Letters from Home – Page 137 – A blog by Angela Ross

Go forward, and not backward.

During my scripture study yesterday I read references that had the word “go” in them and made a list of positive actions associated with it.

We can go…

forth (Am I moving in a positive direction as time pushes me forward? What are my habits that keep me from moving forward?)
down (lots of ideas for this one)
and inquire of the Lord
over the earth
unto your homes (It’s good to be with family. Make it a priority)
unto them (focused on others in my goings and comings)
speedily (Don’t delay.)
up (Simply looking up at the sky can be helpful.)
and declare my word (to my family! to my friends!)
in (not just on the doorstep of a neighbor or a friend. Find a way into their lives.)
up to the temple
to, thy faith hath made thee whole (move forward after I repent, make decisions)
softly and rejoice (watch my tone of voice and focus on positives)
and tell this people (so many good things to tell people)
up to the mountain of the Lord
forth to them that sit in darkness (to the depressed, the lonely, the displaced, the lost)
into the wilderness (for clarity, for a break, to be with family)
and teach the word unto this people
about (Jesus went about doing good; to me this means he made efforts to be with people. He was out and about, helping the people he saw along the way.)
back (is there someone I should go back and visit?)
away (lots to walk away from)
and inquire (be a good listener and ask questions)

[Friends], shall we not go on in so great a cause? Go forward, not backward. Courage, [friends], and on, on to victory. -D&C 128:22

Flag Day is the inauguration of summer for me. It reminds me that it is time to put out my red, white, and blue plates on the shelves, and fill my containers with flags and flowers. It is a heavy reminder that June is almost half over. (Don’t waste your summer, Angie!) Richard has been gone quite a bit on Scout camp outs and trips to buy four wheelers, so I updated our living room while he was away.

Summer reading for me always includes a biography. I can’t believe this has been out for twelve years and no one told me how good it is. I am also working through a book to help me with Isaiah, which isn’t nearly as good. No offense, Isaiah. Sincerely, a modern reader.

There are many summer projects. For Family Home Evening on Monday, we read Luke 2:52, “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.” Each of us made summer goals in the same four areas: wisdom, stature, in favor with God, and in favor with man.

I need these goals. Summer is my least productive time of year. My grandmother says it’s our Scandinavian genes that make it so difficult to do anything when it’s hot. I fight every day to stay active during the summer, even if it just means I am redecorating shelves, hemming new curtains, or taking notes on a book. When the day is over and I have contributed to the house and made some notes from my studies, I can call it a good day.

To share or not to share

Daniel came home from EFY summer camp to many questions. “What did you eat?” (Richard) “Who did you exchange contact information with?” (Me) “What were your favorite activities?” and, “Did you participate in the talent show?”

“No.”

“What?…Why?”

I have always wanted our kids to have the confidence to play a perfected piece, with little notice, for anyone who would ask. We have pushed through many years of piano lessons and practice sessions to make this possible. So Daniel’s news was baffling to me. He was prepared! Why didn’t he go for the payoff for all his hard work?

As I blinked and tried to guess why Daniel wouldn’t play for his peers, he said he overheard some other kids practicing for the audition. They were playing two of his pieces, a bit roughly, in simplified arrangements. He decided that he didn’t want to crush their desire to play with his more advanced versions of the pieces.

I swallowed my comments about the importance of sharing talents. These words felt petty compared to the quality of empathy he showed as he stepped away from the spotlight. Well done, Daniel. Well done.

Some of our week

Daniel was off to BYU for an Especially For Youth summer camp last week. Our house felt really empty with just two kids around, but we didn’t hold still for long. We planted pumpkins in a front yard flower bed because I get a lot of entertainment from seeing pumpkins grow in a front yard in our piano teacher’s neighborhood. We played with a couple sets of cousins and enjoyed time with friends. Timothy watered flowers and took care of pigeons for a neighbor.

We watched my niece and nephews one day, and since my niece was left out of the boys’ activities, we colored and made crafts. Later when she confessed she loved math and science best, and had been trying to make something interesting by mixing kitchen liquids, I showed her how to mix baking soda and vinegar. We shot off film canister rockets over and over on the back patio.

