Wait for It: Ruby and Monia’s Story

 This week, Candice shares a powerful true story about Ruby, a 99-year-old woman who chose to give one last Christmas gift to the Lord through an act of service. What began as a simple gesture of sitting with someone alone in the dining hall became a deep and life-changing friendship with Monia, a Holocaust survivor who carried years of heartache. Their story is a reminder: don’t wait for it—don’t miss your chance to serve, to love, and to lift someone who needs you. It’s never too late to give, never too late to change, and never too late to find a friend. Join us as we reflect on how small acts of kindness can become sacred miracles. 

Shoutouts (Clickable links)

Wait for It by Leslie Odom Jr. (Hamilton)

Henry B. Eyring Quote

Transcript

Fair Use & Disclaimer
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.

Transcript

Clare Craner Welcome to Sisters with Latter-day Voices. I'm Clare.

Candice Buchanan And I'm Candice. And today, for this mini episode, we're going to be talking about how it's never too late to change. I was inspired once again by a song. I don’t know why I’ve been basing things off of songs lately, but I guess I just really like music. It's very powerful for me. I feel like when I'm listening to music, I get emotional. It's just a good way for me to learn things—or think about things.

My girls and I have been listening to a lot of Hamilton lately. We sing it in the car, we sing it all the time. It's funny, because yesterday in church, my four-year-old just opened the hymnbook—she can’t read—but she started singing The Schuyler Sisters. I'm like, “Okay, we’re not singing that one right now.” I loved it, though.

Anyway, one of my favorite songs is Wait for It by Leslie Odom Jr. He has the most incredible voice—it’s so beautiful. But I think it has an interesting message. In the song, Aaron Burr (who’s a historical figure—I’m not an expert on his real life, just going off the musical) basically says that even though Hamilton and he had similar starts, Hamilton began later but rose to the top quickly. Burr is like, “You just wait for it. I’m not falling behind. I’m just waiting for my moment.”

But by the end of the play, you see that he really let all of his moments pass him by. He didn’t take advantage of the opportunities he had, mainly because he couldn’t figure out what he really stood for or what he wanted. He knew he wanted power, but he didn’t know what to do with it—he just wanted to be important. He waited too long to figure out who he wanted to be.

So, I think the message for this podcast is: don’t wait for it. Don’t wait to change. Don’t wait to start working on becoming the person you want to become.

I was thinking—what prevents us from trying to change, or setting new goals, or working toward those goals, even when we know the kind of person we want to be? Here’s what I came up with:

1. I think Satan tries to get us to delay what we want to do. If he can get us to think, “Oh, I’m definitely going to do that, I’m just busy right now. I’ll do it tomorrow. Today I’m reading my book.” Then we still feel good because we’re planning on it—but really, he’s just making us postpone.
2. He can make us think we’re incapable of change or not good enough. Maybe we’ve sinned too much, or we’re too far gone. He tries to make us feel like there’s no hope.
3. He can get us so focused on our struggles, trials, or weaknesses that we stop focusing on the good.

For me, I know I can have kind of a scatterbrain. I don’t know—maybe I have ADHD—but I have trouble focusing sometimes. I always have so many ideas of good things I want to do. It’s hard for me to simplify, especially as a mom with young kids. I only have so much time for extra things.

So for me, simplifying and choosing one thing to work on at a time really helps. Right now, that one thing is this podcast that no one listens to—but I still feel good about putting something positive out in the world.

Another thing that gets in my way is social media. I don’t like being on it, but I’m trying more because of this podcast. Even when I hop on and try to hop off quickly, I still end up scrolling. I follow mostly positive people who uplift me, but sometimes I still walk away thinking, “Oh my goodness, I need to be doing more. I need to make sourdough bread. I need to do a DIY project. I need to never let my kids watch TV.” It’s just impractical.

So I need to focus on my own goals and not compete with anyone. I’m thirty-nine, and I hope I never stop setting goals. It’s never too late to set a goal or change. We don’t have to wait—we can start becoming who we want to be right now.

For example, right now I want to be as patient of a parent as Chilli and Bandit. I am far from it, but maybe someday I’ll make those small changes to get there.

Clare Craner Oh.

Candice Buchanan If you don’t know who they are—

Clare Craner True. Those are the best parents.

Candice Buchanan They’re so good. Such wonderful dog parents. Bluey is such a good show.

Anyway, the point is—we don’t want to wait to change. We can always decide to take a different path. Satan wants us stuck in negative feelings, but God is always reaching out with love. He wants you to know you’re worth it. You’re okay. You can keep going. You can achieve what you want to achieve.

I have a story to share before we end, but first I want to say I’ve always been impressed by our grandma Byers, who went back to school for her nursing degree. She married young, had six kids, and then around age forty went back to school. She worked for over twenty years as a nurse and loved it. I think it’s inspiring that she didn’t let it be “too late.”

Do you have any thoughts, Clare, before I share the story?

Clare Craner No, I think it’s so true. I feel the same way right now. I chose to be a mom first, which was best for me, but sometimes I wonder, “What have I done? Did I ruin everything by not doing a career first?” I know it’s different for everyone, but I’m slowly going back to school now while raising kids. I keep reminding myself—it’s never too late. Don’t let fear stop you. Don’t wait for it. You can always change for the better, even at ninety or one hundred.

