John is coming home!!!!

He’s on his way!  I’m so grateful!  I can see the hand of the lord in the way that he is getting here. Just the day before he left he was able to receive  the second dose of the vaccine. That was a blessing.  Then the day he left his flight was rescheduled and he didn’t have much time between his flight and the connecting flight and he was worried about missing the second flight.  He was blessed with a tailwind and got to his destination 45 minutes early and was able to get to his flight with 30 minutes to spare.  I was especially touched when I learned that his entire seminary class from England was praying for him.  .  Can’t wait to see him!  

Broken dreams

Today I tried to fix my kitchen aid, but I broke it worse than it already was broken.  I also went to cooking class.  It was great! Made fugachi, soup and gyoza.  It was yummy!

hope

Today I was reminded of the power of hope.  Really hope in Jesus Christ.  I have faith in Jesus Christ and because of this I can hope for my development into a perfected being.  I can hope and trust that my loved ones can also be perfected.  What a blessing!  I am grateful.

i also got to watch Nathan improve in cross country.  He did a great job.  I love watching him run.  5 th today and 19:50.  

I’m getting excited for John to come home next week.  What a joy!

church callings

I made a goal with the missionaries to write in my journal daily.  It only needs to be a sentence so here goes.  Today I had a district relief society meeting.  Adam and the other kids ran around the church.  We made lots of plans for our upcoming training meeting, a newcomers fair and a dance that is coming up.  Lots of exciting things.!  Meanwhile Covid is Pretty bad right now.  Lots of kids have to stay home from school because they are close contacts.  It’s really bizarre.  Strange new world that we live in.  John comes home in 2 weeks! Can’t wait!

Journal entry

 Today we've been traveling for about 3 1/2 wks... I'm so tired.  Nathan gets home from Philmont tomorrow and he called tonight saying his pin in his debit card isn't working.  We just learned that John needs a different kind of passport to get home.  We've been scrambling to get everything organized.  We're at David and janis's home in Provo and they've been amazing.  My stress levels have been high high.  There a funeral for uncle kc on Saturday.  Samantha is being dropped of for college and I have a crazy 2 yr old.  But... I'm grateful for such a loving family.  Grateful for computers and phones that allow us to communicate and organize from afar.  I'm grateful for the atonement that can give me peace.

Ada Cameron and life in the Bronx

So with all of the civil unrest in the states, I've been thinking a lot about our time in the Bronx.  Particularly about those people who are uniters.  Those who build up the community and reach out to others especially those who are different from themselves.  Ada Cameron was one of those people.  She was a sweet old black woman who walked with a cane.  But from the moment we joined the church in the Bronx, she was like a grandma to my kids.  I really wasn't prepared to live in the Bronx.   Of course I knew it was considered a dangerous place and that it would be very diverse.  What I didn't realize is that there really weren't that many white people and that for me it would feel like moving to a different country.  In fact I have reflected many times on how living in rural England felt much like where I grew up and even living in Japan has had a distinctly American feel to it (because of our affliliation with the Base) but living in the Bronx was really the most foreign experience I have had as an adult.  I thought before we moved there that my normal everyday life would be very different, but that I would find sameness on Sundays when I went to church.  The opposite actually ended up being true.  We lived in medical school housing.  A 29 floor building within a complex of 3 buildings, a nice playground, fitness center, grassy area for the kids to play in, lots of concrete for the kids to ride bikes and draw with chalk, all surrounded by a beautiful wought iron fence.  We had security guards upon entrance to the building.  Everything was very safe and beautiful.  There were lots of different cultures represented there and lots of diversity I had never been around, but everyone living there was going to be a doctor some day, or a PHD doing medical research.  Even with differences in gender, religion, and race, there was a bit of sameness about the goals and aims of everyone in those buildings.  Not everyone there started in a life of privilege, but all had learned how to get there; How to navigate the system and follow social norms.  I think that was the main difference.  The norms, the social currency was the same as that which I grew up in.  People didn't necesarily have the same standards, but they followed a lot of the same social norms.

