Round 3 in Rockledge

This week was a good week. We now have 4 people with a baptismal date, so that's hype. Plus I get to stay here another 6 weeks! I will get a new comp, Elder Tempest, and lead out an area for my first time. He is fairly new and I haven't met him yet, but this transfer is going to be a good one.

We had a great lesson with Jen this week. She wants to be baptized, but there are two things in her way. She needs to get married to Jon and she needs to stop smoking. We went over with Bishop Waters and set a date for him to marry them on July 15. We also set incremental goals for her to quit smoking. She is set to be baptized on July 20. I am super happy for her. I would really appreciate it if you all can pray for her to have the strength and help needed to quit smoking before then. I hope we will see a miracle and she will be able to quit.

Karen also has a baptismal date still, but she hasn't made much progress with smoking and drinking. She knows the church is true and has the desire to quit, but in the moment of temptation she gives in still. She also is in a lot of pain, so drinking helps her get through that. I would also appreciate it if you guys can pray for her to not have as much pain so she can quit drinking and pray for her to be able to overcome her temptations to smoke. Again, I know Miracles can happen with a lot of faith and prayer.

The other 2 people on date are Alyssa and Jacob. They are the kids of a recently returning member. They don't have any obstacles in their way and will be baptized on July 13.

I don't usually ask for you guys to pray for people for me, but these people 
really need it. They need to blessings that come from baptism and living the word of wisdom, and just need a little help to push through next few weeks. I hope with all our prayers I will be able to report back next week with some good progress made. 

In other news, I saw an alligator get captured and killed in the middle of a neighborhood lake this week. It was absolutely crazy.

Other than that, nothing new this week other than regular missionary stuff.

Just biking in crazy downpours and then scorching heat 10 minutes later. Nothing new. 


P.S. This is my little addendum to Erik's letter. For one of their p-days he was able to go to the Kennedy Space Center.

 

 

And then for the last one before transfer day, they headed to the beach. They have to get there rather early before anyone else shows up basically.



This is the Gonzalez family (Danny, Cristal, and their three girls) who have taken really good care of Erik. They have him and Elder Ward over every Monday night for dinner and games. Danny is the "champion" of the world in Settlers of Catan and Erik just couldn't get let him get away with that.

 

How we spend our anniversaries

Sometimes we vacation in fun places but lately it seems that Tyler and I find ourselves celebrating among the trees and plants. Just like I celebrate my birthday all month long, our anniversary celebration stretched over a few days.

For our actual anniversary we went to Red Butte Gardens and toured the grounds. The last time we were there was ions ago when Kiersten was small enough to straddle her dad's shoulders. Tyler reminded me that at that time he wasn't in to plants and trees and remembered that excursion being hot.

This time we came home with a few new plant ideas for our yard. And lucky for us, our local nursery had a few. Mock orange was my new favorite with it's irresistible fragrance.

Tyler also discovered they have his favorite tree in full stature. We haven't been so lucky on our property, killing 7 of them.

But it renewed our hope that maybe this last one will pull through. Keeping our fingers crossed.

This is also what our elderberry could look like as a tree form.

The next day we took the three younger kids with us to see the play Matilda at Hale Center Theater. What a delight! The acting and music was superb. We all walked away wanting to go again to watch the other cast and compare.

Friday and Saturday we hung together at the Tooele Valley Garden Tour. Tyler was in charge of securing some Lake Point sites, so in his fancy orange shirt we headed to South Rim to tour the homes out there first and then came back and visited with our Lake Point friends.

On Saturday, I brought along my friend Becca who loves gardening also and we made the rounds in Stansbury, Grantsville, and Tooele.

Twenty-two years. That's a long time, but not nearly as long as Brian and Laura who celebrated 50 years in March or Grandma and Grandpa Ellis who hit 70 last year. And my own parents have us doubled at 44. I love that Tyler and me have grown closer together through our common interest in gardening.

Don't you just love these grapes trellis's he made me for my birthday, er . . . Mother's Day.

