While nearly everyone has met and overcome challenges ranging from minor to major, there are those who encounter extremely difficult obstacles. Some of those individuals serve as examples of the triumph of the human spirit over adversity. Following are stories of such individuals of faith and calm courage.
BOUNTIFUL, UTAH
If degrees were awarded for pain and suffering, Peter R. Jeppson would be in line for a Ph.D.
In 1965, just after he had completed interviews with his bishop and stake president for a mission call, he was in an automobile accident in which nearly 50 percent of his skin was burned away and another 40 percent sustained first and second degree burns.
Pronounced dead at a hospital in Boise, Idaho, he was placed on a gurney awaiting removal to the mortuary when a nurse passed by and saw his arm flinch beneath the sheet covering him.
Literally, he was rescued from death. During the next few years he endured more than 30 major operations and skin grafts, suffering excruciating pain as doctors worked to replace his nose, lips, eyelids, tear ducts and ears, and make other repairs to his body.
"I had a great desire to be normal. I felt so bad about the way I looked," said Brother Jeppson, now 46, reflecting on the "ugly feeling" that weighed on him. Other people's reactions did not help. He described how a young boy screamed "Monster!" and ran from him in a crowded grocery store. As others turned to see what caused the commotion, the store fell silent. "It was like a knife in my stomach," Brother Jeppson said of the pang of rejection he felt.
After having several similar experiences, he poured out his frustrations to his Heavenly Father. "I told Him there is a scripture where we are promised that we won't be tested beyond what we're able to endure," he recalled. "When I woke up the next morning, I was blessed with a peace and calmness that has been with me ever since."
Brother Jeppson, a member of the Bountiful 46th Ward, and member of the Bountiful Utah Mueller Park Stake high council, did so well in overcoming his feelings of rejection that he is successful in insurance sales, and recently was elected by his professional peers as president of the Salt Lake Association of Life Underwriters. He has also been serving as the national chairman of the Institute for Fire and Burn Education. He and his wife, Marj, have five children.
He said he overcomes obstacles by setting goals. Perhaps the most important, he said, is to be enthusiastic. As he accomplishes one goal, he moves on to another. At first, his goals were simple, such as walking 10 paces in his hospital room to regain physical strength. Then goals became more far-ranging: go on a mission, graduate from college, pay his hospital bills, marry and have a family, and become successful in a career.
"The reason I started in insurance is because this business is so hard," he said. "I knew I would have to meet people and that I would have to overcome how I felt about the way I look and other people's reactions. I wanted to overcome that in a hurry, not take a whole lifetime." - Gerry Avant
SHREVEPORT, LA.
Terry G. Harris was a late bloomer - never involved with sports when growing up.
"It was probably because I had one arm. I just didn't know what I could do. I was more interested in reading," said Brother Harris, who has a Ph.D. and is an assistant professor of English at Louisiana State University in Shreveport. "If there was one sport I truly enjoyed in high school, it would be cross-country running."
His athletic interest now surfaces as a marathon runner. Born with a congenital defect, he gives little thought to what others would see as a handicap. "The reason I think this way I owe to my parents. They treated me as any other child. Sure, we had to make adaptations, but I didn't get special favors and privileges just because I had one arm."
As he was about to finish his graduate degree at the University of Missouri, he felt weary of all the work involved; he decided he needed to do something of a different nature. A friend, Newell Kitchen, suggested he start running.
Newell later suggested they prepare to run in the 1986 Deseret News marathon in Salt Lake City. "I thought perhaps he was joking, but the more I thought about it the more intriguing it became," he said.
Not only did he run it, but he also had a very good time for his first marathon - three hours and 26 minutes. The next summer, he cut his time by 20 minutes, which qualified him for the 1988 Boston Marathon. He has run in Boston every year since, shaving time off his record in each race. This year, he finished in 2:49:14, placing 469th out of the 8,135 who crossed the line in less than five hours. He was 76th out of 2,362 in the 40-49 age group.
Executive secretary in the Shreveport Louisiana Stake and a returned missionary who served in the Switzerland Zurich Mission, he often shares the lessons he has learned with others. He has addressed youth and single adults about his marathon experiences.
"True value in athletic competition lies in something quite intangible," he said, "something that you know and feel within yourself. One must set goals. Accomplishments just don't happen without effort, commitment and discipline.
"Who says that winning the race means being the first to cross the finish line?"
Regarding his disability, he said: "Sure, I'm restricted in certain things, but I've never considered it a handicap and never let it stand in the way of my participating in normal activities. Anyway, I run on my feet, not my arms." -Mary Royle, public affairs director, Shreveport Louisiana StakeSPRINGFIELD, ORE.
Along with Shanna Johnson's grief over the death of her husband in 1986 came deep concern for how she would care for and support her five children, the youngest of whom was just 6 months old. Her children are now ages 6 to 20.
"Bill [her husbandT did not have life insurance, so I was left with no financial benefits," said Sister Johnson, Relief Society spiritual living leader in the Springfield 3rd Ward, Eugene Oregon Stake.
Financial concerns multiplied when she became ill. "I made about eight trips to the hospital for different emergency services and treatments, and then the removal of a tumor, all without benefit of medical insurance. Needless to say, the financial aspect of all this was an extreme burden."
Before she married, she had completed one year of college. After her husband died, she returned to college, receiving a master's degree in December 1990. She is a speech therapist in three school districts.
Sister Johnson said she felt at one time the odds against her succeeding were too great to overcome. "Anyone who is 35 and who goes back to school soon realizes they are competing against some smart, young kids. I had to work hard to keep up. I felt pulled, like the weight of the world was on my shoulders. I'd go to school all day, then care for my children until 9 p.m., and then study. I would often be up past midnight, then get up early the next morning and try to be a regular mother getting her children off to school.