My friend gave me the loveliest brown and blue-green eggs. The color doesn’t show well in this picture. They tasted delicious.

On Saturday the whole family attended an L-3 open house and we got to see where Richard works for the first time. His work requires security clearance so this was a rare opportunity. His work space is not what I expected. Richard created a presentation to demonstrate how they can change audio signals to a laser signal, and back to audio. Trying to explain what Richard does at work really shows my ignorance. 🙂

It was a good first week of summer.

Richard’s jobs

We’ve been a family for 21 years, and Richard continues to remember and tell us about different jobs he has had. We’ll drive by a pizza place and he’ll say, “I worked at a pizza place once.” Or we will walk into a print shop and he can talk the lingo because he “worked a summer at Kinko’s.” Recently I found a paper where I had jotted down a master list of all the jobs he could remember one day. I am sure there are more, but this is a start.

First job: Babysitting twice a week
As a 15 year old, he cleaned offices at The Daily Spectrum in Cedar City.
Through a temp agency, he got a job working for Moore Business Forms where he loaded boxes and printed things.
In St George, he worked at The Spectrum inserting ads into papers from 11 pm-3 am on weekends. Sometimes the job went until 6 am. He would come to church at 8 am with blackened hands from all of the newspapers he’d handled all night.
He packaged software for shipping.
For six weeks he worked at Little Caesars Pizza until he found something better.
He worked concessions at the Dixie Center making nachos.
He was a parts delivery guy for the Steven Wade Auto Dealership.
He had a summer job at Kinko’s Copies and he loved it.
He tried a landscaping job in the middle of the summer, digging trenches for two weeks in Ivins.
At the Market Basket grocery store he bagged groceries and stocked shelves.
At BYU he worked in the bug lab with Dr. Baumann, “picking bugs” (larvae). This man knows his Mayflies, Stone flies, and Caddis flies.
As a TA for an electrical engineering class, he graded papers, tests, and homework.
As a lab TA for an engineering class he helped students with their circuit design.
During his graduate studies, he worked in the FPGA lab at BYU as a research assistant for Dr. Hutchings.
For two summers he worked as an intern at Los Alamos National Laboratory, programming with LabView. The first year he worked on the superconducting super collider. The next year he worked on a cytometer, a cell sorting/measuring instrument.
He worked at National Instruments for 8 years in Austin.
He worked at Raytheon Missile Systems for 7 years in Tucson.
He works at L-3 Communications now.

I am thankful for Richard’s abilities and interests. I am thankful that he has a desire to work. I see his sacrifices for our family. For many years, he has left very early, before most of us are awake, to drive a long way and work a long day. We are a team, and while it’s his paycheck that pays for everything, I know that because I am home he doesn’t have to worry about many things. I can’t remember a morning when he didn’t kiss me goodbye before he walked out the door. When he comes home to a meal and an orderly house, it’s because I respect what he offers our family. The kids always leave the last cookie for Dad. It’s the least we can do for a guy who has worked so hard for so long.

?Richard read this post and told me that I missed one. He worked at another print shop, making the number an even 20.

Last week of May

The last week of May has passed. Richard and Timothy spoke in church. We watched Daniel’s last bell choir concert, had a rocket launch, house guests, a belated birthday cake, a camp out, watched the neighbor kids, and did some gardening. Paige came home for the weekend and I thought we would have a girls’ night on Friday, but the teens came home early from the fathers and sons camp to sleep. We are all worn out from the last weeks of school.

Richard finished the electrical switches for our new fan in the living room and Daniel unearthed all of the offending sprinkler pipe and heads that didn’t make it through the winter. He set out flags around the neighborhood in the early morning hours of Memorial Day. Mark and his friend Adam sold cookies and lemonade for two days on a corner and Mark came home with $15 and a sunburn. Daniel played the piano for seminary graduation.

I cut everyone’s hair while Richard watched Tora, Tora, Tora!, which has a script not unlike an episode of The Flintstones, but gave us the Memorial Day feeling. Paige won for the most hair lost, maybe 8-9 inches. There was smoked chicken, potato salad, and corn on the cob. A Masterpiece Classic movie played on some evenings, and I finished one of the latest Mitford novels. I seem to need those when I am serving in Relief Society.

