Comment

An Emotional Malady

Your timely article, “The Invisible Heartbreaker” (June 1996), helped me understand the importance of facing up to our responsibilities to prayerfully discern and act to strengthen and heal those who suffer from this emotional malady.

Larry D. Kump
Falling Waters, West Virginia

Cross-Referencing Help

Thank you for the “Gospel Topics” following each article. I have often clipped articles and tried to cross-reference them, but I have ended up in a quandary. Your inclusion of this information will be a great help to me.

Velma Lindsay
Salt Lake City, Utah

Compassion for AIDS Victims

The article “Same-Gender Attraction” (Oct. 1995) touched on compassion toward anyone with ill health, including those who are infected with HIV or who are ill with AIDS.

As the bereavement coordinator of Hospice of Charles County in Maryland, I have also become aware of the devastation and pain that families and friends of those who have died of AIDS endure. The stigma that these individuals deal with often leaves them feeling isolated and alone.

I have often put my arms around a wife, husband, mother, father, or child who has survived the death of a loved one from AIDS only to have them begin to cry. I have discovered that their friends and even family are unwilling to touch them, let alone hug them.

I hope we remember these individuals also as we reach out to those who are affected by this disease.

Shirley L. Pauole
La Plata, Maryland

Blessings for a Single Mother

I have been widowed for 38 years, and the articles in the March 1996 magazine reminded me of so many happenings during the rearing of my five children. I want you to know that I appreciated those articles. Sometimes articles in Church publications don’t seem to pertain to me as a single, but this time as I read I was reminded of so many blessings I’ve experienced as a single mother; I cried and laughed as I reminisced.

Norma Wilford
Roosevelt, Utah

Missionaries in the 20th Century

I would like to add additional information to the article “Chile’s Fruitful Vineyard” (Dec. 1995). The article mentions two missionaries flying from the Argentine Mission into Santiago on 23 June 1956 to begin modern-day missionary work in Chile.

Elder Robert E. Wells of the Seventy mentioned teaching Chilean workers in a logging camp just across the border from Argentina in January 1951:

“At the time, my companion and I, working in southern Argentina, crossed through the Andes by horseback and taught at a logging camp. We were the first missionaries in Chile in the twentieth century” (Ensign, Feb. 1977, 92). My husband, Newell K. Judkins, was Elder Wells’s missionary companion, and I have his missionary letters in which he writes of the experience. It took them seven hours of hard riding to reach Futaleufú, Chile, where they taught at the logging camp.

Joan Judkins
Provo, Utah

Ordinary People

I thoroughly enjoy the photographs taken of ordinary people on Temple Square that are printed in the conference issues of the Ensign. Great faces. Peaceful, happy faces.

Lynn Lawson
Brigham City, Utah

Caring for Meetinghouses

I certainly appreciate the article “Caring for Our Meetinghouses” (Oct. 1995). I believe that every physical maintenance supervisor will not only welcome the article’s message, but will look forward to the positive impact it will have on individual member’s attitudes and efforts in the future.

I am confident that we will be posting copies of the article on every bulletin board in the buildings within the area I supervise.

Dave Christensen, Chicago North PM Group Supervisor
Chicago, Illinois