Old Pictures

When I pulled out the picture of me as a baby I also found these two pictures and thought they would be fun to share. The one to the left is of Shelly, Bob, Cyndi and I in 1980. The bottom one is of Cyndi, Bob is in the background, and I in Hong Kong in what I am guessing 1984 or 1985 - I am not sure. I think we look so cute and look how pretty Shelly looks - a little like our Jessi I think.

Going On

My first thought this morning was the words from the very end of the "Legacy" movie that the church produced, it is a favorite of mine (still waiting on the new Joseph Smith one to makes it debut on DVD, also a favorite) which say "can we not go on in so great a cause?" I thought they could apply to so many things and pondered them all day.

While at work one of my bosses, Richard, asked me about President Hinckley and I was able to tell him a little about how I felt but before I could he said that he had heard that he was a wonderful man that did much good in this world. I was so grateful that national radio and news carriers are honoring his memory. It made me think about how I would love someone day that others will remember me as being a good, honest, loving person who did much good. I know I have a long way to go, but after Pres. Hinckley example way wouldn't you want to go on in so great a cause!

Work is always entertaining and today was no different. I got to watch the snow swirl with the wind from the fourth floor so it was even prettier than from the ground. I am always amazed at how beautiful it is to look at but how stinking cold it is. Studying for comps is still boring but it is getting a little easier. I have finally kinda found my grove with teaching again - it takes a little bit and the students are not always as open and communicative as you would like them to be.

I got Asia's beautiful baby announcement today and I think that Aurora looks like I did - my very first picture when I was a baby with brown hair - so that was a very new picture of me. She has my nose and eyes and hands and she is skinny just like I was - but that is just a proud aunt talking! Which really means she may look more like Asia than we first thought - no offense Ben, but Asia is way prettier than you, so it would be good for the girls to look like her!

President Hinckley Died Tonight

Tonight one of my hero's President Gorden B. Hinckley passed away in his home with his loving family close by. I have so many feelings as I think of all of the amazing things that he did, the things he taught, and his ability to love and bring humor to everything. I don't think that the world will ever be the same without him.

In the Book of Mormon Moroni is spoken of with great respect - that if other men were like him then the world world be a better place for it. For me President Hinckley is my modern day Moroni, can you imagine what this world would be like if we all could be as faithful, obedient, kind, loving nad generous as that man. Very few problems in this world would exist and less would be of real value. I pray that I will be able to work harder every day to be as close to the Savior as he was.


I love him and will miss him terribly. I will continually pray for President Monson, Eyring and the Twelve as they embark on such huge responsibilities and mourn the loss of a wonderful man.

I have been tagged by Cyndi!

Cyndi tagged me last night on the phone and so now I have to try and come up with six things people don't know about me, which I don't think is even possible.

• I am afraid to sing a solo because I had a friend comment once that I just never really got the music right. She wasn't trying to be mean I hope but any confidence I had then vanished with those words. I even don't always feel "good enough"to sing in choirs because I learn music by listening not by looking at the notes, I am terrible at reading music.
• I am always worried that I won't be able to do everything that the Lord wants me to. Not in a simple way of reading scriptures, etc but can I really follow his plan for me when it isn't my plan for me at all? Do I have enough faith to pray and then do what he asks or am I too proud or stubborn?
• I know where I want to retire right now and I haven't even really begun working yet!
• My childhood was one that I think of with awe and wish that I could give to my children. I hope that I can be as good of a Mama as mine is, I hope that I can open their eyes to the world around them like my parents did mine, I hope that I can work along side them to make the world a better place, most of all I just hope I have some children some day.
• I am still really shy and have to force myself to get to know people, talk with people I don't know, and seem like the out going person every seems to think I am.
• When we lived in Singapore, Bob and I (probably 5 and 7), went to a campon (sp?) and wanted to but some candy, well we didn't have any money and when the owner wasn't looking we took a small piece and left - I am a shop lifter - I have heard that admitting the problem is the first step and I have never done anything like that since! I still feel guilty, have repented, etc but will forever be sorry I stole from a man that really had nothing.
• I am scared what kind of job the Lord wants me to get when I get done with school. I have two parts of me when it comes to getting a job. I want to live near my family and be able to be close and enjoy everyone and then there is the part of me that wants to work for an NGO in a foreign country and do the work I love. It's hard to know what to do and time will only tell, but I dread making that decision already.

I think that is seven so there you go if you already knew one of those things then you have an extra one just in case.

I am an Aunt Again

Well, Donna was a warrior and gave birth to a beautiful baby girl yesterday!

