Saturday, May 23, 2009

Sad News

I found out on Monday of this week that there was a possibility that I couldn't get a mission call to work as a missionary for the Church's 12 Step program. There was some question about the medications I was on, especially the Ambien. I told Brother Miner (who is in charge of the program in northern Utah County) that I had been on it for 10 years and had developed a physical dependence on it. That I have not been able to go off of it even after trying 3 times very hard. When I tried even for only three days, the lack of sleep caused the fibromyalgia to flare up terribly, causing me to be really sick and bed ridden for as long as 5 months or more.
He said he would call the Church's Missionary Department to see if they could make an exception for me.

On Tuesday morning as I was praying I thought to ask the Lord to let them be impressed to let me serve in that program. As I asked for that blessing the thought that came to my mind was "Do you want your will to be done or My will to be done?" As I heard those words in my mind, I of course, wanted the His will as I knew that He knew what would be best for me and for the program in general. So I changed my prayer to say "please let Thy will be done in this matter."

About 10 minutes later I got a call from Brother Miner saying that the Church couldn't make an exception for me because they wanted to be sure that the missionaries would be an example to the people they were working with, that they could live without drugs or alcohol. They said I could be a missionary in any other service mission I wanted, even being on the Ambien, but not this one.

I was sad for two days about this and was wondering if that showed a lack of faith or that I really didn't want the Lord's will to be done. I finally asked a friend in my OA program and Joe what they thought. They both said they didn't think the Lord would see that as a lack of faith but only as a disappointment or a loss of something that I had looked forward to. My OA friend said it was like having a loved one die and knowing that it was the Lord's will but being sad that they were gone and missing them.

That made me feel better about being sad. Now I feel better about the whole situation and am not sad anymore. I have decided to see if there is some other area where I could serve that I would like as well. I may go back to the MTC again as I loved that mission. I drive in to Orem or Provo three times a week anyway for my 12 step meetings so it wouldn't be hard to serve there.

Well, I am still looking forward to the cookout Monday and our vacation with Joe and Eileen this next week. I have heard from Holly that their family won't be able to come so it will just be our family. I'm sure we will all have a great time. See you there.

Love to all,

Mither

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Here I am again, did you miss me?

Still going to twelve step meetings, still losing weight :) =) >) (and so on with the smiley faces) I lost 5 more pounds this last month!!! Yaaaaay Me and God's grace! Just goes to show that we can do anything with the Grace of God ( that is if we really tap into it)

I just have to share a cute story, a thing a little three year old said. We have this biker dude, dark tan, wears tank tops and shorts, who has really long hair in the back that he wears flowing down his back who was at his friends house who is active in the Church. (I forgot to mention that he is a regular at the Church's 12 Step program, tank top, long hair and all) (Sweet man though)

Anyway, when he was leaving his friends house their little girl said "Bye Jesus" Little kids can be so precious!

Any way on to my post.

Not much has happened for the last little while other than that I've started going to Joe's (my brother's) house to do genealogy for the last few weeks on Thursdays. We are going to try to establish a regular habit of this so we can get some names to take to the temple. It shouldn't be too hard since the Church now is recommending that we do our genealogy horizontally instead of vertically. That means instead of trying to extend our lines back as far as we can, we make sure all the aunt, uncles, cousins, their children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and all their spouses and their aunts uncles and cousins, in each generation, get all their Temple work done and so on on each succeeding generation. The point is to get as many families sealed together as possible. That is the point of genealogy and Temple work after all. Wow, talk about inspiration! So many people have got their genealogy back as far as they can go (in the Church) that it has become hard to find many names at all. Anyway, that means we have go a lot of work to do.

Dad and I will be going on a short vacation with Joe and Eileen at the end of the month. We are really looking forward to this. It is so much fun to go with them. We are going to St. George and Los Vegas. Joe says there are all kinds of fun things to do there other than gamble. They are going to show us around. I only Hope I can keep up. Uncle Joe says he can't go very fast himself so I should be all right.

We are looking forward to our annual Memorial Day cookout. I hope everyone is planning on coming. We will have all kinds of fun water things to do and maybe even Daniel's Special Olympics games. We plan on starting at noon so it doesn't get so cold before the kids have had time to play very long. I'll be sending out an email about it so watch for it.

