fifth: Coping Skills
The Aging Well Study contrasts good and bad coping skills:
Blaming others, being passive-aggressive, living in denial, acting out and retreating into fantasy were all maladaptive coping mechanisms associated with poor outcomes. These behaviors soothed bad feelings in the short term and wreaked havoc in the long term by ruining relationships and producing lousy life decisions.
However presidential that behavior sounds, it does not describe Mom.  How about the good coping skills? The Aging Well Study says the good skills can be described as Virtues.
These four mature coping strategies are not only associated with maturity, but they can be reframed as 
Altruism:  doing as one would be done by; 
Sublimation: artistic creation to resolve conflict and spinning straw into gold;
Suppression: a stiff upper lip, patience, seeing the bright side;
Humor: and the ability not to take oneself too seriously.
Mom has always demonstrated the Golden Rule.   I can think of one incident when I was trying her patience with a series of poor grades in seventh grade English, when she finally lost her temper with me.  I later became an English Major, and have been a professional writer since 1984, and have published dozens of essays.  So I eventually got that sorted out.  But Mom, within an hour or so of losing her temper, came and apologized to me, and never did it again, which, considering me, is quite remarkable.  She has shown characteristic patience in dealing with the sorts of challenges that life offers, and taken joy in life’s simple pleasures.  She talks about how much she enjoyed her first washing machine, “looking at the suds.” 
It was Mom who taught us to bake our first cakes and batches of rollout cookies.  Even before that, I remember being home with Mom and her coming up with notions of using flour and water and salt and food coloring for us to make little sculptures of our idea of some animal.  That is her preventing conflicts and getting us involved in creation.
As for seeing the bright side, a few years ago, while visiting Mom and Dad, and hearing Dad talk about how as a child he has suffered burns and scarring on his neck and part of his face from a celluloid collar being ignited by a tossed match, and talking about how that scarring was a source of shame to him for a long time.  (The complete healing took him into adulthood.)  Shauna asked Mom how she felt about Dad’s facial scars.  “I fell in love with the other side,” she said, without a pause.   After 80 years together, Mom and Dad teased and laughed together. 
Sixth: Generativity- that is, Community Building
The Aging Well Study says:
Generativity can mean serving as a consultant, guide, mentor, or coach to young adults in the larger society. Research reveals that between age 30 and 45 our need for achievement declines and our need for community and affiliation increases.
Aside from building her own family and maintaining connections to her siblings, and dad’s siblings, Mom famously served as a guide patrol teacher in the primary for eight years.   Dealing with ongoing squads of squabbling squirrely baby boomer boys for that long is remarkable.  After Blake started going to school, Mom went back to teaching, first in Utah, and then in Kansas.  And after Dad retired, they served a mission working with an Asian Branch in the Washington DC area, hearing stories of boat people, who had escaped the wars and violence in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.  She used her skills as a teacher to help them, even bucking the authority of a local leader to do so.  After their mission, and into their retirement, she and Dad performed a series of service mission in the Church Office building, doing genealogy work.  And they traveled to Iceland and Norway, and Egypt and New Zealand, as well as Goblin Valley and the Grand Canyon.  They attended the Hale Theater for years, watching a wide range of plays.  She does her visiting teaching and ministering, and reads the newspaper, and books, and scriptures.   She cooks and cleans, and visits, and writes emails to family, and uses computers to track all of the birthday cards she wants to send to all her descendants, involved in family, making it both a work, and a glory.
Ultimately, what matters most is not how long or short we live, or what happens to us, but what we become.  And Mom has become a wonderful example of a happy way to live.

I wrote this five years ago for my Mom's Centennial.  She died last year at 105.  Til the end embodying a happy way to live.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Tooele, UT

Edited May 22, 2025 by Kevin Christensen

[Tacenda]

1 hour ago, Kevin Christensen said:

A Happy Way to Live: For Muriel Christensen on her Centennial
By Kevin Christensen
In announcing plans for a celebration of Mom’s approaching centennial, my sister sent an email saying that “Mom made it clear that she would rather be known for something other than being OLD,” and has asked for memories.   I will gather a few memories here.   In gathering them, I want to put them together in light of comments Mom has occasionally made about the gospel as “A happy way to live.”  I’ve recently read a few articles on a Harvard Study of about eight hundred people over sixty to eighty years that focused on the decisions and actions people took that most contributed to their happiness.    So I will compare my memories of Mom with the six issues that the Harvard Study found as most important in contributing to happiness.  
First:  Avoid Smoking and Alcohol
Well, no surprise here.   That has been one of the perks of LDS culture, though, it should not be forgotten that it is not as though such choices were not always available.  Dad’s side of the family offered some cautionary tales on that.  And Grandpa Harry, we know, died of lung cancer, not because he smoked but, as I recall, due to second hand smoke on busses.  But the article also goes on to say “Maintaining a healthy weight increased lifespan and regular exercise boosted both longevity and happiness. Plain and simple: those things you know you're supposed to do to stay healthy? Do them.” 
When we were little, I remember Mom putting on the Jack LaLane work out show on TV, and joining him in his exercise routines.  And one of the reasons we had a push mower for the lawn rather than a power mower was so that we would get some exercise.  Mom got us outdoors to play stink base, or pomp, or Any I Over, or No Bears Are Out Tonight, and she got us out in the winter, dragging our sleds up the hill, and in summer, camping and hiking in the mountains and canyons, and on Memorial Days, hiking back from the Cleveland Cemetary.  In Kansas City Mom and Dad used to go to Malls to walk.  When they worked at the Church Office Building, they were known as the Roadrunners for taking the stairs, and walking round the neighborhoods.   We’d come to visit in the winter and find Mom in her 90s shoveling snow because it is good exercise.  And we should not forget the garden and our fruit trees as a fixture running through all of our memories as a constant presence and reminder of the cycles of life: weeding, and tilling, raking, planting, more weeding, and eventually the harvest, and canning.  And that effort contributed to well-planned meals, that included fruits and vegetables, and always balanced and sensible nutrition.  
Mom embraced the notion of living healthy, and continues to lead by example.  And I can remember from a very young age being impressed by the obvious differences in the life of neighbors where such things had not been embraced.   
Second:  Education
The years of education improved the health of everyone in the study, regardless of where they began, or where they went to school.  So Mom graduated from BYU, and got a teaching certificate.  And she encouraged us to do so as well.  So we all got degrees of one kind or another, however quickly or slowly we did.  Emphasis on education started early, with Dad reading books to us, and with Mom and Dad seeing to it that we had books in the house.  Thanks to them. we had encyclopedias, our own hardbound Wiki, our own little pre-internet in the family room where we could browse a wide range of topics, and read at random, letting individual curiosity guide us.  I remember the arrival of a box of records, containing not just music but programmatic commentary, giving us an in-house history of music and culture.  That was our YouTube.  Mom took us to libraries from an early age where she let us load up with books, and she took us on trips to zoos and Pioneer Village, and to Dinosaur Monument, and the Cleveland Lloyd Quarry.  And she saw to it that we did not watch too much TV by setting limits, especially during the school year, and more importantly, setting an example.  Mom and Dad both read, conspicuously, avidly, and joyfully.  And she told stories.  I have very early memories of Brian and I in our bed, and Mom coming in to try to settle us down with Three Little Pigs, and my favorite, Three Billy Goats Gruff.   I remember laughing uncontrollably as Mom acted out the Big Billy goat butting the Troll off the bridge, clutching her hair in my fingers, basking in the feeling of being loved, as she left the room, and turned out the lights on another day.
Third: A Happy Childhood
Mom grew up in Cleveland Utah, a tiny little town in Emery County, with a little bit of side walk by the two little stores, and the church, and the post office, and the school.  And then the lines of poplar trees, and the open irrigation ditches, and the wood and wire fences, and gardens, and stacks of coal in the yards, and the milk weed and wild asparagus.   Harry and Myrtle Mortensen had four girls, Arvalu, Muriel, Ona, Lael, and  the boy, Boyd.  Mom has such fond memories of growing up that I have heard her say wistfully that she wishes they could have all stayed at home and lived together forever.   She talks about going out for a church activity that amounted to gathering around a campfire and having a baked potato.  She grew in a little desert town during the Roaring Twenties, missing the roar, and spent her teenage years during the depression, saying, “We didn’t know we were poor.”  One of my favorite Mom stories comes later, when grandson Rob and Mauvia’s daughter, Jamaica was in about third or fourth grade, and they had been asked to come and do a report for her class on what it was like to grow up during the depression.  So Mom and Dad prepared, and when they got there, found that all the walls dividing the different classes had been moved aside, and their presentation was for all the kids, not just one class.  Undaunted, Mom tells us that she brought out a shoe box and asked the kids if they knew what that was.  
“A shoe box?”
“No,” says Mom, “This was my doll house.”  And she showed how she cut out pictures from catalogues to make her dolls.  And she showed them how she did it, demonstrating with people she had cut out for that occasion.  And Dad showed how he used a spool and nail and an elastic band to make a racing toy.  And they were off telling about the ways they made their own fun.  She says that the teachers probably expected to hear all sorts of deprivation stories of hard times and suffering.  But by the end, Mom finished by saying, “So, do you think we had fun during the Depression?”  And all the kids shouted in enthusiastic unison, “YES!”  
The Aging Well Study directly says that “for both the Inner City men and the Harvard men the best predictor of a high income was not their parents' social class but whether their mother had made them feel loved.” 
The Study also says that:
So if your childhood was less than perfect and your adolescence felt like a bad reality show, does this mean you're doomed? 
No. What went right in childhood was much more predictive than what went wrong.
And finally, for those who had a lot go wrong:
And there's even more reason for hope. Sometimes love and support come late — but that can be enough to heal old wounds. 
When people found a loving spouse or trusted friends in adulthood, the damage of a tough childhood could be undone.
Mom has also offered love and support to many that has helped undo the damage in a rough childhood. All of us have had our difficulties, either imposed on us, or as a consequence of poor decisions we have made on our own at times.  But Mom has always been a steady source of love and support.  I am told that when I was very young, I had asthma, and there were nights when Mom stayed up with me all night to make sure I would make it through.  That is tough on a parent, but they endured, and better days came. 
On one occasion when Merilee needed to get a shot, Mom and Dad decided to smooth the way by saying they were going to get ice cream.  Well, Merilee is still mad about that and so parents have to learn from their mistakes.  
The Aging Well Study says:
It is not the bad things that happen to us that doom us; it is the good people who happen to us at any age that facilitate enjoyable old age.
