Well there goes Monday. It was kind of “a day.” I think it started out slow because it was super dark outside- and I would have paid half a million dollars to not have to go to work on time. But alas- to work I went. I’m trying to appreciate it as much as I can so that I don’t jinx myself into bed rest, which, as I’m learning more about it, would literally send me over the deep end. So I guess the “big happening” at work today was our 15 minutes massages- because the collectors reached their goal last month our entire department got massages. I was a little suspect of the process- not sure how I’d feel about it, but since my boss when out of her way to make sure that the guy she got to do it was trained in pre-natal massage, I figured I’d sign up. So- when my turn came I went into the office where the guy set up his chair thing and settled in. First of all- those chairs are designed for men. Or A cups. When he started pushing my back he was squishing my front-ness into this pad thing I had to lean against. So that was distracting. Then I started wondering what I looked like from the back, and spent a good few moments thinking about how I was glad to have my pregg-o pants on that go up to my neck so that my underwear didn’t hang out like some of the other girls I saw earlier in the day. By the end of the 15 minutes I had managed to think every random, fast-paced thought at all applicable to the situation and was not “more relaxed.” I’ve enjoyed facial massages…like…when I’ve gotten a facial…but this just felt weird. It was nice, but…weird. I may just not be a massage type girl. But it was a cool thing for the office to do- and to get paid for, haha. And I would probably do it again just to see if it’s an acquired taste.

The day after that was just blah. I couldn’t concentrate on ANYTHING. I started like 124 projects throughout the day and couldn’t keep going on any one thing specifically. Which, of course, made the day super-long. The long day was only made longer by the fact that our computers apparently didn’t get the “memo” on daylight savings time, so our clocks were about an hour fast for half the day…until we all figured it out…and reluctantly returned to 1pm when we thought it was 2. So sad.

The weekend was really good- we watched conference on Saturday and then went up to watch Cadence and Melody. The conference was so, so good for me this time. I remember on my mission it seemed like every talk was something I needed to hear, something to do with my work and my calling at the time. When I got home I was at a loss because all of a sudden it wasn’t my job to teach the gospel every day. Even before that, when I was in Scranton, I remember the talks really hitting home- showing me something that I was missing. My first months in Provo were the hardest months I’ve ever had anywhere. I felt kind of lost and confused- like I was in a new country where I didn’t know the language. I pretended to fit in, but I often felt inadequate. Although I really, really needed reassurance from my leaders, the men and women who have always been able to help me find my footing in the past, I didn’t feel it. Conference just felt flat. It was as if all of a sudden I didn’t have a duty to fulfill- and because of it, I didn’t have a reason to get help. I told myself that it was normal for a returned missionary to feel a “let-down,” but I was still sad, and disappointed. This conference I decided to try and prepare. I believe that God hears me when I pray- and I believe that He inspires and helps me to understand things through His Spirit….therefore, I figured I’d pray that I’d feel something. And I did. I really hoping for reassurance and direction with regard to becoming a Mom- specifically. I know we’ve made the correct choice- but I’m still scared that I’m not ready or that we rushed it because I am the MOST IMPATIENT PERSON EVER. While I listened to the talks this past weekend (which were full of truths I’ve heard hundreds of times, nothing all that new) I felt like I’ve got my feet under me again. Honestly- it wasn’t anything amazing or new, it was just the same old stuff I’ve heard a hundred times, but in a new way. I really do have faith in God- and I hope to be able to teach my child to find it for herself as well (pronoun chosen at random)- but in order to do so I have to be less lazy than I can be sometimes.

Well anyway. Just my thoughts on conference. I should also say hello to my cousin Sara- who is bravely (and I do mean bravely, because yo…it’s HARD) leaning back and forth between normal pregnancy discomfort and actual BIRTH of said child (a little boy actually). She’s apparently been reading quite a lot these days- so I thought I’d give her her own special shout out. Hi Sara!

Oh- and as for the vitamins (as many people have been asking lately) I did try evening and morning and afternoon and about 3 or 4 different brands PRESCRIPTION from the doctor- but to no avail. So Flintstones it is for me. Do you think it’s possible that I’m just…like…allergic? Hmmm. Who knows. In other symptoms…well, actually, miracles of miracles…there are just no news ones. I don’t think. You could ask John, he seems to notice what’s going on with me before I do these days. He’s a smartie- that one.

Yesterday was such a good day, for the most part. If you read my next post, you can see that I also had to deal with some drama and emotional stuff that was in many ways NOT fun, but I don’t want to skip over the good parts.

