A Little Change of Plans

This afternoon I got a text from the Relief Society president. A person I visit teach needs some coats, can I take her to Good Will to get some? My first reaction is resistance. Of course the answer is yes, but in order to do this, I need to cancel or decline the plans I already have for tonight. Can't these needs be planned? But priorities, right? I cancel my plans and head out after work. Dinner can wait. Good Will is only open till 8.

Conversation is a little tough once I pick her up. It is all me asking questions - trying awkwardly to connect. As we talk I realize how hard things have been. Health problems. Husband is out of work. They don't even have coats.

We go to Good Will. We scour large bins full of disorganized clothing.

Last time I got rid of clothes I threw them all away. It was too much work to donate them - and who actually uses them anyway? Who would want what I have? These weren't justifications, they were honest beliefs.

Well here I am, on the other end of it. Every new bin of clothing brought up is devoured by the crowd. I swear to myself I will donate everything in the future. Someone might need that coat. I realize I have old coats sitting in my closet. I could give her those.

She is looking for coats with hoods because her family has no hats, scarves or gloves. I'm not sure I've ever known anyone who didn't.

After helping her bring the load of coats to her door, I drive home with the radio off to process these events. You know, I really do love helping. I could have spent my night pursuing my plans, but I got to think about someone else and it was humbling. I need the reminders that people out there exist who really do need so that I can be mindful of them and aware of the service that they need.

I think this little change of plans made the world a slightly better place tonight.

The more you give, the more you give. This is why.

Stud of the Month - May 2015

 

I was sitting in church one fine Sunday when I got this text:

In the past there was another person who tried to become an SOTM, but something stubborn in me was bothered by that. Here when I stopped to think about it, Ben already has stud of the month status I had just never thought of it before. My reaction to the #studofthemonththings text was - totally.

One of the things that has always really mattered to me in life is friendship. I've never liked the idea that a friend is just someone to hang out with because it is convenient, or fills a need. I always strongly preferred the idea that friends would grow into people you genuinely love and that there is a loyalty and commitment behind that friendship. You would be there for them in the hard times, and stick up for them even if everyone else walked. I've always been surprised that everyone doesn't feel this way about friendship.

Ben is totally that kind of person. I first realized this when one of his friends had irritated me and I was not impressed. One of my less awesome qualities is a total lack of tact, so in true character, I vocalized my feelings to Ben. Ben was completely loyal to this friend and always is. In response, he'll always point out why he is friends with this person and what he likes about them. He even manages to stick up for his friend in a way that recognizes his friend's shortcomings, but still explicitly acknowledges that he does, and always will love this friend. I've known people who get that fake kind of I'm-better-than-you-because-I-don't-judge-and-you-do thing about them in situations like this, but Ben doesn't. He sticks up for people because he really does care about them. He's not judging, he just says it like he genuinely sees it. He's that kind of friend.

The second thing is his inclusiveness. I feel like I have boundaries in who I choose as friends, but Ben seems to be more open. We were in the same law school class, but he became friends with a lot more people than I did and keeps pretty close ties with most of them partly because I think he is just more open to accepting and loving people for who they are.

I was most impressed by this when I went to his wife's baby shower. It was filled with friends or significant others of people from our law school class as well as friends from church. I had been in both of those worlds, but he did a better job of building and maintaining these friendships. I left that event quite genuinely impressed by this and I find it something to aspire to.

So, partly because of his campaigning, and partially because he really is that awesome, Ben Hegvic is May 2015 Stud of the Month.

 

 

Studette of the Month - March 2015

It was my first time living alone. After 7 months, I was at my wits end. I HATED everything about the experience, with the exception of the fact that my apartment was constantly spotless. I missed having someone to chat with at night. I missed having someone to bump into in the morning. I've always loved the way roommates naturally become your best friend just by virtue of exposure.

It was heart-breakingly lonely to be living alone for me. It might be easier on someone who doesn't enjoy the sociality of a home life, or people who thrive on TV or hobbies. I do neither.