For example, once when Mom played the flute in the band in her little high school, about to settle into her chair, a thoughtless boy pulled the chair out from under her, so she sat down hard on her tailbone.  It hurt a lot.  Well, she later married the culprit.  It’s important that she told him that he had hurt her and that he never did it again.  That too is part of living in a happy way.  Being able to forgive, and accept forgiveness.
Their love story has remarkable aspects.  Dad had gone into the army in 1941, and was due to get out in 1942, which turned out not to be a good year to get out, thanks to the U.S. entry in to the war.  There were Depression Era rules that if a single woman got married, she could not have a job.  And a soldier had to get permission to get married.  And there was the looming prospect of war itself.  But as Mom told us, Grandma approached her and said that she had a strong impression that she should marry Wally.  So, Mom considered the situation, and then proposed, arrangements were made, and they met in Ogden for long enough to marry before Dad went back to his duties, and Mom went back home alone.  Once married, Dad, who at that time was company clerk, decided that he ought to become an officer to better support his family.  And that led to a series of serendipitous events that led to Dad going to Europe in a Tank Destroyer Battalion, rather than to the Philippines in an Infantry division that became part in the Bataan Death March. He survived his time in North Africa, and the war in Europe, and returned to his wife to begin a family.  She’d write to Dad, and say, I hope you aren’t in this action, and he’d write back, “That’s just where I was.”  But he survived.  In late life, Mom has reconsidered the importance of following that inspiration.  A passage in the D&C says, “Let no man count them as small things; for there is much in futurity… which depends on these things.”  There is a vast difference in results between acting on impulse, not considering the consequences beyond the moment, and acting on inspiration.
Fourth: Relationships are Everything
The Aging Well Study directly states:
Successful aging requires continuing to learn new things and continuing to take people in ... a widening social radius at age 50 was just as important to successful psychosocial aging as emotional maturity.
One of Mom’s most visible and extraordinary talents is that she knows what is going on in everyone’s life.  She knows about the lives and circumstances of all of her children, their spouses, their children, and their children’s children.  One of the effects of that ongoing love and interest on her part, is that so many take a reciprocal interest in Mom.  My daughter Karina named her second daughter Muriel, because, as she says, “Grandma is amazing!”
The Aging Well Study says:
What's one of the biggest mistakes we make when it comes to relationships? Not working hard enough to create new ones when the old ones fade away.
Mom has known losses.  I remember after Grandma Mortensen’s funeral driving past the home that was setting for her childhood, and Mom commenting that with Grandma’s absence it looked “like a house with a broken heart.”  And she has lived past many more losses since then, outliving her brother, several sisters and just a few years ago, her husband.  But she characteristically learns new things, and embraces changes as she guards her traditions, and nurtures new relationships. 
After Grandma Mortenson died, Mom reports being in the Temple.  At this time, daughter Merilee had grown and was pregnant again, after having six boys.  Mom reports that she very clearly heard Grandma say, “It’s a girl!” as though the secret was too good to keep to herself.  Our losses aren’t the end of our joys.
One of my favorite memories with Mom is when Karina brought her little namesake to see her.  When we’d say, “Muriel, do a somersault,” and the little darling did so, Mom laughed and laughed as though she didn’t have an almost uncountable hoard of other grandchildren, and great grandchildren, seen over decades of life, celebrating that moment for itself and the joy and newness of it.
Fifth: Coping Skills
The Aging Well Study contrasts good and bad coping skills:
Blaming others, being passive-aggressive, living in denial, acting out and retreating into fantasy were all maladaptive coping mechanisms associated with poor outcomes. These behaviors soothed bad feelings in the short term and wreaked havoc in the long term by ruining relationships and producing lousy life decisions.
However presidential that behavior sounds, it does not describe Mom.  How about the good coping skills? The Aging Well Study says the good skills can be described as Virtues.
These four mature coping strategies are not only associated with maturity, but they can be reframed as 
Altruism:  doing as one would be done by; 
Sublimation: artistic creation to resolve conflict and spinning straw into gold;
Suppression: a stiff upper lip, patience, seeing the bright side;
Humor: and the ability not to take oneself too seriously.
Mom has always demonstrated the Golden Rule.   I can think of one incident when I was trying her patience with a series of poor grades in seventh grade English, when she finally lost her temper with me.  I later became an English Major, and have been a professional writer since 1984, and have published dozens of essays.  So I eventually got that sorted out.  But Mom, within an hour or so of losing her temper, came and apologized to me, and never did it again, which, considering me, is quite remarkable.  She has shown characteristic patience in dealing with the sorts of challenges that life offers, and taken joy in life’s simple pleasures.  She talks about how much she enjoyed her first washing machine, “looking at the suds.” 
It was Mom who taught us to bake our first cakes and batches of rollout cookies.  Even before that, I remember being home with Mom and her coming up with notions of using flour and water and salt and food coloring for us to make little sculptures of our idea of some animal.  That is her preventing conflicts and getting us involved in creation.
As for seeing the bright side, a few years ago, while visiting Mom and Dad, and hearing Dad talk about how as a child he has suffered burns and scarring on his neck and part of his face from a celluloid collar being ignited by a tossed match, and talking about how that scarring was a source of shame to him for a long time.  (The complete healing took him into adulthood.)  Shauna asked Mom how she felt about Dad’s facial scars.  “I fell in love with the other side,” she said, without a pause.   After 80 years together, Mom and Dad teased and laughed together. 
Sixth: Generativity- that is, Community Building
The Aging Well Study says:
Generativity can mean serving as a consultant, guide, mentor, or coach to young adults in the larger society. Research reveals that between age 30 and 45 our need for achievement declines and our need for community and affiliation increases.
Aside from building her own family and maintaining connections to her siblings, and dad’s siblings, Mom famously served as a guide patrol teacher in the primary for eight years.   Dealing with ongoing squads of squabbling squirrely baby boomer boys for that long is remarkable.  After Blake started going to school, Mom went back to teaching, first in Utah, and then in Kansas.  And after Dad retired, they served a mission working with an Asian Branch in the Washington DC area, hearing stories of boat people, who had escaped the wars and violence in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.  She used her skills as a teacher to help them, even bucking the authority of a local leader to do so.  After their mission, and into their retirement, she and Dad performed a series of service mission in the Church Office building, doing genealogy work.  And they traveled to Iceland and Norway, and Egypt and New Zealand, as well as Goblin Valley and the Grand Canyon.  They attended the Hale Theater for years, watching a wide range of plays.  She does her visiting teaching and ministering, and reads the newspaper, and books, and scriptures.   She cooks and cleans, and visits, and writes emails to family, and uses computers to track all of the birthday cards she wants to send to all her descendants, involved in family, making it both a work, and a glory.
Ultimately, what matters most is not how long or short we live, or what happens to us, but what we become.  And Mom has become a wonderful example of a happy way to live.

