What's in a hug?

The hug that should have been, but wasn’t and the pain it brought instead

The hug that’s familiar, that you can’t imagine life without

The hug of a loved one after a long time apart

The hug you didn’t expect, but happily received

The hug from virtual strangers that means you’re in a safe place 

The hug from a friend just to say “I feel for you”

The hug she needs because life is confusing

The hug that’s surprisingly good after a really bad date

The hug that lasts and makes you realize there’s a difference between hugging and holding someone. 
And you like it. 

The first hug, that signifies letting him in

The slightly uncomfortable hug that makes you wonder what he’s thinking

The hug that makes you feel like you could stay there forever

The hug that brings comfort at just the right moment

The hug that reminds you how long it’s been

The hug that makes others wonder, but you don’t care what they think

The hug you can’t have, and the awkward handshake instead

The hug that came, because a handshake just wasn’t good enough

The hugs accompanied by “I love you” that show the many types of love

LDS General Conference

So I've greatly enjoyed listening to the LDS General Conference this weekend.  If I had to sum up my impressions from the messages in one word, I'd have to say. . .

Courage

It seemed like multiple times in each sessions messages explicitly or implicitly spoke of courage and how faith combats fear and we need to be prepared to stand up for our beliefs and be obedient to the Lord's commandments.  However, my favorite talk of the weekend by far was delivered by W. Craig Zwick as it spoke, like many others, courage, but emphasized the need to be empathetic and christlike in doing so.  I think that sometimes purposefully or accidentally, we tend to stand up for our own perspective in ways that exclude or belittle the other individual's point of view.  I've seen the pain this can cause first hand and loved his analogies of how the Savior showed perfect love and acceptance to all while still preaching His gospel and remaining firm on the commandments of God.  Definitely something we can all strive towards and certainly a thought that should be at the forefront of our minds every time we are faced with situations where our knowledge and understanding differs from others.

To Do Lists

At work I have a system for keeping myself organized.  The nature of my work often has me juggling several different projects that all have their own priorities and timelines.  In order to keep track of what I have to do I use Outlook.  It's a great system with built in tools that allow me to flag emails I need to follow up on but don't have time to do at the moment and set deadlines and reminders.  I can also add my own to-dos and all my emails and written to dos show up as little red flags in my task bar organized by due dates.  Some people don't like this system or have other ways of doing things, but it certainly works for me.  Keeps me on track and lets me prioritize things with built in reminders.  I find that most of the time as long as I keep up with my to dos and check things off the list and do a thorough review of what's on there to clean out things that are done but I forgot to check off at least once a week, it works great.

Sometimes though, when I get really busy, this list gets a little unwieldy.  Those days I move to my back up plan of keeping a pile of paper with notes from meetings, documents with stickies about what I need to do with them etc. in a pile or folder on my desk.  Stuff goes in here if it's notes from a meeting that lists things I need to do but haven't had time to add to my to-do list or things I need to make sure get done before I get back to tackling the electronic to-do list.  Even in the busy times, I normally only go a few days before I have a chance to sort through this pile of papers and complete things and/or add them to my electronic to-do list.

But every once in a while both of these systems get so overwhelmed that my task bar is a laundry list of items I don't even have the time to sort through and my desktop is cluttered with piles of papers because my one pile has now sprouted into several so that important items don't get buried in a mass of papers and forgotten.  It's on these days, like today, that I resort to the back-up to the back-up plan and use my notepad and paper to write myself a handwritten to-do list with boxes to place checkmarks that usually includes 2-5 items I have to get done first then a to-do to sort through my to-dos.  As I hit the end of my day today I decided I had to do this to organize myself to tackle my mess of work tomorrow, after listing several things I have to get done tomorrow, I ended up with three to-dos at the end of my handwritten list to
1. review my piles of meeting notes and documents to identify tasks to add to my to-do list
2. review my electronic to-do list to prioritize items
3. Start doing my to-do list

That's how crazy my work week has been.

