Eternal Choices

I have been thinking a lot about how some of our choices in life have a greater impact than others. I guess that goes without saying. The choice of what you eat in the morning doesn't matter near as much as the choice of who you marry. Anyway, the thing that I have been really thinking about lately is the fact that there are only a few choices that a person makes that truly have ETERNAL consequences.
In my humble opinion the first eternal choice would be about membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I was born to a part member family. My mom was a member as were my maternal grandparents. My dad on the other hand was baptised but not active. My mom took me to church but never forced me to go. I was one of those teenagers that went to church, but I don't think I ever really had a testimony of my own. I made some choices in high school that I am sure didn't help my efforts to gain a testimony and I struggled a bit. When I made the choice to become an exchange student and was sent to Australia for a year, I looked at it as an opportunity to find out some answers for myself. I was away from family and friends so the only real influence I had was what I would seek out. I made the choice to read the Book of Mormon and actually think about what I read. To look up , study and ponder things. This was the first time I had really put some effort into finding a testimony for myself. When I got to Tasmania, I made the effort to find a Branch so that I could try and get to church. I couldn't go every week, but I made sure that I would study and read every Sunday. Guess what, by the time I finished reading the Book of Mormon, I had truly gained the testimony I had been seeking. I made the Choice then and there that when I got home I would not waver and that was the best Choice I could have made. I have gained such strength and comfort over the years knowing what can be ahead of me.
The next choice I made that I know has eternal consequences for me, was choosing someone to marry. I knew that I wanted to be married in the temple, I wanted that eternal marriage so that I could be assured that I could have my family together forever. I tried to make sure that I dated guys that could make that wish come true. It is funny how Heavenly Father will put us in the right situation to make things happen if we will just listen. The summer job I thought I had in Fallon was given to someone else and I was able to get a job out of the blue in Wells, Nevada. That was were I needed to be to meet the person I was supposed to marry. The decision to say Yes to the marriage proposal from Cortney Dahl was pretty easy. Heavenly Father had put me there so I actually didn't argue with him this time.
The third eternal decision that I have faced was to have children. This choice was a no brain er, of course I wanted a family. I am so grateful that I was able to have children. I know that sometimes a husband and wife don't have children in their home, but I am sure that for the most part this isn't a choice they make, and that they will be blessed with an eternal family of choice spirits that need great moms and dads. Anyway, I have come to realize that the choice to have children is a great responsibility. As a parent you always feel responsible for your children's eternal welfare. I know that they have their free agency, but it is my job to make sure that they have the tools and knowledge that will help them make the choices that will get them back with me in the end. Each day, I worry and weigh my efforts, so that I can be an example to them, so that they can make the eternal choices they need to make in their lives. This is definitely one of the on going choices in a persons life. I know that my mom worried about me until the day she passed away. I hope that the choices I make in my life are up to the task of being a good influence in my children and now my grandchildren's lives.
My son, has made great choice lately. He has made the choice to be of service to the Lord by accepting a call to be a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He will be serving in the Maryland Baltimore U.S. Mission. I am so pleased that he made this choice. He will be a great missionary, because he is a great person and has a testimony of the gospel. I will miss him, but I am making the choice to be supportive and excited right along with him.

A Little Success

OK, here it is the first of April, now a person could make a whole bunch of choices today and then when they don't follow through they can just say it was all an April Fools joke. I am not going to be one of those persons. This past week has been pretty good, in the follow through with choices department. I have finally kept up with the diet and eating better dept. The drinking of eight glasses of water is about killing me,(anyone need to know where the best restrooms in Fallon are, just ask) but everyone keeps telling me that after the first week or so your body will get used to it and things will even out. I sure HOPE so. I have also been fixing better meals and eating earlier in the evenings. I feel better when I can eat around 5. It also makes it so a person can go outside and work dinner off a bit before going to bed. Guess what the exercising is finally off the ground too. I have been able to get on the elliptical for a few minutes a couple times a day. I read in the "17 Day Diet" that if you will just exercise just 15 to 17 min a day it will make a different. So that choice is less overwhelming than 45 min. Trying to make it longer each time. Now that the weather is better I am going to get on the bike. Trying to make the choice of whether to try a garden again this year. Our water is so salting that I think that is what is killing everything. Might try the container gardens that the girls keep talking about. That way I can bring in some different soil, and run the water through the compost tea maker we have. Again more of those choices to make. It has been a while since I have done a complete deep clean of our house including shampooing the carpets. So I have made the choice that I am going to try and get this done this spring. I figure if I take one room and de-clutter, clean and spruce up stuff and then at least shampoo the living room and dining room (minus moving the china hutch, or maybe I will just to clean it out) I will be doing good. So since I have had success on follow through lately, lets all keep our fingers crossed that this choice will also find success. I have been working on getting our financial situation on better footing. Made the choice to try and get our house refinanced. Hope it all goes through because I was notified today that our payments will be going up 200.00 a month. yuck Keep your fingers crossed.

