Loving makes it hard to leave

Hailey is in the MTC - she left a week ago.  3 weeks in the MTC and she will be off to the Virginia, Richmond mission for a year and 1/2.  It should get easier to say goodbye to your children but it is getting harder.  Hailey left for college without a second glance backward.  She was ready and excited and full of forward momentum.  Then school ended and she came home for about 2 months before going on her mission.  The first month home was business as usual - things were the same as they had always been but as her call came and her departure date approached, our time together became greater and longer and more frequent.  The last 2 weeks, our time together doubled again and the last week we were practically inseperable.  The store, the aquarium, the Minute Clinic to wimp out on getting shots, the doctor to get medical records, the store, the store, the store...  Then chatting and packing and packing and folding and sorting endless piles of clothes (I think she may need to be in clothing rehab for her clothing addiction).  The time spent together was precious and cemented her in my heart - there was the rub...

Had she gone right from college, it would not have been nearly so hard a separation.  It was the time.  So much time.  Precious time.  Could that be the key?  Did it really take me 19 years to figure this out?  Or did it take 19 years for her to finally want to be with me.  Or a mixture of both?

Either way, it did it's magic and she became so dear to me.  More so in 2 weeks than in the 2 previous years.  Then came the moment for her to leave and the separation was more intense than I could have imagined.  I sure love that girl and admire her courage.

The airport was hard but we were all stoic.  And off went that little girl of mine.  Looking smaller and younger than I had remembered.  But so brave.  So determined and so strong.  I could imagine her at any moment saying, "This is too much mom.  This is too hard.  I'm going to stay here."  But she didn't - she trudged on to the unknown and my heart felt broken.

I'm not one to wallow in sadness so I left the next day for California and spent the next 2 days on the beach...  It helped.  I'm not going to lie.  I felt better and the family and I returned home and picked up where we had left off.  Monday, Tuesday... then Wednesday and I got an email from Hailey.

Wow - what power.  What strength and testimony.  I cried as I read it.  The tears were afraid to fall at the airport but not in my playroom at home.  I felt so comforted and so much joy as I read her letter.  She put into words who she really is and it gave me so much peace and comfort.

How did I get such a great kid and how did I not notice this spiritual powerhouse developing right before my eyes?  Oh to be 19 again and in the MTC and having such an experience.  I am so excited for her and her future.

Rock on Hailey.  I hope you know how dear you are to me.

Finding another Unicorn

Sometimes I feel like a unicorn.  Like I am all alone and that no one else feels like me.  Like no one else wants to be like me.  Like I really am inside, not who I am as I try to fit in... I am a member of my church and I love the scriptures but no one talks about scriptures with me.  It is church and home.  And as much as I try to mix them, I feel alone in my efforts.   I love the stories and lessons that are found in the scriptures but no one ever brings them up...  I love the power of living the gospel of Jesus Christ but no one around me testifies to me or teaches me.  Like I should know it all or like there is nothing to know...  And I have felt very alone.

I feel like a unicorn.  Kind of a freak here in Arizona.  I have to admit that I felt much more at home in the south where I am from.  There, people talk of Christ casually and often.  Maybe too casually sometimes, but I found the frequent reminders comforting and reassuring.  In high school, we would meet together as members of FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) and we would pray together as friends and team mates.  We would pray for each other and share our faith.  We would have bible study and youth groups where we spoke of Christ without embarrassment or awkwardness because it's not Sunday.  We listened to Christian music with gusto and sang out our praises at the top of our voices (I can do a mean Amy Grant impression).

Then I got married to my sweetheart and moved west.  I thought it was what I wanted, but I lost something.  I lost the powerful feeling of testifying.  Sure people testify, but it has seemed manufactured and hollow.  Like people are afraid to speak of Christ so they testify of just about everything else.  I don't know how to explain it but I can go for a month without hearing of Christ and a year without anyone mentioning the gospel outside church.

Teach me!  Testify!  Let me feel your strength!  Let me feel that anyone else feels like me.  Give me the pure gospel, straight from the scriptures.  Let me know that I'm not crazy and that true is true and good is good and wrong is wrong.  Living in a world that is so lukewarm has been killing me.  Speak truth to me!  And stop making me feel like a freak to be a believer when I am in the middle of believers.

blah blah blah...  I had given up.   Part of my frustration was being with the little kids at church every week for 7 years.   Don't get me wrong, I loved it.  Loved the kids and what I taught.  We rotate every 4 years so I had taught Old Testament twice, New Testament twice, Book of Mormon twice and modern revelation once.  I LOVE teaching from the scriptures!  I felt the Spirit when I taught,  I felt edified, and I loved my class but 7 years of feeding yourself left me longing to be taught by someone else.

