Phil and Valerie readily acknowledge that it took more than turning toward each other, important as that was. They also needed to turn outward to others in the healing process.
Valerie remembers finding joy in her service in the Young Women organization. Focusing on those she served helped her deal with her own challenges, and occasionally, she even found personal solutions in the process.
"I remember one particular lesson teaching about having an eternal perspective. We discussed how different our own view is from Heavenly Father's. For some reason, that particular lesson—while I was in the middle of serving others—had a big impact on me. It helped me see a little bit more clearly that my struggles were only temporary ones."
Phil, too, had significant experiences reaching out to others. He remembers finding—and later sharing—Alma 26:27: "Now when our hearts were depressed, and we were about to turn back, behold, the Lord comforted us, and said: Go amongst thy brethren, the Lamanites, and bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success."
"I identified with the 'when our hearts were depressed,' phrase," says Phil. "Dealing with infertility is such an up-and-down cycle, and you feel that way a lot of the time. But I learned to 'bear with patience' my afflictions and, as Ammon and his brethren were instructed to do, serve others. So that's what we did. We found ways to reach out to others and lift them up. We didn't yet know what the 'success' would be, whether it would be pregnancy or adoption or something else, but we trusted that it would happen."