Virginia Tech . . . One Year Later

My thoughts have been with Virginia Tech these past few days as we remember the tragedy one year ago. Some of you may not know that Virginia Tech was in our stake in Virginia. I just went back and read through my journal entry from that week. I decided to include parts of that journal entry on my blog since many of my blog readers haven't heard about my experience that week. I apologize for the length, but it's very meaningful to me.

April 23, 2007

A week ago, on April 15, we had our branch conference. It was a great meeting with all of our stake leaders attending. Our Stake President, Scott Hendricks, informed us that the next week was Stake Conference and Elder Bednar, one of the 12 apostles, would be there in person. I had heard Bednar would be speaking, but I figured it would be a televised stake conference since that’s what they’ve been doing the past few years and the apostles rarely travel personally to stake conferences. Tige was on call the weekend of stake conference, and although it would be great to see an apostle in person, I just didn’t think I had it in me to drive the one hour drive with Kason and then sit through that long meeting with my 3 year old who can’t sit still. I decided I probably wouldn’t go.

The very next day, the shootings happened at Virginia Tech. The shooter killed 32 people and then shot himself. Virginia Tech is part of our stake, and our Stake President was in the building where the shootings occurred. I was glued to the TV for 3 straight days watching everything unfold. It was bizarre and very close to home. Such a tragedy. During those days, I couldn’t help thinking, wow, Heavenly Father knew about this and sent us an apostle. What are the chances that the very week the shooting happened we would be having Stake Conference with an apostle scheduled to attend in person. I decided to brave it and take Kason to Stake Conference.

It was such a wonderful meeting. Some friends from my branch saved me a seat, and we were right up front on the second row. I was like 6 feet away from Elder Bednar while he spoke—he spoke about 40 minutes. We didn’t have a lot of room on the bench, so Kason had to sit on my lap and/or on the floor at my feet. Kason was restless at the beginning of conference. I was feeling stressed out and questioned my decision to come. I fed the kid snacks with a fury to keep him quiet and let him color, etc. Would you believe that my restless little 3 year old son, suddenly fell asleep about 2 minutes before Elder Bednar started speaking and woke up right after he said “Amen.” He was sitting on the floor with his head between my legs, and his head suddenly started bobbing. I couldn’t believe he fell asleep on the floor, sitting up, at 11:00 a.m. I can’t tell you how unusual that is. It was as if Heavenly Father conked him on the head so I could pay close attention to Elder Bednar without being distracted. Another “tender mercy” I guess you could say.

Elder Bednar told a great story that had a lot of meaning to me. He said there was a man who wanted to buy a truck “to get wood in the winter to save money.” His wife was against it, but he bought the truck anyway. So he went up the mountain to get a load of wood and it started snowing. He wasn’t worried because he “had 4-wheel drive.” He kept going and before long, he was in a wet marsh and got stuck. He put it in 4-wheel and revved, but the more he did that, the more bogged down the truck became. It began to get dark and cold, and this was way before the days of cell phones. He resorted that he was going to die on that mountain. But he decided that to stay warm, he’d go ahead and fill that truck up with wood, and then at least when they found his dead body, there would be a load of wood in the truck for his family. So he filled the truck clear to the top with wood. Then he got back in the truck, started it, and gave it one last try. With the weight of the load of wood, the truck was able to get the traction it needed and was able to climb out of the mud bog. So it is with life. Sometimes we have to be given a heavy load to get the spiritual traction that we need in our life.

Elder Bednar also spoke of the atonement and how it applies in our lives not just when someone has sinned, but when we have been hurting and need comfort. Elder Bednar told us that last Thursday at 11:00 a.m. in Salt Lake when the prophet and the apostles met together, the prophet was personally praying for our stake. At the end of his talk he promised an apostolic blessing of peace upon our stake. It was truly the most amazing talk I’ve ever heard when you consider the circumstances our stake was dealing with.

Our stake president, President Hendricks is an engineering professor at VT and teaches in the Norris building where the shootings took place. He spoke and it was also very powerful. You could have heard a pin drop. He told us of how he barricaded himself in his office during the shootings and felt inspired with a “stupor of thought.” He had no inclination at all to do anything except stay in his office. He said his colleague with an office right by his also barricaded students in his office, but then went downstairs to see if he could help. That colleague was one of the professors killed. President Hendricks said he’d spent the week asking himself if he was a coward. I started bawling when he said this, as did about every one else—I could hear lots of sniffling. He said he wasn’t any more worthy of being saved that the people who were killed—several of which he named by name with tears in his eyes.

Anyway, I think I could honestly say it was one of the most spiritual and powerful church meeting I’ve ever been to in my life. I’m thankful I decided to go even though it was hard taking Kason since Tige couldn’t go with us and with the 2 hour drive round-trip.