Well, that all for now, folks ( guess you are all to young to remember that phrase from TV) Random, huh.

btw, Karla is there some way you could get a hold of Holly and Vaughn to come to our cookout? We would like to invite them (hummmmm I guess I could look them up in the phone book, couldn't I? Well, maybe you could mention it to Holly in case I forget and have her call me. Thanks.

Love to all,

Mither

Monday, May 11, 2009

Mother's Day and sundry things

Yesterday was Mother's Day and I had a very good Sabbath. I missed Sacrament mtg. because I was really shaky and sick for about an hour and a half. I tried eating some lunch but it didn't work. So I laid down on the bed for a while and rested and after about an hour I finally felt good enough to go to church but by this time I would have been way late for Sacrament Mtg.. I ended up going to Sunday School and Relief Society which was very good.

For Mothers Day, I got a large family pictures pedigree chart that has our grandparents, our parents and Joe and I on our wedding day. Then it has all our children at the bottom. It is done in linen on Masonite and is sepia over black and white. It is 30" x 24" and will make a good anchor picture for our family room wall. That was from Jan, Jenn and Emily. Daniel gave me a case of green beans and David gave me a book "Broken Things To Mend" by Jeffery Holland. Adam and Stacey came with their little children which gave Emma someone to play with. They all gave me pictures done by the kids which were childish rendering of me with them or just scribbles from the very little ones. They are so sweet. The kids are so pleased when I make a fuss over their pictures. Seth and Michael both called and Michelle came in and said "happy Mother's Day" and then went down to bed as she is sick. Steve and Jenni stayed up and visited with us. I'm pretty sure Jonathan forgot to call because he has done so in years past.

Well I am finally happy to say that I have my old sewing machine back. Emilee agreed to take my new one in exchange. I just couldn't remember how to do things like threading the machine, getting the tension right and getting used to the new way of going forward and reverse the way my old machine did it. I had to refer to the handbook (which wasn't very clear to me) to do every thing each time I sewed and I never did get the tension just right. It was just too frustrating. Maybe if my memory was better I could learn it, but it is so fried from all the pills, the electro-shock treatments and the "fibro fog" that it was beyond me. Emilee is happy to get a new machine with all the attachments and different sewing feet and a table to put it on. So now we are both pleased with the outcome.

We had a nice visit from Bob and Doris last week. We spent most of the day with them and got caught up on all the news of their family and ours. We also got caught up on all the terrible things that are happening politically in the nation. We finally had to stop talking about it because we got too upset and frustrated about it.We went out to dinner at the new Denny's in Am. Fork and got right in and served right off. They are so new that not very many people even know about them so we were very lucky and pleased to have gotten such good service.

I found out that my Bishop finally got my mission papers to the Stake President a couple of weeks ago so I'm hoping it won't be too long. It's not so bad because the woman who is going to be my companion, Pat Corea, will be out of town for a month. We should be ready to start about the time she gets back.

I'm going to weigh myself today after I talk to my sponsor about it. I'm sure she is going to try to talk me out of it because she is of the opinion that I should just watch to see if my clothes start to feel less tight. That may work for her but I want more consistent and definite feed back to tell if I need to change my eating habits or not. I only weigh myself once a month as it is. I prayed about it and got a very firm answer that it doesn't matter to the Lord; that it is a trifling thing to him and I could go ahead and do as I pleased.

I am trying to get in the habit of doing my "dailies" every morning. That means praying, meditating, studying my scriptures and my AA Big Book and writing about it. For me, that should also include some sort of exercise as well, I would think. I have been thinking of signing up at a gym but I don't know how much it would cost. I'll have to ask my DIL or my daughters as they all have passes to Gold's Gym. I'm only supposed to do "moderate" exercise to keep the fibro from flaring up. Still something would be better than nothing. We'll have to see about it. I may be too expensive, anyway.

Well since I haven't learned how to post pictures yet, that is all. I hope you all don't mind my long entries. I am using my blog as a journal.

Love and {{{hugs}}} to all,

Mither

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

1:18 a.m.

I am dead tired and just lost the post I was going to send and am too tired to write it all out again. More later.

Friday, May 1, 2009

Up Date

I went to the MTC twice this week and also to my 12 step meeting twice. I got to do some walking three times this week as well, so all is well with me. The fibro is unusually quiet which is also good for me.

Bob an Doris are in town for one of their niece's wedding. I hope they get spend time with us. Bob did stop by for a little while tonight. Doris will come on a flight a little later.... too late to visit tonight. **sigh**

All else is well with us. We are SO blessed.