She stands 5'6", and weighs 120 when she's "fat".  When she's thin she's weighed 98.  That's after she'd nursed the baby for eight months, at which point her husband made her quit.  All told, she's probably lost 320 pounds over a span of 13 years.—A new dieting record?  No.  Just the 40-pound weight gain and loss with each of her eight babies.

"Saturday Night at the Races" is not a TV program, but, rather, her weekend marathon.  After wading through 21 loads of laundry during the week, the pile atop the drier seems undiminished.  It must be folded and sorted through to locate Sunday clothes for 10 people.  Saturday night baths for everyone leaves her exhausted and the laundry basket again overflowing.

Sunday morning her husband gently wakens her with the announcement that it's 6:30 (she gets to sleep in 15 minutes later on Sundays), and time to get everyone ready for Church.  She has awakened with a headache, so she rolls over and says hopefully, "Wake me when you're ready to leave."

Her husband is the bishop, though, and it wouldn't look good for the bishop's wife to not be at church again this week.  He's insistent that the baby's cold is fine now, so that excuse is gone.  Up she rises with the not-so-glorious prospect of wrestling three tiny boys through the meetings.  Somehow the content of the Relief Society and Sunday School lessons are lost on her when she has to attend them in the foyer.  Sacrament meeting sees the problem compounded, and then there's the hour wait after church while the bishop completes his business.  They can't simply leave without him because they live 17 miles out of town.

Her headache has not abated, but, rather, intensified.  As she waits and tries to look like her normal, pleasant self, her visiting teacher comes by to make arrangements for December's visit.

Now December to this mother of eight is a magical, but busy month of pleasant anticipation filled with sewing 'til midnight on the children's gifts.  There are Christmas programs, costumes to make, her Mother-Education lesson to prepare and give, parties, baking, and her own visiting teaching route to do.

The subject of visiting teaching just now is not a pleasant one as she remembers last month's endless "visit" wherein she learned all about her visiting teacher's cousin.  The bishop's wife is a quiet person.  Her visiting teachers are non-stop talkers.  Last month they stayed an hour and a half.  She added perhaps half-a-dozen comments to the conversation.

"Could we come on Wednesday?"

"Yes, that will be fine.  I'll be home."

"Well, we'll have to come in the morning.  I have a hair appointment that afternoon."

Fifteen minutes later the bishop's wife has learned everything she's never wanted to know about the hairdresser, the hairdresser's husband, and the hairdresser's husband's job.  It isn't gossip—just endless detail whose length sets her teeth on edge.

Monday comes, and with it comes the worst sore throat the bishop's wife has ever had.  She feels terrible and sounds worse.  She just gets the children all bedded down for naps and is able to lie down herself for the first time all day when the phone rings.  The children all wake up before she can get to the telephone.

It's the second counselor in the Relief Society.  The bishop's wife is glad the Relief Society is checking up on her because if they offer, she'll be willing to accept a little help just this once.  She, therefore, steps out of her character and lets her difficulties be known.  The counselor replies, "Well, I hope you feel better soon.  What I called about was to ask if you could take dinner in to Sister Johnson this evening.  She's just gotten out of the hospital and isn't doing very well."

The next phone call is from the lonely, elderly lady who frequently calls the bishop for counsel, advice, and a friendly voice to talk to.  When the bishop is not there, as is the case just now, the bishop's wife is the preferred substitute.  The two of them have, in fact, become great telephone friends.  Although the elderly sister is always the one to initiate the call, the bishop's wife is very willing to take the 20 minutes her husband would have to take to listen to her problems, hear about her aches and pains, and build her up and bolster her spirits.

The children will be home from school in a few minutes and the four-year-old boy is fighting with the two-year-old over who should get to play with a toy car.  The only ray of light left in the day is to get supper done with early so as to hasten bedtime.  Relying on habit to tell her what to do next, she drags herself unthinkingly through the routine of preparing the simplest meal possible.

Now, fortunately, the bishop's wife is married to a man who has feelings, a little perception, and who understands his wife's thoughts and moods.  He arrives home early, relieves his wife of her duties, and completes supper preparations.

Next comes Family Home Evening, which his wife would prefer he'd skip.  But this event has been prepared with love.  The children have done the dishes, and their mother has been seated by the fireplace.  A surprise "We Love Mama" evening begins.

First come the special notes of love from the older children, and the drawings from those still too young to write.  There's a short play, a piano piece, an original poem by the oldest daughter, and then a song composed for her and sung to her by her husband.

When it's all over she's tucked into bed early by the nine most important people in the world, and she knows inside that she'll be better in the morning.  More importantly, she knows that it's all worthwhile.  Yes, it's often hard, and always a lot of work; but she's loved, she's appreciated, her children are turning out right, she has the best husband in the world, and she has the peaceful feeling inside which comes from a personal testimony that she's doing what the Lord wants her to do, and that she's involved in the most important work she could possibly do.

As she gratefully falls asleep, she thinks that tomorrow will be another day, the children will be a little older, and that while there will be more challenges, the joys will always outweigh the problems.  The problems are temporary, but the joys will be eternal.  She knows where she's going, and, yes, she'll have the strength to get there.