I slept amazingly well Saturday night. (Sunday night too…for some reason). When I woke up on Sunday I was ready to get up, which doesn’t happen very often. I showered and played with my new hair do- and then we went to church. I moved around enough to attend a LOT of different congregations- called wards- and it has been a long long time since I’ve liked any place this much. I told John last night, we just fit. Sacrament meeting was good- and afterward it was time to go hang out with the 8 and 9 year olds. It wasn’t my week to teach, just to provide “backup” for the teacher (we switch on and off) and so I got to sit with the kids. It was so funny, I sat down and kind of yanked at my skirt a little so it would lie over my knees. The little girl next to be did the same thing. When we went to pray, I kind of involuntarily ran my hand through my hair (got a new haircut, touching it a lot lately) and didn’t notice I had done anything until she did the same thing. The whole time she was trying to copy me, kind of on the sly. And the kids are so smart. Last week when I taught we ended up getting into a conversation about truth. We talked about the time period in the Bible after Christ had come and things changed. The people didn’t want things to change, and they resisted the leadership that Christ had left behind (apostles…Stephen the Martyr…etc.) My kid’s question was, how do you know when someone is telling the truth? Christ wasn’t there anymore, and the people were just following what they had been taught their whole lives. I KNOW. 8 YEAR OLDS. So we talked about truth- about how to make sure that we follow God, and not men, which is tricky when God chooses a lot of people to be leaders for us. It came down to prayer, how we felt when we heard people talking (whether they be people on the street holding signs, or teachers in our classrooms), and how Heavenly Father will answer us in our hearts and minds and let us know who we should listen to.

This week we continued the discussion, and I feel like they are really, really learning things. I was scared I was going to be bored with teaching the kids- but it turns out, it’s an amazing place to be. They are just so smart.

Yesterday I was also able to go to my “grownup” meetings as well- as the other teacher and I are going to take turns attending Relief Society and sitting with the kids in the main Primary meeting. When I walked in I was immediately chatted up about my hair, our little peeping Tom problem, how our Thanksgiving was, anything and everything. I felt a part of things- all of a sudden. When did that happen? (It only took 7 months.) I sat next to a woman who was quite old- I wasn’t sure how old until I tried to share my hymn book and she put her hand on mine and said, “It’s ok, I can’t see the words.” Then she sang anyway- all the words, even to the hymns I had never heard. During the lesson she commented about making an effort to love others through working to perfect the qualities the scriptures tell us we need to have. There was a big list, kindness, patience, charity…on and on. She said she got to that one and was stuck- so she’s about 93 years old and has only made it to the third one on the list, but that’s all that’s expected of us- just try, our whole lives, and do as good as we can. It was heartwarming to sit next to her, to share in her kindness and love for other people.

After church our home teacher came over and visited, asked us if we needed anything- and talked about a few of the things that John taught in his lesson in Priesthood today. It simply a good, good day. More later!

Today was conference day.  John, Jonathan and I were able to attend the Saturday afternoon session.  Let me just tell you, LAST time we tried this is was a wee unsuccessful.  We showed up before they were “meant” to give our seats away…but found that the “rules” didn’t seem to hold with regard to greedy Mormons who felt like stealing seats.  I was so disapointed, and so…was a little reluctant to try again, maybe just to be disapointed, again.  We showed up at the conference center an hour early, and walked into a nearly empty building.  Our seats were on the balcony, but pretty centered with regard to all the action, so it was comfortable.  It was a nice experience.  It was fun to see the general authorities, and much more powerful to hear a big choir in person.  I expected the intermediate hymn to be a bit more powerful, with 20,000 people standing and singing- I remember at Pageant how amazing it felt to sing with a large group of people, to feel that sense of community.  I didn’t so much feel that community in the conference center- although I did love being there with my husband, and my brother.  I felt a new level of interest with what is being said, one that I wish I could cutivalte whenever I hear conference, not just because I’m sitting there.  It was also incredibly touching to see Elder Nelson help Elder Wirthin as he lost strength while standing and giving his talk.  I noticed him start to shake, and wondered if the other apostles were noticing, and sure enough, I saw the other members of the 12 start to talk to each other.  Pretty soon, Elder Nelson stood behind Elder Wirthlin, supporting him from behind.  Elder Wirthlin’s talk was about charity- and seeing the love and friendship among these men only amlified his words.  It was amazing to see.  I’ll never forget the words he spoke about love.  They seemed to fill me up, and felt like I truly learned something.

I was just so glad that we got in, and that it was relatively stress free.  On the way house I heard one of the events managers that the conference center can hold 21, 000 people, and that today there were 20,000.  So, I guess that’s why we had a little wiggle room.  I feel satisfied now, and don’t really feel like I’d want to try and go again soon.  It’s nice to do it once, and know what it’s like, but I think I’m also going to be grateful for the ability to watch conference on my couch in my PJ’s for a few years. 

So now John’s at work for a few hours.  He took Tuesday off, and so he’ll be making up a few hours here and there this coming week- that way, we’ll have next Saturday free, really, truly free.

