Life Happens: Lessons from a Trip to Hells Canyon

In this candid mini-episode, Clare shares a real-life story of a family road trip to Hells Canyon that turned into a nine-hour adventure, complete with an exploded boat tire, back-and-forth drives, and the unexpected kindness of strangers (shoutout to Dirk!). In the middle of the chaos, a simple prayer from her daughter and an innocent question, "Is God punishing us?" sparks a heartfelt conversation about the nature of God, the power of obedience, and how "mortality works."

Candice and Clare delve into Elder Brooke P. Hales' talk, "Mortality Works," and the healing truth in John 9, which suggests that sometimes difficult things happen not because of sin or failure, but so that the works of God can be made manifest.

This episode is both lighthearted and deeply reflective, making it perfect for anyone who has ever asked, “Why is this happening?”

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This podcast episode may contain brief quotes from external sources, used in a positive and respectful manner for discussion, education, and commentary. These references fall under fair use as they are not used for commercial gain, do not replace the original works, and are presented with proper context and attribution.

The views and opinions expressed in this episode are our own and those of our guests. They do not necessarily reflect the official doctrine, beliefs, or positions of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Shownotes (clickable links)

John Chapter 9:1-3

Mortality Works by Elder Brook Hales

Transcript

Sisters: latter-day voices website

Transcript

Candice Buchanan Welcome to the sisters podcast. I'm Candace.

Clare Craner And I'm Claire.

Candice Buchanan And bear with us before we get started. Uh, it's a little crazy over here at my house. Just being honest. we're preparing for a trip. I have my brother in law stopping by downstairs. My kids are super hyper because they get crazy hyper whenever anybody visits. I don't know why that is. Hopefully it's not just my kids. So I'm in my closet recording right now, and I'm just can't wait to hear what Clarissa says.

Clare Craner Hey. And I dragged my youngest with melatonin. She keeps sleeping in my bed every night. I'm so tired.

Candice Buchanan Oh, like we have to be clear. Melatonin. The appropriate

Clare Craner Mhm.

Candice Buchanan amount.

Clare Craner Yeah. So just give myself some as we're talking Yeah, I should just give everyone melatonin right now, but I guess

Candice Buchanan Mhm.

Clare Craner it's only eight, so maybe not.

Candice Buchanan Maybe not.

Clare Craner Okay, well, today's story is about our boat. so today I'm going to be talking about going camping, and we decided to go to Hells Canyon with some friends, and we decided to take our boat with us. And of course we decided last minute. So it was like the night before we were getting it all ready. We haven't driven it or taken it out. you know, it's an older boat. So we always are like, oh, well, we hope it works. And it was only a 3.5 hour drive. We decided to leave our youngest at home with Grandma and Grandpa. We told our friends at a certain time we would be there, and we decided to tell him because at that location there's no cell service. So we just were like, okay, this is when we should show up. So we left the house. We're about 30 minutes from the house and the kids are like, we need some food. So we decided to go to subway, get food and we gas up. Maybe we drive ten more minutes and my daughter's like, oh, we forgot to say a prayer. We should say a prayer. And we always say a prayer like, help us to travel safely. We just totally spaced it. So she was all about it and she wanted to say the prayer. She was like, I get to say it this time. Like, sweet, you say the prayer. So she said the prayer. Didn't think anything of it. We drove probably an hour and 20 minutes longer, and then right out of Midvale, our boat tire completely exploded. we pulled off to the side of the road, and it was in the country, and it was blocking this gentleman's driveway. It was like this really long driveway. we pulled off, we were blocking it and we're like, okay, boys, first you go try to find him and see if it's okay that we're blocking this guy's driveway just to make sure he doesn't have to get out right there. And I think he was mowing his lawn. they went to try to find him to see, like, okay, is it okay that we're here right now where we try to figure this out? So we're figuring this out and a couple people stop, which was awesome. Just to know, like, okay, like there's humanity. People are aware that this is terrible and that our our tire exploded. So a couple people stop. And then there's this older car who stops and there's this guy, and his name is Dirk, which already. That's a cool name. Dirk.

Candice Buchanan Great. Great.