Victoria Rose Leavitt was born on Jan. 25, 2008 at 3:41 at Oak Bend Medical Center in Houston, Texas.

She was 6 lbs 13 oz and 20 inches long and she looks a lot like her brothers.

Congrats Donna and Brad!

Reality

Well it has been a long day. I got up and drove to Moberly (about 45 minutes away) to teach and got there about 8:00am. That part of the day was easy and the part I read about i The Miracle of Forgiveness this morning did not make me feel guilty in any way. :) So I was off to a good start. My students had their library day today so I just had to stand back and watch them try and figure out what they were doing and help when asked.

Then off to my real job. I got there (Bullock lab) about 11:45 and ate lunch, talked with the nurses and worked on some stuff - no other way to describe what I do sometimes than just that stuff. Then I was talking with one of my fellow PhD students from HDFS and we started talking about a conference that is coming up. The deadline to submit is March 1st so we were talking about what we were going to do to get a poster up and running by then. This time it is going to be about TV watching, reading, the amount of snacks and the BMI (weight and height) of the 200 or so 2 year olds in the BBK study that I have been working on for the last 2 years. So there goes one Sat. in the near future to work on that!

Then I went home to get my computer and head to Alison's house for dinner and then studying. I was there from 5-9:30 or so. I got through more of the theory stuff. Yesterday I had one of my committee members be much more specific about what my comps question will be and that was really nice.


Yesterday after I convinced my other boss (Kim Allen) to work with me on the rural mom project that I needed to do a proposal for a poster or a paper for it by March 1st for the same conference I was talking about above, which is in Arkansas next year! So, then I started thinking about how I need to find a conference to submit my findings about the nutrition providers project to and found out that the deadline for that is Feb 26th. No problem - not sure if I get to sleep anytime in the next few weeks but I am hoping to be excepted to all of those. My CV or resume needs to be beefed up in order to get a job at some point in my life. So, I think that I have created a immense amount of work for myself, but it should lead to good things and I am not thinking of how boring it is to study so that is good.

My very wonderful sisters that read this are always commenting that I make them tired and that I do so much, well if you wrote out all of the things and ways in which you do things and help others you would see that my life is not that full. I have more alone time than both of you ever will even multiplied together. Recently I have found several old friends from high schools blogs (girls in the stake) and started reading their blogs and within a few days of doing this I started feeling really lonely and frustrated with my life. It took me a few days and some prayer to figure out that it wasn't good for me to read everyones blogs but that it is just too hard not to have what they have sometimes (ie a husband and kids). This year all of my best friends from high school (Donna, Suzan and Elizabeth) are having babies - its wonderful but I really wish that I could join in on the fun and raise a baby at the same time as my awesome friends. Actually, Donna is a mom again - now the mother of 4 . Victoria was born today at around 3 oclock and everyone is doig great! Congrats Brad and Donna.


Tomorrow I am going to try and finish up Erikson's theory and move on to contingent self-esteen should be a so very exciting!

COMPS

Studying for comps is like trying to catch a bubble that is flying away into oblivion. So today I went and spoke with my adviser, Jean, about COMPS. How I dread them, am scared to take them, not sure how to study, didn't know if I was on the right track, etc. She told me I was fine and not to worry. But she doesn't know me very well and I will worry until I am finished on the 18th at noon. Everything is in place and all I have to do is BS my way through 8 hours of torture and then 2 hours of orals! Yucky!!!

All my "friends" that have gone through it say that it is scarier to think about than to actually do it and that the grant part is not that bad. I am not worried about the grant because I already know what I want to do but, the comps seem really yucky.

This week I am relearning about theory - human development ones like Piaget, Erikson, Vygotsky, Maslow, Skinner, etc. Now I have to do is not go in there and talk about Eriksons 8 levels and claim that they are Piaget's and we will be good. :)

I am thinking of starting a new study. This study will be about how rural mother's gain their identity as mothers. There has been lots of work on mothers in general but all the work and experience I have tells me that it is different for rural moms. I just have to get a faculty member to say they will "co-sign" per say and I will be off and running. I am going to try and recruit from my nutrition study and my classes in Moberly. I think that it will be very interesting - but we will see. I think I am a little crazy but it is something I have wanted to do for a while now and just figure I should go ahead and do it while I am here.