Then I was released and I began to go to Sunday School.

I have an amazing Sunday School teacher.  He filled me up each week.  He testified.  He called good, good and bad, bad.  He taught pure doctrine and the Spirit filled up all the emptiness in me week after week.  I needed to be taught, I needed to be testified to.  I needed to have the fire in me rekindled so I could remember who I really am.  Who I was, who I am, who I can be.  And I needed to feel like I wasn't alone.  Like I am not the only one who feels the way I do.  There is someone else out there who sees the world like me.  There is someone else fighting what I am fighting.

I felt like I found another unicorn.

I had seriously begun to doubt if there was ANYONE who feels the way I do.  And there is!  I hung on every word and it felt like home.  The Spirit poured thru me during each lesson.  I thanked God for him and begged God to give me a year in his class.   If I could only learn from him for a year, I would be good.  I could fill up my cup enough to face that aloneness again.  6 lessons later, he told us he sold his house and today will be his last day.  I cried.  Right in the middle of Sunday School.  Not because I need HIM but because I need what he did - Speaking of Christ, testifying boldly of truth.  I need people to teach me. To fill up my cup.  To let me know I am not alone in the battles I am fighting.  To give me reassurance that all the struggle is worth it.

It was a hard day.  I am still sad.  I need that but I am grateful that God at least allowed me to see it.  And it fortified me.  I can do this.  I know I am not alone.

Unicorns exist.

Superbowls and Sundays

Disclaimer:  I realize everyone has their own level of devotion to the Sabbath Day - and how I have chosen to honor the Sabbath may pale in comparison to the devotion of others or may seem extreme to some.  No judgement here.  We all walk our own path.

But here is my story.. Years ago, I committed myself to keeping the Sabbath Holy.  It was a personal effort to increase my devotion to God.  I decided that was my offering to God and, no matter what, I would try my best to honor the Sabbath Day.  

It was pretty easy at first.  No shopping, no boating trips, no going to the movies or watching television (Luckily I can record Downton Abbey).  The harder part was doing positive things to fill my beautiful Sundays.  Plan with the family, eat together, fellowship with church members and neighbors, read my scriptures and other good books, play games with the kids.

It was all good until the Super Bowl Sunday rolled around and my kids were old enough to know that there were parties going on at every other house in the neighborhood.  That is what everyone was talking about at church - there was an excitement and buzz - Where would you watch it?  Who invited who over?  What food are you serving?  All our friends were getting together to watch the game of the century with lots of food and fun.  The pressure was tremendous...  Should we go?  How do we explain why we aren't coming?

When do you change what you have dedicated to God to fit in with those around you?...

It was hard.  My husband was miserable.  My kids were revolting.  I was second guessing my offering of devotion.  Wasn't doing what is right supposed to make us happy?  Why were we all so NOT happy?  It was torture.

My family had a million complaints:  Why were we the ONLY people on the planet not watching the Super Bowl?  Why were we the ONLY people who wouldn't know about that awesome play or that super funny commercial?  Why did we have to miss out on the biggest event in history?  What would we say around the cooler at work?  The concerns were valid (although a bit first worldlish...) but real to my family.  How do we fit in and still keep our commitment to God?

Why can't we just do it this one day?  I thought a lot about that question.  And I guess we could have. But I wonder how it would feel like to explain to God that we kept our promise to Him at all times except the times when we planned not to...?  It just felt wrong to PLAN to break the Sabbath.

Ugh!  How do we justify the situation?

Then my husband had a brilliant idea!  Let's just go to bed early and get up super early and watch it.  Why didn't I think of that?  Probably because football isn't that big of a deal to me - but it is to him so we decided to do it.

We got up at 4 AM and the adversity began to push back on our efforts.  The remote was gone!  We looked and looked.  It was nowhere!  AAAAHHHHHHHH!  7 people looking for a remote that was there yesterday but gone today...  So much aggravation I can't even describe it.  It was like Satan was just laughing at our feeble attempt.  We looked for 30 minutes which seemed like forever at 4:00 in the morning...  Finally we said a prayer and wallah!  We found the remote!

We turned on the Super Bowl and I made a yummy  breakfast.  They watched the game.  We weren't so strange and backwards anymore.  My family went out into the world knowing what happened during the Super Bowl.  Yay.  Life was good.  A tradition was born.

The next year we planned ahead.  We carefully placed the remote in it's designated spot.  Prepared as much of the food as we could ahead of time and the tradition continued.  We got up and had a Super Bowl party before school.  And the years ticked by with our new tradition.  It was our thing.  Our family.  Something special but different.

