Training Ground

I've got a lot of ideas floating around in my brain and I'm trying to figure out how to get them all written down before I forget about them.  The nice thing about this blog is that I can jot them down when I've got a few minutes and then I can expand on them later if the desire or opportunity arises.  It would be really awesome to take the time to add scriptures and quotes in this to back me up, but i don't think that's going to happen.  This process of mine doesn't make for very cohesive or complete thoughts.  For that I apologize.  This is my training ground for learning how to become a writer (which I would never call myself, but my husband says, you write therefore you are a writer!).....or at least get my thoughts out in a way that makes sense, gives encouragement, strengthens and reminds.

I want to explore the idea of training grounds.  I bought myself a hedge trimmer yesterday and learning to use it without causing yourself damage is key.  I, of course, picked the hottest day of the year and the hottest time of day.  I ran a bunch of errands in the morning and made the 2 littles come with me so they could get out of the house.  We stopped back by the house to pick up Jared and go to lunch and run one last errand.  The littles and I picked out a bunch of flowers to plant in the front yard to help de-uglify it.    I asked Jared to run over and get a bag of dirt while I picked up a prescription at Costco.  He somehow couldn't wrap his brain around costco selling bags of dirt or that you could buy bags of dirt.....I think he just didn't want to go looking because he knows you can buy bags of dirt -from the time I didn't use fancy math to figure out how much we needed for my garden and he did - I ended up being right.  Anyway, when I walked him over and showed it to him, his response was, "why do we even need this, so you can kill more plants?"  Well, the only way I'm going to learn to not kill plants is to keep on killing them until I figure it out.  I am investing in my ability to learn and I'm going to loose monetarily in the process.

I have been trying to teach my boys -especially Jared, because he's the oldest boy, how to be helpful and take responsibility.  When I went out to the garage to run an errand, I discovered that the garage door wouldn't open.  Fantastic.  My kids were already mad about what I'd made for dinner.  The fact that there was "no food" in the entire house and whatever else they decided to blame me for that day.  I was so tired but decided to go out at 7 pm and get some groceries.  Nate still wasn't home and so I asked Jared to help me.  Well, it was sweltering in the garage.  I decided that we could fix anything with youtube, so we watched some videos and tried to fix it ourselves.  What I should have done was just forget about it for the moment and driven one of the other vehicles but sometimes I have a one track mind and get stuck on something that could wait.  I got more and more frustrated and mad when we couldn't even lift the door after it was released from the opener because our attempts at fixing it didn't work.  We waisted 1 1/2 hours of my life and it was now time to go pick up the littles from their cousins house.  I moved the ladder out of my way to get my purse from my car to take with me in the truck.....well, there were 2 screw drivers on it and they tried to impale me.  I was mad and I cussed and Jared got worried and told me to calm down.  haha we had a good laugh about it when Nate finally got home at 9pm.  Luckily he thinks it's completely adorable when I get mad and frustrated- especially when it was directed at him for never being around to save me.  Sometimes I really wish there was such a thing as rent a husband.  But, we are learning.  Jared is learning from his dad how to diffuse angry women ;) He learned that he just needed more strength than the 2 of us had together to lift that garage door manually.  The list goes on in the learning department.

Back to my hottest day of the summer so far.  I had my new toy and was excited to channel Edward Sissorhands in my trimming of the overgrown bushes.   I walked outside in shorts and flip flops.  I took a couple of exhilarating passes with the hedge trimmer and thought my husband would scold me if he saw me in that moment.  I decided to go inside and put on some protective shoes....I still had the shorts on and quickly realized that it wasn't such a great idea because my legs were getting scraped up on the bushes I was hacking down.....however, it didn't produce sufficient sorrow to make me change my clothing.   I was also discovering that with one moment of not paying close attention to what I was doing, I could either cut the electrical cord or slice my legs off.  It was in that moment that I realized Nate would be especially glad not to be witnessing this because he would for sure have a heart attack and probably confiscate my new toy.   I was learning to be careful and wary of danger.

