Jumping with both feet into life

I recently discovered that for my husband and I, we have mainly one approach to our lives.  It seems we just simply jump with both feet. There is no tiptoeing and no waltzing -- we jump.  Sometimes a small jump, but more often than not it's a huge jump.  When we contemplated building a house, others would comment on the work or stress involved, but we are plowing forward. We evaluated whether to build, buy, or renovate.  We looked at different cities to find a place to call home.  And then as we sat in church one Sunday, we both knew exactly what we should do, and after church as we walked around the vacant lots and to the nearby lake, we felt peace, we felt at home, we felt this is where we were to go.

Over 22 years ago, my friends and I attended a LDS sorority/fraternity dance at the University of Utah.  We had a great time hanging out and dancing in a large group.  Little did I know that I had caught someone's eye and that I was being watched. Not until the end of the dance did this handsome someone approach me and ask me to dance.  Three songs later, the dance ended and I had a date for the next weekend with a young man who quickly became my best friend and a short time later became my eternal companion.  Ray may have tiptoed that first night to approach me, but I believe he knew from the moment he saw me that I was meant for him. No tiptoeing after that. We jumped with both feet into our relationship--met in April, engaged in June, married in September.  That jump changed my life. Going on a mission was postponed.  With faith, I jumped, with an enduring love and a strong friendship, hand-in-hand we keep jumping.

The moment of finding out that we were to be parents was an unexpected, but not unwanted jump.  Almost 21 years ago, I held in my arms a precious baby.  He was mine, he was ours, he was sent from God.  He was entrusted to us -- to love, to teach, to guide, to raise, to deliver back to God.  Now, serving as a missionary in Guatemala, I have entrusted him to God.  One, two, three, four children each were lovingly welcomed into our home, and then the question "God what would you have us do?"  Through a spiritual experience, we undeniably knew we would have one more boy and one more girl, and then following the birth of number six, I again was inspired to know that our family was complete.  Six children in 11 years -- that is definitely jumping in with both feet.  There is no handbook, no instruction manual, there is only faith, courage, and determination to try and be the parents that God intended for these six sweet spirits.

Over 18 years ago, we jumped out of all that was familiar. I had never been further east than Utah or Wyoming.   We piled two children into the car, our belongings into a Uhaul and with the help of Ray's parents we ventured east until we arrived near Chicago for a Administrator-in-Training program.  We have been jumping with both feet ever since.  Fear of the unknown and unfamiliar does not hold us back.  We have had drivers licenses from 7 different states, and the total number of moves is greater than that.  It has truly been an amazing, sometimes difficult, sometimes stressful journey, but ultimately a journey worth telling about and worth living.

This summer we jumped with both feet into building our dream home.  No, we haven't ever done this before, but I figure after a year of putting together this move piece by piece, problem after problem solved, plan after plan changed that we can manage this challenge and we are not going to let fear of the unknown or unfamiliar hold us back.

I am home.  I live in a friendly, small town. We have been here almost a month and I love it!  We have immediate friends and associations because we are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  For it doesn't matter where you go, there will always be a ward there for you.  I drive to the city, I drive past the rolling hills and farm land to the church 10 miles away, I drive around our small town and I feel an incredible sense of joy that I am right where I belong.

I commented to Ray that we are really good at jumping with both feet. And I said, we did when we met and look where that has got us!  And look where bringing six fabulous children into our lives has got us!  And look where moving and taking different jobs has got us!  Don't get me wrong, the challenges that have come from parenting and moving have been difficult.  There are always those moments when you worry and fear that you are not capable of handling your life's struggles.  (Well, at least for me I have had moments like that.)

But with each jump has come a leap of faith and there are those quiet moments when I felt the Spirit guiding my hand and God directing my path.  When the difficult moments arise, and fear wants to take over and control the situation, I look back to when I felt I should marry Ray, and to when we felt we should have our last two children, to the peace I felt at the lake this summer, and each time we moved in one way or another we felt clarity and inspiration.  Forward with faith, we jump with both feet into life.  Then we look back and we see how far we have come, and how God carried us through each jump when we needed help beyond what we could handle, and I am glad that we haven't tiptoed or waltzed through life. For as I have said before, I wouldn't change my life for any other life.

Forget Algebra, My Life Feels Like Solving Calculus Problems

How long will it take for two cars traveling at 75-80mph from Utah to arrive in Minneapolis, Minnesota a distance of about 1300 miles?  If our cars leave on Friday morning and travel two days, and my husband flies by plane on Saturday (due to being unable to travel by car as he just had back surgery) at what time will we both arrive into Minneapolis?  These are simple distance, rate, time questions which we just experienced as we moved our family (with the help of my dad as a 2^nd driver) to our new destination.