I wrote this five years ago for my Mom's Centennial.  She died last year at 105.  Til the end embodying a happy way to live.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Tooele, UT

I'm so glad you shared this! I read every word! 

[mbh26]

On 5/17/2025 at 1:42 AM, Tacenda said:

My experience tonight after having dinner with long time friends. This friend is in the High Council and gives talks regularly to different wards in their stake. I get frustrated at his actions or non actions. First his poor wife, she is the Primary President, she's caring for her parents and she's caring for her grandchildren on a weekly basis. This friend in the High Council was on his phone nearly the entire night scrolling which is a common occurrence, he doesn't really engage with the conversation. His wife has been run ragged. She has lost an extreme amount of weight. She and her husband are the one of 10 in their ward to do a lot of high up demanding callings over and over and over again. They are now in their late fifties. Sometimes I believe this husband doesn't look out for his wife's well being enough. I would think he'd be better. I hate to see the unhappiness with members and wonder why, if the church is so good how come there are a lot of problems. Such as this friend's parents she's been helping with. Her parents have served two of three missions and don't get along that well. What is up with that? You'd think they would be happier. Does the church put too much strain on people? The problem with having to strive to live perfect lives and then being let down when one can't attain it possibly? I've been inactive for a bit, and to be honest I feel better in my skin than I did as an active member. Maybe it's how I thought in my head all the time of not being the perfect member all the time. And now thinking those that don't do that are happier. Or maybe this is a late night post that will maybe not go anywhere and for good reason because I'm wrong. 

