Like water on that lake of fire and brimstone!

I was talking with my son Tucker about the very unfortunate event of one of my teachers being fired because she is a “Mormon.” He asked me if there was any danger in my being expelled because I am a Mormon too. I told him that I did not think so because as a student I was not in a position of influence but rather to be influenced. He laughed and said, “They might as well throw a cup of water on that lake of fire and brimstone then to think they could influence you away from your faith.”

It pleases me to know that my son has such confidence in my religious convictions. And he is right. I am a born in the covenant, died in the wool Latter-Day Saint!

I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

I am so very sad tonight. Partly why I am so sad is because I was so happy yesterday and so the bad news that came today seems an even harder blow. About six months ago I moved my little family to Hattiesburg MS so I could attend William Carey University. William Carey is a private Baptist school. For the most part my experience there has been that of gratitude and hope. I was assigned to a voice teacher who has been wonderful for me. She is so very talented and she understands me and has been such an advocate for me. Last night we were talking about the Fall trimester and I was expressing my joy and excitement in all that was happening. Now today I find out that William Carey has fired her on the grounds that she is a “Mormon.”

It really does not make any sense to me that a Christian based university would fire someone for being of a Christian faith. We proclaim the bible to be the word of God. We study it and teach our children by it. We except the miraculous birth of Jesus through the virgin Mary and testify that he is the son of God and that He, and only He is the savior of the world. We except him through personal commitment and baptism. How is that not Christian enough?

My heart is broken for her sake and for mine. I am so very disappointed in William Carey it has made me loose respect for them and feel a lack in desire to attend school there. But I have already attended 5 different university and one community college. The idea of trying to switch schools now is disheartening. Why? Why does life have to be so very hard? Why can’t something just go smoothly?!!

Some thoughts

Sometimes I feel like writing a poem. I definitely inherited a poetic soul. Many of my family members have been gifted with poetry. But somehow I missed the half the the gene that allows you to be able to express it in beautiful flowing poetic written words. So even though I feel like writing a poem I never do. I can never get it to come out feeling like I feel. And it is one of my greatest pet peeves to be misunderstood.

It is the same with my blog. Sometimes I really feel like composing a blog. Life is so full of learning experiences, so full of questions and emotions. Sometimes I really long to record some it in organized thoughts. But that is my problem. I don’t have to many truly organized thoughts. I try to write down what is inside and it never comes out quite right. Thoughts that are a little all over the place are O.K. when they are inside your head. A little wrinkled up they still make sense to you and can still be useful in moving life forward. But once you write them down they really have to be organized or they are not useful to anyone. Plus, as I said before, I really do not like to be misunderstood. I do not like my words to be taken and meaning put to them that was not intended. So I do not write very many blogs ether because they never come out quite right. I love words, but I am not so good at using them effectively.

Flowers

I love flowers! These  I bought at Wal-Mart for $3. I love there bright colors. It is my wish to someday own my own home and create a gorgeous flower garden so I wont have to buy flowers from Wal-Mart to put on my table (except maybe in the winter time).

“for their anointing shall surely be an everlasting priesthood”

On the 11 of March, Clark was ordained a Deacon in the Aaronic Priesthood. He was ordained by my little brother and Clark’s uncle, Seth Atwater.  The ordination/blessing were beautifully given and the love of God was felt. I am very grateful for a little brother who is worthy and willing to offer such service to my son. I am also grateful that my sweet Clark has desired to serve God and his family through the priesthood.

Jelly Beans!

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This time of year is my great sugar temptation! I can pass on all the Christmas desserts and the Valentine’s chocolates. But I do so love Jelly Beans! So for the next 6 to 8 weeks I will be operating on a sugar high. There are ever so many many flavors of jelly beans these days and I enjoy them all. But without a doubt the Jolly Rancher jelly beans are my very favorite.  Since they are Jolly Rancher flavors and they make me happy, I like to call then jolly beans. I gotta have those Jolly Beans

Cleaning Lady

For about 10 years now I have been saying that it is my dream to hire me a cleaning lady. How ironic is it that I have now been hired to be someones cleaning lady. This is not the way it was suppose to work out!

Intense Dreams!

The past two nights I have had some really intense dreams. so much so that I feel they need to be recorded. I do not think they are prophetic, at least I sure hope they are not , But somehow I believe I am trying to tell myself something. I think if I record them and read them over now and again then maybe I might learn something useful about myself one of these days.

Friday night’s dream: This one started off in the past. I was a young woman in my teenage years. all of my siblings were of the age they would have been at the time. We were on a family vacation. We had been traveling about the country seeing beautiful sights. Not typical or well known tourist sights but beautiful landscapes. We were hiking through some very green wooded area when we came across a deep canyon with steep cliffs. Looking over the canyon was glorious. it was very green with some misty spots and waterfalls. We walked a little closer to the edge wanting to see into the canyon. Two of my little brothers, Abel and Jarom, who at this time in my dream were very little boys, were very excited and energetic about the whole thing and got too close to the cliff’s edge and fell to their deaths.

I remember a sickening feeling of horror as I watched their one minute happy little bodies fall and the look of fear and surprise as they lost the sense of solid ground under them. Everyone was screaming and crying. I flopped to the ground and sobbed. I could not really believe that they were gone. I felt a deep sadness that I would never get to see them grow up and that is when my mind went back into the present day. Still sobbing on the ground beside the cliff, with my family in hysterics around me, I said, “What will happen now to their little children? What about their wives?” I think my sobs intensified when I imagined how their wives would feel when they knew they they were dead.