Gratitude for thoughtful Bishops

I've been pondering recently on the role a Bishop plays in the Mormon church and felt like I wanted to take this opportunity to share a few experiences I've had that have made me grateful for my interactions with wonderful men as they have filled that calling.  While I had many wonderful Bishops growing up that I appreciated, my significant glimpses into the roles of Mormon Bishops didn't really begin until college.  As a single woman trying to figure out how to balance her life with her role in the eternal plan of salvation, I will always remember the first Bishop I sincerely counseled with about issues I felt were holding me back from where I wanted to be spiritually.  His kind, wise direction and sincere expressions of God's love for me while acting as a common judge in Israel taught me a lot about the Atonement and the many purposes of it.

I am also forever grateful for a thoughtful Bishop who had a friendly conversation with me about the opportunity to serve a mission.  At the time I felt I had already made that decision and was a bit confused about the suggestion I consider the opportunity again, but knew without a doubt then and now that he was inspired to prompt me to reconsider the option.  So many experiences and greater understandings about the principles of prayer, obedience, service and love came into my life as a direct result of that conversation.

As a missionary, I spent almost 11 months serving the same ward and thus had a longer opportunity that most missionaries to work with a single Bishop and set of ward leadership in that capacity.  While there were times of great synergy, there were also times of misunderstanding and exclusion.  But in those experiences I also saw instances where the character and inclinations of a man were set aside in favor of actions that demonstrated the principle that while priesthood leaders may make mistakes just like any of us, one who thoughtfully and righteously fulfills his calling can have a great impact on those in his stewardship even when mistakes may be made.  I learned through a particular experience with him that when present on both sides of an offense, love, humility and forgiveness can right any wrong through the power of the Holy Spirit.

After moving to Arizona I had the opportunity to work closely with a Bishop through my calling as Relief Society President.  One of the things he always made clear to me was that my opinion, perspective and input was valued and he not only encouraged me to voice it and specifically sought after it on many occasions, but also understood that by virtue of the calling and stewardship I was entrusted with, I would receive guidance and revelation and he expected me to communicate that to him.  I truly appreciate his understanding and practice of that principle and never once felt undervalued, excluded from relevant decisions, or like a secondary participant in the process of leading the ward - an experience I've had since then in other ward callings with other Bishops as well.  As I've heard others' experiences and perceptions of women's roles in the church and especially in church leadership, I can't help but be grateful that my experiences have been keeping with and even at times over-emphasizing the divine role and value of women.  Although I'm certainly not trying to discredit the experiences other women may have had that have shaped their differing views on the way the Mormon church values women, the experiences I've had thus far simply support a different conclusion.

Last but not least I'd like to say a word about my current Bishop with whom I've had the opportunity to discuss some subjects close to my heart and certainly relevant to others in the ward.  I've been grateful for his sincere interest and thoughtful discussion that I think has helped us both come to a greater understanding.  Although I know everyone's experiences are different, I'm grateful for all that I have learned and continue to learn through interactions with men who have been called to serve and thoughtfully fulfill their callings as Bishops.

Spark! after Dark

Saturday was a good day.  I spent the morning volunteering at a local community garden.  One of my new year's goals was to volunteer more and although it took me a few months to really get going, it felt good to get moving on it this last week.  Then I attended a ward baptism in the afternoon, had dinner twice with two sets of friends - one early, one late (thank goodness I logged over 12,000 steps that day to burn those calories) and attended Spark after Dark, the Mesa festival of creativity. It's always interesting for me to see what the local cities have to offer and this festival was an interesting one.  There were several different performers and art installations on display and some vendors including a photo booth.  It was fun to spend an evening with friends in some beautiful Arizona spring weather.

 

Bangon Bantayan

In December, I had the chance to travel with the Philippine Improvement Group to a small island in the Philippines called Bantayan to do typhoon clean-up.  I'm forever grateful for my former mission companion, Jessica for convincing me to go.  It was incredible.  After much long traveling and a bit of reminiscing we finally made it to Cebu island and after a brief fireside with the local branch we took a bumpy ride to our hotel in a little place called Bogo.  

 It was a nice little resort as you can see from the picture above, but a little walking around the next morning, showed me just how devastating the storm really was.

 As we left the resort and caught the ferry to Bantayan Island where we'd be staying for the week, I knew we were in for a truly unique experience.  This trip was many, many things, but least of all it was pretty amazing to hear why we all came.  Sixteen of us had come on this trip and we each had our own special stories about how we got there.  Most of us were return missionaries who had served in the Philippines and so had a special desire to help.  "Gramps" as we called him, had served in the military and lived on a filipino air base decades ago, and the rest of our few English only speakers who came along just because they have big hearts really rounded out our group of volunteers.  We were probably all especially thankful though for our resident reporter, Dylan Brown, who works for the Standard Examiner and came along to document our trip through stories, photos and videos.  You can see all of his coverage of our trip here.