I Saw The Prophet, and Other Amazing Things

This week was amazing. We had a great lesson with Jon and Jen. Good things are starting to happen there. Karen is on date to be baptized! And I got to hear from the prophet yesterday!

We've been working with Jon and Jen since I got to Rockledge, and missionaries had been visiting them long before that. Jon is a member, Jen isn't. We have had a hard time having lessons with them because their work schedules have been so terrible that every time we go over, one of them is walking out the door. They were never home at the same time. After lots of effort and prayers, though, they got new jobs with normal schedules. We have had a lesson 2 weeks in a row now, like a real lesson as opposed to just talking about jobs and life struggles like we had been. We found out that Jen wants to be baptized and that in order to do that she wants to get married to Jon and stop smoking. We invited them to pray and set dates for when she will get married, be off cigarettes, and get baptized. So tomorrow we are going to visit them and go over their goals, so by next week she should have a set baptismal date. Yay!!

Karen is super golden. Last week she bore her testimony in church her very first time there and basically said the church was true. We then had a lesson this week on Wednesday. We taught the whole restoration which she also knows to be true already. We invited her to come hear the prophet on Sunday and she started crying she was so happy, because she had heard about it but didn't think she could get a ticket, but we had one for her. We also set a baptismal date with her for June 22. It was a great lesson.

We went over again on Friday to see her and found out some things we didn't know before that might cause us to push that date back a little, but we will see. She was still super excited to see the prophet, but she said she was starting to get sick. Then on Sunday we call to see if she needed a ride to church and she was super sick. She ended up having to miss church and the devotional she was so sick.😭 It was a major bummer for both of us. Hopefully she will get feeling better soon so we can continue helping her progress toward baptism.

We still got to go to the devotional yesterday, though. President Nelson and Elder Uchtdorf both spoke to all the members in the central Florida area. It was amazing. I got to see a whole bunch of members from my past wards, which was super fun. We also met missionaries from other Florida missions.

The best part though by far was getting to hear the prophet. I was on the front row to see it. He spoke about staying on the covenant path and about the blessings that come from it. He also spoke about the Book of Mormon. Something he said that I liked was that the Book of Mormon is truth in the purest for we have it. It is pure scripture. Read it! The Book of Mormon is truly amazing and it is a miracle in itself. To have been written in such short time and to be published on its first draft, with only minor grammer errors, is a miracle. It truly is God's word.

I also liked President Uchtdorf's talk a lot. He talked about responding to criticisms with invitations. "By their fruits ye shall know them." Inviting people to "come and see", "come and help", and "come and stay" allows them to see our fruits. I agree completely with that, if someone has doubts about the church or questions about different things, invite them do do something that will allow them to see the fruits and feel that it is true.

I'm very grateful for the opportunity I had to hear the Lord's prophet in person. I know that he is a true prophet. I know the things he teaches are true and can bless you as you live them. Stay on the covenant path or get on the covenant path. There are innumerable blessings to be had.

Also, we had stake conference yesterday as well. Busy day.

Blessings and Miracles

This week was a really amazing week. We have found a lot of people the past few weeks and this week we have been able to see a lot of them start progressing. I also got to do an amazing exchange and have my last interview with President Clark.

The two people I wanted to talk about are Jen and Karen. I'll start with Jen. She, Jon, and Abbie all live together. Jon is a member, but Jen and her daughter Abbie are not. We have been working with them for a while now. They have been very hard to have good lessons with, though. We finally had a good formal lesson for the first time in months this week. We found out that Jen wants to be baptized (#miracle) and is working some things out so she can accomplish that goal. Abbie is also thinking about baptism.

That was quite a miracle lesson. The spirit was super strong and they all had a great desire to come to church more and become more active as a family by the time we finished the lesson. 

We were blessed with a media referral about a week and a half ago named Karen. The first time we met her we gave her a Book of Mormon and she said she would read it. We went back this week for a return appointment and read some more of it with her and talked about a lot of things. She loved everything we had to say. She has really been struggling with so much in her life and needs some fellowship, so we invited her to church. She gladly accepted and came.