Ward Conference

Today, we had ward conference in our ward. I was asked to attend the Stake Training meeting before our block of meeting for the primary and so I went, hoping that I would not be asked to say anything for primary. Well of course that was not the case. The stake leaders introduced the churches new goal for North America and Canada of doubling the baptism from last year! That seems big - so they broke it down into what our ward has to do - a mere 14 baptisms in 11 months - that should be doable? Then they want to double the amount of lessons being taught each week by the missionaries, which will go nicely with the other goal of course, so we are to get them from 15-20 to 30 a week. There is a lot of accountability along the way and the question was asked of me was how we as a presidency was going to help in that effort. How I was going to deal with children coming to church with friends and making that a opportunity to make contact with the family of that child. It all was a little overwhelming but I have no doubt that it can be done and with a little faith that we all can accomplish it together.

Brother Hubbard, who was doing the training, emphasized the need to remember that we are doing this because we love the people we are referring but also because we love the Lord and want to do as he has asked us. I thought during the meeting that if the prophet asked us to do something like read the Book of Mormon in a certain amount of time, or use the general conference issue to guide FHE lessons I jump on it and immediately do it, so what is my problem here? I think it is that we are asked to do something outside of ourselves - ask others to see what we think is important as important themselves - that is hard and a little scary sometimes, even after a mission.

The Bishop talked about finding a balance in the things we do and referred to Elder Oaks talk Good, Better and Best in the last conference and how we can take the ideas taught there to help us make decisions between the many good things that are trying for our time. The Stake leader talked about the things in our lives that we see as giants, like the Isrealities did, and how we can over come them with faith and by following the great examples around us. The day was nice and the sunbeams even were quiet during sharing time!

The St. Louis Temple

Last night my friend Amy and I went to St. Louis and attended the temple. It was a really nice session, very full (we think that it was temple night for a ward in the area because they all know each other). Amy had a presidency meeting and I had work so we quickly left at 4:30 to try and catch the 7:00 session, it snowed around us the entire time and we had to figure out the alternative route because of construction but we got there right in time.

In the session was this little old man that was completely blind and it seemed going deaf. He comes faithfully, Amy sees him everytime she goes and I probably just have never noticed. It was really interesting to watch him, he sat on the front row and did everything on his own. He participated in the prayer circle and just seemed so happy to be there. It just got me thinking about how much we are blessed with. My health is not perfect but I can see and hear, I have the energy to do the things that are most important to me - I am very blessed. I think that I can learn from this mans determination to continue to go to the temple when going is a struggle and when he cannot see the screen and barely hear the speakers. I hope that someday I can be so faithful.

As Amy I drove up there we were talking about a sister that I know that is struggling a lot spiritually and in many ways it is because she never fully developed a testimony of her own and found out who she was. Her testimony has wavered because of challenges placed in her life that did not fit into the "perfect Mormon life" as she puts it. It makes me very sad that she feels this way and hope and pray that not only she but others in her same predicament will be able to turn to the Savior for healing and anchor their testimonies in the things that never change - the doctrine of the gospel and a relationship with Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. It makes me very grateful for going through some of my struggles as a young as I did and learning to rely on the Saviors arm to steady me and continually help me. It is something that we all learn it just comes at different times for all of us. I hope that this does not sound like preaching - I am just worried about this woman and many others in her position.

I was talking to a friend at work yesterday and she told me a story about when her husband and herself were trying to decide where to move to after medical school and residency, etc. The original plan had been to move back to Florida were they had gone to school and practiced for a little while but she really didn't want to. She said that she had been praying about feeling at peace with that decision and once she finally did feel that way she found out that returning was not a possibility any longer. Long story short they ended up here in Columbia close to her family and she learned that the Lord is truly in control and once we can give up our will then he will bless us even more. Just thought it was a great example of being willing to go where He wants us to go.

Today I get to transcribe a tape from one of my interviews and start studying about health disparities in rural low-income moms and children. I'm just so very excited!

Following the Crowd

Well, I like Cyndi and Jeremy have decided to give into good old fashioned peer pressure - of the good kind of course. I unlike my lucky siblings do not have any cute children to showcase, but I figured this would be a great way to follow my educational ups and downs and give everyone the opportunity to cheer me on as I try to finish my PhD and start my MPH (Masters of Public Health) and someday have an actual pay check once again.

I have had some great adventures here with Beth and my friend Amy and I suppose that I could regress some and show you some pictures of the fun times we had this summer but that will have to wait.

Currently, I am working for Dr. Bullock on BBK for 10 hours a week, working for Kim Allen and MU Extension 10 hours a week, teaching 2 courses at the community college which is 45 minutes away, running a qualitative study about the lives of nutrition lesson providers in the Missouri public schools and trying to find the time and motivation to really sit down and study the very boring material for my comps that I take on March 17-18. I will need many prayers those days. I am excited to be moving on with the process but it seems like life is getting in the way of that - I just have to be better at scheduling my time.

So welcome to my crazy life - hopefully I don't bore you too terribly bad.