Beautiful Grandma

Grandma's Food/Health Tips

Grandma has really taught me the importance of eating a big, healthy breakfast. It is crucial to good overall health. She suggested a hearty omelet with vegetables such as tomatoes, onions, garlic, leeks, peppers and mushrooms. She teaches that garlic, onions and lemons are natures cures. She says to not drink juice or eat citrus fruits on an empty stomach because of the acid.

What s the most important thing in life?

Grandma

What s the most important thing in life?

Knowledge of God and of His Son is the most important thing to gain in this life. I learned this directly from my mother and father. In the Catholic Church all we have to do is memorize prayers. I rebelled against that. My sister Ophe followed me. Every day at 6 at our grandmother’s house we would pray together (rosary-joy-pain-glory). It got boring saying the same things. I never thought of that prayer as being communication with God. We never knew the true meaning of baptism.

Do you have any regrets in life?

I adore my mother and father. I don’t remember any regrets. We loved our home, not the world. We lived under my mother and father’s law, not the country’s. We had few friends from school, but not many.

Once a young man was over at the house and as my sister was bending down to pick something up, he slapped her on the bottom. My father saw this and grabbed him by the collar and told him “you have five seconds to get your stuff and get out of here.”

We went on vacation to the beach a few times. They were good memories except for one incident. Once a friend from Spain was visiting. He was swimming in the ocean, but it seemed like something was wrong with him. We sent Mario out to get him. When he got there, he saw blood in the water and couldn’t reach him. Mario came back quick and we looked out in the ocean and saw a group of sharks. The sharks ate our friend from Spain.

The natives loved my father. They built some toilets for us, so when we went to the beach we could use the bathroom. They would carry it with mules and bring it to the beach.

We didn’t wear sun block.

Thursday, November 19, 2009 @ 5:30pm

I love sports. I ran when I was in school, and I played basketball too. Then I got married and I didn't have time to run any more. But the kids would go early to play basketball in the morning, and they would take me along to play with them. That was fun.

The mission was the peak of my life. It was so beautiful to help people all of the time. I never got sick, and Frank never got sick either. We didn't have time to be sick. You don't have time to think of yourself. When you don't have time to focus on yourself, you don't have time to think about being sick. We were up at 6:00 every morning, eating breakfast and trying to plan out our day and all of the things that we would do with all of the people that we were trying to help.

Try not to keep the foods in plastics. I hate the plastics. And now they have people who are saying not to buy the water in plastic bottles.

Do exercises with the kids. You move their arms, their legs, their heads, their bodies. Be close to your children. If I hadn't been close to Vivian she would not have lived. They thought she had polio. But I said know, that it was different. Every time she had a fever I kept a record of them. She would be outside playing and would come in and tell me "Mommy I don't feel good." And she would have a fever of 105 degrees and I would have to give her ice and a cold bath. And I would show them the records and they saw that they were wrong, that the fevers were not like the fevers you get with polio. But they would have treated her for polio.

Don't buy the mineral calcium. Only use the organic calcium from HerbaLife or corral calcium.

The best protection you can have is your immune system.

Everything is knowledge.

Something I would ask of you kids is to ask the schools and board of education to make sure to teach human anatomy so that they kids know how it is that the body works.

Time goes by so fast, and every minute of your life you can learn something new.

(Matthew)

Thursday, Nov. 12, 2009 @ 6:30pm PST

I never take the flue shot. When I was working in a doctor's office we would have so many people come in to get the flu shot, but I never did it. One time the doctor said to me, "Are you going to get the flu shot?" And I said to him that I would after he did. And he just laughed, because neither of us would ever do it.

The body is where the spirit is. Take care of it. Keep it clean. We have everything we need to fight infection in our body if our body is balanced in our immune system. I take vitamins from A to E. It is necessary to have all of the right vitamins. And we need to teach our children.

Our body is the biggest wonder in the world. The Word of Wisdom is not just about coffee and tea. It is about much more than that. It is about other things too. But, how can you tell what is good or bad for your body if you don't know how your body works? You need to learn about it so that you can take care of it and understand what is going on.

There is a right way and a wrong way to everything.

[Grandma’s Recommendations]

Cod Liver Oil is so good for our bodies. I have taken every day of my life. You should take it and give it to your kids. You can give it them in capsules or mix a spoonful in their food. It is very important.

Soda pop is so bad for our bodies. My father, when children would bring soda pops, he would take it away from them and tell them that he would make something much better for them. And he would make them a drink out of fruit juice. They had the fruit syrups in a bottle that he would use and they were very delicious.

Fever is good because it means that your body is working. You don’t need to reduce the fever whenever you get one. When you have very high fever (102 or higher) you do need to cool it off so that you don't get meningitis. That is when the meninges (which are the three matters around the brain) get inflamed, and then they can get infected and cause damage to his brain.

Cutting out the tonsils can cause problems too. You cut them out and you get more infections. I still have my tonsils.

Any little thing you have wrong and the doctors tell you take this antibiotic in case you get an infection. That is not right. I tell them that I do not have an infection yet, and if I do get an infection my system will fight it because my system is capable of fighting it. Antibiotics should not be used so much.

Never serve the milk or water with the meal. Serve it after the meal. The body has different fluids to digest the food. Your saliva is the first one. If you drink other fluids while you eat, your body will not produce the saliva. Also, chewing your food well is important so that the saliva can meet with your food. Once the food enters your body, it is sacred. Sit down and chew it and enjoy it. Don't grovel it. Eat it warm. Small bites. Chew well. And don't get up quickly to leave.

Even socks with lots of elastic cut of the veins and arteries, so the capillaries cannot have proper circulation.