Here's the crazy thing that happened. It was fast Sunday and we explained how anyone can bear their testimony of they want to. Halfway through she walked up to bear her testimony. It was kind of scary. She got up and bore the most amazing testimony, though. She said she thought that our church replaced the Bible, but that she was happy to learn that the Book of Mormon was just a second witness to support it. She said she had always wondered how to know if the Bible was true by itself, and that it made so much sense to her. She then said she knew that this church was where she needed to be. #miracle

Another miracle is that her husband is Christian but kind of anti-religion, but it turns out he has a friend that goes to our church. So he will be at church next week. He also had some misconceptions about us and didn't think we were Christian, but Karen cleared them up and now he also wants to start reading the Book of Mormon. #miracle

That was a pretty long email, but there were some amazing things that happened here. It's so amazing seeing how the Lord puts people in your path and opens suits for you as you put your trust in him. We went to Jon, Jen and Abbieʼs expecting to teach the restoration, but felt like they needed the Gospel of Jesus Christ instead. So we taught that one and it was exactly what they needed. Miracles happen as you rely on the spirit. 

Letter to a first year teacher

At orientation last year, a teacher who had just finished his first year teaching advised us newbies to enjoy the ride because you'll never have that first year back again.

Well, here I am. . . . At the end of my first year teaching. . . . And I'm switching classrooms and moving into the 3rd grade hall. I'm still a 2nd grade teacher having to vacate to make room for growth that's headed our way next year.

So I employed my little tribe while I still had slave labor and put them to work taking apart my classroom. They took stuff off my walls and cleaned and sorted. I'm afraid this classroom will be much cleaner than the one I'm inheriting.

Over several weeks I hauled home my entire library which has inundated my office. I've purged old books and books in bad shape and now I've begun the task of cataloging and labeling every book. I was not happy with the way my library was used this past year. We had books, but they got piled up and all mixed together. And I really had no idea what books I had. I knew if I was going to help young students be better readers, they needed access to books and I needed to know how to help them find a book that was the right fit for them. The completed project will be a post for another day.

One of my last assignments for school was to write a letter to an upcoming first year teacher. So here ya go . . . 

Dear First Year Teacher,

You’re gonna make it!! You’ll survive. You will probably even thrive on some days or weeks. It has been such a wild ride, but so worth it. You are amazing!

*Greet you students at the door every day and welcome them to school. This is such a good way to start off the day with them knowing how much you love having them in your class. I would even stand at the door and send them off with a high five or a goodbye at the end of the day. Getting to know your students outside of the classroom is such a vital ingredient to success. Those relationships really do make a huge difference.

*A good classroom management plan in central to success in the classroom. And then be CONSISTENT in following through. Consistency is key to making it work effectively. I thought I was going to be very consistent. It just seemed like my nature. Not so. I found I wasn’t as consistent and it was a struggle sometimes to reign in the class or individual students. One thing I discovered part way through the year is implementing class points in addition to individual rewards (fake pennies for a class store in my case). When the class wouldn’t settle down, all I had to do was stand at the front of the class and wait. At some point I started counting out loud and told them when I reached 60, I would take a point away. I found that they began to self-regulate themselves. I would stand silent and the students would start quieting each other. I found I really liked this approach. 

*Don’t let the one or two hard students be your focus. Remember you have a class of students who work hard and are good students. Don’t let the behaviorally-challenged ones control your time and attention.

*Don’t be afraid to change how things are going midstream. If you find one aspect just isn’t working like you would like it too, change it up. Try something different. During third term, my partner read was something I wanted to change and make more consistent so I knew I had to find some extra time to make it happen every day. I rethought my end of day routine and had the students actually pack up when they came in from afternoon recess. This gave us a whole 30 minutes of uninterrupted time to do partner reading/journal writing/independent reading. I have loved it and am glad I didn’t wait until the following year to implement this new routine.

*Plan, plan, plan. Having at least a week planned in advance makes the week go by so much more smoothly. It is a lot of work, but if you keep copious notes, next year will be somewhat easier because you’ll have something to refer to. And plan to death the first week of school. Write down every little detail about the day.