 When we finally made it to Bantayan Island after a good 3 days of travel, it was incredible to see the after effects of one of the worst storms to ever hit land.

It's hard to communicate with pictures how sad it was to look around this once beautiful island and see downed trees, damaged structures and cries for help everywhere you looked.  I think the trees surprised me the most.  I had expected to see structural damage knowing how many filipino families live in easily damaged makeshift housing, but I hadn't thought for some reason that all the beautiful foliage which is so ever-present in this beautiful island nation would be so altered as well.  

It had been several weeks since the typhoon hit, and life on the island was starting to get back to normal so to speak.  Many of the shacks that had been completely flattened had popped back up again, kids had just gone back to school, and the palengke (market) was open for business albeit without a roof.

The roads and public spaces were also in great condition thanks to a Korean company that had come in and offered relief by hiring locals for 5 day shifts to clean up public spaces, thus allowing a way for residents to earn some much needed cash whilst also cleaning up their public areas.  In fact by the time we arrived, all the island roads had been cleaned so thoroughly that the current shift of workers had basically taken to just walking the streets all day looking for trash and sweeping up fallen leaves.  I've never seen Filipino roadways so litter free.

 In spite of this resiliency though, it was clear that there was a long ways to go by way of rebuilding, and that life on this little island would certainly never be the same.

One of the things I truly enjoyed throughout the trip was getting to speak to the people and hear their stories and communicate with them in their own language.  One day I met this woman named Cheryl and her one month old baby Juan.  She shared with me how as she was huddled with her children listening to the storm rage outside she kept feeling like she needed to wrap another towel around her baby.  And then another, and another and another.  She recalled how it seemed odd to her that she'd feel the need to wrap him up in four towels as none of the other children seemed cold and it's so warm in the Philippines that usually babies aren't wrapped up like they are in other colder climates.  However, when the storm finally ceased and they emerged to assess the damage and check in with the neighbors over the next few days, she realized what a miracle it was that she was prompted to know what to do to keep her baby safe when she learned that a 5 month old from another family had died of hypothermia. 

 Our home while we were on Bantayan was Salazar College of Science and Information Technology (SCSIT).  This is a private school that has students ranging from kindergarten all the way up through more advanced trade courses.  They were incredibly welcoming to us and it was the perfect home base for our adventures.

Upon arrival at the school, Icky Slazar, the school administrator, gave us a little orientation and talked about the experience on Bantayan during the typhoon.  He explained that almost every structure on the island had been damaged to some degree with many homes, public and private buildings in need of major repair.  SCSIT had faired better than some of the schools, but still had several classrooms that were completely unusable and a lot of debris that needed to be cleaned up.  He then showed us a 5 min video a friend of his had taken that showed just how strong the high winds had been.  As we watched for just a few minutes and heard the wind howl and saw branches, debris and and the roof of a neighboring house fly off right before our eyes, it was hard to grasp how terrifying it must have been as that same intensity raged on for over two hours.  

Icky explained that while Bantayan had been hit by the most intense part of the storm, several natural features had been the saving grace that kept the damage and death rate from being much worse.  Unlike the neighboring islands of Leyte and Samar, which were also badly hit, Bantayan Island has a series of underwater caverns and a long shelf of land along the coasts that absorbed much of the water preventing the massive flooding that was seen on the other islands.  That combined with the fact that the storm hit Bantayan during low tide, meant that they were spared the storm surge that caused such destruction in places like Tacloban.  After our sobering orientation and huge expressions of gratitude from Icky thanking us for being here and being willing to provide our strength in numbers to help his people begin to rebuild it was time to go to work.  

 Over the next week we did much of our work right on the school grounds, pulling down damaged roof pieces and cleaning out debris from damaged classrooms, Collecting downed tree branches and overall just putting our combined manpower to work.

