A Message for All Current and Future Mothers

It's currently seven in the morning, and I've already been awake for an hour and a half. It was another long night, with Lena finally going to sleep around 1:30. Moving day is tomorrow, so I'm looking around the house thinking about everything I have to do, when all I really want to do is go back to sleep. For the thousandth time, I'm having to tell myself that I'm not going to accomplish everything on my list today, and that's okay.

I've been wanting to share this lesson with others for a long time because it was one of the hardest and most important lessons I had to learn while I was pregnant. I dealt with pretty bad morning sickness for most of my pregnancy, and not long after I'd finally gotten past it, I was put on medicine for Lena's heart that made me feel horrible unless I was lying down. Consequently, it was pretty hard to get anything done during that time. And that was frustrating for me. I like to be busy, especially these past two years. (I think this may be a side effect of serving a mission and can be both a blessing and a curse, but that's another story.) But suddenly, doing everything I wanted to do in a day just wasn't a possibility. I had my good days, but mostly I was lucky if I was able to get a little exercise and cleaning in after my schoolwork was done. I have to say, I felt pretty pathetic.

It became even worse when winter semester began. We had plans to move apartments during Christmas break, but I spent it in the hospital instead. Donovan came up the day we had to move and hurriedly loaded our stuff into the new apartment with the help of a few ward members before he had to catch a bus home. We returned to Rexburg right as classes were beginning and as hard as we tried, never really did find time to organize our apartment, and I think that added to my stress. I couldn't understand why I couldn't just suck it up and get things done. It felt like at the end of every day I was climbing into bed, having accomplished nothing.

I remember one night in particular thinking, "What is wrong with you? You had a whole day to get things done and this is all you have to show for it? You are so lazy.

I was telling someone about how I felt one day when they said, “You forgot to take into account the fact that you've been growing and carrying a person inside you all day.” I wanted to roll my eyes and say, “Yeah, and it's really hard work. Blah blah blah.” But then he said, “Think about it. Your baby takes all the nutrients she needs, and you get what's leftover. If you don't take care of yourself, you run the risk of harming one or both of you.”

He went on to say, “Your priorities each day are to eat right, exercise when possible, and de-stress. If those are the only things you're able to get done all day, that's okay.”

That conversation changed my way of thinking a lot. I'm not usually one for writing out lists, but every day these three things went to the top of my mental list. It helped me feel a lot less guilty when dishes remained in the sink or when we had pasta for dinner for the third time that week because it's the easiest meal I know. And I think that's a lesson I needed to learn before Lena was born, because in case you haven't heard, your schedule doesn't free up with a newborn on your hands. I've still had days where I feel pretty useless, but I have to remind myself that taking care of a newborn is a full time job (actually, more than that, because full time jobs usually allow a little more sleep). My priorities are to take care of her and myself, and that goes for any new mom.

I've noticed that apostles and prophets have spoken a lot about the sacred role of motherhood. I think I see now that as a pregnant woman or new mommy you really need that encouragement sometimes, because it's not unusual to feel isolated or useless or depressed or incompetent or ugly/chubby, and I think the reminder that you are playing an incredibly important role is needed sometimes - often, actually. I will always be grateful to my husband for thanking me for the bit of housework I'd done or telling me I'm beautiful even when I couldn’t find time to do my hair and put a little makeup on. He’s helped me to feel like I’m worth something on my hardest days.

Oh, and going back to feeling ugly or chubby, let’s just establish right now that when a woman goes shopping for maternity/nursing clothes, she’s going to see a pretty inaccurate version of what 95% of women actually look like when they’re having or have just had a baby. I promise that most of those scrawny armed, small chested women have never been pregnant in their lives. It’s admittedly hypocritical to say this, but be kind to yourself. Instead of paying so much attention to your waist size, focus on your body’s incredible capabilities. I mean, I know it’s happened billions of times before, but it’s still pretty incredible that women can give birth to another person and live to tell the tale. Not only that, but many mothers happily do it again and again! That either makes moms extremely selfless or just plain crazy. Maybe a little bit of both.

But in the end, isn’t a baby as cute as this so worth the trouble I had to go through to get her here? :)

The Blessings of a Broken Car

We were blessed with a huge tender mercy this week: our car broke down.

