The Jedi

May the "force" be with you!

The Daydawn Got Broken

When I was younger, I wasn't always agreeable to waking up on a schedule. At some point, my mother tired of begging me to wake up and get out of bed over and over each morning, and stopped trusting my alarm clock to gently sing me into wakefulness. She devised her own method of waking me and my siblings up, and it was the most effective ploy EVER!

Now if you don't know my mother, then you are missing out on creativity of a unique sort. I think all of us kids got at least some degree of that from her, and I think we all appreciate that gift given to us. This one area, none of us ever really appreciated. It just seemed so harsh and tainted...it was WRONG to do to us! What did she do? She sang.

Our Grandmother (Mama's mama)...bless her heart...taught this unique singing ability to our mother. They both might deny that, but it only takes hearing them both sing this way just once to become a believer. Mommaw was "born under a wandering star" that would make your skin crawl right off your arms and leave you. Mama would take on a similar tone and howl (yes I use that word intentionally and yes I know Mama will likely be the first to read this blog. Truth is truth!) the formerly beautiful hymn "The Daydawn is Breaking." If the entire first verse didn't do the job, she would catch her breath and assault our ears further with the second and third verse if necessary. We learned fast, and rarely were the extra verses necessary. Sadly though, that first verse would get to the end before ALL four of us had drug ourselves out of bed completely with both feet on the floor. The end result of that is without having read through the words of that hymn over about 4 times in my entire life, I can sing that first verse word for word.

I'm currently 40 years old, and that trauma of my youth has never left me. Occasionally, Mama will still crank up those vocal chords and assault our ears again when we visit, so my children understand that when we visit Granny and I say GET OUT OF BED NOW....I mean it! When we're at home, though, my children have been less in tune with my request of waking up.

Today we had stake conference at church. For some reason, I really wanted to be there. I can't explain why it mattered so much, it just did, and I woke up at 8:45am! We had to leave at 9:30 to be on time, and my kids are slow slow slow on a Sunday morning. So I started into their rooms with the usual "Time to get up kids, it's church day, get up and get dressed, let's go, let's go." Nobody even rolled over! I was in no mood to be yelling at anybody or having to get Tommy to do battle with the kids FOR me,.... and all the sudden the inspiration came to me....

I tilted my head back, took in a deep breath, and quite loudly began to howl....

The daydawn is breaking, the world is awaking. The clouds of nights darkness are fleeing away. The worldwide commotion from ocean to ocean now heralds the time of the beautiful day. Beautiful DAYYYYYYYY of peace and rest. Bright be they DAWWWWWWWN from east to west. Hail to thine EARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRLIEST welcome ray. Beautiful briiiiiiiight millenial day.

Mesa was out of bed by the phrase "The clouds of nights darkness..." and Morgan was out of bed (with the assistance of Mesa screaming "GET OUT OF BED BOYS, NOW!") by the phrase "beautiful dayyyyyy..." But Jared wouldn't get up, so Mesa proceeded to beat him with a pillow to aid her panicky screams. By the time I finished that first verse, Jared had rolled his over and looked at me. I was going to start again, but Mesa pushed me aside and ran to Jared to drag him out of bed.

I never thought I would do that to my children, but I experienced pure joy as I did. The church hymns really have that kind of power! My heart is full...thank you Mama!

The moral of this story is:
What doesn't kill us makes us stronger so we can inflict it upon others later in life!

The District

I'm on a Missionary Moms email list. The list divides itself out to specific mission locations, so Manti's mission area is one list (the one I'm on) and there are umpteen others so moms of missionaries in those areas can correspond and support each other.

So recently I was saying hi to a new mom who just joined the group and had told us all where her son is going. He is in exactly the same mission as Manti, just a month and a half behind him. Another mom had also said hi and told the lady her son was currently in the MTC, Spanish speaking, and leaves the MTC on the same day Manti does. So my comment came after hers, and then the lady said "Oh yeah, I meant to tell you I had gotten a picture of all the guys in our boys' district." So then she emails me this.....

It's from a throw-away camera and she had to scan the print, so that makes it grainy....but who's complaining? MY BOY IS SMILING! I don't know which one of these is his companion, but I printed him a copy and sent it to him asking him to label it with their names so we would know who is who.

Tell me this doesn't make your heart warm and mushy :)

Cub Scouts-Future Missionaries

13 years ago, Manti was a cub scout and I was his den leader. He and I worked hard on all sorts of activities. He learned so much and I can see that scouting molded his character. Today, Manti is an Eagle Scout who has won Carroll County Eagle Scout of the Year and is now serving a mission--carrying his skills and character to total strangers. He is continuing the scouting values in a whole new way.

And here at home, I am guiding Morgan through cub scouts and preparing Jared for cub scouts. We use Manti as an example quite often. Today, our project was to achieve the Communicating Belt Loop. One of the requirements for this award is to write and send a letter to someone. I found directions for folding a piece of paper into a shirt, so I took those instructions to scouts and showed the boys how to do it. Then they wrote letters to Manti on the inside and dropped them into my "mail slot"/envelope. I will send them out in a day or two. Are they not the cutest little things?

One day, .... at least some of these same boys will be Eagle Scouts....and hopefully missionaries after that.