My husband is going to be suprised

The latest, breaking news from a certain Mormon girl with whom I went to school, and whom we will call here "Milly":

Milly: "Showered, did my hair and make up and got dressed in something other than sweats, my husband is going to be suprised [sic]."


To which certain of Milly's friends commented:

Maddie: "congratulations!!! Most days are like that for me too, Hip Hooray for you!!!!"

Margie: "I've showered but haven't done my hair and makeup...still working up the energy for that. :o) Way to go Milly!"


Allow me to add my own congratulations to dear Milly, for managing to accomplish, as a thirty-two year old woman, what most of us would expect from a ten-year old. I do sincerely hope that her husband will not only be surprised, but also proud and honored to be married to such a talented, hard-working, well-groomed and artificially painted woman.

Perhaps we should forward her accomplishment to Boyd Packer for additional adulation.

Or better yet, her proud achievement could even be brought to the attention of President Dieter Uchtdorf, who recently admonished would-be husbands: "[B]rethren, please start asking! There are too many of our young women who never go on dates." Of course, Dieter didn't actually arrive at many conclusions as to the reasons why certain of the single brethren might not ask certain of the young women out, but presumably a woman's propensity to bath and cloth herself, as well as to apply makeup, would have some bearing on the question. Milly is, after all, married.

Personally, I believe it also worth contacting General Relief Society President Julie Beck. Surely Milly is a shining example of a Mother who knows, the kind of woman Sister Julie described in the October 2007 Conference:

"Mothers who know honor sacred ordinances and covenants....[and] have dressed with great care in their Sunday best despite walking for miles on dusty streets and using worn-out public transportation. They bring daughters in clean and ironed dresses with hair brushed to perfection; their sons wear white shirts and ties and have missionary haircuts....These mothers have influence and power."


Indeed, Milly, with her talents and worthy personal habits, surely has much influence and power.

After all, Milly is married with children, a status coveted by so many single LDS women, and about whom Dieter spoke also in his address above: "I know of many women who want more than anything else to be a wife and a mother, and they cannot understand why their prayers have never been answered."

And surely so. Yet do these single women realize just how difficult it must be to actually face each day, as does Milly, with the courage to make themselves presentable to their husbands?

Do these single women truly believe, as did President David O. McKay, that "No other success can compensate for failure in the home?"

Do these single women concur with President Spencer W. Kimball, as did President Ezra Taft Benson when he proclaimed that each of them is "to become a career woman in the greatest career on earth--that of homemaker, wife, and mother. It was never intended by the Lord that married women should compete with men in employment. They have a far greater and more important service to render?"

Or are they wallowing in their sweats, unable and unwilling to get showered and dressed, or even to do their hair and makeup? Are they committed, firmly and unmovably, in the determination to do whatever it takes, day in and day out, to surprise, indeed to delight, their husbands?

Or are they daring to heed Dieter's rather heretical advice to "[b]ecome engaged in a meaningful career, and seek fulfillment in service to others. Use your time, your talents, and your resources to improve yourself and bless those around you."

While it may be true, as Dieter suggests, that "All of this is part of your preparation for having a family," I believe, in my heart of heart of hearts, that the example of Milly is in fact the correct one. It is the brave one. It is the path to become, as Ezra Benson described, the kind of wife and mother whose children will recall as having "[A] sunny face. To me it was like God, and all the beatitudes saints tell of Him. And sing! Of all the sensations pleasurable to my life nothing can compare with the rapture of crawling up into her lap and going to sleep while she swung to and fro in her rocking chair and sang."


It all starts with a woman willing to shower and dress in something other than sweats and to do her hair and make up. And it all ends with a suprised husband.