You heard me right. I know it might not sound like such a great thing at first, but hear me out. Our little two door car has served three different Glenns in its sixteen year lifespan, and it was starting to wear out. I knew it was only a matter of time before it gave out completely, but I have been praying for a long time that it would last just a little bit longer.

Well, last week we decided we needed to take our little old car in to get the tires more winter ready. I drove it through Sardine Canyon last winter and had some pretty scary incidents where I don't know how I made it out alive in that car, so I wanted to make it safer this year for Donovan's commute to Idaho Falls. When he came home from having the tires looked at though, he said, "Our tires are legally bald. Actually, they're worse than bald." I was disappointed, but not too surprised since I had no idea when it last got new tires, and neither did my sister who owned it before me. So we sat down and started trying to find the cheapest price for tires (which was still more than I wanted to spend).

Only a day or two later, the car broke down as Donovan was coming home from work. He didn't know what was wrong with the car yet, but said there was a good possibility that the cost to fix it would be more than it was worth. I had a feeling our car wasn't going to survive this time, but I felt surprisingly calm about it. In fact, I jokingly remarked to Donovan, "Well, everything I was afraid of happening has already happened, so at least we have nothing left to fear."

Just for the record, I am never this calm in a crisis (and I did of course lose it later that evening as we were trying to figure out what to do). But it really was sort of a relief. Now I'm not going to have to worry all winter about the car going kaput as Donovan's coming home in a snow storm--or even worse, breaking down when I'm in labor and on my way to the hospital. And I realized that what might seem like bad luck was a huge blessing. If our little Pontiac had broken down only a few days later we would have already paid for new tires. I think Heavenly Father knew we were going to need to get a four door car with the baby coming soon anyway and He didn't want us investing any more money into a car we wouldn't be using for much longer.

He has a really amazing way of knowing these sort of things. That's been a major comfort to me lately. Trying to figure out how everything ready for Baby's arrival has been stressful and kind of scary. There have been times when I've wondered why she isn't going to a mother more qualified and prepared than I am. But keep reminding myself that the Lord has a plan for us, even if we can't see it clearly right now, and if we look to Him and do our part he won't let us fail.

Speaking of the little gal who is already turning our lives upside down, I've had about seven requests for a baby bump photo in the past week, so I'm finally giving in and posting one because I didn't feel completely frumpy in the new dress I wore on Sunday. 27 weeks now!

Oh, and in case you were wondering, we managed to work everything out in a very short period of time and we now have a new car. It is a four door and it even has air conditioning, which is something neither Donovan nor I have had in any of our previous cars, so to us, it's quite the upgrade! We are extremely blessed.

Blessings from my Mission: The Sacrament and Atonement

A few fast Sundays ago, right after I began my fast I suddenly became insanely thirsty. Not the kind of thirsty where water seems like a nice idea - more like the kind of thirsty I'd imagine you'd feel after walking through a desert for three days. And my fast had just begun, so I knew I was in for a very long day. For the next 20 hours or so, I just tried not to think about water too much.
I've never been so thirsty in my entire life. So you can understand why the next day when they started to pass the sacrament, I was eager for the water to come around for more than one reason.
I swear to you, nothing has ever tasted so good to me as that tiny cup of water did. It might not have been much but it was enough to quench my thirst, and it was such a huge relief. And then that relief got me thinking, that's really how we should feel about the sacrament every time we're able to partake of it. It's a huge blessing to be able to hit a reset button at the beginning of every week.

My mission taught me about the Atonement in two ways. First, I came to realize pretty quickly that there is no such thing as an exactly obedient missionary. Other people might disagree with me, but I'm convinced there isn't a single missionary out there who didn't make it home five minutes past curfew or who stayed at an investigator's longer than an hour because the investigator just kept talking (there's no way any southern missionary never faced this problem) or who didn't take advantage of every second of the day because they just needed to stop and have a good cry for twenty minutes. I just don't believe any missionary reached that level of perfection on their mission, no matter how hard they were trying. But I have a suspicion that's one of the reasons missionaries have so many standards to live by. I'm not saying I'm a perfect person at home, either, but I was a lot more aware of my imperfections on the mission, and it caused me to turn to the Lord and rely on the enabling and forgiving power of the Atonement.