 As a former aide who has worked with many Algebra students, I have repeatedly listened to students question, “Why do we have to learn Algebra?  We are never going to use this.”  A few times in response I delve into my life analogy comparing Algebra to the real world.  Algebra is all about learning the steps to solve the problems.  The more students learn the steps the better they can apply these teachings to more difficult problems. Algebra is constantly building upon itself.  The basic understanding of the foundation of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, fractions, and decimals increases the likelihood that it will be easier to understand the steps. 

As I would try to explain how Algebra is like life because in life there will be numerous problems to solve and there is no easy way to get from the beginning of a problem to the solution without understanding the steps and then working through the steps until the problem is resolved and a solution is found.  I don’t know that any of the students who I shared this philosophy with appreciated my comments.  They didn’t like Algebra, sometimes a strong foundation of basic math principles was lacking, and they didn’t want to work through the steps to get the correct answer.  They hoped for an easy way to get to the answer and they didn’t always care whether they got to the correct answer.

Sometimes, I wish my life had the simple Algebra word problems of time, distance, and rate, but my life feels more like the Calculus and Linear Algebra problems I did in college.  Occasionally, those problems would require an entire page to work through the problems and even then I would end up with the incorrect answer.  That meant I would be tossing that paper and starting the problem over from the beginning!

For the problem listed above about the time required to travel from Utah to Minnesota, Point A actually begin in California, Point B was supposed to be New Jersey, but when the New Jersey job turned to a grinding halt, I crumbled up the sheet and my husband and I began to solve the problem again.  A month later the correct steps were determined and we began solving the problem of moving to Minnesota.  Even then the problem wasn’t quickly solved, for we first planned to move to one city, but then for various reasons pulled out of buying that house and began a new problem until we found the right answer – to build a home with the help of my husband’s friend and coworker in the small town of Chaska, Minnesota on a beautiful and peaceful piece of land.

As a math student, I loved getting to the right answer and would diligently work until I discovered the correct answer.  Sometimes, it would engulf all of my attention  -- for the simple reason of just wanting to get from Point A to Point B, from the beginning to the end, from the problem to the solution with the absolute correct answer.  As a student of life, I love getting to the right answer and I have worked diligently to discover the correct answer with each problem I have faced in life.  There is no giving up and tossing in the towel and crumbling up the paper refusing to try again because there is no running away from life, problems do exist and always will, but solutions can be found.  In my case, I rarely find solutions the easy way, it has taken a lot of hard work, perseverance, a pile of crumpled steps, but oh how happy I am when I get to the right answer! Let the new adventure begin…

What a Summer!

About 60 days ago (give or take a few), our summer began, but this summer would prove to be far from ordinary as we layover in Utah with family waiting to move to our new destination of Minnesota.  After one particular difficult week this summer where every day some stressful thing would happen, and I would say what next, what will be the next challenge to deal with, I was feeling completely overwhelmed.  To prevent myself from turning cynically, pessimistic, or fearing each new day, I knew I had to do something.  For me doing something occurs by writing.  Through writing, I process in my mind how to approach my challenges and the things that transpire in my life.  Through writing, my thinking changes. Through writing, I find a way to deal with whatever life throws at me.  This time, through writing I discovered something amazing. 

Yet when I first sat down to write, I didn’t know what that discovery would be or exactly what I was trying to accomplish. One night after everyone else was asleep, I sat writing in my online journal.  I wrote every challenge I could think of that had occurred since June. I wasn’t trying to complain and I wasn’t sure what I would accomplish, but I began with #1 Ray injures his back the day he flew home for Aaron’s graduation and Moving Day.

The list continued…#6 I am trying to clean our vacant house and feeling overwhelmed with the task.  #10, 11, 12 getting three children ready –one for a Germany trip, one for college, and one for Girls Camp--all made more difficult because we were temporarily staying with my dad and two of them were flying back to California before their trips. #13 An unsympathetic police office issued me a ticket for missing a neighborhood stop sign at the end of a very stressful day.  The list continued on and on—we changed our minds on the home we intended to buy and had to reconfigure the city, school, and ward, we listed our rental house for sale, our Yukon was hit by the garbage truck while parked in front of my dad’s house, we decide to build a new home in Minnesota and then struggle to find a suitable short term rental, our a/c unit freezes up on the house that is for sale… the list continued to #41.

I finished the list and understood why I felt overwhelmed, yet I didn’t know what to do with this list. It took a couple days, but then I realized something incredible.  Through the list of challenges, I began to see the tender mercies of God helping me and I could almost match up each of the 41 challenges to a tender mercy.  Dear friends came and helped me clean the kitchen. Great friends in Northern California helped us get another rental house sold and issues there resolved. Though in temporary conditions, our children got to spend quality time with cousins who they don’t see often. My children had great experiences on their trips and were kept safe.  Even the ticket from the unsympathetic police office turned into the beginning of an essay for my creative writing class. We had an incredible experience being guided to a great area to build a new home in a small, little town, and we had an amazing spiritual experience in our first visit to our new ward. We sold our Utah rental house and finally we won’t have to be unintentional landlords.

