Missionary Calendar

It's not about what you might be thinking.

Instead, it's about the reality of missionary life.

Let's talk about what REALLY goes on for faithfully serving Elders and Sisters who set aside a portion of their regular daily life to leave home and comforts of family, familiar surroundings and friends to travel at their own expense to teach the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Pictures on the calendar can include the excitement of receiving that special envelope from Box B in Salt Lake City. And the picture of the reaction to the calling should get a page as well.
Since mission life isn't restricted to just one moment a month, this calendar needs to be divided into days and sometimes, perhaps hours.

Morning means rising early and getting ready for the day by the usual ablutions and also through fervent scripture and lesson study and prayer. For those who are also learning a new language, the time in the morning must also include the study of that language and how to teach the principles of the gospel in that new tongue.

Photos of missionary breakfasts will be an interesting addition. Breakfast varies as widely as the Elders and Sisters themselves. Some eat lightly due to habit or circumstance and others eat as if they will never belly up to a table again in their natural lives.

Who does the cooking will also need a snapshot since my husband assures me that some missionaries never learned to even boil water and eating their food is a sheer act of faith that cannot be comprehended by those who haven't experienced the like.

For people who are not familiar with the mission bikes, they deserve a frame in and of themselves. Mission bikes are maligned, abused and used hard by young men and women who are not always good conservators of the property. Even the best of missionaries can have 'oops' moments on a bike leaving skinned paint, chipped chrome and the occassional broken bone.

If the Elders or Sisters are fortunate enough to have a car, the process of cleaning it for mission inspection is a whole chapter book of photos. Elders tend to be rougher on the cars than the Sisters (sorry boys, but facts is facts!) and their cars are a collection of junk for some companionships. They become the equivalent of rolling closet floors and underbed storage hidden by a bedspread pulled a bit to low.

What should really be the focus of the photographs though is the light that infuses the countenance of the missionaries who have caught the vision of the work they are performing. They are happy! They are smiling and above all, they are light in motion.

Mission calendars would do well to show the 'we have new clothes' right next to the 'what's left at the end of my mission clothes' photographs. Those who are dedicated to the job are not fashion plates by the time the honorable release comes. Their clothing reflects the work they have done for indeed it IS work.

Calendar photos would bear witness of the exhaustion at the end of a busy day and the frustration when a 'golden' slips away. They would show the humble, praying missionaries seeking and petitioning the Lord to show them a fresh approach to a hardened heart.

It would show the tears of joy when someone says 'yes' to baptism and the happiness that fills the lives of those who embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the change that comes to them when all of the burden of sin is literally washed away through the cleansing process of repentance and entering the waters of baptism by immersion.

And for those who have gained a testimony of the value and worth of a soul, the mission isn't about numbers but about hearts touched and seeds planted. There isn't a camera in the world which has the ability to capture that moment. But it would be good if there were.

The understanding that comes can be seen in the actions of the missionaries. They are dedicated and they are tired when they are anxiously engaged in the work of the Lord.

Maybe if we could make a calendar of missionaries that shows the blessing of service, we could help others to prepare to go forth and serve themselves.

Can your feet touch the pedals?

My introduction to the world of automotive types of machinery and vehicles happened at what some consider to be a tender age.

I was about 6 or 7 when we were at the farm and I was allowed to take the wheel of the El Camino, the unmistakable hybrid of truck and car melded together for sophisticated farm work. It was held together by 'spit and baling wire' as Aunt Jewel declared and nothing could hurt this thing.

That theory was put to the test when I was allowed to slip behind the wheel for a drive across the pasture. The fact that I am typing this should indicate that my wide and partially toothless self survived and enjoyed the forbidden pleasure of underage driving.

Not that this one event represented my only opportunity to drive sans license in wallet.

I started moving the pickup around in the driveway and yard as soon as Daddy was sure I wouldn't mangle anything or anyone in the attempt. And when the riding mower joined the family, I hopped aboard for my turn in maneuvering around the obstacles in the yard to offer the precision cut that made it all the better to drive without sanction from the License Bureau.

I can honestly say anytime I was offered the illicit pleasure of DWU (driving while unlicensed) I jumped behind the wheel with all of the gusto of a circus performer under the big top before a capacity crowd. There was a thrill that was beyond compare when sitting behind the wheel that I still enjoy from time to time even now.

What brought all of this merriment of motor vehicles to mind was reading the latest installment on the Pioneer Woman's website about her girls driving the hay truck all over their ranch.

People in rural areas think nothing of stuffing Junior or Sissy behind the wheel at a tender age. The main requirement for farm driving is the ability to drive in a straight line and the singularly most important factor of them all.

Can your feet touch the pedals?