*Rely on veteran teachers and especially your grade level team. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. There’s a lot besides teaching you need to know . . . how to run the copy machine, what your duties are, how to order supplies, etc.

*Each day is a new start. There will be days that leave you drained and exhausted. There will be days where you give up trying to cope with the behaviors. Just know that every day is a new start. What went horribly wrong the day before is now a clean slate to try again. Make a point to smile and be happy, especially when those long winter days set in and the tribe is restless and ready for mutiny.

*Don’t forget those things that you loved to do before embarking on this journey of teaching. It can be overwhelming at times. Don’t forget to take care of yourself. For me, I allowed myself to read for pleasure, even if for only a few minutes every day. This was something I looked forward to and rewarded myself at the end of the day for making it through yet another day.

*Go home at a reasonable hour. There is life outside of school.

*Find a way to be organized, whatever that may mean to you. I took some time before school started to set up folders on my computer so I had a way to file digital items as I came across them. This has been a huge lifesaver. I still have some cleanup to do, but at least I’m not reinventing the wheel and starting all over next year.

*Never stop learning and growing yourself. You have years ahead of you to become the teacher you envisioned on your first day. Don’t be hard on yourself when you fall short of what you thought you might be.

I won’t lie. The first year of teaching is hard. It’s a lot of long, hard hours. It is also full of a lot of rewards when you see a student “get it” or when you get those cute notes saying you’re the best teacher. Smile every day. Have a good attitude. That first year is something you will never ever have again.

God is in the details, even (especially) when they change

I stole that blog title from a post I saw this past week. I loved it and have been thinking about it . . . a lot. God is in the details of our lives and most especially when life blindsides you with a drastic change. It is in those moments that I am reminded that my life's story is really about the story God has in place for me. It's about the story I covenanted to live before coming to this earth. And sometimes I have to be reminded that my life story may not really be what I envisioned.

Three years ago the story of my life was reading like a horribly boring book (INSERT: At Home in Mitford, a book club book with no plot or climax that very nearly brought me to tears as I struggled to finish it). I was comfortable. Really comfortable. Tyler had a great job. I was working as a sub when I felt like it. My kids were all doing well. I was looking forward to having all my kids in school all day (none of that half day kindergarten nonsense that messes with your whole day). And then like any good story, it quickly became a page turner where I wasn't sure how my story was going to end. But unlike most page turners that keep me up, I wasn't sure I wanted to find out either.

Three years later, I did finish that installment. And I'm still here to discuss it. Many of those chapters contained gut-wrenching fear. I had always considered faith to be one of my defining gifts from God, but this time I had to really struggle for it. I simply didn't trust God that he could OR WOULD somehow makes things work out.

There were also some chapters that I frankly just didn't like. I liked my old life. I was happy there. But I also know that there is no growth in being comfortable. We only grow stronger when our bodies, our minds, our spirits are stretched and hurt a little. Going back to school, starting a full-time job, sending off a missionary, planning a wedding really stretched me like a taut rubber band. I didn't break (even though there were days I didn't know that I could do another thing), but I did hurt and I now know that I am capable of doing harder things than I thought possible.

And then there were those chapters that were simply beautiful and wonderful. Sending off a missionary who is doing great things in Florida and having a daughter married and finishing college are both such good things. But moreso is that ah-ha moment when you realize that God knows you way better than you know yourself. I was pretty certain I wanted to teach upper elementary, 5th or 6th, but God knew better and put me in a much better place with a great team

and a herd of 2nd graders where I feel like I can really help them become better readers, a passion of mine.

The book I'm writing with my life story continues to grow. Recently our little communities of Stansbury Park and Lake Point have dealt with some hard tragedies. A young man decided life wasn't worth living anymore. A young girl, getting ready to graduate, was killed in a car wreck a month before graduation. A mom with four kids at home was diagnosed with cancer once week and died the next. And the author of my blog title had her young husband killed in a freak accident while on duty in Afghanistan, leaving her with seven children to raise by herself.

