On October 5, 2013, my Grandma Olsen passed away.  She had struggled with Parkinson's for many years.  Even though it was her time, it was hard because she is the first of my grandparents to die.

As odd as it seems, this giant pile of gravel is relevant.

We'd had it delivered the day before she died thinking that Ben and I could spend Friday evening and Saturday moving as much as we could to the backyard between sessions of conference and I could finish up the following week since the kids were on Fall Break.  However, Ben got weekend duty and was gone until 8:00 Friday night.  We worked until 9:00 then figured we should pack it in.  Right before we went in, a couple of neighborhood boys I'd never met came by and said they'd be willing to help.  I told them if they came back on Saturday, I would pay them by the hour.  I'd also posted on the ward Facebook page that I was looking for help with the gravel, but I had gotten poor response because so many of the youth were participating in a band festival on Saturday.

At 7:00 Saturday morning, three young men from the ward came by and put in a hour's work before going to their band festival.  Shortly after they left, another boy from the ward plus the boys we had met the night before came over.  We worked between sessions of conference until 5:00 that evening when the priesthood session started.  Grandma passed away at home during the priesthood session.  I got the call that evening and started making plans with Stephanie the next day when her family came over for conference.  However, I still had several tons of rock that couldn't just sit in the road.

Despite our concerns, we knew that we wouldn't move the gravel on the Sabbath.  Monday morning, we were out first thing after I'd gotten up super early to pack.  Ben had made a ton of phone calls and gotten permission to come since my grandma really wanted him to play his bagpipes at her funeral.  All of the boys from Saturday plus another from our ward showed up to work on the rock.  We got most of it done before we had to leave to start our trip to Utah.  I left one of the boys from church in charge and asked him to text me when they were done and apologized that I couldn't pay them until we got back.  Less than an hour and a half after we left, it was done.  The boy I had left in charge even went home to get a broom to make sure he left it as clean as could be.  We were truly blessed.

We got to visit with lots of family and had a really nice time.  Grandma was buried up in Hyrum, and then Grandpa took us on a driving tour of the town and his memories.  We had a bunch of conference calls linked into my parents car.  We must have looked like some sort of crazy parade.  I'm so grateful I was able to attend this special event.

One of my memories of traveling with my grandparents is stopping at the Cache Valley Cheese store in Beaver.  I couldn't resist stopping on the way back to Arizona.

Thank you, Grandma, for all that you taught me, and the great blessing you have been in my life.