So, yesterday I hardly even knew it was Super Bowl Sunday.  The stress and anxiety and pressure of years gone by was gone.  The house was calm - or as calm as it usually is on Sundays (which actually isn't calm at all...)  We had dinner and family planning and one of our kids actually shared a beautiful testimony of his gratitude that families can be together forever during scripture study.  

This morning with chorizzo tacos and blueberry pancakes we ate and snuggled and watched the Super Bowl - or at least part of it.   It was tradition.  And fun.  And exciting and wonderful.

Often I am so fed up with all the adversity and pressure I feel and I am ready to throw in the towel.  But I am so grateful for the times that I don't and the beauty that comes after the storm.  Because I can testify there is always a storm.  But I could never enjoy a Super Bowl as much on a Sunday as I do on a Monday morning snuggled up with my family.

Nephi and a Wheelbarrow

A couple of weeks ago,  Elder Holland came and spoke to the youth in our area. He said that every day since he went on his mission, he has thought about and benefitted from having served.  I could not agree more.  My mission to Guatemala has blessed my life in more ways than I can count.  Daily I am reminded of something I felt or learned or became as I served my Savior on a full time mission.  For those who are considering a mission, let me testify of the power a mission will have for good in your life.  

The first scripture I learned in the Missionary Training Center was Mosiah 4:9:

Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend.  

The scriptures testify of God on every page.

But really, we only need to look around to know God exists.  We need only to study the stars or take a physics class or hold a new born baby to marvel at the perfection of God’s creations.  We only understand the smallest part yet all the parts point to an all loving creator.

Psalms 19: 1 The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.

If God is real,  and is the creator of our magnificent universe, and put our planets in orbit,  and spectacularly designed our earth to be the one place in space, that we could exist.  Shouldn’t our goal be to seek him?  To find him?  To know him?  To understand his works and try to understand him?  To be like Him?

We can’t comprehend all that our Father in Heaven is or all that our Savior is, But our goal is to try! 

Isn’t that what personal conversion is?  To seek and find God. In some small way?  To come to discover and understand our Savior Jesus Christ?

But how do we do that?

Proverbs 4:7  Gives us a hint:  It says,    Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.

We get.  get get get.

Instagram, Netflix, carpool, jobs, mail, pedicures, sick, etc. But with all our getting, get understanding.  a synonym for understanding is insight.  We need insight into the spiritual world around us.  We need to see more than the physical.  

Doctrine and Covenants 88:15 And the spirit and the body are the soul of man. - our souls are made up of our body and spirit.  Perhaps he is saying, don’t forget, you are more than just a body.  There is more to see than you can see with your physical eyes.  Perhaps getting understanding and insight into things that are spiritual is the essence of personal conversion.

Like I said, I loved my mission.   I experienced so many moments of personal conversion there.  It was a magical time of serving and reflecting.  Here is the story of one of those special moments.

I was called to be a Spanish speaking missionary in Guatemala  in the City North mission.  I’d been in there struggling to learn Spanish for 6 weeks when I was called to speak Kek’chi in a remote village in a valley several hours away from the capital.   This valley was so isolated that there was only one way in.  We were surrounded by mountains on both sides and the valley ended at an enormous lake.   Only the valley floor was passable by a chicken bus that went to the end of the road in the morning and returned in the late afternoon.   The round trip into the Polochic valley took about 6 hours.  The old chicken bus was the only way in or out of the area unless you happened upon a passing truck.   My companion was Hermana Lopez and she was an amazing missionary.  She was a native from Guatemala and so valiant and intelligent and obedient.  

One week Hermana Lopez and I were studying in first Nephi and were learning all about Nephi, Sam and Laman & Lemuel and we decided that Laman and Lemuel were complainers, whiners, lazy and disobedient and we didn’t want to be like them.  We decided Sam was a good guy but not quite as valiant as Nephi who was a hard worker, didn’t complain,  and was obedient in everything he was asked.  As we studied about these examples from the scriptures, we decided we wanted to be like Nephi.  We would be courageous and 100% obedient.  We would do everything right and God would bless us - we were sure.  So we began our quest for perfection:  We got up on time, we took our vitamins (because the mission nurse said it was a rule).  We did our exercises.  We said our prayers and did our studying and planning.  We were awesome and pumped to be just like Nephi.  

We set out that morning and hiked and hiked.  There were no roads besides the one on the valley floor - only footpaths thru endless cornfields.  We visited members, asked for referrals, talked to farmers on the side of the mountain as they worked their crops, and Searched out less actives, We did our best.  We worked very hard and we had a wonderful day.