I'm sure these families were not expecting their life stories to change so drastically from the original outline. It's hard to understand the whys when you're smack dab in the middle and the story is still unresolved and you just want a miracle NOW. That muddled middle is not a fun place to be. But this much I do know. God is most certainly in that muddled middle with us with his muck boots on and mud up to his elbows. This is where miracles do occur maybe just not how we expect them to. He knows the end from the beginning and is the coauthor of your life story.  Trust that story to God and the ending will always leave you wanting more.

I'm Missionary Age Now!

**Scroll past the weekly letter to get to a bonus post at the end.

It was a great week. Elder Ward and I both had birthdays this week. I'm now 19, which means I would be just getting ready to leave if they hadn't changed the age to 18. That's nuts. We had birthday cake 3 times this week, so the members took real good care of us.

We also had a good week with regards to missionary week also. We found 6 new people to teach, and a few of them are really solid. 

So I have a pretty funny story about how we found Micah, who is the most amazing guy. He is super humble and genuine, and excited to learn more about us. 

So there is a guy in the ward here who is kind of crazy. He is always cracking jokes that make absolutely no sense and just saying a lot of nonsense. He's been trying to get us to come meet his neighbor with him for a few weeks now, but he didn't tell us anything about the neighbor or why he wanted us to meet with him. So we haven't really made an effort to go meet him.

Last Monday he called and asked if we could go over on Tuesday to meet him and we agreed. He then said "actually, I'm talking with him right now, here he is." So I talked to his neighbor on the phone and he seemed super cool actually. Then we went over on Tuesday and had one of the best lessons I've ever had. He is going to be my best friend, he is so cool. In fact, we are actually going fishing with him today. I guess the moral of the story is that you should even listen to crazy old guys, because they might have something important to say.

We also found this lady named Karen who has been working for a while on overcoming some things in her life. She wanted to come closer to God. She also wanted to know more about Mormons because she had heard some weird things. So we started teaching her. We helped her understand more about who we are and what we believe, and she didn't say a single thing the entire lesson that she believes that we don't believe also. It was a miracle. She needs the gospel in her life and is super open to learning it. We have a lot of hope for her.

We also are going to start teaching two kids of a member who is recently returning. They are some low hanging fruit that we are hopefully going to get baptized pretty soon. 

All in all a great week. We had zone conference, a meeting with half the mission, on my birthday. They all sang to me. It was terrible. I got a lot of emails and a few packages from home for my birthday, which brightened my whole week.

This is my best friend, Elder Barger, with one of my
last companions Elder Grant photobombing

I'm so grateful for this opportunity to serve a mission. I'm not distracted by things of the world, so I can really ingest the gospel a lot more. My testimony has grown a lot this week from my studies and just living the gospel day-to-day. I know that the Book of Mormon is true and I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet. I love and miss all of you, and hope you have a fantabulous week.

Update: We went fishing with Micah. I caught 6 largemouth bass that were pretty good size.

Micah was super cool and taught us some new things. The best part was that I saw my first gator though. It was a monster. It was swimming by while I was fishing and it saw me and did a beeline toward me. It came probably 20 feet from shore and just stared at me for a minute then swam over to the shore a ways away from me. I got some pretty close pictures. 

I'm tagging on to the end of this post because it's kind of a birthday post. This was the first year that we haven't celebrated a kid's birthday on their birthday. And it happened twice!! Kiersten was celebrating in Hawaii, a birthday-first-year-anniversary trip to visit Jason's mission.

Erik was in Florida on his mission. I was going to make his favorite Christmas morning rolls, a tradition for his birthday but discovered at 10pm that I had sent him all my butterscotch pudding so he could make his own. So no breakfast rolls for us. And then all day on his birthday I kept feeling like I needed to get home and make him his birthday pie. That didn't happen either. It was kind of a lame, rainy day.

We did finally catch up with Kiersten when they got back.

I'm just in this transition phase where life is changing . . . again . . . and it's not always easy.

I'm becoming my mom.