I had one of those moments where I just couldn't handle it any more and offered a very sincere prayer for a new roommate. With in the week I had a phone call from a girl I'd never met before who was looking for a place to live. She seemed to campaign hard to move in. I readily accepted and then realized I should probably meet her first. When she came to meet me, I became a little worried. Her life story was a little...sketchy. I spent that night having night mares of things going terribly wrong on the home front and berating myself for accepting this new living companion without getting to know her better. But the deal had been made, so she moved in.

I liked her from the start. We both love French. Her father served a French-speaking mission. She was highly creative, and clearly talented. She was very honest - a trait I love. She loves having people over as much as I do. She really likes people, just like I do.

 

For the first few months there was friction in the sense that we are both rather opinionated and often our chatting resulted in arguments. But then there was the time that I looked up everything she was arguing and texted her a list of cites proving she was wrong. I knew it was a jerk thing to do, but she didn't punch back. She said she stood corrected, and that melted my heart just a little. I love it when people are nice when I'm a jerk. I just absolutely respect their bigness.

Then there was the time she came home and almost gave her last dollar to the people she met at the gas station who were living out of their car. I talked her out of giving her money, but she just looked at me and said - if you met them, you would see how much they needed it. She just has a natural sense of compassion that I really love. I've seen her buy a new bed so she could give her old one away to a friend. I've literally seen her give her car away to a friend in need. She used to cook me breakfast in the morning. All winter she's always left the heater on in the bathroom for me. She just has a really huge heart and kindness is a very natural thing for her.

I could go on and on.

I have a friend who is always wondering how the two of us get along - as in she seems doubtful that we could. But we get along quite well, and I feel privileged to have her for a roommate. This month we've been roommates for TWO YEARS!! That's so crazy.

Sometimes you take your chances, and it turns out to be one of the best things you ever could have done.

2014 Year End Review

What do you do on a sleepless night? Catch up on your blog. That is, after you've given up all hope of falling asleep. Here, my blog followers, is 2014 in a nutshell.

January:

New Year's Eve was spent with these guys.

These were the number of states lived in, visited, and left.

By the end of the year every continental state was colored in!

My domestic bliss has been fairly steady. These two are amazing piano players and cooks. I'd often come home to these two hanging out, playing amazing music, and cooking great food. I really love these guys so much. Audra and I have been roommates for a year as of February.

I was young women's president which meant that once a month our ward planned an activity. This was our proudest one. It was all analogous of the plan of salvation. They had a plane crash, complete with peanuts. Games. It rocked. We set ourselves up for high expectations after that which I can't say we quite met.

This is one of the annual highlights of my year, when Suz comes into town to visit. I LOVE these girls.

There is something nostalgic to me about the courthouse. You can't see it in the photo, but if you look through the window, the arch is perfectly framed. I just love this view. I had a phone interview for Kansas City on the day I had this interview. I wasn't ready to leave this city yet!

I went to a few trampoline classes. So. Much. Fun.

Met my roommate's family in Kansas City. Caught this view leaving my roommate's sister's church.

February:



My friend, Joana came to visit me in St. Louis. We visited a sculpture park. I've always wanted a picture with this eye ball.

I spent my Valentine's day in Kansas City at a dance. Met some cool people.



Domestic bliss continued in February.

I finally got to go to the chess museum. Since I was there, got my picture next to the world's largest chess piece. Why not.

Our young women's crew.

At work, Charlie stuck this on my file bin. You know you work with guys when....

For young women's, I went to a black history performance.

I have to say, it made me SUPER mad at all of the oppression in this country.

You just don't get these kinds of experiences in New Hampshire.

This was the lovely lady I went to support.

Made some new friends.

Did a service project.

Went to a hockey game.

Spring was lovely.

Visited this place for the first time.

This picture does NO JUSTICE to our great surprise. Blood moon!!

Young women's activity our ward planned.

Another play to support our young woman!

Star wars night at the science center.

Roommate Love





 

Today I randomly discovered this little note.  It must have been written 10 years ago back when we were roommates.  Since then she got married in Vegas, had two children, and most days is hanging on to dear life due to an insane amount of health problems.  The man she was madly in love with at the time we were roommates has turned out to be an amazing husband.  He was her non-committal boyfriend at the time whose drum set found itself a home in my house until further notice. (I say that  jokingly, I always thought he was a great guy.) But Katie saw in him something she was unwilling to let go of, and it paid off. 

