Spiritual Indicators Talk & Holy Habits & Righteous Routines

 Dear Kids, 

There was a talk in sacrament meeting several weeks ago that I HAVE to write down - it was so good and it stuck with me so much that I realized I have to write it down in my journal. 

The man who got up to talk works for the United Nations. His job is to go into refugee camps and evaluate how everything is going in the camp. Are the people healthy? How are their accommodations? How is the leadership? How is sanitation? Are their needs being met?

He told us how usually he has about 24 hours to complete an assessment and he will walk around the camps, he will interview people, and through observation and communication is able to put together the necessary information to report back about the state of the refugee camp. 

He has done this all over the world and in multiple situations. 

He then talked about how sometimes they have emergency situations that happen and because of a lot of different circumstances he will only be given 1-2 hours to put together a full evaluation of the camp. He then told us how impossible it seems to put together an evaluation that will do anything justice. It is such a process and when he's faced with emergency situation and has to complete it - HOW does he do it?

He talked then about how he has a few "indicators" that he relies on that have never failed him. 

The best indicator is children. When he walks around the camp he can tell very quickly by behavior of children if they are in a healthy safe environment or not. Are they playing? Are they displaying normal childhood behavior? Or are they sitting, staring at a wall, overwhelmed, not making eye contact? 

There are several "indicators" he is able to see in a moment in order to get the feedback he needs to put on his evaluation sheet to report back. It doesn't take much to see how human behavior is affected by trauma and to sense normal human reaction compared to trauma response. 

He then said this, "Brothers and sisters - you can do the same thing in your life. It only takes a moment to look at your "spiritual indicators" to know whether or not you are on track with what's happening in your soul. When I say, "scripture study" it only takes you a moment to evaluate what's happening in your life with your personal or family scripture study. When I say, "Prayer", it only takes a moment to understand what is happening in your prayer relationship with your Heavenly Father. These are "spiritual indicators" where in a moment, you can tell immediately HOW you are spiritually doing. My question for you is... What are your spiritual indicators telling you? How would you fill out your evaluation sheet?". 

It was SUCH A POWERFUL TALK. I loved it so much. It just hit me in a very specific way. 

In general conference there was a talk by Elder Lund where he used the phrase, "Righteous routines and Holy Habits."

I want our family to have righteous routines and holy habits. And I can't do it alone, I need all of you to be emotionally and spiritually involved in order to make our family work. 

We've been reading scriptures every morning on my bed all together at 9am. We weren't getting it done at night and so I decided we were going to have to do it without dad and read scriptures on our own in the mornings so we didn't miss it. I want to partake of the promises of the prophet and what he told us that could happen in our home and family by doing Come Follow Me together. So we are doing that every morning. Then we are saying prayer together. 

I feel like night time routine can be helped A LOT - but it's tough in someone else's home and space to take control of that myself - so I am going to be patient for that until we move in somewhere. Your dad really needs to be part of these righteous routines and holy habits as well. 

I'm doing my best. There is always more to do - and I don't have that much longer with you in my home, so I have to take advantage of the next several years as much as I can. 

I love you kids. Don't forget - YOUR MOTHER KNOWS THE LORD - and I want you to know Him too. 

Love, 

Your Mom

(picture is of us as a family after we went and gave hot chocolate to the homeless in downtown SLC)

Careful Of Screens!

 Dear Kids, 

This world is so subtle and tricky. Talia has had some struggles with some addiction to youtube and we had a bit talk about it the other day. She has been getting up and watching videos in the morning when no one else is awake. 

I looked at her history of viewing and it's been about a week or two of doing this behavior. Luckily, no porn has come up - but it's just a bunch of pop culture stuff that is junk information and rots her mind. I could tell something was going on because when she would come to scriptures in the morning she was very on edge. When I caught her yesterday morning the spirit told me to go and talk with her. I got out of bed and found her and she had a hard time admitting her guilt. 

But she did and we were able to work it out. However, I know this isn't the last of things like this that will come up. We have to set some really specific parameters around technology, which I thought we had, but all of you are so smart, especially Talia is so crafty with problem solving and finding her way around things, which is a blessing and a curse. 

This same addiction to screens happened with Gabe when we caught him at night sneaking watching screens, and I'm sure the same thing with happen with Elijah - SCREENS ARE SO ADDICTING! And this last year you have had WAY so much of screens for all of your own good. 

I can't wait to get into a house and a normal routine where we can really start to control what's happening with the internet in our house and set some screen goals. 

Teaching you all how to interact in a healthy way with screens is a HUGE challenge! It's one of the things in the great and spacious building - but it's also so important to learn how to overcome screens when you  are young and gain the skills necessary. I know you will mess up while you are in our home - I expect it. And it's necessary. 