Then with no explication in the change of seen I was with Patricia and Lucelly. They were both holding their baby girls with their other little ones huddled around them. We were all crying. I was telling them how much I loved them and how sorry I was that they had to go through this experience. I also begged them not to return to their home countries but to stay with us in America. (Patricia is from Bolivia and Lucelly is from Mexico.) Patricia hugged me and told me that she would not go back to Bolivia, that she wanted to stay. But, Lucelly would not speak to me. She just huddled with her children and cried. I had the feeling that I would never see her and the children again.

Saturday night’s dream: This took place in the present day. We were at a large family reunion out on the property we once owned in Kemmerer WY.  My parents and all 14 of their children and all of their children. I really do not remember any of the spouses being there though. It seems it was just my parents theirs kids and then their kids. We were very jolly. I was in the kitchen with my parents, my brother Nathan, and my sister Melanie preparing food. we were talking happily and I could hear lots of cheerful sounds coming from cousins playing together. Then somebody called out in shock for everyone to come and see. We looked out the window first and saw 10, or maybe more, funnel clouds swirling across the desert all coming in the general direction of the house.  Tucker, Clark and myself had stepped a little ways from the house as we surveyed the seen in terror. It still causes a shiver to think back on the image of all those tornadoes swirling around us. It was terrifying!

People began to talk about getting people inside and finding safe places to wait out the storms. I saw Chelle with her children and Dade with his children getting up on the roof with sleeping bags. It seemed they were going to watch the funnel clouds from the rooftop. I tried to call to them and tell them that they had to get inside but they could not hear me. I turned and looked a little to the right and there coming down a dirt road in the distance was a school bus. I could see the dust puffing up as it sped quickly trying to escape a funnel cloud that was directly behind it. But it was hopeless. I saw the bus get hit and start to spin. My heart sunk and I said out loud to my boys, “Oh no! Those poor children.” That reminded me that my little ones were not with me. Asher and Constance were still in the house. I looked at that moment back at the house to see a huge funnel cloud just about to hit the front of the house. I told Tucker and Clark to run and we began to run as fast as we could go.

Although I could not really see them I knew that Asher and Constance were sitting on a bed in one of the bedrooms and they were very frightened. I also knew that many other of my family had gathered with there children in a cluster in the living room, there was my parents, Cindi, Joff, Shem, and Yvonne. This bothered me because, although it was better then the roof, I feared it was not sufficient protection against tornadoes. The others I did not know where they were. At this point I could not do anything about the others I could only focus on getting to my two little ones. I realized not long after we had started running that there was no way we were going to make it. The house was being ripped apart as we ran. In my own mind, not my dream self but myself, I said, “I can not handle this. This will have to change.” (I can sometimes change the course of the story in my dreams.) At that moment I was in the bedroom with all 4 of my children. I had gotten us huddled in an inside corner. I had put a large blanket over us and had told the kids to sit on the edges and hold the bottom down with their feet. I had also pulled a mattress from the bed and put it over us across the corner. I pulled my children in close to me as we heard chaos around us. We could hear screams and cries of fear. We could hear the house being ripped apart. After a while the stormed calmed and my children began to stir a bit. I held them closely and told them we could not get up until we were sure all of the funnel clouds had past. It was very hard not to get up. I wanted to go and see who was left. I wanted to get up and make sure people had a safer place to hide for when the nest one hit. But I knew it was to dangerous. I felt that if we got up we would be caught unprotected when another tornado hit. So I sat there huddled with my children and praying that the other were O.K. And that is where the dream ended.

One thing that really stands out to me is when I changed the dream. I could not allow my brain to watch my two little ones be ripped apart or to have to see the destruction of my family in the storm. So I changed the dream. But I did not change it very much. I had made it so I was with all of my kids and I was able to protect them. Yet, the horror of the whole thing still remained. Why didn’t I just make the funnel cloud turn directions or some thing and save us all. i don’t know. It was pretty intense that much I do know.

“The Best Mother You Could Get!”

It is so very easy to get discouraged and to feel inadequate. My greatest weight right now, the area of my responsibilities where I feel most inadequate is motherhood. I have 4 of the best children but, sometime I feel like their Abrahamic trial was to have me as a mother. I decided to ask my kids and see what they would say about me. I asked them, if someone asked you, “what is your Mother like?” what would you tell them? Here is the list they gave me,

She is kind, nice and lovely. She is awesome, caring and wonderful. She is beautiful. She feeds us, plays games with us, and laughs with us. She hugs and kisses us and sings to us and tucks us in every night. She has pretty close and hangs pretty pictures on the wall. She helps us with our homework. She is silly. She loves us. She is the best mother you could get!

I did not separate them according to who said what. I just wrote them down as they came at me. As they gave me their impressions of me I was moved to tears. I felt loved. I felt like maybe there is hope for me as a mother after all. My children are all I have in this world and if it ends up that they are all I get I will happy.

Will I ever really grow up!

16 year old me

In just about 2 months I will be 39 years old. That is just one year from 40. Yet, sometimes when I really pay attention to my own thoughts I am a little embarrassed at how very foolish I am. When I was about 16 years of  age my father, as a tease, introduced me once as his daughter who was old enough to know better but doesn’t. I have laughed about it for years but now I am starting to finally own it.