Every system is different. You have to learn about your own body so that you can recognize what it needs or what might be wrong with it.

[Teach Your Children]

You have to talk to the kids and teach them since they are young. You can't wait until they are bigger. They are like sponges during the first six years of their life. You also have to be very watchful to see what they do and notice when something is unusual. That is a sign that something is wrong. We buy our children all of these things, but what we really need to do is watch them and take care of them.

We need to teach them and then show them how to do it. You teach it to your kids when they are young. Then it becomes natural and they don't have to think about it all of the time. If you get in bad habits, it is very hard to change it later. It is so much easier to teach them the right way from the beginning.

Like a nice conversation, you can talk about different parts of the body. You can make a game of it so that they can familiarize themselves with different parts of the body, and you stress immunity. You can tell them it is about the soldiers that defend the body. The antibiotics make the soldiers weak because they do the job of the soldiers and then they can't do their job.

[Book to Read]

Read the book "The Truth about the FDA, Pharmaceuticals and Doctors." It is amazing and shocking what it talks about.

(Matthew)

Sunday, Nov. 8, 2009 @ 7:00pm PST

My life has been so interesting because I have traveled to so many places. I like people and I have learned so much about people as I have traveled to different places. When you are with the people you really get to learn about their different idiosyncrasies and cultures and why they do what they do. And I have seen how each country has its own culture.

Several times I have given a talk at universities in the U.S.--USC, UCLA and others--and we visited with students. They say, "Why should we learn their different languages?" Everyone in those other countries can speak English. And I say to them, "It is not just the languages, it is the different idiosyncrasies and nuances and culture that they have." You have to get to know the people to be able to understand those things. And when they do learn about the people and their culture, they learn to respect them and appreciate the things they see without comparing it to what we have in the U.S. or what we think we do better here. If you don't respect them, you never pay attention to them, and you never learn about them.

If you go to the smallest country or the biggest country in the world, you will find the high, the middle, and the lower classes. It doesn't matter where you go, you will always find that. One time I went to Morocco. You know that I do not like things that crawl, and there were crawling things everywhere. I didn't eat anything in Morocco for two days because there were flies all over. The people are talking to you and they have flies in their mouth, and, oh! Other people were able to eat, but I just could not. But, you don't just think, "Look how dirty these people are." You think, "How can these people live this way? How are they able to live this way?"

Everywhere is different. Some people think that they are better then others, but that is a fallacy. You need to have respect for others, no matter what.

Your mother and all of your uncles are good people and are noble in heart. They do not think they are better than other people. That makes me so happy. You try to interject those things in your children so that they can become better than you. That is how the world is supposed to keep getting better and better. But, now the world is getting worse and worse. My father used to say to us, "You need to grow up to be better than your mother and I." And that is how it should be. I wish everyone would experience that. Your mother and your uncles are better than me and they are better than their father, and that makes me very happy.

You should read the autobiography of Charles Dickens. It is wonderful. He got to live many years, and in this book he reflects on what he went through in life--poor times in England when he was young, and many other things. It is so interesting to read about his reflections on life. As you read more you learn more about the human race, and you realize how much we need the gospel of Jesus Christ, in the simple and in the great matters in life.

(Matthew)

Friday, Nov. 6, 2009 @ 8:30pm PST

The thing is that I am already 89, and all the time I want to learn something new. I am listening to these talking books, and I am learning wonderful things. I wish I could tell my grandchildren about all of the things I am learning from these books--different points of view, wonderful truths, you can tell that people know about Christ just by the things that they say and the way that they talk.

... I would love to talk to each of my grandchildren and their households. It is unbelievable how much life can teach you. When you have lived a long life, you learn a lot from your experiences. I would like to do that, to spend a little time with each of the kids and the grandchildren.

... There are moments that I talk to God at night and say, "Why am I still here?" And I don't know, because I don't feel like anyone needs me anymore. But this thing that we have done tonight (this blog) has given me a booster shot; it has made me feel needed again. Thank you.

(These are, of course, only excerpts from our conversation. I had fun talking to Grandma tonight. I look forward to doing it again! --Matthew.)

Keeping up with Grandma

To my Cousins, Aunts and Uncles, Mom and Dad, etc.,

Whenever I talk to Grandma on the phone I learn about all of the things that she is studying or programs she is watching and I find that she has a lot of interesting things going on, which is pretty impressive for a 90 year old great-grandmother. I thought it was a shame to miss out on all of the interesting things that she is doing. She lives without any grandchildren by her side, to share her thoughts with and impart her wisdom to. I thought it would be so neat if she had a blog where she could share her thoughts and experiences with all of her grandchildren. And that is when the idea came to me--I should start a blog for her.

So, this is Grandma's blog. I don't know how often she will write in it, but I think she might actually like having a forum to express her thoughts, especially knowing that people who care to hear them (her grandchildren) will be reading it.

Occasionally, Mom (Vivian) might help her out in posting her thoughts. But, it seems like a lot of work and I thought it would be nice if some, or a lot of the help came from us grandchildren. Therefore, I will start it off. I will call Grandma up to find out what she has been up to and what she would like to share with the group. Hopefully we can keep the posts to a manageable size so that everyone will be inclined to read it regularly, post comments, and perhaps even volunteer to call Grandma and write up some of her posts for her. If anyone is interested please let me know and I will figure out how best to manage it.

Thanks for stopping in. I hope you enjoy keeping up with Grandma and that it helps us to all feel closer to her while she is in the sunset of her life. From what I can tell, it will be a beautiful sunset to an absolutely wonderful life!

Love,

Matthew