I just hope I can handle the things that come up in the right way - with the spirit. 

I know the spirit is warning you all, all the time, to be careful. Just LISTEN to the spirit. LISTEN to those promptings, they will NEVER lead you in the wrong way!

I love you, 

Your Mom

Mimi's Angel Day & Processing Trauma

Dear Kids, 

I want to tell you about my process with it being a year since Mimi passing away. (picture is of us after we let our balloons go into the sky)

We celebrated her angel day on October 17-18th. I feel like she kind of has two angel days because the last day she had on earth was so wonderful and full of the spirit and then she died the next morning at about 2amish. 

We watched a Christmas movie and baked cookies in her honor. We wrote notes to her about what we missed and how much we loved her. We wanted to put those notes into balloons, but it weighed them down so much that we decided to burn the notes instead, and then we went to the dollar store to get balloons to release and watch go to heaven. I feel like it was a good day. 

Everyone misses Mimi in their own way. 

Gabe - you are so tender about it. You miss her for all the tender reasons and all the little reasons. You miss how she played games with you and how she laughed at you and how she was so encouraging to you all the time. She loved you so much, she would always say, "He is so sweet!"

Talia - you miss Mimi for all the girl reasons. She spent girl time with you watching Christmas movies and decorating the house. She was really good about making sure to make you feel special being the only girl in the family. I know you really miss that about her. She loved you so much too! She told me one day how she had been praying about you and how to love you and help you more. 

Elijah - you miss Mimi for all the teasing reasons. You guys would tease each other all the time. She would always make you come to her so she could kiss you on the cheek before you went to bed. You acted like you didn't like it, but in reality you loved it. She loved your teasing nature and how you would always tell the funniest jokes. You guys had a special bond because of when you stayed with her before Joshua was born. 

Joshua - you miss Mimi for all the little toddler reasons. You loved her hugs. She always made you feel special because of how she would wink at you and you really LOVED how she would always make time to play checkers with just you and no one else. She was so good at quality time and filling up love buckets. You still pray every night for Mimi to be your guardian angel and I believe she is!

I miss her immensely as well. 

Once you are all old enough to have your own kids, you will understand a bit more. And once I get old enough that you have to take care of me, you are going to understand even more! When I start to decline it is going to be weird for you. When you see how old I'm getting and that I'm not capable like I used to be, it's going to be hard for you - I know this because of how hard it was for me when that happened to my mom. 

And remember, when you are helping me when I am old and grey and can't do things for myself any more, that it is part of the circle of life. I took care of my mom and you get to take care of me too one day. And I will love you all for it, just like my mom loved me for taking care of her. She told me one time a couple days before she died, "Andrea, you are looking at me like you're my mom!"... and its' true... it's because I was taking care of her in a way that she always took care of me. There is something that changes in you when you take care of your aging parents - a reality of life that hits you like nothing else does. And you will have your chance at it one day. 

This angel day with Mimi - I had to process my own personal trauma inside of what happened a year ago. Randomly I would have flashes come to my mind of something that happened - a far away look in her eyes, not knowing she took her oxygen out and was suffocating to death and didn't know it and I had to hurry and put it back in her nose, holding her oxygen tubes when she wanted to get up and walk, when she would get up and walk and not know why she was even going anywhere, watching her lose her sanity a few times and helping her to the bathroom, getting food for her and making sure to get her food that her stomach would be okay with... so many memories of just taking care of her. 

I had flashbacks over and over and over again of all of those days before she passed away. And I realized that this last year I had processed missing her, I had processed that she left, and processed a lot of anger and frustration and sadness, but I had NOT processed the trauma of what I had personally experienced involved in her passing away. 

So I sat with it for a few days. I was very depressed for about a week. It was hard for me to be motivated to do anything. I didn't want to talk to anyone about it, especially because I didn't have words for what was going on inside of me. When memories would pop up I tried to look at them, and almost talk to them. Ask them what they were teaching me and how they helped me. I did a lot of energy work on those memories and emotional work on the memories that would come and pop up out of no where. I tried to feel the trauma to understand it more... I just tried to not ignore it but to be honest with myself about it. 

It took about a week, but I was able to work through it and at the end of that week I was able to bounce back out of the depression that had overshadowed me. And looking back on it, it wasn't a bad place, but it was a heavy place, and a hard place emotionally to be in, but it was necessary. 

I'm SO GRATEFUL for the emotional skills and spiritual skills to work through things like that. 

I love you kids. I love you all so much. Remember how much a mother's love means, especially when you have your own children. Everything I do - I do it for you... just like my mom did for me. I love thinking about that. 

I love you, 

Your Mom