One of the reasons a mission was so hard for me was because I had to watch a lot of investigators I cared about struggle through many different trials. As a missionary, I felt like it was my job to help them and make things better, and it upset me when I realized that in a lot of cases, there was nothing I could do besides teach them the gospel and invite them to lay hold on it. I knew that wouldn't make all of their problems go away. I learned to put not just my burdens on the Lord, but the burdens of investigators, recent converts, and returning members on him too, because I couldn't bear the weight of their load on my shoulders.

Essentially, I learned that the Atonement really is an all-purpose solution, and we can't overuse it. In fact, He wants us to use it as often as we can. My mission was a time when I felt extremely inadequate more often than not, but I think that's what Heavenly Father wanted, because if I hadn't been humbled to turn to the Lord, I wouldn't have been able to be led by Him as often as I was, and I wouldn't appreciate the sacrament and Atonement as much as I now do.

Blessings from My Mission: Friends for Dayz!

I think there's a reason I put this blog to rest: I am the worst at keeping it up. For those of you who keep up on it, sorry about that. I'll try to do a little better.

I don't have a lot of time to day but I did want to make a quick post. A couple of weeks ago I was reminded of a huge blessing from my mission: Sister Dailey (er...Nicole...that never stops being weird with some people) and I were reunited with some of our absolute favorite people from our missions, the Bodins. In Disneyworld, of all places! Dreams really do come true!

It was a spectacular week and it was so good to be reunited with these marvelous people again (I'm still racking my brain for a way to thank them) but that's not my only point of this point. During the trip I was also reflecting on how before my mission, I kind of thought that everyone I met in Mississippi would be a temporary part of my life. I was so wrong (and I'm learning even more how wrong I was every day). I talk to several of my companions often and I see them whenever I'm in their area. I'm even going to be rooming with one of them in January when I start back at BYU Idaho. These sisters I originally thought I'd be parting ways with at the end of our time as companions have become some of my closest friends. And I still keep in contact with a lot of the people from my areas, too. It's just really amazing to see that the Lord had specific people for me to meet in Mississippi, not only so that I could bless them but so that they could bless and enrich my life.

Blessings from My Mission: A New Perspective on the Plan of Salvation

Yesterday I learned that a very good friend of mine from the mission passed away. Elder Whitney and I happened to keep following each other to different areas, so I was lucky enough to be around him for nine months of my mission. His death has reminded me that “the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen” (1 Ne 1:20). A few weeks ago, I got the feeling that I should call Elder Whitney, although I didn’t really know why. We chatted for a while and then I mentioned that I would be in Lehi that weekend which would put me a lot closer to him than usual, so we agreed to meet up. I didn’t really know why it was suddenly so important, but now I know that the Lord, knowing all things, knew his work here was coming to a close, and He was merciful enough to let me see him one last time.

If I had not been taught the plan of salvation and been able to bear testimony of it to others on numerous occasions I think this would be a lot harder for me to cope with. I don’t have to wonder if I’ll ever see him or any of my loved ones again. I don’t have to wonder if we go somewhere else after we die, or if death is the end. Instead the thoughts that have been crossing my mind for the past two days has been, “I wonder what he's doing right now. I wonder who he's seen since getting to the spirit world." Because I know his spirit is very much alive and that he's happy and probably very busy right now. That knowledge and understanding of what’s ahead changes everything.

In the final weeks of my mission, I started to think about how in a way, a mission is sort of like a miniature lifetime. A missionary leaves everything they know to enter a world that’s completely foreign to them, just as we left the presence of our Heavenly Father when we were born to come to earth. Just like we can’t see our Heavenly Father, we don’t get to see our families while we’re serving, but we do continue to communicate with them via email, which I guess you could sort of think of as prayer. And when a missionary’s time in the field draws to a close, are people sad? Absolutely. It was always hard for me to say goodbye to a friend who had completed their time as a missionary, because I knew that for a while, we would be separated. But I knew it wouldn’t be forever, and I never wondered if they had just disappeared--I just knew they were busy doing something else. I think death can be viewed the same way. Yes, we’re sad when loved ones leave us, because they’re important to us and we don’t want to be apart. But that’s as far as our grief needs to go, because our separation is only temporary.

And when the time comes for us to depart this life, I believe it will be a lot like returning home from a mission. Yes, we will be leaving a lot of loved ones behind, but we will also be reunited with just as many loved ones who have been anxiously awaiting our arrival.