Why are the Easiest the Hardest

Okay, will someone please tell me why, when it comes to what food I put in my mouth I seem to continually make the WRONG choices. It seem that I am pretty good for a little while but in the end I seem to go right back to the wrong stuff. I want to eat healthy and really it isn't all that hard to do, but I keep making the choice to put that bag of chips in my belly instead of that apple. I don't really have much weight to loose it mostly a "feel better about myself kind of thing" but for me, at this age, I am really having a hard time sticking to the right choices. I bought a new diet book "The 17 day diet" There are four different levels with each one having different foods so that a person doesn't get bored And each level lasts 17 days . The author says that a person can stand anything for 17 days. Well he hasn't met me. I made a choice that I was really going to do this and it has been just two days and I am already making the choice to start again day after tomorrow. What a weakling. The bad thing about the whole thing is while I am eating the wrong stuff I will sit there and point out to myself that I am putting things that are off limits into my mouth, but it always tastes so good. What to do, what to do. Somewhere I have to find some determination(I used to have an abundance of the stuff) and make my good choices stick. I have to I am down to two pair of pants that fit, and I am not going to buy any more. That is this weeks major choice. Choose to eat what I am supposed to. (Guess I better hide the chips)

Will I ever progress?

March came roaring in like a lion, so hopefully it will go out like a lamb. Missed last weeks weekly progress report because I don't like to report negative things. I just can't get myself moving. The mornings have been really hard because I haven't been sleeping very good, but the afternoon isn't working so great because I am tired. (does that sound like I am making the choice to makes excuses) I guess that is what I am doing. The sad thing is I really think that I would be able to sleep better if I would just follow through with my choice to exercise. So I am going to try.
I have been trying to figure out how I can make some extra money to help get caught up on some bills. I made the choice to make some headbands and have made forty dollars so far, hope I will sell more soon. I don't really want to work full time but that choice might be made for me. But what could I do, or what would I want to do. Substitute teaching has gotten me spoiled I kind get to make the choice when I work and when I don't. I am not sure how much I would like not being able to make that choice.
I made a big choice this week. I had to figure out some health insurance issues for myself. It was all so confusing but I think I made a good choice, at least I hope so. I guess I will find out as soon as I get sick and have to use it for something. (which I hope won't be in the near future.)

reflection on choices

Can't believe that February is almost over. That one really snuck up on me. With all that has gone on this month I really haven't had much time to digest the loss of my mom. The choices that were made concerning her memorial I think were good ones. We kept it very upbeat. My cousin played the organ before the service and it was great. Mostly 40's music that was great to listen too. We were able to find some great music to go with the slide show, so that turned out to be extra special. The services themselves turned out great. My siblings made the choice to speak from the heart about mom and it was great. Danelle and I made the final choice for mom today. We gave the final approval for the headstone. It will have her name and dates along with a pin cushion and spool of thread and the saying " Bestest mom and grandma in the world" I am going to miss her terribly but she is in such a better place. Now I just need to make the choices that will help me be more like her.
Trying to give a progress report on the choices I have made thus far. Not doing so well I am afraid. I am getting up early and getting ready for the day, but the exercise thing is still giving me fits. I just have to find someone to exercise with that won't let me off the hook.(Dad is too easy on me). I have got to get it done because I want to keep up with my grandkids and if the past couple of weeks is any indication of things to come, I won't last long with the kiddos. So once again I am making the choice to EXERCISE and will give weekly updates. keep your fingers crossed for me.

