Weaknesses to Strengths

****All names have been changed in the following account****

I have always known that I was going to be a nurse. From my earliest memory, I was pretending to be a nurse. When I was six, I would fill my parents' medicine syringe with Kool-Aid and have my little sister "take her medicine". We had a play doctors kit and I was always listening to lungs, taking temperatures, and checking reflexes. My father is a dentist but for some reason had an otoscope and an opthalmoscope and was FASCINATED by them. I'd ask him to look in my ears and eyes all the time. My father also had an old molecule kit from his Organic Chemistry class at college and I loved hearing him explain atoms to me and teach me about the building blocks of the universe. In 4th grade, we were taught about the eye in school. I LOVED it, learning all the parts of the eye and how it worked. I couldn't wait to run home and share the news with my little sister. Bless her heart, this was the first of MANY long medical explanations that she would be forced to endure over the years; parts of the ear in 5th grade, bones of the body in 7th grade, Punnet squares and parts of the cell in 9th grade, etc. On nights when she had difficulty sleeping, she would ask for me to teach her something about the human body because she knew it would put her right to sleep (we were blessed to share the same room until I turned 16 and she decided to move out on me. Broke my heart...). Everyone knew I was going to be a nurse, so joining the College of Nursing when I went off to Brigham Young University was a no brainer.

My first semester at college, though, my plans hit a slight snag. I was required to take an Intro to Nursing course where they provided an overview of what all nurses do. I learned that my first clinical rotation would be at a nursing home, taking care of patients recovering from strokes or dealing with Alzheimer's and the like. Nursing homes were a HUGE terror to me at the time. I didn't like the smells or the sights there. I felt out of place whenever we'd go there as a church group. Old people already made me uncomfortable. I was really shy and had NO idea what to say or do around them. Then, add on mental instability and I was TOTALLY out of my comfort zone. I remember sitting in class and thinking "What am I going to do?! I guess I can switch and be a chemistry teacher. I really enjoyed AP Chem and didn't do too shabby on the AP exam..." but then I remembered a scripture from my youth. "I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them" (Ether 12:27). I realized that this was a huge weakness of mine, but God wanted me to be an nurse, and even more, He wanted me to love everyone, ESPECIALLY those of His children that were in need in nursing homes. I knew that if I asked Him for help and truly tried to love these children of His, that He would help me turn my fear of the elderly and the handicapped into a strength. 

I started searching out volunteer opportunities that very day. I found a small place, half an hour away by bus, that would accept me as a volunteer. They where a mixed facility. They had residents ranging from 18 years of age to nearly 100. All of these patients had some disability of one kind or another, either mental, physical, or both, that required full-time nursing care and the assistance of occupational, speech, and physical therapists. They wanted a volunteer that would show consistency and would make a real time commitment to them. I started a schedule where I would work and study like crazy during the week days in order to be completely through with all my academic responsibilities for the weekend by 2 p.m. on Friday. Then, I would hop on a bus and arrive at this small care center by 2:30 to spend 3-4 good hours with the residents there before catching the last bus of the night back to the university.

My volunteer duties were small; play basketball with Kevin, talk NASCAR and body shop with Tim, play Sorry! with Kera and LaNae, help John color a picture, teach Josephine how to weave a shoelace in and out of a heart cut-out, sing songs with Jamie. As menial as these tasks were though, I found myself looking forward to my Friday outings. I would be greeted at the door with shouts of hello and hugs. I'd be pulled in multiple directions at once with requests to play a game with one resident or take a look at what another resident had made earlier that day during crafts. I learned their interests and started planning how I would surprise them or care for them in the future; learn a little song on the piano for Jamie, bring a picture of a cool new car from a magazine for Tim, wear my running shoes to better shoot hoops with Kevin, ask some of my college friends to teach me a few signs so I could communicate better with Jenny in ASL. In no time, I found that I loved them all and was comfortable with them in ways that I never was with my peers. When Josephine needed a shoulder to cry on, I was honored to be able to proffer mine. When Jenny was signing something over and over with tears in her eyes, I was surprised when I recognized that she was telling me she was in pain and I was able to alert a nurse to her toothache. I was moved deeply when I saw the miracle of Robert sit down at the piano and play gorgeous Debussy one last time despite his severe Alzheimer's that kept him from completing even the smallest tasks or forming the shortest sentences. My time there was incredible.

In our prophet Thomas S. Monson's most recent General Conference address, Love- the Essence of the Gospel, he shared a wonderful quote from another prophet of this dispensation, Spencer W. Kimball. It reads “We must remember that those mortals we meet in parking lots, offices, elevators, and elsewhere are that portion of mankind God has given us to love and to serve. It will do us little good to speak of the general brotherhood of mankind if we cannot regard those who are all around us as our brothers and sisters.” President Monson went on to describe the love of the Savior, Jesus Christ, and shared a popular poem:

I have wept in the night

For the shortness of sight

That to somebody’s need made me blind;

But I never have yet

Felt a tinge of regret

For being a little too kind.

God helped me overcome my fears and insecurities, even my weaknesses, so that I could better serve and love His children. I can tell you that it was all SO worth it. I gained even more from these sweet people than they did from me.