Brenda Lee Bendickson

September 30, 2023 started out as a delightful Saturday morning and Brenda started out the day doing really great and was quite excited that she finally found the BYU Channel 374 to watch the World General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. However, that excitement all changed Saturday evening when Brenda was in her electric wheelchair, and she managed to hit her knee on something quite hard and had to be sent to the hospital to get it checked out. They were in the process of getting a CAT scan when Brenda suddenly said that she had to use the porta potty. Then she surprised everyone around her and said with a voice that was filled with total agony, "I don't feel good!" They put her back in a seated position and then all of a sudden, her pacemaker completely quit working and she died; just that fast! They started doing chest compressions when they noticed that Brenda was a D.N.R. "Do Not Resuscitate," so they stopped doing chest compressions and let Brenda peacefully pass away at 8:00 p.m.

Many times, Brenda had told her sister, Laurie, about having gone to Heaven and they said that it wasn't her time yet to leave her Earthly mission and she had to return to Earth to finish her Earthly calling. She had more work to do here on Earth. She had people's lives to touch and show as much love to them as possible. She had to brighten the day of certain individuals that needed to be uplifted and help others smile. And whenever possible, share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Brenda told Laurie that she begged them to let her stay, because it was so incredibly beautiful and filled with an enormous amount of love, compassion, and understanding. Several more times she had this same experience. Each time she came back to tell her Sister what happened in Heaven and then she proceeded to do as she was commanded to spread as much joy as possible. Often, Brenda consulted Laurie on various problems and Laurie would help her solve the problem the best way possible and try her best to forgive 70x7, just as it says in the scriptures, until finally on September 30, 2023, she got to stay in her Heavenly Home and enjoy all the wonderful love her Heavenly Father has to offer. She only suffered a few moments. As Heavenly Father said to His Son Jesus Christ, Heavenly Father must surely also have said to Brenda, "Well done, thou good and faithful daughter!"

Brenda is survived by her Dad, Delbert Marlin Bendickson (age 90); Sister, Laurie Elizabeth Bendickson (age 60); Uncle Kenneth Bendickson (age 93); numerous cousins and some very interesting Stepbrothers and Stepsisters Leah Lynn Beard (Myck); Paul Ruble Manning III (Angie); Jonathan David Manning; Heidi Lee Manning-Wood (Scott); and Heatherly Ann Allman (Curtis).

When our Mom and Grandma Ilean were alive, they told us about many wonderful relatives to look forward to seeing when we return to our Heavenly Home. I know that my dear Sister is quite busy hugging our super awesome Mom--Delphin Bendickson and Grandpa Maury and Grandma Ilean, Grandpa Ben and Grandma Bertha, and all of our many Aunts and Uncles and Cousins. Our genealogy list is quite long, so Brenda is very excited to meet all of them and give them all hugs. Plus, I am very sure she is looking forward to meeting all of her favorite Bible Heroes and Book of Mormon Heroes. I know that the more you read about them, the more excited you get about them and are looking forward to meeting them, because you love all of them so much. Imagine learning so much about your first parents, Adam and Eve, and then finally getting to meet them. Wow, that is so awesome!

Brenda's knowledge came from a combination of our Mom, plus things she learned in school and a lot of college education and from the scriptures. Her knowledge just kept growing and growing. Brenda loved learning from a variety of sources until one day, Brenda decided she was going to write a book. She collected all kinds of interesting information and compiled it altogether into one interesting book and took it to a publisher and the publisher was rather delighted in what it said. The only problem with this book that Brenda wrote is that Laurie doesn't remember the name of the book, and that is because Brenda forgot to tell Laurie the name of the book. Oh, good grief!

Brenda enjoyed helping others whenever she could with her many talents of secretarial skills and transcription skills. She learned several of those skills from our Mom, Delphin Bendickson. Brenda also went to college to improve and polish those skills so that she could do the things that she always wanted to accomplish, such as write a book. She also had a love for creating a variety of puzzles and that is what she was working on toward the end of her life. She was quite excited to share that love with everyone; unfortunately, she wasn't able to finish this book of puzzles.