"Final" Choices

Alot has changed in the few days since I last wrote. My mom never woke up. But she slept peacefully as she went to see her family on the other side of the veil. I was able to be with her, a choice that I made, and it was one of the sweetest experience I have had. I knew my brother Craig, who passed away several years ago, was in the room waiting for mom. So I wispered in my moms ear that we would be ok, we would miss her, but it was ok for her to go get that big bear hug that my brother was so famous for. Minutes later she peacefully left this earth. Her final choice, and I know there is a big dance going on in heaven right now to welcome her home.
But with her choice to leave us, we who are left behind have had to make some choices and some have been hard. Planning her memorial has been a bit hard for me because she was such a great person to me. I want her to be remembered for all the things she did for others while on this earth and it is just hard to do her memory justice.
We have had to make the choice of where to hold the service. Myself I think I would have liked the Chapel but I needed to make sure that all my family felt comfortable so we have decided to have the service at the funeral home and the dinner after at the chapel. I think that choice is the best option.
Now what do we do for the service itself. Do we have the bishop conduct, but we decided that we wanted it to be about mom. So we are going to have a slide show, and then just talk about mom and remember her and what she meant to those around her.
I have been able to go through pictures with my sisters and it has been fun to see all the different sides of my mother. See her from her humble beginnings, raising her family, and enjoying her grandchildren.
I hope the choices I am making to honor my mom, will please her, because I know she will be watching. She is not one to miss a party.

A Lifetime of Choices

I have been spending a lot of time with my Mom the past few days. Since she isn't awake it has given me a lot of time to thing about her and her life. What choices did she have to make to get her to where she was? Did she wish to change some of the choices she made? I wonder, because I know she had to make some very hard choices to help her family survive.
My mom and dad loved the ranching life and lived in Northern California on the Madeline Plains Ranch. It was owned by the Dodge Bros. Corp. My Nonnie decided to sell the ranch without giving my parents any choice in the matter so they had to move back to Fallon to a Dairy in Stillwater District. This was not their choice, so they weren't really happy. Just goes to show a person, that having a say in a choice makes a difference on how successful that choice is. While in Stillwater there were a lot of things that happened that forced my parents, mainly my mom to make very hard life changing choices.
While here my mom was in a bad car rollover. She had all my brothers and sisters in the car with her. Toni and Kristi were about 18 mo., Danelle would have been almost 7, Bob was 9, Craig was 11. I guess the car was upside down and mom had to make the choice to sit and wait for the car to catch fire or get her family out at any cost. Of course she did what any mother would and decided to save her family. So she put her hand through the window and broke out the glass so that everyone could get out. In doing so, she really tore up her right hand and arm, but no one else was hurt. When the ambulance got there and saw my moms arm they weren't sure if it could be saved. They took her to Reno to get the bleeding stopped and then on to San Fransisco Med. Center where she underwent a major surgery. Now bear in mind this was in 1953 I think. The doctors took the tendons from three of her fingers and reconstructed her index finger and thumb so that she would at least have pinchers, but the nerve damage was to much so my mom spent the rest of her life not having any feeling in her right arm from the elbow down. This probably wouldn't have been so bad but she had twins in diapers and was right handed, and this all happened when she was just around 32 YEARS OLD This is where her CHOICE came in to
play. She made the choice not to let this hold her down. She worked hard to learn to do everything left handed. She learned to put diaper pins in with her teeth and one hand.(way before disposable diapers) She had to go to San Fransisco a lot for therapy, but she always took one of my older siblings and treated it as a learning experience. In the end she could do just about anything with both hands and later in life this became a great blessing to others because she could teach knitting and crocheting to both right and left handed people.
Not long after this an earthquake came through Fallon and did major damage. In fact it went right under the house in Stillwater and did some major damage. The chimney came in through the roof and second floor and ended up in the living room. No one was hurt so that was good. Mom made the Choice to stay and try to make a go of the farm. But.......
They just got things fixed up and my dad suffered a major heart attack and was rushed to Reno and then on to San Fransisco. He had major heart surgery. I can remember the scar on his chest, it went from armpit to armpit. He was in a coma for 4 weeks. Mom had to make some very hard choices in order to save her family again. She decided that they needed to sell the farm and move closer to town. One the expense of rebuilding everything really put a strain on them and also the cost of Dad not being able to do the farm work was just too much. So they moved into Fallon. Dad got better but was never able to do as much as he once had. He went to work for Dodge construction and things were good for awhile.
After I was born, Dodge Construction was sold, so Dad was looking for work and mom made the Choice to go to work to help out with bills. That had to be a very hard Choice to make because she was a stay at home mom. She got a job at a local building supply store called Builders Supply, being their bookkeeper. It was great because it was just down the road from our house and they let her bring me to work.
These stories make me realize that I stress way too much over choices that I have to make. None of them have really had a huge impact on my life. The stories also make me realize that I can make the hard choices when I need to because it is in my DNA. Thanks MOM you are the best.