Category Archives: Personal stories

Serving Others

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Daniel Fish Graduation
A few years ago I was at my son Daniel’s graduation ceremony from High School. The principal started her commencement talk by recognizing people who have made a difference at Hunter High School

She first had the 4.0 students stand, then the honor roll students, one by one and sometimes in large groups people were standing in recognition for things they had accomplished.Lastly she requested that anyone who had provided a service stand. Almost everyone was standing at this point.

I noticed there were 6-8 people still seated at this point. I thought to myself, “How sad that these students were still sitting down.” Either they didn’t understand the importance of service or they couldn’t recognize the times they were serving even when they were helping others.

One of the reasons I like essential oils so much is I know others will benefit from using them, I love going out of my way to help people. At this point it is no longer about making money, it is about helping and serving others. As a result of this attitude I have been blessed with many amazing experiences with people using essential oils.

Privation Pie

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Privation PieWhen I was eleven I wanted to make a homemade chocolate cream pie. My mother gave me the recipe. Then she said, “I will be in my bedroom if you need me.” She later admitted she would have gone nuts watching me cook when I was first learning this skill. The recipe called for 3 tablespoons of cornstarch. I added 3 tablespoons of baking soda instead. The recipe said “bring to a boil.” I couldn’t understand why the pie filling was foaming over the top of the pan. I called my mom into the kitchen.

No sooner did she come into the kitchen when she grabbed a large pan and poured part of the pie filling into the second pan. It just kept growing. This is when my mom started questioning the ingredients I had added. When I got to the cornstarch on the recipe card, I pointed to the baking soda container and said I added cornstarch. I was then told, “This pie filling is no good. When you thought you were adding cornstarch you were adding baking soda.” You can do everything just right except for one thing, ending up with a huge disaster.

Years later when I was 18 I had an opportunity to work at two separate places that made pies. I learned different techniques of pie making from both places. The Saturday before Thanksgiving I spent 18 hours making pies at Marie Calendar’s. I am thankful for my training in pie making.

I have found myself showing several women’s groups how to make the perfect pie crust, and delicious pie fillings. My failure as a child was a stepping stone to my success with making pies today.

When you ask questions, not acting like you know it all, you will learn. I still find new ways to make things better from my past mistakes. Learning what works and what doesn’t is part of the joy.

Essential oils are a lot like my early days of cooking, when I made many mistakes with recipes. Now with essential oils I find myself continually going to my modern essential book which outlines the oil that works best for each condition I might have when I was unfamiliar with how the oils work. I find as in cooking, and with essential oils every time I fail, I am learning important life lessons.

My Reading Miracle

Personal stories, , , ,

Leonard Fish age 6When I was a small child I struggled with my reading ability. I was born with a lazy eye and astigmatism. The first four years of my life I wandered around half blind until I got glasses. This opened up a whole new world where I could see, but I was behind developmentally.

When I was in first and second grades I was at the bottom in all my classes at school. In my effort to catch up and improve myself, one year I received an award for reading 1,000 books to my mother and my two oldest siblings, Ramona and Sherry. The next closest person read only 400 books.

I had many helpful, caring teachers. I remember one machine that helped me read. It would make the sound of a word when you slid a card through the machine. It had a strip of recordable tape attached to cards. You would slide a card through the device, then you would hear the word you just read. I learned how to erase the right word and, replace it with the wrong word instead. The teacher was not happy with my newly discovered knowledge of the reading machine.

I find it interesting that in spite of my difficult past with reading, I have risen above my reading obstacle. I now enjoy writing, and sharing my love of essential oils. I have come full circle, sharing oils that may help small children with their ability to focus which I feel was one of my challenges as a child, and has followed me into adulthood. I have been blessed with InTune, an essential oil focus blend, that I have found greatly aids my ability to focus.

The Fundraiser

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I remember a kind couple who loved my parents, John and Nome Mackaleash. They enjoyed visiting with our family. I remember one time when they came to our home that my sister Rachel was involved in a fundraiser, and was selling boxes of M&M candies for one dollar. This was big money in the 1980’s. I remember John pulled out 20 dollars and bought the whole case of candy. He then gave each one of us our own box.

