An Appeal, An Answer and an Ab-Wheel

In December of 2020, as part of the "Light the World" challenge, Mom/Margie shared a couple stories about prayer from her youth (Mom's Memories). Not long after, Derek shared a story as well. Here it is. 

God Has a Sense of Humor (Ab-Wheel Story)

Shared by Derek Westra via email, December 2020

When I had only been on my mission to Brazil a couple of months – I had this strong desire for a piece of exercise equipment that I had used every day before my mission – it was called an ab-wheel. I’m not sure why I wanted it so bad, but I have always hated sit-ups and they just weren’t doing it for me out there and I felt like I was losing my six-pack. :) My companion was a Brazilian named Elder Mariano, and while I still didn’t know the language very well yet, I told him about the ab-wheel and asked if I could find one in Brazil somewhere. He had never heard of one but said I should mention it to some of the members to see if they had. I did this at several houses, but no one had ever heard of one. Since I was new to Portuguese, I remember struggling to explain what this was. “E uma roda. Como… uma roda plastica, pequena que voce usa para fazer exercicios. Assim – eu vou te mostrar.”

I’d say: “It’s like a plastic wheel with handles that you use on the floor to do exercises, like this!” Then I’d try to demonstrate – which must have look ridiculous. One of the members was taking a trip to Sao Paulo to go to Wal-Mart and I asked them to look for one and buy it for me and I’d pay them back, but they couldn’t find one. I became sort of obsessed with finding one and since missionary work can be somewhat monotonous and unimaginative, I started working my new-found obsession into our door approaches. “Hey there – I was hoping you could help me with something: I’m an American and I’m looking for this exercise thing (I’d describe it) have you heard of this?” The answer was always no, but Brazilians love helping and to ask for a favor (a glass of water or help with an address) was always a better, more effective approach then just telling them we wanted to share a message.

My companion started to really tire of my obsession with finding an ab-wheel. I could tell it was starting to bother him, but I didn’t know a ton of Portuguese yet and I had gotten pretty practiced at my approach so I kept using it. Finally, one morning during our companionship prayer before leaving the apartment, Elder Marino was saying the prayer and said (with a lot of pent-up frustration): “Heavenly Father, please help us today to find Elder Westra’s stupid ab-wheel so he can stop talking about it.” I opened my eyes to scowl at him, but this was as earnest and sincere as I’d ever seen him. I got the hint that he had had enough and decided to drop it.

We went out knocking doors as usual and I avoided the “ab-wheel” approach since I knew my Senior Companion was at his wit’s end. But one street in, we came to a house where this really strong guy was exercising out front with his shirt off (doing pull-ups). I looked at my companion and he said “Okay – ask about the thing.” I went up to the guy and said, “Excuse me, but you look really strong and like you exercise a lot.” He was flattered and entertained by where this was going. I said, “I’m an American, and there is this one piece of exercise equipment that I can’t find anywhere in this country, it’s called an “Ab-wheel.”’ His eyes lit up and he got really excited. “They don’t make it here.” He said. But he had a huge smile, like he knew something I didn’t. “But I do!” He told us to come in his house and he had three of these home-made ab-wheels that he had made out of wood and broom handles. “I’ve seen these on TV, but they are only in the United States – I wanted to try one so I made a prototype out of wood. It’s not perfect, I’m still working on the design, but this ought to take care of you.” He handed me one of his three wood prototypes and said “It’s yours.” I looked at Elder Mariano and he was speechless. We had somehow found “Elder Westra’s stupid ab-wheel” on the day that he earnestly prayed and asked that we would. I’m convinced that in that huge country, we were led to that house, where someone was making these out of wood and was willing to just give one away.

Now, wouldn’t it be cool if I had some awesome conclusion about how we went on to teach that man, and how he became a great Church leader? Well, that didn’t happen. :) He had no interest in the Church or our message, and I never saw him again, but I used his homemade, wooden ab-wheel every day until it broke a month before I came home from Brazil.

I’m convinced that Heavenly Father knows us personally and cares about the details of our lives – even the insignificant things that matter more to us than they should.

Check out MargiesMessages - Prayer Section for more inspirational stories.

Mom/Margie's Memories (Prayer)

Written by Marjorie Norman Westra in 2020 for a #lighttheworld challenge of sharing a teaching story. Chris said he had heard the first one, but not the second. Wendy said the second one sounded familiar but that she hadn't heard the first one. Chris added the stories to Family Search, and now they are here on the blog as well, to ensure they won't be forgotten.