"I had to swallow a lot of pride and ask people in the ward to help me, especially when the washing machine or other things broke down and I couldn't afford to hire repair work. I've never been turned down. So many people have given me such incredible support. I feel like my degree should have listed my name, the Springfield Ward and my family."
Of her new career, she said, "This certainly was not in my plan. I never pictured myself obtaining a master's degree, but I knew my goals were righteous. To be able to take care of my family was my main goal. I did what I needed to do for them first. There were things I had to give up. Before Bill died, I had a pretty neat and orderly house, but I soon realized that housecleaning sometimes had to wait."
To others who face similar challenges, Sister Johnson said, "My advice is to take life one step at a time, and remember you're not alone. That's one testimony I really gained. There have been mornings when my head was pounding from lack of sleep and long hours of studying, or when a child was sick. There have been days when I've felt I couldn't go another step. I think of the Israelites when they cried unto the Lord and He made their actual burdens lighter. He has done that for me."- Gerry Avant
PROVO, UTAH
In a recent Church News interview, Midge Patrick, a member of the Provo North 3rd Ward, Provo Utah North Stake, shared her family's experience of overcoming tragedy.
Almost five years ago she and her husband and their eight children were involved in a catastrophic automobile accident. Her husband and a son were killed, and she and seven children were injured.
Cheryl, who was 6 at the time, had the top of her left foot cut off and had broken bones in her leg. Nine-year-old twins Darin and Devin were not seriously injured, but Darin had a broken leg and Devin had a bruised bladder. Craig, then 10, was in a coma for seven weeks with severe head injuries and a compound fracture to his left leg. Robert, 12, was pinned in the car for three hours and had a cracked pelvis and broken legs. Kristine, 16, had severe facial lacerations, a severe head injury, broken ribs and collapsed lungs. John, 17, had a cracked cervical disc and contusions to his heart muscle. And Sister Patrick's spinal cord was severed; leaving her paralyzed from the chest down.
"I have pretty good use of my hands, which is wonderful," she said.
While life continues to be a daily challenge for Sister Patrick, who serves as a counselor in her ward Relief Society presidency, she tries to look on each day as an adventure as she nurtures her children, whose ages are now 11 to 23.
"Each day is an adventure because you really don't know what's going to happen on a day-to-day basis," she said. "Some of the kids have residual problems that we have to deal with.
"You have to keep a bit of humor in your life because there are too many things to cry about," she offered.
"My kids don't have a dad anymore and I don't want them to suffer because of that. If we were bitter and angry and had these kinds of feelings running through the house on a daily basis, then that would really affect them even more. We really can't allow that to happen to them."
Seeing Kristine overcome her challenges has been an inspiration for Sister Patrick. Kristine, who is serving in the Oregon Eugene Mission, has partial paralysis and had plastic surgery seven times on her face.
"Her personality never quits," Sister Patrick explained. "She enters the room and fills it with sunshine. She is absolutely beautiful. She overcame so much at such a critical time in her life. She was 16 and almost everything in her life had been taken away from her - her father, her security of a home. She was never allowed to experience being sweet 16, but she never complained.
"With our good families and good friends and the support group we have who love us, how can we fail? You don't fail when there are so many people who love you," she continued.
"The Lord set up wards and branches and Relief Societies and priesthood quorums so that we might help each other and that's what the bottom line is. We are all in this together and we all need each other. We can't do it by ourselves." - Sheridan R. SheffieldLITTLETON, COLO.
"My husband's name is Richard Peterson; he is known by all as Pete," wrote Dixie Peterson in a letter to the Church News. Her letter could have told of tragedy, but instead it reported triumph. With her husband's encouragement, she related how he overcame one of the most difficult challenges of his life: alcoholism.
"Pete's alcoholism started at age 16," she related. "He grew up in an alcoholic family that went to bars on a regular basis. Everything in his life was centered around alcohol - holidays, funerals, weddings, any occasion.
"He was a hard worker, holding two jobs most of the time. (He retired from the Omaha, Neb., Fire Department April 25, 1991, after 271/2 years of service.)
"Family issues caused fights and more drinking episodes. I was getting afraid to ride with him. After two years, I started attending Alanon, a program for spouses of alcoholics.
"At about the time I started attending Alanon, missionaries were tracting in our neighborhood. I invited them in and asked if they could teach our three daughters.
"In 1976, Pete had a bad bout with drinking. The girls and I left the house, and we ended up spending the first night away from home and Pete. I told him I didn't plan to spend the rest of our lives going in that direction. He was afraid he would lose me and the girls, so he entered a treatment center for alcoholism on April 15, 1976, and spent 31 days there.
"On the second day there, he heard that a fellow fireman who had been in the same treatment center just six months earlier committed suicide. When he got that news, Pete paced the center's halls and wondered if this might be his outcome sometime down the line. He went back to his room and prayed for the first time since he was a little child. He said when he got off his knees he knew two things: one, he could exist without alcohol, and two, that the Church was true. The Lord had taken the desire away then and it has never returned. Our lives were never to be the same.
"He was baptized April 2, 1977. Underneath the alcoholism was hidden a very tender spiritual giant. We were sealed as a family in the Salt Lake Temple on June 13, 1978. June 13, 1992, happens to be the last day of our one-year service at the Denver Colorado Temple as full-time ordinance workers. He is a good example to those who know him, as he lives what he believes and is taught in the gospel.
"Pete has helped many others by his example. We are not anonymous because we want to help others who might have this problem.
"We have strong testimonies of the gospel, and we know the Lord hears and answers prayers. Sometimes trials are to help us grow. I hope our story will be a ray of hope to others who may have this problem.
"Our message is that the center of recovery is in the gospel of Jesus Christ."
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