Fast forward 20 years and my children are doing a school fundraiser. I totally discouraged my children from doing any fundraisers. I would say, “I will give you a dollar if you don’t do that fundraiser.” I was very nasty with everyone trying to sell me anything. One day I was listening to one of my audio books. The guy in the book is telling everyone to be more generous with their money and it will come back ten fold. I started doing this and it works. Now when children come over to the house selling things I buy from everyone. I think back to the great example and generosity of my parents’ friends. We must give more in order to receive more.

Generous giving of ourselves produces a generous harvest. I think this is why I enjoy using and sharing essential oils so much. When I use an essential oil that has personally effected my life in a positive way, I cant wait to share it with others. I love using a product that has no harmful side effects, that gives people another option for hope on their journey for better health.

Don’t Eat the Fish

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When I was nine or ten I went fishing with my dad and older brother. We must have caught three or four good sized fish. Then my dad and brother gutted the fish which I considered disgusting.

When we got home my mom cooked up the fish, and I remember the entire house smelled of it. Then we sat down as a family to eat all this fried fish for dinner. I didn’t get all the bones out of my fish and I didn’t like the fishy taste. As a result of this experience, I don’t like anything to do with catching or eating fish. So my own rule is don’t eat the fish. This is a great rule for me because of a negative experience that I personally had. For many other people this would be a terrible rule.

How many of us follow rules even when we don’t understand why we are following them? Many rules that we follow are because of a negative experience that happened to someone else, or because of some unusual circumstances.

Mary was cooking a ham for dinner when one of her children asked her, “Why do you cut off the end of the ham when putting it in a pan? Mary’s response was “when I saw my mom cook a ham she always cut off the end of her hams.” Mary decided to call up her mom to find out why she cut the end of her ham off. Her response was, “my hams wouldn’t fit in any of my pans, so I cut the end off.”

Most things we do are based on how it was done in the past. When we get sick, what do we do, we reach for the pain relief capsules. We do what we were taught as children and young adults. We did the best we knew how with the knowledge we had at the time.

Now we know that with every man made drug there are harmful side effects, some minimal, others very dangerous, and compromising to our health. There is hope! I am excited to learn that there are essential oils that have no dangerous side effects, with positive results. I am happy to report my first line of defense when sick or healthy is by using powerful essential oils that have been studied for their healing properties.

The Rolls Royce Dilemma

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Screen shot 2014-10-04 at 5.25.06 PMSeveral years ago my dad was a teacher at East High School in Salt Lake City, Utah. One of my dad’s former students, Mike, owned a car dealership that sold many high end cars. One day my dad decided to drop in, and say hello to a former student. While visiting he asked, “Mike, tell me one of your most interesting stories here at your car dealership.” Mike replied,” A few months ago a man in torn ragged clothes came into the show room looking at all the cars on display. It was not uncommon for homeless men and women to wander in off the streets to warm up from the cold. When this man came in, he was spending most of his time looking at the Rolls Royce automobiles.

Mike noticed he had two salesmen that could have helped this man, but chose not to. Feeling a little embarrassed that his salesmen were in no hurry to help this man, he went up to this man and asked if he could help him. He began to tell Mike that he had always wanted to own a Rolls Royce, and it was his wife’s birthday. He wanted to surprise her with a white Rolls Royce, and he wanted to get a black one for himself. The commission that the salesmen passed up would have given them an equivalent of four months of pay on those two cars. Mike called the bank, and the cars were ordered while the salesmen were left squirming with their mouths wide open. They judged this man unfairly because of the clothes he was wearing.

The same could be said about people sharing essential oils, Someone may say I can’t believe people actually think they can make money with essential oils. I am here to tell you, just as the Rolls Royce salesmen passed up talking to the man who looked like a bum, other people are passing on large six figure monthly incomes because they don’t realize the effective power of essential oils. I challenge everyone to use and share essential oils. They have changed my life, and can change yours as well.

Allen, a Memory of a Great Man

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Allen and Ramona damewood

I have many fond memories of Allen. Today he would have been 58. I miss him, and think of him often. My sister, Ramona and Allen were were married in 1980. I was in high school when they got married. Allen always liked to make light of stressful situations which was helpful in tense moments.

I have been known for not stopping and taking time to smell the roses. The Chevy Chase version of visiting the Grand Canyon, just stopping long enough to take a picture is my version of a trip, (not quite that bad). Allen would go hiking with a field guide so he could identify and truly enjoy everything he came across on his hike. This was a little slow for me. He loved taking it slow, so he wouldn’t miss a thing.