When a was a young girl in Murray.....My mother sent my brother Merrill (18 months younger than me) with a dollar bill to get a haircut in downtown Murray--about a mile away. Merrill came back crying, saying he had lost the dollar bill on the way to the barber shop. Mother called me (I was playing with friends) and told me to take Merrill on the back on my bike (our bikes used to have a long narrow seat above the back wheel, where someone could ride) and follow his route and see if we could find the dollar. I didn't want to leave my friends and resented having to do it. So I said a quick prayer that we would find the dollar----before we reached State Street---so I could get back and play with my friends. 

With Merrill on the back, I rode along Boxelder Street, turned up Miller Street, towards State Street. Suddenly I felt my bike tire go flat. I pulled over to the side of the street, next to a big field. I told Merrill to get off so that I could check the flat tire. But I was surprised to see that the tire was not flat. I looked down and there was the dollar bill, blown up against the weeds of the same color. We never would have seen it if we hadn't been right next to it! And yes, we found it before we got to State Street! I have remembered this experience my entire life. I have often thought that if God would answer the selfish prayer of a young girl, how much more likely he would be to answer our heartfelt important prayers.

When I was growing up, we went camping often with our extended family on the Howell side (mom's siblings and their kids). It was so fun to camp and play with my cousins, in the Fairview mountains. On one such trip, we were camped by a stream. My Uncle Demont decided to take all the kids who were old enough on a hike. We walked along the stream for a while and reached a point where the worn path ended and we needed to cross the stream to continue our hike, stepping on rocks to get across. I was a "scaredy-cat" then, as I am now. I was afraid to cross the stream this way, and told Demont and my cousins that I would just follow the path back to camp, which I did. By our camp, there was a bridge across the stream. So I got the bright idea that I would just cross the bridge and then rejoin Demont and my cousins on the other side to continue the hike. 

Well, I got hopelessly lost in the mountains. I was so frightened. I shouted and shouted, over and over, but no answer. I was smart enough to know if I could find the stream again, I could follow it back to camp. But emerging from the trees, I was on kind of a cliff. I could see the stream far down below, but the stream at that point was shaped like horseshoe turn and I didn't know which way to try to reach and follow the stream or if I would just get more lost. Finally, I was so desperate, I knelt down and prayed for help. As I got up from my knees, there was Uncle Demont coming towards me! I was so grateful to see him! It was such a traumatic experience that I was unable to even speak at all for about an hour.

Being a Bagger ... Now and Then

 

Through various family updates, we learned that Adria got a job as a bagger at Maceys. She applied and they hired her on the spot. She's not the first Westra to begin at bagging. Mom/Margie enjoys the conversations between kids, and the memories that come up because of them. So here's a little more remembered store lore ...

Uncle Derek wrote: 

Congrats to Adria on her job as a bagger! That was my first job as well (at The Store). Her grocery career won't stop at bagger - I was promoted to checker, then to produce department salsa maker, and then to the prestigious role of dairy manager! ;)  I have a funny story of my days as a bagger at age 15. The Store had a strict policy that any customer with two bags or more had be helped out of the store (we had to carry their bags to their car). They were pretty serious about this policy since (as you can imagine) most customers would rather carry their own bags than to have a skinny 15-year-old awkwardly follow them out and load their car. One time, I was loading an older woman's backseat of her car, and she took the opportunity to slip two dollars into my back pocket and to pinch my back side. No joke. But that isn't even the story. :)

One day, Karl Malone came into The Store on his Harley (wearing cowboy boots and a cowboy hat) and bought one gallon of milk, and one loaf of bread. Two items. Because he was a big (literally - the man was a mountain) star, there were lots of eyes on him as the checker checked out his items and gave them to me. He held out his HUGE hands. 

Me: "Umm...I have to take these to your car Mr. Malone." 

Karl: "I got it kid." 

Me: "Ummm...it's a store policy - I have to take them to your car." 

Karl: (Smiling) "I don't have a car."

Me: Looking out the store window at his motorcycle. "I can take them out to your bike." 

Karl: (Not smiling) "Fine. Follow me." 

He walked out and I awkwardly followed. He opened his Harley's saddlebags and I put his milk in one side, and the bread in the other side. 

Karl: "Am I supposed to tip you now?"

Me: (proudly) No! We don't accept tips. Store policy. 