But there is a resurrection, therefore the grave hath no victory, 

and the sting of death is swallowed up in Christ.

Mosiah 16:8

Blessings from My Mission: Sisters

I have been telling myself for about six months that I needed to write another post.

It's funny how life gets in the way of those sort of things when you're back at home. All of a sudden you have a million other things to do, and it's easy to let things like journaling and blog writing and emailing missionaries slip by you. 

But this Friday, September 11th, marked two years since I went into the MTC (which is just insane to me, by the way) so I decided to do what I've been meaning to do for a long time and share a little more about my mission and my life right now. I think the main reason I've had a hard time getting around to doing it is because I keep telling myself, "No one's going to read it anyway, so why bother?" But you know, even if recording my thoughts on here only benefits me, I'd say it's well worth it. And I wanted to continue this blog, because overcoming your fears is a life long journey, not just something you face on the mission, and finding courage has become pretty important to me. 

I wanted to share with you in a few posts some blessings I have seen from serving my mission. Why? Because there's just so many. Honestly, I'm astounded at how often I continue to see blessings from my decision to serve. In fact just yesterday, I found out with the help of one of my old companions and some ward members that a family I taught in Meridian was just baptized. Even though I taught them nearly a year ago, this family has held my heart and I have often thought of them and wondered if they were still being taught. I'm ecstatic to hear that they were finally able to take that step forward in their spiritual progression! 

But today, I really wanted to talk about the blessing of sisters. That might seem a little strange, since serving a mission took me away from my sisters, but keep reading and I'll connect the dots. A few weeks ago I got to spend the weekend with my older sister, celebrating her birthday. We went to lagoon, ate ourselves sick at Tucanos, played lots of cribbage--it was basically the highlight of my summer. And I was thinking how funny that was, because honestly, when I was little she and I couldn't say one nice thing to each other. But now she's my best friend in the whole world, and like Betty and Judy Haynes from White Christmas there's not a thing that can come between us! I'm seriously so grateful that I have her, and I've grown even more grateful for it now that I'm home.

It's kind of the same way with my little siblings, too. I wasn't home a whole lot in high school and the last thing I'd be doing on a Friday night was spending time with my siblings. Now that's what I prefer to do. I can be completely crazy around them, and that's the best part. 

Because of my mission, my appreciation for the family unit has really grown. It's probably Heavenly Father's most genius idea. They're like friends you don't have to pay who are stuck with you for eternity. Ha ha! Too bad for you, family! You're never getting rid of me! 

But really, after coming home, it wasn't as easy to reconnect with all of my friends as I thought it would be. A lot changes in two years and with some people, you just don't have much in common anymore, or they're not living nearby so you don't get to see each other. So it was such a relief to be able to return to my family, where things were pretty much the same, because no matter how much time passes I will always be their daughter/sister, and that's what keeps us tied together. 

Monday, March 16, 2015: The Last Blog Post

Well, folks, this will most likely be the last post I will make on here as a full time missionary. I can't believe it's coming to an end! 

The Laurel branch has only one of your usual jumpsuits for baptism, so we had to dig through a closet of white shirts and pants they've collected for David and Nathan. During our search we discovered the biggest pants I think I've ever seen. Sister Stacey and I could literally fit inside them together. If ever I am feeling fat, I will refer to these pictures. :)

 

For the last few weeks of my mission I am seeing miracles and blessings everywhere. David and Brittany were baptized and confirmed on Friday! It was a really good service and they were so happy! I know they're both going to do amazing things in their life. I can't wait to see where they end up :)

 

That was the highlight of our week! The rest of the week was full of other adventures, one of which I will be sharing in my homecoming talk. Crazy! Even though missions seem to go by slow sometimes I can't believe it's really almost over. I don't even know how I feel! I'm so sad to leave President and Sister McDonough and all the missionaries and the investigators and the southern culture and everything! I'm freaked out about being a real person again and having to apply for school and find a job and stuff. I can't wait to watch Frozen and be with my sisters and wear pants and play my ukulele! Agh! So many emotions going on in my brain. For now I'm just going to enjoy this last week and work as hard as I possible can! For those of you reading this in Mississippi I will miss you so so much. Don't worry, this isn't goodbye forever. :) For those of you reading this in Utah, I can't wait to see you again!