Valiant Saints

Kirby and Cathy Parse of Loveland, Colorado, have learned that service in the Church depends more on willing spirits than on willing bodies. Both have multiple sclerosis and are confined to wheelchairs, but what they don’t accomplish by ordinary means they accomplish in extraordinary ways.

For example, they do their home teaching in their own home. For more than 12 years Brett and Cathy Howe and their children have gone regularly to the Parse home, where they enjoy lessons on the gospel. In the process, a rich friendship has developed. “The Howe children have become like our own grandchildren,” says Cathy.

Kirby discovered that he had MS about 20 years ago. Cathy’s diagnosis occurred a short time later. Multiple sclerosis, a disorder of the nervous system, attacks the brain and the spinal cord, often leaving its victims with paralysis or tremors.

Cathy joined the Church in 1975. She met Kirby at an MS function, and they married in 1982. A month later, Kirby was baptized, and in 1984 they were sealed in the Ogden Temple.

“The gospel has given me a much greater perspective,” says Kirby. “I have realized that there is more to life than just mortality. I’ve also learned the importance of enjoying life along the way, especially the little things.”

The Parses are magazine representatives in the Big Thompson Ward, Greeley Colorado Stake.—Jane McBride Choate, Loveland, Colorado