We had hiked about 2 miles from our home down the valley and about a mile up into the mountain that day.  When we started for home,  Hermana Lopez slipped.  somehow she fell but her foot got caught and stayed where it was - the result was an ankle that instantly doubled in size and was terribly painful.  She couldn’t put any weight on it and we feared it was broken.  She was scared, it was getting late and we were far from home.   We knew our only hope was to get to the main road before the chicken bus passed.  She couldn’t walk so we alternated her hobbling and me piggy backing her down the mountain.  A kind farmer saw us and though unable to go with us, offered us his wheelbarrow.  Hermana Lopez climbed in and we hurried as fast as we could to get to the road.  In all the hurrying, she fell out several times and we alternated laughing and crying.    Within 100 yards or so of the road, we heard the bus coming.  I left her and ran the last bit to try and flag down the bus but I was too late, all I could see was the dust trail it had left behind.   Sad and a bit panicked, I ran back to my companion and we started the long wheelbarrow ride back to our hut.  It was a heartbreaking end to a day that started with such enthusiasm and hope.

We ate dinner and worried about her ankle.  We had no electricity, no phone, no ice to bring down the swelling.  We just had to wait till the next night and make sure we were there waiting when the bus came back thru so we could get her out of the valley and to the hospital.  We were dejected to say the least.  Hermana Lopez cried from pain and frustration and said, “So much for trying to be like Nephi!  Nephi never had to go thru something like this!”   We had a boo hoo session and then as we always did before bed, we got out our scriptures to read together.  Coincidentally, we happened to be in 1N chapter 18 and we read

 15 And it came to pass that we were about to be swallowed up in the depths of the sea. And after we had been driven back upon the waters for the space of four days, my brethren began to see that the judgments of God were upon them, and that they must perish save that they should repent of their iniquities; wherefore, they came unto me, and loosed the bands which were upon my wrists, and behold they had swollen exceedingly; and also mine ankles were much swollen, and great was the soreness thereof.

No joke.  You can’t make up stuff like that.  God truly has a sense of humor and sees us and hears us and loves us thru our trials.

I learned 4 important lessons that day as I read the Book of Mormon with my injured companion.  

1. Study and service make us feel great.  That day with Hermana Lopez was one of the greatest of my mission - I felt the Lord magnifying our efforts.  I felt the joy of obedience and hope.

2. I learned that effort, study and service do not exempt us from trials.  Think of Moses when God reveals himself to him.  Who followed?  Satan.  Not just satan but as it says in Moses 1: 21 & 22, a trembling loud, weeping wailing and teeth gnashing satan trying to deceive and overpower Moses.    Does this ever happen to you?

Think of Joseph Smith as he knelt in prayer before God and Christ appeared to him.  Joseph says I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such an astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick darkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction.

Satan did all he could to interfere.  We are no different.  The harder we try - expect pushback from the adversary.  We used to tell our investigators, “Now when you commit to baptism, prepare for everything in the world to combine against you to keep you from making that commitment.”   That is proof it is from God or Satan wouldn’t try so hard to stop it. 

Not even Christ was exempt from endless harassing by Satan.  As if fasting for 40 days isn’t hard enough, Satan has to show up and tempt him to make bread?  

3. I learned that the scriptures offer us understanding and comfort no matter how unique our situation seems.  God knows us and has given us all we need to feel his love and comfort if we will turn to the scriptures.  The world’s comfort and counsel doesn’t hold a candle to what the Lord has given us.  I think those words of the prophets are magic.  They morph and change to comfort us and teach us when and how we need them.  Trust them, they are of God.

4. And lastly, I learned that God uses experiences (sometimes painful ones) to allow us moments of clarity.  Spiritual clarity.  That night in a hut in Guatemala, it was like I could see.  I understood God’s plan for me.  I could see that it is: studying and seeking truth and goodness that gives us a Godly perspective on this earthly experience.  I saw a glimpse of who I was and I knew God knew me personally.   I recognized that study and service hadn’t saved me from pain and hardship but had prepared me for spiritual clarity.  For personal conversion. 

I challenge you to seek moments of spiritual clarity and personal conversion often so that you can see how important you are to your Father in Heaven.   How important you are to your ward, to your community, to those you serve in your callings, to the family you home or visit teach, to your neighbors and most importantly, to your family.  You are needed.

I'll finish up with one of my favorite scriptures:

Doctrine and Covenants 6:34

34 Therefore, fear not, little flock; do good; let earth and hell combine against you, for if ye are built upon my rock, they cannot prevail.

My day in Guatemala did not end up how I planned.  But God turned my small plan into a lesson that will last my lifetime.

Christ is our rock.  All good things come from him.  As we learn of Him, as we emulate Him, we will see more clearly who we are and how we can follow Him.