Yes, there are challenges brought on by moving.  Yes, life isn’t easy, but once again, I have learned I am not alone and I wouldn’t change my life for any other life.

I wouldn't CHANGE my life for any other life

There is a word in the English language that I know very well – the word is CHANGE. In two weeks, my families’ lives change once again and moving boxes are scattered throughout our house. Boxes full of memories, full of our belongings – waiting to be packed up, loaded on the truck, and eventually moved to a new home. Soon our address will indicate the seventh state we have lived in. New neighbors will surround us and our children will walk through the doors of new schools hoping to find friendly faces and good experiences.

Since I know the word CHANGE very well, I realize I don’t always know what to expect, but I know what I will eventually find. Yes, there will be challenges brought on by moving. Yes, I will be required to adapt – our children sometimes have to redefine themselves when they move. Yes, at times I will feel the loneliness of a new environment. Yes, no new place can ever be the same as the one left behind. 

This is what CHANGE has taught me – though a new place may not be the same as the previous place, it is in its own right our new home. My attitude is the determining factor to quality adaptation. Don’t feel pity for me that familiarity is a rarity because this is my burden to carry, and because I know the burden of moving all to well, I have become good at all moving requires.

By nature, I am a quiet and reserved person. By my environment, I have become more than I am. I have learned to adapt, to take life as it comes, to face challenges directly, to seek solutions, to seek God’s help, to reach out to others, to immediately jump into serving in new places.

Don’t get me wrong – there are times I feel overwhelmed, there are times when I wish CHANGE wasn't so constant, there are times when I have had to change plan after plan that I wanted to cry out – I am tired –where is the simple life?! There are times when I have ached watching my children struggle to adapt. I marvel when I hear others tell how they live as adults in the same area they grew up as a child. I can’t fathom what that would be like. My life is different than others, my children can’t simply state with one or two words where they identify their childhood home. We don’t simply have one home to call home.

I have called many homes HOME. I have incredible stories to tell. I have friends we have made in our many adventures. I have had to say goodbye many times only to turn around and say hello to a new adventure. I have experienced this so many times that fear of unfamiliarity has diminished. I have seen God’s guiding hand assist us. I have seen new places become favorite places. I have struggled through trials, and witnessed beautiful things happen and I have had multiple prayers answered.

I have learned through CHANGE that fear turns to faith, the unknown becomes the familiar, and my children’s unhappiness lessens as they come to love a new place. CHANGE is difficult, CHANGE is challenging, CHANGE shows us God’s guiding hand, and CHANGE becomes an incredible blessing, a redefining life, and a new adventure. I wouldn’t CHANGE my life for any other life.

Why I am a Mormon

My Heart Weeps for this World

My Heart Weeps For this World

I live in a world

Where unimaginable tragedies occur

I live in a world

Where sorrows are heaped upon others

I live in world

Where so many bear pain and grief

I live in a world

Where souls succumb to evil temptations

 I long for a world of peace

Where anger and wrath cannot exist

I long for a world of kindness

Where the Golden Rule triumphs

I long for a world of happiness

Where smiling countenances abound

I shall establish a world

Where I stand and fight evil

I shall create a world

Where I love and serve my fellowmen

I shall make my world

A better place where faith and hope exist

I shall build a world

Where good overcomes evil

I cannot change the actions of evil men

But evil men will not change my actions

Because I will not lose hope

I will not falter even when

Dark clouds gather far and wide

For one day, I will live in a world

Where evil cannot exist

I will live in a world

Where Jesus Christ reigns

For now, I will live my life
With faith, hope, and peace
And when my heart weeps for this World,
I will cry out, Don't lose hope
For God is crying, too.

I am not alone for I have a strong foundation

At times in my life, I find myself alone.  Sometimes, I feel alone because I moved and it takes time to create friendships.  Sometimes, I feel alone as I battle my inner struggles of fear, discouragement, and negativity.  Sometimes, I feel alone because I separate myself from the world and stand for what I believe, unwilling to let worldly influences overtake me.  Sometimes, I feel alone weighed down by the struggles of parenting and of trying to teach children correct principles.

Then, I look and see the bricks and the mortar which make up my foundation, and I realize I am not truly ever alone.  Instead of withering in grief and despair, I seek solace, and know I may stumble, but I cannot fall because I have a sure foundation, solidly built by many hands, and that knowledge carries me through.  I weather the stormy clouds and seek help upon my knees, in the scriptures, through the comforting words of others, through recalling my past experiences, and through seeking perspective.  And I come to understand--I am not alone for I have a strong foundation built brick upon brick.

---