At church the rules were different.  I'm a member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints.   The gospel, the doctrine is the same throughout the world, but culturally our ward in the Bronx was much different than any I had ever been in.  To begin with, our building was being renovated, so we met in a store front deep in the south Bronx.   We had probably 50 members who came regularly, but there were over 800 on our rolls.  There were 16 missionaries assigned to our ward.  People would regularly shout AMEN and HALLELUJAH when they agreed with the speaker.  Speakers got up and bore their testimonies about leaving a life of prostitution, kicking drug addictions, and having their kids taken away.  It was real and meaningful and sometimes bizarre.  Ward potlucks featured sofrito and pigeon peas and green plantains rather than ham and funeral potatoes and green jello.  The people were vibrant.  they kissed everyone.  I wasn't used to being kissed over a dozen times everytime I went to church, but I began to appreciate the love I was shown and kiss back.  My husband was quickly put in the bishopric.  This meant that I got to wrestle by myself first 2 little boys under 2 and then 4 kids under 5, every Sunday.  Sister Cameron was the kind of lady that would always have a sucker in her purse to give to the rowdy kids to try and keep them quiet.  We got quite a few suckers.  She would regularly bring me presents for the boys; new shorts, little candies for no reason.  She had been a mother to over 20 children.  I never learned if these were 20 children of her own or adopted.  She usually came to church with her son James.  She always wore a hat and was smartly dressed.  She was kind.  She held a weekly family home evening group and invited many to attend.  She was a faithful lady until the end.  I appreciated the kindness she showed to me and my family.  She did not think "these people will only be here for a few years, they will soon move on and be rich doctors, why bother".  She saw us where we were.  Broke, with a young family in a foreign environment.  Our white skin and white privilege didn't matter.  And while I recognize that I really don't know what it is like to live a lifetime in the south Bronx, to only have small parks with no trees or grass for my kids to play on, to be poor without the reassurance that we would be able to pay off our loans, I will forever be grateful for kind people who reached out and made us feel loved.  There were many in that community including, Vashon Moore, Smiley Castellar, Patricia Manga, Granny Roach, Erica Maldonado, Maria Ramdan, Maria Calderon, Carol, Barbara Kaufman, Emilia Erezi, Valecia Green, Heather Knight,  Nancy Latimer,  Spring Stanger I hope I can do the same for those in my community. 

Day 6 Job

ok...I'm getting lamer and lamer and farther and farther apart between postings....but I'm still here.  Today's prompt is jobs.  There are a series of questions that I'll just answer and then explore from the prompts.

First job:  Babysitting for the neighbors.  I think I started babysitting when I was just 9 years old.  I was a responsible 9 year old though lol.  And to be honest we lived right next door to the people I babysat for so my mom could run over if there were any problems.  Their names were the Phillips.  They had a son that was 3 years younger than me and a daughter who was probably around 4 or 5.  Her name was Alison and she loved following me around.  They were pretty easy to babysit.  Their mother made porcelain dolls as a hobby and I loved going over and looking at all of the beautiful dolls that she made.

worst job:  working at hatches onion packing plant.  It was long hours, but the hard thing was that I kept messing up.  At the end of the day I had to take inventory and they wanted it done quickly.  I'm good at math, but not fast and everyone was always speaking in Spanish which made my math skills even slower.  Me and Gabi messed up the count numerous times which was frustrating for all of us.  We got yelled at a lot.  It was also a little stressful being the only white female working on the floor.  Not really that bad, but the language barrier was hard to deal with.  I spoke spanish, but wasn't as fluent as I needed to be.  The people were generally nice to me except for one guy who always leered at me.  But other than that everyone tried to be understanding and welcome me into the group.  It was a good learning experience even if the job itself was a little traumatic.

here's a list of jobs I've had:

strawberry picker
babysitter
waitress at a truck stop
maid
cashier at round table pizza
bean hoer
Inventory taker at Rowley's cherry packing plant
Inventory taker at Hatches onion packing plant
Raspberry picker
Americorp - worked at homecourt a program for latchkey kids
wilson diamonds -desk clerk, salesperson
ESL teacher - tutored from my apartment in NYC
Full time mother

Dream job - teaching English to refugees.  I'd really like to teach free classes to adults to help them integrate into society.  I have a minor in TESOL, but at this point I'm pretty sure I need to go back to school to update my degree.  It's been 20 years...and I've never really used it.

Current job - mother to 7 kids.  For the last couple of months I've been trying hard to remind myself, "I'm the mother, not the maid"  what are you acting like?  This helps me get my kids to take responsibility for themselves and not just picking up after them, but it's hard because they are usually so busy it's easier to do things myself.  Thankfully, COVID has given me the time to actually make them take responsibility for themselves.  I think sometimes I have lots of expectations for fun all of the time and it's good for me to have the time to make the kids work.  It's also good that Samantha and Nathan will have the opportunity to work this summer even though it means we are unable to go to the states this summer.  I'm trying to remind myself that my job is the kids and not the house and focusing on them is important and good.  I should try and make sure I have some one on one time with each of them everyday.   Even if it's just 10 minutes.  Usually I'm focused on having them do a job for me, but I probably need to focus on finding what they like and develping more of a fun relationship with them.