 The semester is really starting to move along.  I’m in an “ok” state, I’ve procrasinated a few things a little bit, but as long as I get looking at things tomorrow and Monday, I’ll be fine and dandy.  Before I know it, I’ll be graduated.  That is…if I pass the physical science exam.  Yup yup.

So what else is new…I wonder.  I think that’s it for now.  Just trying to relax a little, waiting for my love to come home and take me out on the town (Also known as walmart….)

When I was young, really really young, I thought that I was meant to meet the man that I would marry by the time I was, oh..I don’t know, 15? Date for a few years, graduate high school, and get married. This was about the time that my cousin Melissa and I would gather up our girl scouting books and play “college,” carrying books and pens and pencils from room to room in my house (because that’ s what you do in college). The hysterical thing was that we didn’t only have our college books and notebooks to tote around, we’d also have diaper bags and dolls- because of course we’d have babies by the time we were in college! Now, babies + college is definitely possible (especially at BYU…), and I’m sure that it works out quite well for a lot of people, but I think I had my own personal sequencing a bit mixed up. Growing up in a Navy town, I was taught that a college degree was “optional.” Marriage, however, was not. If I was lucky, I’d marry an officer. I’d pray for shore duty. Until he drove me crazy and then I’d pray for him to go out to sea. It was a really interesting place to grow up, especially considering that I didn’t realize that the pressures to create a country-serving family were even there. I had some problems in school- I didn’t really have too many friends and spent a lot of my time with my family and babysitting. Any extracurriculars I got involved in were because my cousin had joined. On top of all of it, I didn’t understand why the guidance counselors wouldn’t let me take classes that interested me. I went to them to ask if I could take Physics, and they told me that “sophomores don’t take physics.” I really, really didn’t get THAT logic- and went ahead and “took it at my own risk.” I figured out quickly that any rules they had weren’t necessarily rules, just standard procedure.

We moved away from Connecticut when I was 17, so I had my senior year at a different school entirely. I went from a class size of over a thousand to a class size of about 82. When I went to my homeroom the first morning I was there, I was told that I had caused all of the lockers to shift (for everyone with a last name that started with Sw and below, anyway) and, even worse, I had displaced the top ten. This school was ALL ABOUT preparing for college. I had always wanted to go to college, but it was only moving to MA that I was given the information that I needed to find out where I wanted to go, and how to get myself there. It was about this time that I stopped worrying about marriage all together. I didn’t (and don’t) believe in soul-mates. I don’t think that there is one specific person created for every other person. What I thought was that my choices would ultimately lead me to a position in life where I’d be ready for commitment, and someone else would have made choices that brought him to that same place, and we’d find each other. Romantic, huh? At the time, though, I had a teacher named Mr. Duquette. He made us memorize a saying, “True lovers don’t just find each other along they way. They’re in each other all along.” I can’t find where the quote comes from, I may have gotten it a bit wrong. I usually grabbed onto and believed EVERYTHING that Mr. Duquette said, but what about this? Just a romantic notion- and as I analyzed myself right at that moment, I didn’t feel anyone with me, or waiting for me. I never imagined there would be someone out there looking for someone else, not me necessarily, but someone with my qualities, the qualities that I would someday have because of my experiences. So, fast foward to my decision of where to go to college. I did NOT want to go to BYU. An expectation was set by my community (mostly, churchy community) that I go. I didn’t even apply. I applied to small, catholic schools- mostly Jesuit, and choose Scranton. After about 2 wonderful years there, I got antsy. I knew it was time for somthing to change, but what? I went home for Christmas and drove my parents crazy talking about a mission, no, maybe BYU? no…a mission! By the time I decided, I was heading into my junior year at Scranton. I had to break it to my best friends in the WORLD that I was leaving before senior year, I had to get my life together and realign every goal I had ever set, and prepare to go where ever I was sent. I think this was the first time in my life that I started thinking about marriage in a serious way. I knew it was going to be a priority, I’ve always wanted marriage and a family, and while I had “dated” some people in Scranton- it had amounted to a whole lotta nothing. None of my peers were even thinking about marriage yet, but I still felt a draw. Whether it was my LDS upbringing, my Navy upbringing, the fact that I was now 3 years beyond the age where my Mom and Dad were when they had gotten married, I don’t know. But I felt the pressure. I’ve always been more interested in people who were a bit older than me, and my silly, illogical fear was that by the time I got to where I was going (after the mission…) all the “good ones” would be taken. It sounds so silly now, but I was seriously freaked out that I was making the wrong choice, and delaying a life that I might not have the opportunity to choose again. I had to make a choice: go somewhere where I could possibly meet someone and start THAT life, or go on a mission, delaying it all for another year and a half. I knew, though, that I was meant to go on my mission. Before any serious doubts surfaced, I had my call- and I was preparing to go to England. I just figured that whoever I was meant to be with would wait for me, somehow, without even knowing who I was. If it was meant to be, it was meant to be.