Karl: "Okay. Thanks kid." 

Karl then loudly started his bike and rode off. My boss was watching, and was pretty pleased that I held my ground and exerted my "store policy" authority, even though, by the looks of his upper body, the Mailman was perfectly capable of hefting the two purchased items. :)

Jen added her bagger memories ...

I worked as a bagger as one of my first jobs too. Skaggs Alpha Beta, there on VanWinkle. It's now Vasa (gym). I always liked bagging groceries. I'd put enough groceries away that I knew it was good to put all the freezer/cold stuff together (I hate it when there is one random freezer thing in a different bag that I have to go track down). Like things together. No foods with the cleaning supplies. Don't put something heavy on top of the bread. Once, they redid the whole store, rearranged everything. They had a few of us girls wear dresses, and we would "hostess" ... we'd learned where everything was after the change, and then would help people who now didn't know where to find things. Just easing the transition. It was fun.

Mom/Margie added to Adria:  

Once when I was shopping at Harmon's many years ago, I complimented the clerk I had (can't remember what for--maybe her friendliness/cheerfulness/helpfulness or something. I remember she said, "Thank you so much! ---- Now will you go tell my manager over there! (There was a head checker hovering in front of all the check-out stands, that would oversee all the checkers and solve problems). Maybe after you receive all these helpful hints and experiences, you will end up "running the store" in no time at all!

Reading through these recollections reminded me of my only grocery store teen experience: My friend Barbara Millet's father worked for HiLand Dairy. So Barbara and I were hired at times, to pass out samples of HiLand Dairy products, as Costco passes out samples. It was a fun easy job. I remember around the holidays, we were giving out samples of eggnog, and the men would tease us and ask if there was anything stronger in it! (I guess for Christmas and New Years, people add booze to their eggnog!)

 

Covid-Free World

I think by now, we all know that Scott is a poet. Many a Father's Day invites came with a rhyme, and there have been other fun phasings, such as his ode to Dad's Moles and his Covid Limmericks. 

As Covid continued, Scott wrote another poem, to the tune of "Part Of This World" from Disney's "Little Mermaid". The full story is not confirmed, but Scott MAY have introduced it to his co-workers, singing some of it during a company Zoom meeting. There may be video proof out there somewhere ... unfortunately none was found at the time of this writing. As 2020 progressed, and Covid made a new world where social distancing is expected, masks are mandatory and hand sanitizer and Lysol wipes are treasures untold, many of us wish we could be part of that old, non-Covid world. 

Wish I could be part of that Non-COVID World
by Scott Westra/2020

Look at this stuff
Isn't it neat?
Wouldn't you think my collection's complete?
Wouldn't you think I'm the guy
The guy who has ev'rything?
Look at this trove
PPE untold
How many masks can one earlobe hold?
Lookin' around here you'd think
(Sure) he's got everything

I've got cameras and speakers aplenty
I've got Lysol and Clorox galore
(You want hand sanitizer?
I got twenty)
But who cares?
No big deal
I want more!

I want to be where the people are
I want to see
want to see 'em smiling
Flashing around those
(Whad'ya call 'em?) oh - teeth
Gasping for breath you don't get too far
Airflow’s required for jumpin', dancin'
Working out at those
(What's that word again?) gyms.

Out where they walk
Out where they run
Out where they stay all day in the sun
Going mask free!
Wish I could be!
Part of that world!

What would I give
If I could live
Back at the office?
What would I pay
To spend a day
Free of my mask?
Betcha it’s grand
To understand
And not reprimanded by our bosses
It’s been a while
I’m sick of this trial
Ready to smile!

And ready to know what the people know
Ask 'em my questions
And hear their answers
What's a hug and how did we
Used to shake hands?

What are our plans?
What can I do
I just wish that it were all through!
Going mask free!
Wish I could be!
Part of that world!

A couple of the girls at Scott's work kicked him out of his office, set up a scene, got costumes and made this video using his custom lyrics ... then it was sent out to the company with this poem (not by Scott)...

Even though we can’t be together this year,
The EAC still wanted to spread some holiday cheer.
The link below is not a phish,
We’re hoping it fulfills your holiday wish.
For smiles and laughter…
And happily ever after!
So enjoy a little humor,
And know that no one is as good at this rhyming thing
As Westra….


