Walking down the hallway, I could hear the ruckus all around. People seemed panicked again. Had someone at work contracted the coronavirus? (Most conversations as of late had revolved around that topic.) What was everyone gathering to discuss in such animated voices? As I approached, my coworker looked at me and asked, “Did you feel that?” I replied that I hadn’t felt anything. The entire group proceeded to tell me that we had just endured an earthquake.
At first, I didn’t believe anyone. How could I possibly have missed the earth shaking? I was walking through a warehouse with a dolly at the time, or maybe in an elevator. Was I just totally oblivious? I actually believed that people were making it up or playing a prank on me. That’s when my phone rang and my roommate called to see if I was okay because the house was shaking so badly. I guess that made it more real. For the rest of the day, everyone continued to update me as over a hundred aftershocks come through the Utah Valley. To be honest, I didn’t feel any of those either.
Later in the day, I noticed lines of cars as the gas station. People were once again acting frantic and frazzled. It seemed that overnight, gas had become the new toilet paper. People had to have it and they had to have a ton of it right now. Patience didn’t seem to exist anymore and people seemed to be very on edge. What was the world coming to?
As I sat reflecting on all of the world happenings, it hit me that these are the last days. We learn in Luke 21:11:
And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.
In the past week we experienced minor versions of earthquakes and pestilences. (I believe the coronavirus falls into the “pestilences” category.)
Now don’t get me wrong — I don’t think that the end of the world is coming tomorrow. I do think that we have been taught and should be more prepared because the difficulties that lie ahead will be far greater than anything we have had to endure thus far.
I love what Gordon B. Hinckley said just after September 11th:
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“Now, brothers and sisters, we must do our duty, whatever that duty might be. Peace may be denied for a season. Some of our liberties may be curtailed. We may be inconvenienced. We may even be called on to suffer in one way or another. But God our Eternal Father will watch over this nation and all of the civilized world who look to Him. He has declared, ‘Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord’ (Ps. 33:12). Our safety lies in repentance. Our strength comes of obedience to the commandments of God.”
In a lot of ways, we are experiencing those very things today and may be in this frenzied state for a while. However, we can trust that God is our Lord and He is looking out for us. In some ways, we can feel so peaceful that is almost as though we don’t notice how bad things are — we just continue with our lives focused on Christ.
Ashley Dewey is extremely talented at being single. Hobbies include awkward conversations with members of the opposite sex, repelling third dates, talking to boys about their girl problems and to girls about their boy problems. In her spare time she also has a very fulfilling school life, work life, and social life.
Besides being a professional single, Ashley is also a BYU graduate with a degree in linguistics (Aka word nerd). She enjoys studying other languages, particularly American Sign Language, and finds most all of them fascinating. She is currently pursuing a masters degree in Teaching English as a Second Language.
Ashley works most of the time and has often been accused of being a workaholic. Currently she works full time as a merchandiser and supervisor in a retail store, and part time doing social media work. On her day off she works (really it doesn't feel like work) in the Provo LDS temple. The only kind of work she finds difficulty focusing on is house work.
Her favorite activities in her free time are reading, writing, creating social experiments, and spending time with great friends and family. Specific activities with those family and friends include: going to concerts, plays, dance recitals, BYU basketball and football games, and watching sports on television.
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