While I was out there my pool guy showed up to try and fix the heater.  He teased me that he needed to get the pool fixed so I could jump in after working so hard in the heat.  I was soon called back to examine the prognosis.  Long story short - I had to decide between piece meal the parts on the heater or replace it.  I had to weight the cost benefit.  At the same time he was telling me that I really needed to build a shelter over the equipment because the elements and the heat were killing it.  What was running through my mind while he was telling me all of this was something like, "great, here we go again, does it never end, is there ever a point where something isn't broken, the garage door is getting fixed tomorrow I wonder how much that will be......."  I wasn't sure what I should do.  He had the part fixed that he was hoping was the only problem and it worked for about 5 min.  It was the saddest thing.  We were standing there talking and I told him that I really liked him, but hoped not to see him again until the end of the summer and POOF, it broke.  Now I really needed to think about just replacing the entire unit or continuing down the path of trial and error.  A thought came to my mind about the sprinklers that I had fixed the previous summer because it was supposed to be better to replace them than to fix them - well it wasn't.  I thought that had come to my mind for a reason so I told him that I wanted to fix the next thing that was wrong and hope that was it and it wasn't the next thing after that as well....and then I said "I'm going to say a prayer that it will work because I can't afford to replace the unit and build a structure."  He then told me about his Mom and how he always called her when he had a hard decision and she would pray for him and his mom's prayers always worked.  We then talked about how his mom died last year and he doesn't have anyone to pray for him anymore.  We had a great conversation about prayer.

From this experience a couple of thoughts came to mind...  This is a training ground, I'm going to loose monetarily in the process.  If everything we have, does indeed belong to our Eternal Father, then a broken pool heater aint nothin but a thing if it accomplishes His work.  The Lord giveth and he taketh away and then he giveth again etc.  The second thing that came to my mind was that instead of looking for someone to come build the shelter for the equipment, I needed to call my dad.  I needed to buy him a plane ticket and ask him to come spend time working with me.  I loved working with my dad when I was young and I still love the opportunity.  I learn so much from him and I feel so good about my self when we are working together and accomplishing something.  I want my kids to experience that as well.  I also wanted to have a permanent piece of him at our home.  Something that could trigger our memories and experiences with my Dad.  I also want to get more of his history written down and record some interviews with him.  So again, a greater work can be accomplished even though I am loosing monetarily.

Now, we don't always have to loose monetarily, but we do have to sacrifice for these great moments of learning in the training ground of our earthy existence.  I came home from girl's camp with that etched into my heart.  This was a sacrifice of my time and my body.  The important thing to remember is that life is going to look messy because we are all in training.  We are all trying to become something greater - who we were born to be - transforming ourselves in the image of our eldest brother, Jesus Christ.  If we knew how to do everything perfectly, we would have no need to be here.  The trouble is, we can't seem to reconcile this knowledge with reality.  We want perfection now and we demand it in those around us even though we know it's impossible and they are learning too.

One of the coolest things I got to witness at camp was the growth of a leaders testimony.  It was magical to see.  I could actually see moments touch her deeply.  The kind of moments that bring about a mighty change of heart.  I can't really explain it, but I know what I saw and it was cool.  I also got to witness the complete bravery of one of our yw who can be challenging sometimes.  But, I was able to receive new eyes when looking at her when she gave one of the bravest testimonies ever.  It didn't look like it was going to end up being anything when she started off.  But then she stumbled onto greatness.  She mentioned how she had only ever felt the spirit one time and then she started rambling about insignificant things and got off track.  I was sitting there trying to get my own courage up to pull off an Elder Bednar move - at least something that I could see him doing.  I thought that if she didn't pull things back around to that statement and talk more about it, I was going to have to do something completely unconventional and ask her to please talk about that "one time" before she sat down.  I wasn't sure in my ability to pull it off and prayed that she would come back to that on her own.  She did, and it was amazing.  She stood before everyone and told us that she didn't know what it felt like to feel the spirit or to know the church was true and talked about an experience she had while doing personal progress where she did feel it but was confused by what she was feeling and her mom helped her to understand.  What bravery.  That is a real testimony.  How many people get up and say what they think they are supposed to instead of what they really feel or know.  This is how living in a training ground looks.