If you can answer in the affirmative to that query, then your posterior is installed in a well worn and beat up seat where abbreviated driving instruction is offered and away you go.

Should you happen to lose control, it is assumed that bobwire will stop your descent into Poplar Creek before you manage to stall the engine in the water. Note to the unaware, for those not from rural America, bobwire is also called "barbed wire" by those who feel the need to impress the folks at the country club.

I can't recall an instance in which I lost control of the car or truck I was shepherding across the pasture. I have managed a pretty good skid on some fresh cow pies from time to time. Everyone needs that experience. It is unlike a snow skid in many respects, not the least of which is the fragrance that accompanies the slide on a hot day in the brilliant sunshine.

There was no such thing as air conditioning with filtration back in that day. And farmers atop the John Deere didn't have GPS units or iPods plugged into the electronic dashboards of an enclosed cab.

Those who rode the ranges and valleys of the '60's in rural America did so while sweating and collecting rings around their collar for an honest days toil in the farming black belt or cotton belt of America.

No part of the romance with the land was left outside when it came time for that Saturday night bath. In order to be ready for Sunday go-to-meeting preaching, the bath was one ritual that involved strong soap and a brush to scrape the remnants of the week from your hide.

I wonder if farmers now appreciate the way things used to be? We have gadgetry for most farm jobs now. Milking machines replaced the burly farmhands who milked a stable full of dairy cows both morning and night. Row planters and pickers replace field hands of every stripe who labored to plant, maintain and harvest from the land.

And no one can deny that the days of 40 acres and a mule pulled plow are long over for most farmers. Though the Amish and the Mennonites cling to some of the old ways, they are even being assailed by the modernity of life on every side.

How many of us can say we had the opportunity to drive early and sleep by an open window where the melody of crickets filled the night air with their music? For many of us, life has a way of pressing in and destroying the simple only to replace it with the vacuous promises of what might be instead of the substance of what truly is wonderful.

Close your eyes for a moment and go back to that happy, bright and sunlit moment of your own childhood and rediscover that time when your feet touched the pedal or you were finally tall enough or when you weren't picked last for the game.

Savor that power of getting to choose what treat would take all of your remaining allowance when the ice cream truck passed along through your neighborhood.

Remember the moment when you had it all, but never knew it until now.

Confession is good for the soul

Time to come clean.

I am scared.

And not just a little.

Though in my youth, fear was a concept with which I was breathtakingly unfamiliar (as all of my siblings and several extremely gullible neighbor children can attest), I am now becoming intimately acquainted with the gut churning, throat closing, heart pounding, gasping for air sensation of being truly afraid.

One week from today I will be participating in my first 5k event.

Though I actually have a glorious past that included playing competitive sports, running track and racing the boys in my neighborhood so I could beat them and watch them cry because 'a girl won', my adult life was marred by the choices of a drunk driver and the descent into depression that followed. To a degree, I self-medicated my sorrows at what I no longer could do with another spoonful of 'comfort food', which any self-respecting addict will tell you never involves steamed vegetables or lean, carb free choices.

Now, that phrase about repenting at leisure has come home to roost and the droppings aren't pretty.

I have been in training in earnest for this event for several MONTHS now. Though I have been accused of occasional forays into the delusional waters of DENIAL, I can plainly tell that though I have made progress on all fronts (endurance, wind and speed), I am not the athlete who won that nice box of trophies in the top of my closet.

When I started this, walking from my house around the settling pond across the street and back was enough to compel a two hour nap from sheer exhaustion.

Now, though sweaty and most assuredly unpleasantly perfumed, I am up to about 3 1/2 miles without really straining. So why am I afraid? There must be a reason.

There is a time limit on the 5k.

I almost cried when I realized they weren't kidding about that.

And today, my eyes watered up just thinking that I might fail in this attempt to do something I haven't done in a long time.

This isn't about winning. This is about FINISHING.

I hate the ravages of time! Add it to the pain and frustration of seeing what was once a lean, muscled body ready to take on the world, drive the lane, race the wind, stretch a clean double into a triple be forced to sit for months in casts and endure therapy for months only to hear the orthopedic surgeon tell me that the damage done by someone else may cost me my leg's ability to make all of the above movement possible - the equation may balance, but it hasn't been in my favor. I politely told the doctor he wasn't God and went home and cried. But that sad event was over 20 years ago and what I have done to myself in the interim cannot possibly be laid at the feet of a drunk driver who is probably dead by his own choices by now.

Now I have to look in the mirror and see the old, graying woman with more than one chin and sadly, more than one belly, and try to picture that athlete that used to look back at me from that silvered glass. My son Thomas told me in his latest email from Germany that from the pictures of the family that I sent to him that there is 'less of me' now than when he last saw me. That made my heart smile.