Allen’s favorite thing to do to me was he would tap on my shoulder, and then look the other way pretending to not even notice I was there. I would look at him and he would smile with his impish grin and I would say “the imp is at it again”. We would both laugh. It was almost like a kind of greeting between the two of us that I miss deeply.

Four years ago, Allen was diagnosed with very advanced prostate cancer with a very grim outlook.  He refused to let that kind of news get him down. He started doing all kinds of natural homeopathic things to give him more time. Allen also had good extended family, and friends that gave him all kinds of things that they thought would help him.

One day Allen pulled out a box of everything people wanted him to try. He said if I tried everything in this box all I would do is go from one remedy to another not knowing what would help me the best. He said I pray about it and do the gut check. If it feels right I will try it, if not I won’t. Two things that helped Allen was Frankincense essential oil and the Cellular Complex.

Frankincense is a great oil when you are not sure what will help. This is the Swiss Army knife of essential oils with multiple uses and is known the help people with cancer.  The Cellular Complex is an oil blend that has the abilities to provide antioxidant support for cells and to promote a healthy cellular life cycle.

I would like to think this is one of the reasons Allen lived two and a half years, Much longer than his doctors thought he would live with a much better quality of life. His Doctor’s were always amazed at how well he was doing with his very advanced cancer.  He was hiking the Canadian Rockies the summer before he died.  With his positive attitude, healthy eating and using natures medicine along with using doctors advice, he got the best of both worlds.

Dad Tell Me a Story

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Melvin C. Fish

As a child one of my favorite memories was listening to my dad tell stories of his youth and adventures before he married my mom. When he was in his early twenties he went on a 3 year mission to Hong Kong and Taiwan. I felt like I had lived there myself after he would describe in vivid detail how he lived and loved the Chinese people.

My dad told of adventures like how someone stole one of the missionaries bikes. On another day they were riding down the street with many people riding bikes when my dad and another missionary were riding right next to a man riding the stolen bike. So they each grabbed the handle bars on each side and forced him to give up the bike that was theirs.

One thing my dad loves is eating Chinese food. Being the fourth of ten children it made sense to feed the family lots of food from the Orient. There were times when the budget was tight when we ate rice 5-7 days a week. I remember my 8th grade history teacher was talking about China when he said “can you imagine eating rice every day” I raised my hand and said ‘I do eat rice everyday and love It.” One of my favorite dishes is Chinese Won-Tons. For the recipe Click Here

A Reflection of my Past

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Leonard Fish age 11Several years ago, almost in another lifetime, when I was 11 going on 12. I was on top of the world. I was in sixth grade. This is a pivotal year in school. I was finally king of the school. I had arrived at the top of the food chain as far as kids my age were thinking. I never was a cocky, arrogant, kid wanting to show how big I was to the other younger kids. I was a little awkward socially, never feeling like I really fit in.

One thing everyone had to do in sixth grade was learn how to dance. I remember having a dance teacher that came to our school once a week for a couple of months. After we learned how to waltz we had a school dance where we had to fill out a dance card, asking girls to dance. It was very painful getting 10 different girls to dance with me to fill up my dance card.

When we started learning how to square dance I loved it, except when I was dancing with Wendy Ryan, one of the most popular girls in the school. Her hands were very sweaty. What I liked best was I didn’t have to ask a girl to dance with me. We were just paired up which made it a lot less stressful. For the rest of the story Click Here.

 

Summer Apples

Personal stories, Recipes, , , ,

Healthy Apples

Summer Apples
I love almost everything about summer, the warm weather, lots of hiking, and yes, an abundance of fruit. This year we have an explosion of apples growing on our tree in the front of the house. There are so many, in fact, there are plenty to share with the birds and worms.

I have a yummy recipe to help me use the apples on my tree.

Healthy Apples
Get any size bowl, fill half full of water cut up apples just enough to eat, not waste.
Add 1 drop Protective Blend essential oil to the water.
Add 1 drop lemon essential oil to the water.
Add 1 drop cassia essential oil to the water.
Put cut up apples in the water, then let the apples sit for a minute.
Drain off the water and you have a tasty treat.