By Cordell and Janice Vail

21 Dec 2003

A weekly email gospel message for the descendents of Ammon and Winona Vail

I still know who she is!

One of the things that I love most about Christmas is the stories that we all share with each other. I already told you about the 4th Wiseman. These stories we all pass around, so perfectly depict the true spirit of Christ and of charity. I love reading them. It is a special part of Christmas for me. I have another one that I simply love. It really is not just a Christmas story but it is one that truly portrays the spirit of Christmas and the spirit of perfect Christ like love. I love to read and think about this story. The stories often make me cry when I read them and this one is one of them. For me it is a story that is a part of our family traditions to read and share each year at this holiday time to help us remember who we are and what we should be doing to keep the spirit all through the year. It expresses so well how I feel myself about Janice. So here it is. (and by the way, this is also a true story).

One day the wife of our stake president was on duty as a nurse at the hospital. An older man came in for some blood tests. There was quite a long waiting list of patients. He came up to the desk and asked if he could get in first because he had a very important appointment. They told him no. I a few minutes he came and asked again. They told him no. After the third time asking she decided it must be important and so she just put his name to the top of the list and called him in next.

As she was drawing his blood she asked him what urgent appointment he had thinking it must be an appointment with his doctor or something. He told her that he had an appointment to have lunch with his wife who was in a rest home.

Being surprised at that, she ask about his wife's condition and he told her that his wife had Alzheimer and did not recognize him any more.

That seemed strange so she asked him why it was so urgent then to get there for lunch right on time. She asked him if he did not think the people at the rest home would understand if he was a few minutes late when his wife did not even know who he was.

Then he looked the nurse with a stern look and said, "I have been going there now every day for lunch with her for 5 years and just because she does not know who I am, I STILL KNOW WHO SHE IS."

NOTE: Nothing in any of these Sunday Sermons is intended to represent the official doctrines of the Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They are strictly instructions and teachings from Cordell and Janice Vail to their family.