Or life is difficult for everyone in any religion.

I think the idea is that when we're focused on the Savior we can be happy regardless of what is happening or not happening in our lives. The source of all joy is Jesus Christ.  That's a spiritual joy.  That doesn't mean we all don't still have our own crosses to bear in this world.  

Edited May 23, 2025 by mbh26

[3DOP]

On 5/17/2025 at 1:42 AM, Tacenda said:

My experience tonight after having dinner with long time friends. This friend is in the High Council and gives talks regularly to different wards in their stake. I get frustrated at his actions or non actions. First his poor wife, she is the Primary President, she's caring for her parents and she's caring for her grandchildren on a weekly basis. This friend in the High Council was on his phone nearly the entire night scrolling which is a common occurrence, he doesn't really engage with the conversation. His wife has been run ragged. She has lost an extreme amount of weight. She and her husband are the one of 10 in their ward to do a lot of high up demanding callings over and over and over again. They are now in their late fifties. Sometimes I believe this husband doesn't look out for his wife's well being enough. I would think he'd be better. I hate to see the unhappiness with members and wonder why, if the church is so good how come there are a lot of problems. Such as this friend's parents she's been helping with. Her parents have served two of three missions and don't get along that well. What is up with that? You'd think they would be happier. Does the church put too much strain on people? The problem with having to strive to live perfect lives and then being let down when one can't attain it possibly? I've been inactive for a bit, and to be honest I feel better in my skin than I did as an active member. Maybe it's how I thought in my head all the time of not being the perfect member all the time. And now thinking those that don't do that are happier. Or maybe this is a late night post that will maybe not go anywhere and for good reason because I'm wrong. 

Or life is difficult for everyone in any religion.

 Heh, Tacenda. Life is difficult! If it were easy, we would not seek God in religion.

 

On 5/17/2025 at 1:42 AM, Tacenda said:

My experience tonight after having dinner with long time friends. This friend is in the High Council and gives talks regularly to different wards in their stake. I get frustrated at his actions or non actions. First his poor wife, she is the Primary President, she's caring for her parents and she's caring for her grandchildren on a weekly basis. This friend in the High Council was on his phone nearly the entire night scrolling which is a common occurrence, he doesn't really engage with the conversation. His wife has been run ragged. She has lost an extreme amount of weight. She and her husband are the one of 10 in their ward to do a lot of high up demanding callings over and over and over again. They are now in their late fifties. Sometimes I believe this husband doesn't look out for his wife's well being enough. I would think he'd be better. I hate to see the unhappiness with members and wonder why, if the church is so good how come there are a lot of problems. Such as this friend's parents she's been helping with. Her parents have served two of three missions and don't get along that well. What is up with that? You'd think they would be happier. Does the church put too much strain on people? The problem with having to strive to live perfect lives and then being let down when one can't attain it possibly? I've been inactive for a bit, and to be honest I feel better in my skin than I did as an active member. Maybe it's how I thought in my head all the time of not being the perfect member all the time. And now thinking those that don't do that are happier. Or maybe this is a late night post that will maybe not go anywhere and for good reason because I'm wrong. 

Or life is difficult for everyone in any religion.

Heh, Tacenda. If life were easy, would many seek solace in religion?

If our priests were married with children, or what comes next, caring for aged parents, it seems like I would never call them in the middle of the night for the last Sacraments for myself or loved ones.

The Catholic Church teaches that each of us have a "vocation". Each of us need to discern the state of life is to which we are called. No matter our calling, it will involve self-sacrifice, and even suffering for those to whom we are obliged to minister. Most are called to the Sacrament of Matrimony. A select few  are called to the Sacrament of Holy Orders. Some, a very few are called to both. 

 

[3DOP]

On 5/22/2025 at 11:44 AM, Kevin Christensen said:

A Happy Way to Live: For Muriel Christensen on her Centennial
By Kevin Christensen
In announcing plans for a celebration of Mom’s approaching centennial, my sister sent an email saying that “Mom made it clear that she would rather be known for something other than being OLD,” and has asked for memories.   I will gather a few memories here.   In gathering them, I want to put them together in light of comments Mom has occasionally made about the gospel as “A happy way to live.”  I’ve recently read a few articles on a Harvard Study of about eight hundred people over sixty to eighty years that focused on the decisions and actions people took that most contributed to their happiness.    So I will compare my memories of Mom with the six issues that the Harvard Study found as most important in contributing to happiness.  
First:  Avoid Smoking and Alcohol
Well, no surprise here.   That has been one of the perks of LDS culture, though, it should not be forgotten that it is not as though such choices were not always available.  Dad’s side of the family offered some cautionary tales on that.  And Grandpa Harry, we know, died of lung cancer, not because he smoked but, as I recall, due to second hand smoke on busses.  But the article also goes on to say “Maintaining a healthy weight increased lifespan and regular exercise boosted both longevity and happiness. Plain and simple: those things you know you're supposed to do to stay healthy? Do them.” 
When we were little, I remember Mom putting on the Jack LaLane work out show on TV, and joining him in his exercise routines.  And one of the reasons we had a push mower for the lawn rather than a power mower was so that we would get some exercise.  Mom got us outdoors to play stink base, or pomp, or Any I Over, or No Bears Are Out Tonight, and she got us out in the winter, dragging our sleds up the hill, and in summer, camping and hiking in the mountains and canyons, and on Memorial Days, hiking back from the Cleveland Cemetary.  In Kansas City Mom and Dad used to go to Malls to walk.  When they worked at the Church Office Building, they were known as the Roadrunners for taking the stairs, and walking round the neighborhoods.   We’d come to visit in the winter and find Mom in her 90s shoveling snow because it is good exercise.  And we should not forget the garden and our fruit trees as a fixture running through all of our memories as a constant presence and reminder of the cycles of life: weeding, and tilling, raking, planting, more weeding, and eventually the harvest, and canning.  And that effort contributed to well-planned meals, that included fruits and vegetables, and always balanced and sensible nutrition.  
Mom embraced the notion of living healthy, and continues to lead by example.  And I can remember from a very young age being impressed by the obvious differences in the life of neighbors where such things had not been embraced.   
Second:  Education
The years of education improved the health of everyone in the study, regardless of where they began, or where they went to school.  So Mom graduated from BYU, and got a teaching certificate.  And she encouraged us to do so as well.  So we all got degrees of one kind or another, however quickly or slowly we did.  Emphasis on education started early, with Dad reading books to us, and with Mom and Dad seeing to it that we had books in the house.  Thanks to them. we had encyclopedias, our own hardbound Wiki, our own little pre-internet in the family room where we could browse a wide range of topics, and read at random, letting individual curiosity guide us.  I remember the arrival of a box of records, containing not just music but programmatic commentary, giving us an in-house history of music and culture.  That was our YouTube.  Mom took us to libraries from an early age where she let us load up with books, and she took us on trips to zoos and Pioneer Village, and to Dinosaur Monument, and the Cleveland Lloyd Quarry.  And she saw to it that we did not watch too much TV by setting limits, especially during the school year, and more importantly, setting an example.  Mom and Dad both read, conspicuously, avidly, and joyfully.  And she told stories.  I have very early memories of Brian and I in our bed, and Mom coming in to try to settle us down with Three Little Pigs, and my favorite, Three Billy Goats Gruff.   I remember laughing uncontrollably as Mom acted out the Big Billy goat butting the Troll off the bridge, clutching her hair in my fingers, basking in the feeling of being loved, as she left the room, and turned out the lights on another day.
Third: A Happy Childhood
Mom grew up in Cleveland Utah, a tiny little town in Emery County, with a little bit of side walk by the two little stores, and the church, and the post office, and the school.  And then the lines of poplar trees, and the open irrigation ditches, and the wood and wire fences, and gardens, and stacks of coal in the yards, and the milk weed and wild asparagus.   Harry and Myrtle Mortensen had four girls, Arvalu, Muriel, Ona, Lael, and  the boy, Boyd.  Mom has such fond memories of growing up that I have heard her say wistfully that she wishes they could have all stayed at home and lived together forever.   She talks about going out for a church activity that amounted to gathering around a campfire and having a baked potato.  She grew in a little desert town during the Roaring Twenties, missing the roar, and spent her teenage years during the depression, saying, “We didn’t know we were poor.”  One of my favorite Mom stories comes later, when grandson Rob and Mauvia’s daughter, Jamaica was in about third or fourth grade, and they had been asked to come and do a report for her class on what it was like to grow up during the depression.  So Mom and Dad prepared, and when they got there, found that all the walls dividing the different classes had been moved aside, and their presentation was for all the kids, not just one class.  Undaunted, Mom tells us that she brought out a shoe box and asked the kids if they knew what that was.  
“A shoe box?”
“No,” says Mom, “This was my doll house.”  And she showed how she cut out pictures from catalogues to make her dolls.  And she showed them how she did it, demonstrating with people she had cut out for that occasion.  And Dad showed how he used a spool and nail and an elastic band to make a racing toy.  And they were off telling about the ways they made their own fun.  She says that the teachers probably expected to hear all sorts of deprivation stories of hard times and suffering.  But by the end, Mom finished by saying, “So, do you think we had fun during the Depression?”  And all the kids shouted in enthusiastic unison, “YES!”  
The Aging Well Study directly says that “for both the Inner City men and the Harvard men the best predictor of a high income was not their parents' social class but whether their mother had made them feel loved.” 
The Study also says that:
So if your childhood was less than perfect and your adolescence felt like a bad reality show, does this mean you're doomed? 
No. What went right in childhood was much more predictive than what went wrong.
And finally, for those who had a lot go wrong:
And there's even more reason for hope. Sometimes love and support come late — but that can be enough to heal old wounds. 
When people found a loving spouse or trusted friends in adulthood, the damage of a tough childhood could be undone.
Mom has also offered love and support to many that has helped undo the damage in a rough childhood. All of us have had our difficulties, either imposed on us, or as a consequence of poor decisions we have made on our own at times.  But Mom has always been a steady source of love and support.  I am told that when I was very young, I had asthma, and there were nights when Mom stayed up with me all night to make sure I would make it through.  That is tough on a parent, but they endured, and better days came. 
On one occasion when Merilee needed to get a shot, Mom and Dad decided to smooth the way by saying they were going to get ice cream.  Well, Merilee is still mad about that and so parents have to learn from their mistakes.  
The Aging Well Study says:
It is not the bad things that happen to us that doom us; it is the good people who happen to us at any age that facilitate enjoyable old age.