Another thing that Brenda loved to do was to send her Sister graphics, such as: Good Morning, Goodnight, I love you, and so forth. Well, on October 14, exactly two weeks after Brenda returned to her Heavenly Home, Brenda finally got around to contacting Laurie in a dream (your mind is at its greatest peace when you are sleeping) and Laurie wants all of you to know that Brenda told Laurie that Brenda said that she is safe and happy and is completely at peace and is enjoying hanging out with her Mother and Heaven is truly amazing. Brenda said that in Heaven, you can go anywhere your mind feels the most peace and feels that greatest tranquility; that is the only way that you are able to talk with Jesus. You can talk to anybody you want to as long as they are feeling that same level of peace and tranquility also or you can just be by yourself. She almost made it sound like there is a "peace and tranquility channel" that you have to tune into that you are both connected to in order to connect to each other. However, Heavenly Father and Jesus can go anywhere.

In this particular dream, Brenda was sitting on the bank of a great big, beautiful, calm lake underneath the "Tree of Life" that is mentioned in The Book of Mormon. Only in The Book of Mormon, it doesn't talk about a beautiful lake of peace, it talks about a nasty river. Yuck! Perhaps, the lake of peace and tranquility are mentioned in the missing story of the Book of Lehi. This dream was Brenda's gift to Laurie and everyone who reads this obituary--an unshakable testimony of life after death that God lives and truly loves us. He wants us all to follow, "The Plan of Happiness" and Come, Follow Jesus back to our Heavenly Home. When our hearts are filled with perfect love and faith and we have gotten rid of every single bit of hate, we can have happiness in this life and in the next life also, but we must GET RID OF ALL THE HATE in this life first. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

When Brenda becomes your best friend, you have a best friend forever. You could talk with her about everything. She was a lot of fun to hang out with and was a delight to be around. She was always making you laugh about something. She loved to play board games like Parcheesi, Yahtzee, Checkers, and other such fun board games. She was also a great Scripture Study Buddy.

Some of my favorite memories of my Sister are going horseback riding, teaching her how to bake homemade bread and teaching her a new talent, such as Paper Quilling and Macrame. Plus, we both learned Signing Exact English together and that was really awesome. That means that Brenda could use Signing Exact English in a dream, and I would understand every word she says to me. That is why I love Signing Exact English over ASL, because the English Language is a beautiful thing to hear and see. How cool is that?!?

Brenda had dogs and cats for the greater part of her life, and she loved every single one of them. She also loved her horses and loved to go horseback riding. She was a country girl through and through.

Brenda was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints. She had an unshakable testimony, and she knew that God lives. She knew beyond all shadow of a doubt that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true. She loved reading the scriptures and watching movies about scripture stories, especially ones about our Savior Jesus Christ. She also loved singing the Church hymns, especially the Children's hymns that we grew up with in Primary. Mom always said, "Primary is where it is at!" She loved sharing what she learned with others and making others happy. This made her happy also. When your heart is filled with love, others will love you.

Brenda loved to crochet blankets for people. She was amazingly quite fast at that. She also loved to do String Art, but her all-time favorite hobby was making puzzles. Brenda had such a love and passion for creating super fun puzzles to play, and she was quite excited to help her Sister, Laurie, with her new puzzle game invention called Scraboku. It is part Scrabble (Scrab) and part Sudoku (oku) and is ALL FUN for everybody to play. Plus, it has a really fun way to teach children how to add up money. It was Brenda's dream to be part of this amazing invention. Brenda knew that teaching children was a very important element of this game and she really wanted to be part of the math. Brenda loved math a lot and she wanted to share that love with others. That got her quite excited and could not wait to see this game into production. She also wanted to help Laurie use this game to help advertise businesses and their services and products in a truly unique way. Brenda was amazed at all the cool things that Scraboku could accomplish. Brenda was a BIG PART of this game. In fact, Brenda was such a big part, that Laurie had even figured out a way to make some puzzles to honor Brenda by making puzzles that actually spelled Brenda's name. So, if you want to help Laurie, you can do so by donating to the CashApp Name: $ScrabokuGames or you can send money to the Venmo name: @‌Laurie-Bendickson-2. It would help a great deal to get things going. Plus, this money could also be used to pay for any unexpected funeral expenses. Thank you!