We would venture out in the community to help with other projects as the week went on, but it felt good to give back to the school that was housing us, transporting us, and has such a positive philosophy about truly helping citizens to help themselves.  Lodging was an interesting beast as we had been given one multipurpose room and bathroom to call our own while we were there.  At night time we would spread out under the open sky (if it was a clear night) or into empty classrooms to catch some Zzzzs.  I'd forgotten how loud the Philippines can be with tin roofs, noisy machinery and roosters.  One of Bantayan Island's main sources of income is chicken farming.  Despite the fact that chicken huts had been destroyed in the storm and many of the animals killed or sold off for a fraction of their price to provide food for people in those first few days after when no ferries were coming to the island, it was still a cacophony of noise at night.  

One of our group members, Brennan, who had never been to the Philippines before, awoke after the first night on the island and said "What was all of that? I didn't even recognize half those noises!"  One of the most interesting pieces was the addition of a band to the nighttime racket.  Madridejos, the little community our school was in, was having its town fiesta the following week and the marching band had apparently taken to practicing in the early mornings before the sun rose.  One morning we walked down to the town square to see them just as they were finishing up practice.  This is probably one of my favorite images from the trip.  Knowing how important "Kababayan" or community cohesiveness is to Filipino culture it was heart-wrenching to see this once beautiful park, in many ways the pride and center of the community, scarred so heavily.  Yet in spite of the lost sleep due to the hours of early morning drumming, it brought a smile to my face to see these youth practicing so hard for a celebration that while likely smaller than it would have been otherwise, was so deserved by a people who had been through a lot of stress and turmoil in recent weeks.  

Some of my favorite activities were when we'd take a break from our manual labor to interact with the community in meaningful ways.  We were invited to several local schools to do what they call "de-stress debriefings".  Basically we were there to lighten the mood and provide some meaningful but fun interaction to support and uplift these kids and encourage them to not give up on their education even though they culturally have very high drop out rates and at many had a lot of stress at home.  Some of these schools were functioning with less than half of their classrooms and makeshift temporary classrooms making the learning environment less than ideal, but it was a real pleasure to interact with these beautiful kids.  

In traditional non-profit work, feeding programs are often discouraged as they promote dependency but in times of crisis they are deemed appropriate as a way to help offset the cost of living to allow people to put that money into other things - like buying a new roof.  One day we had the opportunity to participate in Bantayan's feeding program by purchasing, preparing and serving dinner to over 600 filipino children.  

 It was truly an amazing experience and one I'm sure we will all remember fondly for years to come.

As rewarding as the school visits and feeding program were, there was no doubt that the truly special thing we brought to the island was our strength in numbers and physical man-power.  Working together we were able to clear out huge trees, dismantle strangely collapsed structures and help prepare for the re-building that is to come.  It felt great to see the progress we could make in just short amounts of time and felt even greater to work alongside some of our new filipino friends.  

 The building below was a hotel lobby and game room that had been shelter for at least 30 neighborhood residents before it too was torn apart by the storm causing them to try to seek refuge elsewhere.  Seeing sights like this truly were a testament to the awesome power of nature.  Our clean up day here was definitely one of my favorite days as swarms of neighborhood kids came to watch or join in and the rain cooled things off a bit.  

 The game room had a bowling alley that was still functional and we were able to take a break and play around a bit after carefully removing some dangling beams.

While I certainly wouldn't  say that our efforts were all work and no fun, because we did have a great time doing the labor, we did have a handful of moments just to enjoy.  Amazing sunsets at the beach and an afternoon of playing at a cave and the coast before heading home were exclamation points on an already amazing trip.

 All in all, I have no doubt that Bantayan will will rise again as their sign "Bangon Bantayanon" implies.  I'm just grateful that I was able to be a small part of the process.

My Fictional Child

At some point during the last 7 years I apparently made it onto a mailing list as having a child.  Years ago after I first moved to Arizona I suddenly started to get some preschool and kindergarten mailings.  I never have been able to figure out what put me on that mailing list, but apparently the info is out there in the world because I still get a handful of material in the mail each year that is obviously geared toward the parent of a child.  What has been interesting to me is that my fictional child does seem to be appropriately aging.  Preschool information gave way to grade school tutors and then after school sports programs and this week I received a catalog from a local high school district with an invitiation to consider their schools.  Apparently my non-existent baby is growing right up.  Now if only my absentee husband would come into the picture.