Author Mary Ellen Edmunds: Everyone has a story, burden

Mary Ellen Edmunds has an appreciation for porches.In her book "MEE Speaks," the popular LDS author and speaker writes about porches facing an active street with neighbors coming and going, providing an opportunity for friendly exchanges. The amenities of porch-sitting are plentiful, she says."I love doing that with friends and family," Edmunds wrote. "Gathering and singing the familiar songs and visiting. ... Sharing burdens and joys. Sitting quietly. Just being together."Edmunds has also taken a proverbial porch around the world. She has been on four missions for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, serving in Taiwan, Hong Kong and the Philippines as on of the first Mormon sister missionaries in the Southern Far East Mission; at Brigham Young University on a two-year stake mission; in Manila, Philippines, as a health missionary; and in Djakarta, Indonesia, as a welfare missionary. She also helped with a child health project in Nigeria, West Africa.Edmunds has also porch-sat with senior and American Sign Language missionaries while working full-time at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah, for 17 years. As the MTC's director of training, she had responsibilities over Asian languages and welfare missionaries."Everybody you meet has an impact, a story," Edmunds said. "Think of the stuff we can learn."Edmunds is a frequent speaker at BYU Women's Conference, Campus Education Week and Time Out for Women, in addition to Mormon youth conferences and other venues throughout the United States and internationally. She finds a connection with large audiences, asking herself: "What are their burdens? What's going on in their hearts?"Edmunds sometimes notes the hour and minute when she receives spiritual promptings."At 11:20 this morning, this impression came to my mind," Edmunds said in one talk.In her book "MEE Thinks," Edmunds shared an experience about an impression that came at an inconvenient time. One Saturday, amidst a demanding schedule of talks, driving and visits (followed by more driving), Edmunds received a prompting that said, "You promised." She remembered a promise she made to visit a friend in the hospital. Although Edmunds was tired and ready to head home, she was careful to be obedient.At the close of the visit, Edmunds said, "You know I'm really quite a silly person, but beneath all of this I really, really love you."Her friend passed away soon after the visit.Edmunds said her disposition to be silly was inherited from her parents. She came from "a family that had synergy," where they bantered and cracked jokes a lot. Humor was the family's prescription to handle trials."I think what I call 'silly' is a way of looking at the world and myself, and I laugh at my human-ness, my OCD behavior, my off-the-wall thoughts and ideas," Edmunds wrote in an e-mail.Her books, which include "Love is a Verb," "Happiness: Finders Keepers" and "Thoughts for a Bad Hair Day," are full of creative sayings and advice, such as, "Maybe we can pretend the Jones are deep into Provident Living." And, "Don't go near the great and spacious building even if it's in the Parade of Homes."Edmunds describes her laugh as "loud and long and clear." She said hilarious thoughts "pop up like somebody put a match to a sparkler."The idiom of her life is a single word inscribed on a plaque in Edmunds' living room — "laugh."