Clare Craner Yeah. Great name. And he pulls over and at this point, my husband's pretty handy. Like the tires or the wheels are already off and they're already trying to figure it out. And Dirk has like tons of tools and he's like, oh, I do this for a living. So he probably works at some tire repair shop and he has all this, all these tools. And he comes out, he starts helping Darren. And then this police officer comes and he's like, is everything okay? And we're like, yeah, it's fine. And Dirk is like, hey, just to let you know, I carry and the police officer is like, oh, okay. Well, thanks for letting me know. And that makes Dirk even cooler.

Candice Buchanan Oh,

Clare Craner And

Candice Buchanan man.

Clare Craner so Dirk is helping us and he's like, okay, well, I think this is what you need and this is what you need. And Darren's like, well, do you think we can make it to Hells Canyon? And he's like, no. Like, not a chance. We're like, okay. So he gives my husband a list of things that we need, and we already have quite a bit of tools with us because my husband's always like, oh, I think we need this in the car and we need this. So we already are like, I think we're super prepared, but like we don't have some basic things. So he's like, oh, well, I have an extra hammer and he gives it to us and he's like, oh, I have this, and he gives it to us. So we have like everything that we possibly need at this moment. But there's some stuff, I guess the bearings are shot. And so I know nothing about cars, by the way. So I'm probably not saying this right, but what my husband thinks happened is the bearings seized and it overheated and the tire exploded. So what Dirk was saying is that he needed to take off the tire, repack all the bearings with a ton of grease, repack them, and then we would be fine. And so we're like, okay, so we left the boys with the boat because it had all of our stuff in it. It had our wakeboards everything in it, and we didn't want to just leave the boat because that's like a lot of expensive stuff in it. So we left our boys and it's like 90 degrees, so it's really hot. And then my husband, my daughter and I decided to drive back, like the way we came to go find all of this stuff that we needed to fix the tire. So we drove back like another 30 minutes from where we were to an O'Reilly, and Darren was buying bearings, and then Darren's like, well, I need you to go buy a tire. So I was like, okay. So I went to O'Reilly and I was like, boys, take a picture. I bought a tire. I went back to Darren and he's like, oh, well, they're out of all these bearings. So I need you to go back and even further, like drive another 30 minutes and go to another O'Reilly and get more bearings. It's like, okay. So then I kept driving and then my boys are, like, stalking me on the stalking app. And they're like, are you just leaving us? Are you going home? I'm like, no, I promise, like, we're trying to figure this out. So I go even further away. And at this point, it's been like a few hours. So I go even further away, get more bearings, go back, pick up Darren. And he had just finished. And then Darren's like, wait, this is what they gave you at Les Schwab? And I'm like, yeah, they gave me a tire. And Darren's like, well, no one just gives you a tire. You're supposed to have a tire in a wheel. And I'm like, well, I don't know. Like I just like, asked what they what you told me to. And they're like, okay, this is weird. Well, I don't they're like, I don't blame you, I blame them. I'm like, okay, so we had to go back to Les Schwab and get whatever we were supposed to get. So it was just like so much back and forth. And at this point, I was just getting frustrated and it was just more frustrated. The situation like this was taking so much longer. And then I felt bad. Like our friends are probably like, what is happening? Because we told them we'd be there at a certain time and we weren't there. And it is like hours and hours after we said we'd be there. And so we finally made it back to the boat and we had all of this stuff. It's a single axle trailer, and this trailer has just given us problems since day one. But anyways, they took off both of the wheels. They repacked the bearings with so much grease, like the boys were just covered in grease from head to toe. They figured it all out and they got it put back together. And I'm like, Darren, is this going to be okay? And he's like, yeah, it's great. So I'm like, okay, let's do this. Because the sketchy thing is, is that there's no cell service for the last 40 minutes, and it's kind of a windy road. So that freaked me out a little bit. But anyways, he's like, okay, we got it. We figured it out and it was all taken care of. So at this point, like everything was done, it was taken care of. And the cool thing about it is the whole time, All the kids and everyone was just super chill. No one lost their cool. Everyone was just like, oh, that's a bummer. But everyone was happy. No one was frustrated. I think I was a little sad for probably ten minutes, just driving back and forth because I was like, oh my gosh, what if the boys are so sad because I'm away from them? Or what if this or what if this? But it was really just me getting in my own head. But everyone was fine. So the 3.5 hour drive ended up taking 9.5 hours. So it was a long time, but at the end of it we got the tire fixed. We got back on the road and my daughter's like, oh my gosh, do you think, uh, God is punishing us because we forgot to say our prayer, and I

Candice Buchanan I

Clare Craner just

Candice Buchanan don't

Clare Craner kind

Candice Buchanan know.