Derek commented how he laughed that those at work call Scott "Westra"

Cleaning in the Genes

On the blog, we feature Adria in her new job as a bagger (Being a Bagger, Then and Now), and family emails brought up some memories from Derek and Jen, as they had also been baggers as a first job. That's not the only paralleled employment in Westra family history.

Cooper got a job this year as a junior custodian at the nearby elementary school. Going in after the school day is done, and wiping down desks, cleaning bathrooms, vacuuming. Looking at family history, Ate Westra was a custodian at LDS Business College. The page above is from the 1929 school yearbook. Ate was in charge of the "Y" building there. Cooper isn't the only Westra working this way ... Camden (Chris's son, also the fourth boy, same as Coop)  cleans at Midvale Middle School in the afternoons.

Grandpa/LaMar also did some cleaning (and more) at the schools in his teens, from his history:

I worked each summer for the Granite School District, starting about age 14. My dad was the purchasing agent. The main offices were in a small two story building on State Street just north of 33rd South. My dad knew everyone at the school district, and got me jobs, first in the Cannery at about 25 cents per hour, and then on the cleaning crew. The crew was made up of 5-6 teachers, and 5-6 young guys like me. We would travel from school to school and clean rest rooms and dough clean walls and ceilings with wallpaper cleaner: soft pink stuff you would wipe over the surface and it would clean the dirt off. We would build scaffolding to get to the ceilings. It got quite precarious in rooms like the Granite High School auditorium. We would be way up there on the scaffold, walking a thin 2 by 8 plank, swinging our arm wildly from side to side. Then we would throw the dough at each other. Then I got jobs on the plumbing crew, installing and repairing sprinkler systems. The last jobs I had were watering new lawns as they were planted. They planted seed, which needed watering every day. I brought up new lawns at Granger High, and several elementary schools: Eastwood, East Mill Creek, etc.

Grandma/Margie mentioned that Grandma Lucille (Grandpa/LaMar's mother) worked in the schools for many years too, although she was a secretary, not on the cleaning crew. When she remarried though, her second husband Vic Burgener was over all the janitorial work for Granite School District.

Cooper learned about his ancestor Ate as he wrote up this report for his history class. One of the most basic things he learned, is that "Ate" is pronounced "Ah-Tay" ... not ate, like the past tense of eat!

Here's the rest of Cooper's presentation - the page above was actually the final page.

See Ate's Biography and more photos HERE.

More on the various homes the family lived in HERE.

Lots of Leaves

It's Fall Y'all ... if you look up to the mountains, you'll see the leaves changing color. Facebook has been flooded with pretty images. Looking through the family Dropbox, there were lots of LEAVES photos too, and a couple of scrapbook pages, old and new.

With my recent interest in family, and local, history, I've been following a "Utah Archive" site on Facebook, they recently shared a pamphlet created by Utah State's Tourist and Publicity Council, which existed between 1953 and 1967. Their job was to publicize the scenic and tourist attractions of Utah.

Compare it to the listing on the website today!

https://utah.com/scenic-drive/fall-colors

We know many of the Westras love to spend time in the mountains!

Gray and Jen did a little Autumn driving last year ...

Will we get more unbe-LEAF-able photos this year?

Ending with a little #2020 humor ...

A Plethora of Projects and a Pair of Parodies

 

I think most families are familiar with the popular children's book "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" featuring a cute little mouse who wants more and more ... and more. The parallel to home projects is pretty predictable (continuing on with my title alliteration). You start with one thing, but changing it makes you realize something else should be changed as well, and so on and so on ...

The Blackham family did some home renovations in 2020 ... as Callahan got married and moved out, Keaton would be taking over that bedroom. But the wall was damaged, so it was necessary to fix the wall. Then that wall needed to be painted, so why not paint the whole room ... I mean the whole basement? With the fresh paint, the old carpet looks awful, so replacing the flooring is next. New lights are next. Where do you stop painting? Best to just continue all the way upstairs, right? The Blackham renovations stopped there. For NOW anyway (the kitchen floors no longer match the new paint, but then the cabinets, which match the floor, would need to be replaced too, then would the furniture match?)

Derek and Danielle had numerous projects in their home during 2020 (with quarantine, there wasn't a whole lot else to do!). In August, in an email he mentioned:

I've had a dumb little idea for a parody children's book for a while. We were talking to our friends about their new sofa, and she was saying: "so, we got the new sofa, and we love it - but it doesn't match our room perfectly, so we needed to get some new throw pillows, and then a rug - but the rug was too big for the space so we had to..." then she proceeded to talk about all the things that resulted from the new sofa. I joked how it was like the kid's book "If You Give A Mouse a Cookie." So I finally sat down and wrote out "If You Give a Spouse a Sofa" in the same style. See attached.