Candice Buchanan Yes. And on that note, here’s a story my friend shared in church a couple weeks ago. I loved it so much that I called her mother-in-law (since it was her mom’s story) to get the details right.

So, her name was Ruby, and she has since passed away. I think it was within the last couple of years. She lived until she was ninety-nine and a half, which is pretty impressive. But in her late nineties—her husband lived for a long time too—he got cancer when he was ninety-five or ninety-six. And at that time, they decided, okay, we should move into an assisted living place. That way, when he passes away, she’s taken care of and she has a good situation to live in.

So she was in this nursing home, and it was the first Christmas that she was there after her husband had passed away. She also had macular degeneration, she had trouble hearing, and she was in a wheelchair. So, she was talking to her daughter—the one I got this story from—and she was saying, “Oh, every Christmas I always give a present to the Lord by doing an act of service. I need to think about what I’m going to do this year.”

Clare Craner Oh.

Candice Buchanan Mom.

Clare Craner I love that idea.

Candice Buchanan Yeah. And her daughter was like, “Mom, please, just let this be the year that people serve you. You don’t need to worry about it.” And it would be very understandable if she did that—if she was just like, you know what, I’ve lived a good life.

Her daughter said she had served in lots of callings, been Relief Society president, served at the temple for many years. She was a dedicated woman. I think it would have been totally fine for her to just relax and be like, okay, I’ve been through a lot, I’m just going to coast now.

Clare Craner Mhm.

Candice Buchanan And that could be such a tough time—after losing your spouse that you’ve lived with for so long, and at Christmas time.

Clare Craner Yeah.

Candice Buchanan But she kept thinking about it, and then she decided what she was going to do. So she decided she was going to go into the dining hall—there were about five hundred people at that assisted living place—and she was going to look for someone who was alone and sit with them.

And she said that through that, she found out that some people truly do want to be alone. So she looked for someone who really maybe needed a friend.

Clare Craner Yeah.

Candice Buchanan And she saw this one woman who was sitting facing the wall, and she thought, “That’s it. That’s who I’m going to go sit by.” So she goes over there, sits by her, and the first conversation she had with her, she said, “Oh, I can see you’re eating alone. May I join you?”

And the woman just looked at her sternly. So she thought, well, maybe she can’t hear me—I’ll speak a little louder. And she said, “I’m here to wish you a Merry Christmas.” And the woman just looked at her and very sternly said, “I’m Jewish.” And that’s all she said.

Clare Craner Oh, no.

Candice Buchanan I know! But she wasn’t deterred. She sat with her anyway, and every day—she learned her name was Manya—every day she would go sit with her. She said Manya was a very sour woman, she would complain about almost everything, but Ruby just let it slide. She thought, you know what, I’m going to be her friend.

Clare Craner I like that description. Sour.

Candice Buchanan Yeah, a little bit sour. But she thought, I’m just going to get to know her. So over the next couple weeks, she got to know her more and more, and she learned her story.

Manya was German, and she was a victim of the Holocaust. When she was twelve years old, living in Germany, her family was woken up in the middle of the night and Nazis took them from their home. They put them on a train, packed with a bunch of other people, and took them to a concentration camp. She said her dad went one way and she never saw him again. Oh—sorry, I feel like I’m getting emotional already.

And then she had a mom and two siblings. One of her sisters—she never saw again either. She was twelve or thirteen years old when she was in this concentration camp. And Ruby—the woman befriending her—didn’t relay all the details to her daughter, but she said the guards there had done unspeakable things to her.

Clare Craner Oh.

Candice Buchanan And it’s just so sad thinking about what some people have to go through, what they have to experience in this life. But after she got to know her, she realized, okay, there’s a reason why she had become that way. She had gone through some seriously difficult things.

Clare Craner Yeah.

Candice Buchanan So there was one week where Ruby got sick—she had the flu—and she wasn’t able to come to the dining hall for about a week. And after that week, when she was a little better, she came down. And she said that Manya, who was in a wheelchair, stood up and was waving at her, saying, “I’m over here, I’m over here!”

So Ruby came and sat by her. And during that conversation, Manya said, “Well, I guess I finally have a friend.”

Clare Craner Oh.

Candice Buchanan And then a few months later, she passed away.

And I thought—when I first heard the story in church, I was crying. And then when her daughter was telling it again, I was crying again. It’s just such an inspirational story that someone who could have very justifiably sat back and said, okay, I don’t know what I have to give this world anymore, instead found a way to serve and became a friend to a woman who really needed one.

So I think it’s very inspiring to think: it is never too late for me. I can always choose to do something. If I want to serve, God is going to show me a way that I can be useful.

Clare Craner That’s incredibly inspiring. And it’s also a good reminder that we never know what someone else has been through.

Candice Buchanan Exactly. We need to get to know people instead of judging them. You never know their story.

I’ll end with a quote from Henry B. Eyring:
 “True conversion depends on seeking freely in faith with great effort and some pain. Then it is the Lord who can grant the miracle of cleansing and change.”

So with that—

Clare Craner It’s wonderful.

Candice Buchanan I just want to let you know—God loves you. We’ll see you next time.

Clare Craner Bye.