For example, once when Mom played the flute in the band in her little high school, about to settle into her chair, a thoughtless boy pulled the chair out from under her, so she sat down hard on her tailbone.  It hurt a lot.  Well, she later married the culprit.  It’s important that she told him that he had hurt her and that he never did it again.  That too is part of living in a happy way.  Being able to forgive, and accept forgiveness.
Their love story has remarkable aspects.  Dad had gone into the army in 1941, and was due to get out in 1942, which turned out not to be a good year to get out, thanks to the U.S. entry in to the war.  There were Depression Era rules that if a single woman got married, she could not have a job.  And a soldier had to get permission to get married.  And there was the looming prospect of war itself.  But as Mom told us, Grandma approached her and said that she had a strong impression that she should marry Wally.  So, Mom considered the situation, and then proposed, arrangements were made, and they met in Ogden for long enough to marry before Dad went back to his duties, and Mom went back home alone.  Once married, Dad, who at that time was company clerk, decided that he ought to become an officer to better support his family.  And that led to a series of serendipitous events that led to Dad going to Europe in a Tank Destroyer Battalion, rather than to the Philippines in an Infantry division that became part in the Bataan Death March. He survived his time in North Africa, and the war in Europe, and returned to his wife to begin a family.  She’d write to Dad, and say, I hope you aren’t in this action, and he’d write back, “That’s just where I was.”  But he survived.  In late life, Mom has reconsidered the importance of following that inspiration.  A passage in the D&C says, “Let no man count them as small things; for there is much in futurity… which depends on these things.”  There is a vast difference in results between acting on impulse, not considering the consequences beyond the moment, and acting on inspiration.
Fourth: Relationships are Everything
The Aging Well Study directly states:
Successful aging requires continuing to learn new things and continuing to take people in ... a widening social radius at age 50 was just as important to successful psychosocial aging as emotional maturity.
One of Mom’s most visible and extraordinary talents is that she knows what is going on in everyone’s life.  She knows about the lives and circumstances of all of her children, their spouses, their children, and their children’s children.  One of the effects of that ongoing love and interest on her part, is that so many take a reciprocal interest in Mom.  My daughter Karina named her second daughter Muriel, because, as she says, “Grandma is amazing!”
The Aging Well Study says:
What's one of the biggest mistakes we make when it comes to relationships? Not working hard enough to create new ones when the old ones fade away.
Mom has known losses.  I remember after Grandma Mortensen’s funeral driving past the home that was setting for her childhood, and Mom commenting that with Grandma’s absence it looked “like a house with a broken heart.”  And she has lived past many more losses since then, outliving her brother, several sisters and just a few years ago, her husband.  But she characteristically learns new things, and embraces changes as she guards her traditions, and nurtures new relationships. 
After Grandma Mortenson died, Mom reports being in the Temple.  At this time, daughter Merilee had grown and was pregnant again, after having six boys.  Mom reports that she very clearly heard Grandma say, “It’s a girl!” as though the secret was too good to keep to herself.  Our losses aren’t the end of our joys.
One of my favorite memories with Mom is when Karina brought her little namesake to see her.  When we’d say, “Muriel, do a somersault,” and the little darling did so, Mom laughed and laughed as though she didn’t have an almost uncountable hoard of other grandchildren, and great grandchildren, seen over decades of life, celebrating that moment for itself and the joy and newness of it.
Fifth: Coping Skills
The Aging Well Study contrasts good and bad coping skills:
Blaming others, being passive-aggressive, living in denial, acting out and retreating into fantasy were all maladaptive coping mechanisms associated with poor outcomes. These behaviors soothed bad feelings in the short term and wreaked havoc in the long term by ruining relationships and producing lousy life decisions.
However presidential that behavior sounds, it does not describe Mom.  How about the good coping skills? The Aging Well Study says the good skills can be described as Virtues.
These four mature coping strategies are not only associated with maturity, but they can be reframed as 
Altruism:  doing as one would be done by; 
Sublimation: artistic creation to resolve conflict and spinning straw into gold;
Suppression: a stiff upper lip, patience, seeing the bright side;
Humor: and the ability not to take oneself too seriously.
Mom has always demonstrated the Golden Rule.   I can think of one incident when I was trying her patience with a series of poor grades in seventh grade English, when she finally lost her temper with me.  I later became an English Major, and have been a professional writer since 1984, and have published dozens of essays.  So I eventually got that sorted out.  But Mom, within an hour or so of losing her temper, came and apologized to me, and never did it again, which, considering me, is quite remarkable.  She has shown characteristic patience in dealing with the sorts of challenges that life offers, and taken joy in life’s simple pleasures.  She talks about how much she enjoyed her first washing machine, “looking at the suds.” 
It was Mom who taught us to bake our first cakes and batches of rollout cookies.  Even before that, I remember being home with Mom and her coming up with notions of using flour and water and salt and food coloring for us to make little sculptures of our idea of some animal.  That is her preventing conflicts and getting us involved in creation.
As for seeing the bright side, a few years ago, while visiting Mom and Dad, and hearing Dad talk about how as a child he has suffered burns and scarring on his neck and part of his face from a celluloid collar being ignited by a tossed match, and talking about how that scarring was a source of shame to him for a long time.  (The complete healing took him into adulthood.)  Shauna asked Mom how she felt about Dad’s facial scars.  “I fell in love with the other side,” she said, without a pause.   After 80 years together, Mom and Dad teased and laughed together. 
Sixth: Generativity- that is, Community Building
The Aging Well Study says:
Generativity can mean serving as a consultant, guide, mentor, or coach to young adults in the larger society. Research reveals that between age 30 and 45 our need for achievement declines and our need for community and affiliation increases.
Aside from building her own family and maintaining connections to her siblings, and dad’s siblings, Mom famously served as a guide patrol teacher in the primary for eight years.   Dealing with ongoing squads of squabbling squirrely baby boomer boys for that long is remarkable.  After Blake started going to school, Mom went back to teaching, first in Utah, and then in Kansas.  And after Dad retired, they served a mission working with an Asian Branch in the Washington DC area, hearing stories of boat people, who had escaped the wars and violence in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.  She used her skills as a teacher to help them, even bucking the authority of a local leader to do so.  After their mission, and into their retirement, she and Dad performed a series of service mission in the Church Office building, doing genealogy work.  And they traveled to Iceland and Norway, and Egypt and New Zealand, as well as Goblin Valley and the Grand Canyon.  They attended the Hale Theater for years, watching a wide range of plays.  She does her visiting teaching and ministering, and reads the newspaper, and books, and scriptures.   She cooks and cleans, and visits, and writes emails to family, and uses computers to track all of the birthday cards she wants to send to all her descendants, involved in family, making it both a work, and a glory.
Ultimately, what matters most is not how long or short we live, or what happens to us, but what we become.  And Mom has become a wonderful example of a happy way to live.