My least favorite things to read or write on a blog are lists of family activities. However, these little things are important, especially as I see the family beginning to disperse on the wind to college, work, and summer activities.

For A. And E.

I finished this dolly last night after putting it off for a long time. Her hair was difficult; the dress wasn’t the exact shade I was trying to match; she kind of needs ears, but I didn’t stitch them; but mostly I am afraid to give it away because it is a goodbye gift. When fears and perfectionism get in the way, I need to remember that life is short. I want this doll to be held and not be a symbol of my hesitation. I don’t want to live a life of beating back the call of my heart. I want to run, led by a spirit of generosity, breathless, to the lives of others.

Thanks for joining me for this personal pep talk. What generous things does your heart tell you to do? Do you find it challenging to do exactly what your heart tells you?

Prom, Concert, Bear

The boys have reached some milestones and there have been a few nice windows into their lives recently. I am thankful for the things they have experienced during this school year, from academics and new responsibilities, to music, art, and friendships.

Daniel’s independence has always been high, but driving to school and up the freeway to work each day really seals it. He is a good listener and a steadying influence among his friends. It was a very different experience to send him to prom than it was to send Paige. I was glad to have the kids spend some time at our house after the dance.

Timothy is 4-5 inches taller than he was last August. He is a true friend. The way he wears his sleeves at his concerts is just. too. cool.

Mark finished his 4th grade math and grammar over a month ago, so we forge ahead in the 5th grade books, even though we’d both rather be doing other things. He earned his Bear and we bought the big Webelos handbook so we are ready for new challenges.

Extremity

(Image via Pinterest; originally from lisacongdon.com?)

I love comfort. I don’t like change, except maybe new knowledge or skills. Like a pebble in a stream, I want to find the perfect angle of repose, resting on the peaceful part of a gentle curve or at the bottom of a deep pool. But I am learning that my desire for quiet evenings wrapped in a soft blanket aren’t the best ground for my personal growth. It’s really in the extremities of my comfort zone that the Lord shows me what to do. Visiting, reaching out, praying for others besides myself, and being out of my comfortable house are my small sacrifices to gain the gift of charity. This enormous gift of charity is not proportional to my sacrifice, and it’s essential to the work.

A rock in the gentle part of the stream will become slimy, covered in algae, and certainly less beautiful as it just blends in to its surroundings. A rock, tumbling down the stream becomes smooth, clean, and beautiful. It may not be at rest; it may not be comfortable; but a tumbling pebble is moving forward with strength beyond its own. I am learning the ways of a tumbling pebble through some bumps, surges in speed, and lots of discomfort.

My goal is to reach out to someone every day. I knock on doors that I am pretty sure will not open. Sometimes it takes all my will to be brave and make a call or go to an event. I am not always successful, but I keep seeing that it’s in my extremity that I can be most helpful.

One day last week I had one unexpected hour without kids. I loaded my car with a few notes and papers to deliver. During this hour I was invited in to visit at two different houses. I learned that someone was in need of food and I helped with that. I prayed with someone. I saw the miracle of my time becoming magnified. I walked out of the second house the very minute I needed to get home to my kids, without needing to tell the person I was in a hurry. Later that evening, I felt like I needed to deliver one more thing. Once again I didn’t have much time, and I had already been out visiting, but I walked out of the house anyway. Immediately the person I saw said, “I was hoping I could talk to you. I just found out we need some help…. ”

I fail more than I succeed, but I can see that it’s truly the Lord that guides and fuels this work of helping others. And that lesson is much better than my limited, comfortable version of the good life.

Mom, there’s a stuffed rooster in the drawer.

My dad hid this for laughs in a chest of drawers we inherited. And we did laugh, until we realized one of us was going to have to get it out of there.

Do you see the dismembered talon? I picked that up with a Kleenex. And I call myself a zoology major…

The Spencer and Stewart tradition of hanging stuffed pheasants over doorways will likely end with this generation.

(Whuuuurghaaaack)