Another super cool thing that made my heart swell to almost bursting involved the foreign exchange student from Germany that I've mentioned before.  She isn't a member of the church, but she comes on occasion and she decided to go up to camp and by a ycl.  Let me tell you, she was a more amazing and inspired and an inspirational leader than some of the life long members.  One morning while we were eating breakfast she said, "I'm really going to miss all of my Mormon friends, I really love you all so much and love Mormons."  I took the opportunity to tell her that there were Mormons living in Germany and now she would know how to find them and they would be easier for her to spot.  She never knew that there was such thing as Mormons before she came to America.  She decided to get up during testimony meeting on the last night of camp around the fire.  She bore testimony about how she felt the spirit so strong when the other ycls asked her to say their evening prayer before bed and they asked her to say it in German.  My poor sweet dear friend was so overcome by emotion that I'm sure she felt as if her body could not contain her heart - I know because I've felt the same thing.  She couldn't get control of herself and was still sobbing for some time after she sat down.  I feel so lucky to have witnessed that .   That's one of the blessings of being a disciple of Christ.  You get to share in his work and his glory.  That's it.  That's the glory and if feels amazing.

I felt that my role at camp was to look for the good in each of the girls.  The real good not the superficial stuff.  Taking notice of the kind of qualities that they would want to develop if they knew they possessed them.  I'm not gonna lie, some of them were hard to write because it's not my natural talent to be on the ready with noticing things like that and some of them were hard to write because I was worried that they sounded cheesy and weird - especially the one that I wrote to the leader about seeing her testimony grow and expand.  But, I squared my shoulders, had faith and tried to go with inspiration and not doubt it.  I also tried to point out all the connections I saw to what we were experiencing as a ward and what was happening on a stake level with the girls.  Things that look like coincidence, but that aren't and how when you can start to see those things it's because your will is aligning with Gods.  The key is doing it in a way that doesn't make everyones eyes roll because "there's sis I again trying to make everything spiritual..."  They've never said that, but I didn't want them to.  One of the greatest talents of the Savior was his ability to meet people where there were spiritually.  That is a spiritual gift that I want to possess.  It takes work.  You've got to train.  You've got to utilize the atonement.

I can't leave out my own daughter who was at camp.  She was a great leader and example and really tried to look out for other girls.  She really stretched herself and grew.  When it came time for the testimony meeting she was mad that there were so many men there (we had a lot of priesthood there for the last day)  She looked at me and said with daggers in her eyes " why are they here, just so you know I will not be getting up in front of them, so I'm not baring my testimony."  Then she huffed off and covered herself in her blanket.  I started to panic and wondered if I should try to go over to the camp director and tell her that the men were intimidating - especially when after the meeting started, none of the girls were getting up.  It started out with all the leaders because the girls just kept sitting there.  Well, after 4 leaders got up, there goes my daughter, the one that said she absolutely wasn't going to get up.  She is so stubborn just like her mother, but that heart is soft and it always encourages to do the right thing in the end.  Her testimony was so impressive.  She started off by saying that because she was a ycl she should set the example and be the first yw to get up.  She also talked about how she knew that the leaders that were called was by revelation.  The entire thing was impressive and I was so proud of her and who she is becoming.  She is learning to do the right thing even when she doesn't think she wants to.