This picture is of her the last time I saw her in person.  She always made time to see me when I was in Salt Lake visiting.  I really appreciated that. 

 

One of my favorite memories of Katie was the year I ran out to get a cake and candles to celebrate her birthday.  When she went to blow out the candles they all extinguished, and a few seconds later they reignited all by themselves.  She looked at me and said, "You bought trick candles didn't you! My family always buys trick candles."  I insisted that I hadn't.  Then I looked at the box.  The joke was on me; in my hurry I had accidentally bought trick candles. It made for a great birthday though.

Way to make me miss you Katie!

Birthday Goal

One lazy summer day after my sophomore year of college I had the day off.  My mother was babysitting a couple of children of a woman whose husband was dying of cancer.  The woman’s husband was nearing the end and he was fearful of dying while she was gone so he wouldn’t let her out of his sight.  Their supplies of food had slowly dwindled, but she couldn’t make it out to go shopping without upsetting her husband.  After hearing this, my mother gathered up food supplies from our house and when the children were returned, so was a collection of food for the family to live off of for the next little while. 

A few hours later my little sisters arrived home from school.  There had been some snacks in the house that they wanted.  When they sought them and couldn’t find them they demanded them of my mother, who simply responded that the snacks were gone.  ‘Where did they go?’ My mother simply said that she gave them to the lady.  My sisters were mad, but my mother just kept on about her business with no explanation of why they were gone at all.

It was then that I realized that my mother had quietly been doing things like this my entire life and I, like my sisters that day, had had no idea. 

In subsequent years, between close family friends and discussions with my brothers and sisters, we’ve put together probably only a few of the incidents like this.  Our friend, Diana, once posed the question, wouldn’t you want to model this kind of giving to your children rather than just staying silent about it? 

I suppose.  But my mother modeled giving as well, and the only way to model silent giving is to give silently.  Everyone’s dirty secrets come out eventually, but so do the good ones.  You can only hide so long from the truth.

When I lived in Salt Lake my old roommate, Rachel, my friend, Danny, and I had a garden.  All three of us were terrible at keeping up with the watering.  We’d notice it was nearly dead and run out and water it every few days.  One day, we noticed something different - turgor pressure!  But none of us had watered the garden.  Someone was sneaking into our back yard and watering our pathetic little garden for us.  But who was this person?  Rachel and I would often muse over this while we ate dinner. 

The funny thing was that we became suspicious of everyone, but in the opposite way you feel after someone has broken into your car.  You start thinking that amazing person could be this person, and you are just a little nicer to everyone and thinking a little better of everyone in case it was them.  It could be one of our other roommates – they were all pretty amazing people after all.  It could be a friend stopping by – we loved them too.  Turns out it was one of the kids at our next door neighbors’ house. Their 14-year-old son was watering our plants when Rachel caught him one day. 

This morning an acquaintance of mine posted the statement that if you give expecting to get something back, you will find yourself disappointed, because other people’s hearts aren’t as big as yours.  I left a long response.  From my 2012 goal to do 1,000 acts of kindness, I found that people give back so abundantly no matter how much you try to make it clear that this wasn’t what you were seeking from giving.  Ironically, as I was typing out my response to him, I got a text from someone who I had given brownies to that year, letting me know there were brownies on my doorstep waiting for me.  While I was walking to court this morning, I was remembering that with my 2012 goal, I had realized that by doing all of my co-worker’s dishes after I washed mine it was a super easy way to fit a few more kind acts in for the day.  Then it would inevitably happen.  I’d start to notice that if I left my dishes for more than a few hours they would get washed by the kind act of a co-worker. Giving contributes to the culture around you and if it isn’t already there, it usually starts creeping in.

 (Brownies found on my doorstep this morning.)

