Sophie's Story

   A few months ago I met a nice older couple, Sister and Elder Phillips. They are service missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Thier job is to photograph records from the Minnesota Historical Society archives. One copy of the records goes to the LDS Church for those who want to use it for genealogical research. The other copy is given to the state for their archives.    I was talking to Sister Phillips about their work and she brought up indexing. Indexing is the process of transcribing records to a digital database to make searching for documents easier. I had mentioned that I had studied the German language for six years (four in high school and two years in college) She encouraged me to do indexing work. She explained that there are a lot of records and not a lot of people with foreign languages skills to index them.   This seemed like a good idea. I was looking for volunteer work to do now that I have more spare time. I went to the website and took

      I'm going to start doing some volunteer work for the church. Last weekend I had an interview to discuss this matter. During the interview, I was told that the Bishop had said some very nice things about me. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a man is Bishop ( similar to pastor or leader of a congregation of members) for a period of about 5 years or so. Our ward recently got a new Bishop. I asked, "Which Bishop?"  "Bishop Moore", was the reply.    I was a little confused. Bishop Moore doesn't know me very well.  We did have a few conversations in the past. He was asked to teach the adult Sunday school class. I was so pleased that when the ward was asked to raise our hands to sustain him, I wanted to raise both my hands. (I didn't.) He was an excellent teacher who had a way of making the Scriptures applicable to daily life. He was and still is a dynamic teacher. Still, I was just one member of a large class and one who didn't

   The week before last I got an email. It informed me that I was going to be toastmaster for next week's meeting of the Small Town Toastmaster's club. What this means is that I am the person who leads the meeting for that week.   The person who sent it wanted to know if she should announce that we would need someone else to lead the meeting. Being toastmaster is a club role that I have successfully ducked for the last 15 or so years. Well, that's not quite true. I have been a co-toastmaster along with another person a couple of times. I thought about it for a minute. Then I answered her. I told her that I would lead the meeting.    This news came as a great surprise to just about everyone. I'm well known for my aversion to be ing the Toastmaster.    I decided it would be a themed meeting. The theme would be "facing your fears". Alternatively, members could talk about courage or overcoming adversity. I thought it was a good topic considering what I was ab

   Except for the occasional washcloth, I am taking a hiatus from knitting. It's not that I don't like knitting. It's not that I am tired of it. In the process of cleaning and reorganizing, I have found some unfinished business.    Unfinished business for the purposes of this column refers to craft projects that I have started and have not finished.    I already knew that I had two needlepoint projects. I did start to work on one a few months ago. The challenge I was running into was being able to see what I was doing. Unless I'm working in bright sunlight, it is difficult to see where to put the stitches. I put the needlepoint away and went back to knitting.   Then I found two counted cross stitch projects that I had not finished. One is a wedding sampler. I think I was going to make it for us. The other is a picture of an angel. There was more. I also found three counted cross stitch kits complete with all the needed thread that I had not started. I found a stamp

      Earlier this week, my friend Mickey, turned 50 years old. I have known her all my life. I know this because I have seen pictures of the two of us. I was in an infant seat and Mickey was sitting next to me. I cannot remember a time when I didn't know who she was.    After graduation, we parted ways. I went to North Dakota and she went to a small tech school a few hours away. We sometimes wrote to each other and if we were in town at the same time we would spend some time together.   Over the years our paths continued to diverge. Mickey got married to an abusive man with whom she had a child. That marriage quickly ended. She moved back to the town we grew up in. I saw her and her daughter whenever I was in town visiting my parents. Sometimes we would go out and do something. Sometimes we'd visit at her apartment and play with little Ellie.   Once her parents retired to South Dakota, she moved out there too. We wrote letters to each other. Sometimes we would talk on the

   Last week I wrote about how I had been sexually assaulted when I was in junior high school. While I admit that the many women finally reporting their experiences did influence my decision to write about something only a very few knew about, I did not want to seem like I was jumping on a bandwagon. I wanted to write about how I once shielded someone who should have been reported despite the fact that I had once been a victim myself.   Today I want to write about how I dealt with my assault. I believe it's important. I feel like most of the focus is on the offender and punishment of the offender. There should be more on how to survive and make something good out of what happened.   I'm sure that many people will read this and marvel at the fact that I'm suggesting that anything positive can come out of a sexual assault. They might think that the only positive thing that could happen is an offender being put in prison or so severely shamed that he or she will never even