So, I went to England. Again- so many reasons why I was meant to be there when I was there, but too length to discuss just now. I had decided, before I left, to apply to BYU as a transfer student for when I got home. It was crazy- the place I had hated and despised and made fun of and rejected, I was now applying to. I was accepted, given a leave of absence for the time left of my mission, and that was that. I knew where I was going when I got home. I didn’t feel much about it, except that it was right. When I got here, it was MAJOR culture shock. I was the only woman in most of my classes. Aside from the girls that I lived with, I didn’t spend much time with other girls. Most of my friends were the guys from my classes, and my social life consisted of class, study groups, work…and that’s about it. I didn’t expect to run into the same kinds of warnings I got in my first high school, the “there now little lady, can you really handle this class?” kind of warnings. It was an interesting mentality to overcome. When I went for job interviews on campus or talked to advisers, they always asked, “Are you married? Are you engaged? Dating seriously?” As if that would seriously change the advice they’d give me. At one point when John and I had first started dating, I was encouraged to get my doctorate in Comparative Religion. With a degree like that, and “being a woman,” I would have a place at BYU waiting for me. I have since decided that CR is not the path I want to take, but I wonder if the advice would have been different if I was engaged when I asked for it.

It’s like I’m in some kind of weird, “other-wordly” place. It’s not the same mentality as Groton, Dalton, or Scranton- that’s for sure. In some ways better, in some ways worse. But I guess the thing that remains consistent is that I will choose my own path no matter where I am. It’s too hard to conform to what people expect, it’s much better to follow your passion and your goals and your FUN to where you want to go next.

So, now I’m 24. Not to far from 18 (I’d like to think, anyway…) and I’m getting married. Do I believe that John and I were two pieces of one cosmic whole torn apart in the cosmos before being thrown to earth to find each other? Um, no. I don’t. But I DO know that I’ve made choices. I’ve gone places, I’ve felt the urgency to leave one place and go to another for reasons I didn’t understand at the time. I’ve needed certain experiences. I’ve gone through a few things that afterward I thought, “Now, well, I needed that!” with no specific explanation of WHY I needed that. I know that John has experienced the same thing. Do I think that maybe, just maybe, there is someone who knows us both so well- and has some amazing ability to get two people in the same place at the same time, first guiding them through a series of experiences in order to allow them to work out their own happiness? Now THAT’S a yes. So, in a way- without me even recognizing it, we’ve been there together all along. Maybe to a God who sees all time in one instant- it was just a waiting game, and when we were listening, we were encouraged to wait. And I guess that’s the point,  I’m finally understanding what Mr. Duquette meant.

Soooooo….it’s been a weekend. I’ll start with the most pleasant things first. Yesterday morning John and I set out to find some fun baby presents- as Emily and Jared just had their newest baby girl- Melody. She is sooooo teeny and wiggly and pretty, and smells like baby. I just love her. It was fun to see Cadence as big sister, too.

So, after the morning adventures of Babies-R-US and wandering around Salt Lake a bit, John and I headed back to Provo to ready ourselves to head down to Manti to see the Mormon Miracle Pageant. I spent two summers in the Hill Cumorah Pageant in New York, and so I was really excited to see what the pageant in Manti was like. I knew it would be smaller- but I thought it’d be a smaller version of the same. We picked up Chad and Alicia- and drove down. The drive down was quite nice, I tried to find something new to listen to on the IPOD, ended up listening to…um, country something or other. Realised, definitively, that John IS from Texas. He and Chad had a nice singalong, and then we arrived. We parked with relatively little trouble, found some good seats, and then John and I took a walk while A&C watched the “stuff.” We walked around Manti a bit- found some decks of cards in case we wanted to play games while we were waiting. We got some snacks and ate them on the way back. Then Alicia and Chad went for a walk. The pageant finally started at about 9:30, and it was, well. Corny. I was a little disappointed. It seemed to cater to people who already knew a lot about the church- there were some pretty big licenses taken with the stories- and I felt like some of the important facts were a little distorted. The story was hard to follow, and I just didn’t care about the characters. I think it’s been done for the same way for so long- and the actors try to “spiff” it up with energetic arm motions and big sweeping gestures, but they just make it hard to take seriously. I think that this Pageant is in need of a little love, some good direction, and some reorganization. These pageants can be such a great way for people to be introduced to the church, but in order to make a difference, they can’t be a joke.

So now we’re having a lazy Sunday. Hopefully we’ll be well-rested and start the week well. Lots of stuff to do