Happy Mother’s Day to first to my own mom and Ron’s mom, then to the mothers of my grandchildren, and to all of you! I’ve learned how to be a mom by watching a lot of great women throughout my life. I’m still learning and have been taught by so many of you! I love and admire you and appreciate all that you add to my life. Truly!
And Happy Birthday on Wednesday, 17 May, to Amanda, the daughter that blessed our lives first and began my journey of motherhood! We love her and the beautiful woman she is. And she is a great mother too! It is a huge payback when you see your own children as good parents, isn’t it?
And congratulations to my sweet friend, Mindy, who completed her cancer treatments last Tuesday. Woohoo! I wasn’t at her party, but I was partying here! I came across this quote this week that reminded me of her:
“Sometimes when we accomplish something big, we expect to feel heroic; instead it was just hard work. Perhaps this is a secret that heroes don’t share. Courage comes from doing common things.”
Way to go Mindy! You are my hero!
This week was a normal, uneventful week. I kept thinking, “What am I going to write about? Well, surely something will happen by the end of the week that will be worth journaling.” But Monday – Friday were pretty much the same routine. We get up, we study our scriptures separately, we get ready and go to work. We work on the Pageant and various other projects we have going. About 10 hours later, when we are done for the day, we go home, fix dinner, clean up, do a load of laundry, have a little D&C study time together, usually watch a little TV and/or read, and go to bed. Five exciting days in the life of a missionary.
Yesterday, Saturday, we tackled a little work on our finances. At some point we know that SLC will update the website and come to us asking what it costs per month to serve in Birmingham. So we added expenses up and broke them down by category. Doesn’t that sound like a whoppin’ fun Saturday morning? I went for a walk, we did a little housework, ate lunch, took a trip to Ikea, Costco, the Garden Nursery to buy a little potting soil, and the grocery store for just a few things. We came home, fixed dinner, watched a movie . . . .yada yada yada. So . . . it’s Sunday, and I’ve got nothing . . . no adventures, no conversion stories, nothing . . .and next week isn’t looking much different!
I can tell you about one little experience we had a couple of weeks ago. We decided to open up a bank account here. We weren’t going to. We were trying not to, but we’ve ran into a few situations where it was difficult because all our accounts were in the USA, so we decided to go ahead and do it as recommended by previous missionaries. We knew we needed our passports and a utility bill proving residency, so a couple of weeks ago on a Tuesday we gathered those things, Ron put a wad of cash in his pocket, and we headed over to the bank that was recommended to us expecting to open an account. Easy peasy, right? Nope! We were told when we arrived that we must make an appointment to do this, and it will take about 90 minutes. WHAT? Ok, so we made an appointment for the next Tuesday. When we showed up again, with our cash and papers, they had no record of us having an appointment. So again, we made another appointment for this past Tuesday. We showed up again, and this time they were expecting us! We were sure we had our ducks in a row, but no . . . because my name wasn’t on the utility bill, only Ron’s, they could not open a joint account. They didn’t question the fact that we were married, but no . . . it wouldn’t work. So after all that, it was determined that Ron would open an account just in his name. Oh brother. Two hours and ten minutes later, he finally had an account. I’m surprised he didn’t have to promise our first born and give a blood and urine sample too. It was C R A Z Y !!!!! Oh, and Ron looked at the customer rating on the internet . . . it was lousy. Why that bank was recommended, I’ll never know. That was our excitement for the week.
Going to church each week is always such an experience. I continue to remind myself that everything doesn’t have to be like Utah in order to be right. Primary is so unstructured compared to what I’m use to. We have two families with VERY difficult children. So 20% are unruly. And there are very few older kids, so trying to teach a song is hard. I try to do it with pictures instead of words. The Primary Programme in the Fall should be interesting . . .
There are so many part-member families that I wonder how the ward functions. It would be so hard for me if my spouse was going off to a church I didn’t believe in, and I was not, or vise versa. And you know our church doesn’t just expect an hour a week of church, but three, and a calling to boot, so I can only imagine the stress it must cause on some. I take so much for granted at home.
One blessing I can readily see is the power of prayer. We kneel and pray together twice daily. I kneel and pray on my own twice daily. We pray over the food. And so many times I have said silent prayers at my desk when I need help with a project. My sins are of omission, because I’m not in a circumstance to do much else. I’m learning so much about myself. We might be serving the Lord and blessing others, but the greatest blessings come to us.
We feel blessed to have a supportive family who are taking care of so many things for us! We love and appreciate you so much. We are blessed to hear from many of you who keep us up on things. We appreciate that more than you know! We feel blessed with good health and strength, despite a few aches and pains, so that we can serve the Lord. It’s easy to count blessings, even on difficult days.
Two great blessings just today:
· FaceTiming with my family
· The Elders needed a place to come so they could call their moms, and it just so happened that I marinated four chicken breasts instead of the usual two! Fortuitous!
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| This was shared with me Friday. It tugged at my heart strings! We feel their prayers every day and pray for them also. |
Again, Happy Mother’s Day to all of you women! You are all mothers in some form. I am so grateful to be a mom. Our children and grandchildren are our greatest blessing. Until next week . . . and I’ll try to have more . . .
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