I was thinking about all of this, the idea of giving with the idea of getting back, giving selflessly versus unselfishly, and it just clicked what this year’s birthday goal will be -   giving secretly - just like mom and the boy next door.  Please note that I do recognize that even writing a blog post about it is terribly contradictory.  This year there will be no mention of what was done, or to whom, or how much, but next year I will write what I learned from it.  I am convinced that it will be an amazing experience.  

Studette of the Month: September 2014

This morning I rushed out of the house dressed in a black pencil skirt, black heels, and a black shirt.

I was thinking of her just the day before I heard that she had passed away.  I had thought of her comment so many years ago about how she had learned not to pray for charity because some outlandish thing would always happen that would leave her regretting it.  I had thought that was a funny thing to say.  But what I appreciated about it, was her honesty.

Today I found myself five minutes late to her funeral, trying to slink inconspicuously into the very back row.  As I sat there looking at the crowd of people, there were so many familiar faces. 

She had been in the Stake Relief Society when I was relief society president in the singles branch in 2007.  The legacy she leaves with me was taught during a ward conference all those years ago.  The stake leaders had come to a meeting with us before church.  As usual, I was late and disheveled.  When it came her time to teach, she pointed out that being late was rude, and why it was rude.  As we continued with the meeting, my second counselor was young, only 19.  I had picked her thinking that since she wasn't leaving for college and didn't really have a job, that she would have lots of time to devote to the calling.  As any green leader learns, this is not a good idea.  Every meeting I had, it seemed she dropped the ball.  I didn't know what to do about it. 

This meeting was no different.  My counselor had planned a meeting with her committee and she reported that it had fallen through.  Mona looked directly at me and said, 'This is a teaching moment, and I am going to teach you how you handle this.'  She looked at my counselor, and rather than just accepting that nothing had happened, she asked follow up questions.  'Why didn't the meeting happen?'  No one showed up at the meeting scheduled for after institute.  'Why didn't anyone show up?'  As she dug deeper and deeper, she helped my counselor break down the problem and find where she was failing to be a leader.  Mona taught her with a directness I've almost never seen before or since.  Mona then  committed her to do it differently next time and to report next week. 

Her teaching was so direct, it was almost hard to take, but it was perfect, and most importantly, it sunk in.  I've used the principle she taught that day in my leadership since.  Even more so, I've used it in my job nearly everyday with my clients.  It just isn't often that someone teaches you something that does actually change your life.  But Mona did.  I've thought about this teaching moment very often.

At the lunch after the funeral the old relief stake society president came and found me.  I told her how meaningful this experience had been for me, and she reminded me of how they had learned and taught us about the importance of keeping the onus where it needs to be when it comes to leadership. This is such an important life lesson, and it is a hard one to learn.

I had been in several presidencies before law school.  I knew before I got to law school that I would be relief society president at some point while in law school.  But of all the times in my life to have this responsibility, it came at the most busy time of my life.  I was right in the middle of law school and under tremendous pressure.  I had so little time, and so few emotional reserves with which to give.  I knew that the Lord was well aware of the timing of this calling.  I knew He knew what was on my plate, which I found most perplexing.  Why now when I had so little to give?

Mona's husband, Chuck, was the branch president at the time.  He is a very laid back man, and the perfect branch president at that time for me.  I always figured that being relief society president meant hours of service and visiting with people.  But this was not the case.  He often counseled me to let the visiting teachers do their jobs and that I was only a back up if it was too much for them.  When meetings were more than my schedule allowed, he counseled me not to go.  He taught me not to step forward when I expected I would be asked to be at the forefront of serving.  When my natural inclination would have driven me to serve myself, he wisely counseled me to let others do the job. 

It was an unexpected education, but it was an amazing education about serving the Lord in the Lord's way.  It was hard to shelf my empathy and let the people who were in place to serve, serve, but it was the entire purpose of the timing of that calling I believe.

As I came up to Chuck in the reception line after the funeral he extended me a huge hug.  I haven't seen him in many years.  But the bond from serving together is still there.  He'll be in my prayers for  a long time; I know too well how deep his pain will be. 

I'm grateful for the work Mona did while she was here, it has made a permanent impact on my life.  May she rest in peace.