 Every night I would tuck our ycl's in the a bedtime story (all the girls from our ward that were ycls shared a tent in another area of camp)  I brought up 4 books with me.  One of which was, "you are priceless."  When I first joined the church I would hear about that analogy all the time, but I haven't heard it at all in the past several years.  Wouldn't you know that a member of the stake presidency gave a talk and decided to talk about that.  Coincidence?  That night after he gave that talk the girls asked me to read that book.  Here is the super cool thing that I pointed out to my girls during my testimony around the fire that night.  Spiritual eyes allow you to see the patterns of God.  When you can start connecting things that happen to other events or stories you know your  spiritual eyes are developing.  This discovery builds your testimony because you know that what you are being prompted to think about is the same thing that the bishop, the stake president, the prophet, the quorum of the 12, your friend, your leader were led to think about.  Heavenly Father will tell you the same thing he tells the prophet when your will is aligned with His will.  He is the same yesterday, today and forever and what he thinks is important for the prophet to know, he will tell you the exact same thing.  When you start to recognize this you know that you are partaking fully of  'at one ment' which is the atonement and you understand that perfection is really completeness. ( I've been doing some study on this subject and it has changed my eyes.  It was really cool to have this way to think about the atonement and perfection that I had been studying, talked about at a devotional by a member of the stake presidency. )  When themes keep popping up in your life it is time to take pause and wonder, why?  Is this something important for me to understand?  That is how we know if we have hard hearts, deaf ears, blind eyes by your ability to be taught in every moment.  Can you recognize the voice of the Lord speaking to you through events and people?

On a semi-unrelated note.  I received one of the biggest compliments I could ever receive.  Our camp director is someone who I admire and she possess the talent of being able to pick out something amazing in everyone and she is really good noticing the things of the spirit and then speaking quite eloquently about them.  She said to me "I can testify of things all day long, but you teach."  This reminds me of something someone said.  All I can remember is that it is a woman - probably the wife of an apostle- I would look it up but it would take an hour or more....so, here's the best I've got, "we are all colors in a tapestry.  My color is a beautiful shade of orange (my favorite color) and I look over and see the most amazing shade of green and think 'gee, I'd really like to be as beautiful as that green or contribute to the part of the tapestry where the green is,' instead of realizing that we are all beautiful and amazing and it takes all of us to weave this tapestry."  When all of our experiences and talents come together, we can accomplish great things, and I saw this play out while at camp.  Each of us had something different to offer and it all worked together to make an amazing experience.

While there were lots of things I could complain about regarding the organization of girls camp...  While there are lots of things I could complain about regarding my life and how everything keeps breaking and how I am trying not to hate money....  While I could complain about how the world is in a death spiral right now- I need to remember that all these things work together for our good.  They all accomplish the Lord's work.  The circumstances around me don't matter except for one thing - does it bring me closer to the Savior or farther away?  Closer to my eternal salvation or farther away?  This is a training ground.  I have to be willing to invest in myself and those around me.  Failure is guaranteed but so is success.  The greatest "investor" is Jesus Christ.  He paid the ultimate price for our ability to learn and become. I can only imagine his frustration with us continually "breaking."  There are also a good deal of those who he has invested so much in, that have rejected that gift.  This life is a time to prove ourselves and to become one with the savior so we are able to be in our Father's presence again.  If our eyes and ears are open we can be a witness to the many miracles that surround us each day and our joy will be full and our hearts will feel like they don't have the capacity to contain the joy and love they are feeling - just like my little German friend.  We just need to have a little more patience and love for everyone around us because we are all in this together.

While this was sitting here all day waiting for me to come back and check it over and hit the "publish" button, the garage door got fixed.  I found out that the reason the door was so heavy to lift was because the spring was broken so it was dead weight.  Sometimes our problems can only be fixed by a professional.  Luckily we have a Dad always willing to bail us out, one with an infinite bank account to pay our debts and repair bills.  Know where I'm going with this????  heehee, but it's true!

This journal of mine is a pretty great documentation of my training.  How I've been prepared.  How I've learned and how I've grown.  Let's just overlook all the mistakes along the way and chalk them up to experience ;0)