Though I will never again be competitive in the way I once was, I'd like to believe I can become a convincing "finisher".

I can't predict wildly brilliant showings of time that sets land speed records for someone in my age category. I can't even predict the brilliance if I were in competition with toddlers! What I would like to predict is that I WILL finish. That my battered body will carry me through it all and I will survive it to try again another day.

I am already committed to this in my heart and mind and with my body.

Pride alone will make my desire strong. What I worry about is whether "pride goeth before a fall" in this case. I cannot foresee the future with any degree of accuracy or sophistication.

I did have a bizarre dream last night about riding a miniature goat during the 5k.

While I am not sure how that fits in nor what that odd rendering has to do with the trepidation I feel when I think about letting Beth down or more importantly, letting ME down, it did give me a bit of an odd feeling to think that I would be compelled somehow to press some weak and tiny animal to carry me along instead of propelling myself to an inglorious but none the less final time for the event.

Maybe others don't express it this way, but we all have felt the fear of perhaps not being able to measure up. Not being able to toe the mark or come out of the gate cleanly.

Though it isn't possible to remove the fear completely from a mortal life, I'd sure like to be able to harness it in some way that makes my feet ready, my gait steady and my ability to do this seem more a reality than a wish.

Pray for me.

The headline for the Tribune may well read "Stupid, ill-prepared, fat Southern woman collapses on roadway blocking participants in 5K".

Should that happen, I will sign your copy of the paper as soon as I find where I might have mislaid my lungs.

I need a vacation

Yes, you read right.

I need a vacation.

A vacation FROM the vacation.

Is there some secret scripture of which I remain blissfully unaware that says on the eighth day He did laundry? I think not!

Yet, I look into my laundry room and see overflowing hampers and stuff piled in the floor despite the fact that we DID do laundry on the road.

Thank heavens there is a door on the laundry room and I can draw it mercifully to a close!

There is an entropy that applies to laundry that defies scientific and mathematical rationale. Though people will miss the message unless they are the primary caregiver to the hampers that inhabit their home, dirty laundry multiplies and clean laundry divided. Ironing adds and hangers for said ironing subtract. While I have yet to see spontaneous combustion on a basket of dirty clothing, I am willing to help it along with a generous portion of 'boy scout water' and a lit match.

Attending church today was an exercise more of routine obedience than true faithful desire. (If that comes as a shock to you, you are not a regular reader!) At one point during the meetings, I felt like I was about to roll out of my seat and into the floor. Seeking out Jared's wheelchair and the bag strapped to the back, I fully expected to reach in and extract the little nutritional bar I had stashed in the front pouch to prevent death to to plummeting blood sugar levels.

Reaching expectantly into the pouch, I found everything BUT the delicious little morsel and was instead reduced to begging snacks from mothers will small children, who, by the way, looked at me like some sort of ogre who descended upon them from my lair which was littered with Snickers wrappers. Oh, that would be the CHILDREN who looked at me like that and not the mothers. They were all full of the milk of human kindness, presumptively because they recognize the signs of bleary eyed exhaustion when they see it and infused me with cookies, nuts and a conversational uplift regarding the relative merits of skipping church. How much is too much before people really notice and say something snide or can you get away with wearing dark glasses, napping on the back row and attending every week?

Eventually, I made my way back into the chapel somewhat more fortified to finish out the day only to discover that I had to stay afterwards for a presidency meeting.

At this point I asked, "Can I just lay on the table and sleep while you meet and will it 'count'?

They said no and I was compelled to stay awake and take notes.

If I could spell the sound that you make when you blow a raspberry, you could insert it here. Do that mentally anyway. You'll feel better.

My point is that we leave home to take to the open road or the friendly skies in search of that elusive rest we have heard so much about in 'another place'. We act like maniacs to get there only to discover that if we didn't bring it WITH us, there isn't any rest where we have gone anyway.

I don't know about you, but my cabinets and cupboards aren't stashed with selections of naps arrayed in the shelf like fine wines. Mine seem to be littered instead with a haphazard arrangement of partially done projects which hang over my guilty head like the sword of Damocles while awaiting final disposition in a crowded courtroom filled with repeat offenders.

But the good news is that I don't have anything on my calendar tomorrow. I might get the wash done or I may simply take a nap all day long.

Nah.

Jared would never sit or lie still for that. The boy needs his movies to be changed and he likes to eat once in a while. It was a nice thought though.

Maybe instead I'll take a nap now. Right now. My eyes are so heavy . . .

lakahfohnef;o'g/UIds;lkajdwhbc;fuoIHWEFOI28TRPIO8T2gbbbbo6/:p om<

Uh Oh.

Sorry.

I didn't mean to lie down on the keyboard.

Later.