Wendy commented that SHE had also written a parody of this SAME little story based on a drippy-door painting project back in 2009! Here's a link to her blog post about it, and the text included below ...

Have you ever heard the story "If you give a mouse a cookie?"
Well, here is our TRUE story of "If you give your husband a request..."

If you ask your husband to put the closet doors back on your daughter's room (that he took off and put in the shed two months ago to paint and never did), then he will go and rent a paint sprayer so that he can spray the door before putting it back on...

And if he rents a spray gun to spray the door, he will decide to spray all of the closet doors that are sitting in the shed before putting them back on...

And if he decides to spray all of the closet doors before putting them back on, he will also take off all of the other doors in the house in order to paint them too (even if his wife tells him over and over not to)...

And if he takes all of the other doors off their hinges, then he will carry them all into the garage and stand them up while he attempts to paint them (even if his wife tells him that it looks very precarious and perhaps he should lean them against the garage wall instead)...

And if he balances the closet doors capriciously, and begins to paint them with the paint sprayer, then right before he is almost finished painting all of them, one will fall over and knock another, which will knock another, which will knock another, until just like dominoes, all of the freshly painted doors are now all over the garage floor with paint everywhere and a husband who is covered from head to toe in splattered white paint...

And if there is a husband covered with splattered white paint and doors all over the ground, then the paint splattered husband will enlist the help of his tired wife who was almost ready to crawl into bed, while he tries to brush the drippy paint (and dirt) off the doors. 

And while brushing debris and splattered paint off the doors, the husband will ask his wife if she will hold the doors while he sprays them. The wife, not wanting to be sprayed in the face with a paint sprayer, politely declines but attempts to help brush the drippy paint. But since the wife's painting skills are no better than her husbands, she is not much help.

And after two frustrated tired people try to salvage messy doors, the husband will try again, re-spraying all of the doors making more drippy paint.

And after leaving the doors dripping with paint and the time almost midnight, the husband will ask the wife if he should go paint the outside doors now.

And if the wife exasperatedly vetoes that idea, the next morning, the husband will go check on the doors and inform his wife that all of the doors look like someone just threw a bucket of paint on them and they are now completely ruined. 

And if the doors are ruined, the determined husband will still go ahead and begin to paint the outside doors of the house.

And if the husband begins to paint the outside doors of the house, the paint sprayer will start to spray paint in every direction.

And after the paint sprayer starts to spray paint in every direction, the husband will bag the paint sprayer and start to paint with a brush.

And after the husband starts to paint with a brush, he will run out of paint and go to Home Depot to get some more.

And if the husband goes to Home Depot in order to get more paint, they will say that they don't have any more paint in that color.

And after going to Home Depot and being told they don't have any more of that kind of paint, the husband will get very indignant, and blame the sprayer and Home Depot and the doors and say, "I never should have started this project..."

And after the husband frets and complains and blames Home Depot, the sprayer, and the doors; the wife will murmur under her breath...but will refrain from thinking, "This is what I get for marrying a musician/teacher instead of a handyman.."

And after the fretting and murmuring, the husband will tell the sons to go ahead and put the dried drippy doors back on their hinges so that he and his wife can fulfill their obligation at the temple that evening...

And after the boys put the dried drippy doors back on their hinges, the husband hurries and puts the still slightly wet outside doors back on so that the baby will not escape and the kids won't freeze with the approaching evening.

And with the doors back on the hinges, the husband and wife leave the 11 year old son in charge of baby-sitting all of the kids, fixing dinner, and putting on the rest of the doorknobs, since the 13 year old daughter got a last minute invitation to see the movie, "New Moon."

And if the husband and wife get home from the temple and find that all is well (except for having to live with dried drippy doors)...

And if all of this happens on the husband's birthday...then the wife has no choice but to close her eyes so that she doesn't see dried drippy doors and ask her husband to sing her a nice soothing love song...and tell him that someday they will laugh over this day, and that they will celebrate his birthday tomorrow...

And please oh please, if you happen to come visit this particular house, just don't ask who painted the doors!

Check out the Westra Writing ~ Stories and Poetry for other creative contributions over the years! And here's a little look at a little book Derek wrote and had animated ...