I wrote this five years ago for my Mom's Centennial.  She died last year at 105.  Til the end embodying a happy way to live.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Tooele, UT

Kevin, I can't be sure, but your good Mamma sounds like a saint. Thanks for that.

[The Nehor]

Happiness is an illusion.

[Tacenda]

On 5/21/2025 at 6:57 PM, Calm said:

This is the Bandlo I remember and the one Mom modeled hers after.  I loved those rhinestones.  I can still feel my finger running down them now my memory is triggered.

I completely forgot the Church did these until reminded today.

https://keepapitchinin.org/2011/01/21/bandlos-old-post-new-illustrations/

picture is from Pinterest, replaced a faded version from the link, but better info there, so using that link

I remember these, I didn't have one so maybe it was my mom's or older sister's.

[mbh26]

17 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Happiness is an illusion.

Better an illusion of happiness than one of misery.  

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, mbh26 said:

Better an illusion of happiness than one of misery.  

Not sure about that. Eventually seeing through an illusion of misery would be a relief. Seeing that happiness is an illusion would be much more crushing.

[mbh26]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

Not sure about that. Eventually seeing through an illusion of misery would be a relief. Seeing that happiness is an illusion would be much more crushing.

If you're under the illusion of presently being happy, why would you go looking to find out whether or not it's just an illusion?  

Edited June 12, 2025 by mbh26