Clare Craner of laugh, and I'm like, well, no, God isn't vengeful. Like, that's just not how it works. But that made me think about that, because that's like what her first response was to like this happening. And I was thinking about how, well, because when I was telling you what I was going to talk about, you're like, well, you have to be careful about that, because I don't even know how you said it. But you're like, oh, how did you say it?

Candice Buchanan I. What I said was, God is not a vengeful God. But there are direct blessings. Your blessings are connected to obedience. So if you're following certain laws or commandments and you're being obedient, you will receive blessings. It's not that if you don't follow something like you forgot to say family prayer that morning. That doesn't mean that God is vengeful and he's going to punish you. But maybe I don't know. Maybe you would have gotten some small blessing from it. But you sounds like you already did get blessings. I think it's tricky to take something and then pinpoint, oh, why this is happening, because we don't know why things happen and

Clare Craner Yeah.

Candice Buchanan we do get. I know I'm a firm believer in blessings, and when you do follow, um, commandments or any law, there's a good quote from Elder Oaks and I don't have it, but he explains it really well in a talk one time. It's the lawyer in him that explains how blessings are connected with obedience. Um, but at the same time, like, I think life is meant to be messy. It's it's designed that way. Things are going to happen. Sometimes cells are going to grow in a wrong way in a body and cause cancer. Sometimes bad things happen, tires blow out. But God's always there to help us if we reach out to him. But he's not punishing us if bad things happen to us.

Clare Craner Yeah. And just like it says in the scriptures, like if we obey his commandments, we are blessed. But I don't think he's just sitting up there waiting to punish us every single time, like we forget to say our prayers at the right moment. You know, I just don't believe that God is that type of a vengeful person. But, um, when I was talking to my dad about, uh, this boating thing and what Jocelyn said, he reminded me of this talk, and I remembered this talk and how cool it was, and I completely forgot about it until he mentioned it. And it's called Mortality Works. And it was in October 2024. And it was by, uh, let me look, it was by Elder Brooke P Hales. And it just talks about life challenges. And these challenges are obviously like real challenges. And obviously the challenge that I just shared was more just like a funny story life happens challenge. It wasn't really a challenge his talk reminded me of everyone has had life happen to him. Where we've had real challenge happens where it's like, oh, that really wasn't fair. Like, I cannot believe that happened. And this talk I think is just meant for those moments. And it talks about how he had something happen in his youth, how it caused him a lot of pain and shame. And it talks about, how his mom grew up and just had a really hard childhood with physical challenges. Financial challenges. And how, her sister passed away and how she ended up also raising, her sister's daughter. And then how, his mom, later in her life, she ended up, with dementia and passed away. And in his talk, he talked about how he had this dream And in this dream, his mom was just radiating this beauty and he couldn't even describe how beautiful like she was. And it was her countenance, and she was just stunning. And, in the talk, he goes, I remember saying to her mother, you are so beautiful. Referencing her spiritual power and beauty. And he says, she acknowledged me again without speaking, and I felt her love for me, and I knew that she is happy and healed from her worldly cares and challenges, and eagerly awaits a glorious resurrection. And he says, I know that for mom, mortality worked, and that it works for us too. And then he goes on to quote the famous scripture, you know, God's work and glory is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man in Moses. But that just goes to show that that life happens in that mortality works, and sometimes it is just life, like you were saying. And, this reminds me of one of my favorite scriptures in John. when I had Carly, I just remember really struggling like, oh, is it something that Darren did or is it something that I did? Like, why was she born with down syndrome? Is it something in our cells that caused this problem? Or why are people born with special needs before? Like she was even born almost before she even had a chance. And I remember just really struggling and never getting the right answer and looking everywhere for it medically and spiritually. Just everywhere. And this scripture I've always loved since, and it's the first three verses in John chapter nine, and it says, and as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. God can use difficult circumstances to reveal his power and glory and that it's a good reminder that life happens and life can be messy. and always have faith in him and just know how much he loves you.

Candice Buchanan I think that's a good way to end it. I think just I think keeping in mind that God is a loving God, like you said before, I think the

Candice Buchanan whole point of that story is that he's not a vengeful God. He's a loving God. Things are going to happen, and they might happen for a variety of reasons. But know that no matter what happens, God is there for you because he loves you and he wants to help you.