Les Chou Chou Doux

I first met Monique when my companion said she felt like we urgently needed to visit someone. She wasn't quite sure how to get to this person's house, but she just felt like we needed to go. We kept taking different turns, and sometimes back tracking until at last we arrived at her door. In response to my companion's knock, a woman opened the door with tears streaming down her face. I remember that the floor was wet because she had just finished mopping.

She let us in and told us that she had been praying - in her own prayerful style - which was a conversation with God, out loud, in her apartment pouring out her heart while mopping the floor. Things had been so hard lately, and she needed Him.

He heard her that day and answered in the form of the perfectly timed arrival of us - two sister missionaries.

Her husband had recently left her, and I'll leave out the rest of the gory details, but they were sad. Very sad. And reasonably so, her heart was broken.

My companion was transferred out, and with her husband now out of the picture, it fell to the sisters rather than the elders to visit with her. The only problem was, she didn't care for women. She preferred the company of men and she made no secret of it.

But it was our job to love her and care for her. So doing what we did when the task was bigger than us, my companion and I prayed.

I remember pleading prayers for what was probably at least a week and a half - 'Please, Lord, we need thee to help her let us in. Please show us how.'

Our mission president had taught us - 'There is a way to every human heart. Heavenly Father knows that way, and He can show you.' And so it was with the exercise of great faith on her behalf that I pleaded in my personal prayers as well to be shown that way.

Finally, one day the answer came in the form of inspiration - les chou chou doux. We were to leave her les chou chou doux. It was symbolic. She would know what it would mean. And it was perfect.

A week or so earlier we had been visiting her with the elders and when she shared a poem. It was a poem about this little town where each of the inhabitants had a bag that contained Les Chou Chou Doux (warm fuzzies). They shared these freely until a witch came along and made people jealous and hoarding of their Chou Chou Doux. In time, the witch began replacing Les Chou Chou Doux with cold crystals that took the warmth away.

She is meticulously clean. All throughout our somewhat unwelcomed sister missionaries-only visit, we secretly hid little cotton balls all around her house. After we left she always cleaned her apartment. Strangely she kept finding cotton balls until she had a collection of them. Somewhere along the way, she found our little note about Les Chou Chou Doux. This was how the walls melted away.

The anticipated phone call came after our visit not too much later that night. "I was cleaning and I kept fining these little cotton balls all over my house. I thought it was so strange, and then I found the note!" From then on, she loved us. We already loved her.

Every time we visited we hid little things around her house with a note for her to find. It was our game and the foundation of our friendship. She became a cherished friend.

Last I knew her faith in God was no longer being practiced and life has not been easy for her.

Today she posted this on Facebook:

Which brought back this host of memories (i.e. this story) - and this was my response:

"Explosives - non. Les chou chou doux. Gros bisous, mon amie. :)

If I Ever Stop Believing...

Moroni 8:26

...perfect love, which love endureth by diligence unto prayer...

It seems that so many of the people I love so much have lost their faith in God and it breaks my heart. Why does it break my heart? Because I know Him, and I know how much He loves them. I've felt it for them.

I once had a roommate who was angry at God. Her father had just died. She is a girl with a huge heart and it was broken when her father died. Understandably. Her anger was turned on God. Even if there was a God, she was angry at him. Every morning I would go running and then I would come home and study the scriptures. Each morning I would get inspiration for little notes that I would leave on the mirror for her in our shared bathroom. Though I was the writer, the inspiration was of a higher power from someone who really loved her. I knew that. But she was mad at Him. He who loved her so very much.

One day she and her boyfriend were discussing how they didn't believe in Him. It wasn't my place to tell her that I know He is real and so very aware of her. He cared about her bad days. He knew her kind heart and he loved her for it. He still does. She believed in Him again for a little while, but yet again, she doesn't. It breaks my heart in the same way it does when good friends feud. You know both of their beautiful hearts and wish they could figure that out about each other. But what I learned from her is that God loves us anyway, even when we don't believe in Him. The inspiration to comfort her didn't stop because she was upset with Him, even if she couldn't recognize the source.

I have another friend. Wow. In all my life I have never felt the love of Heavenly Father so incredibly strongly for anyone. It is deep and real and true in a way I really wish he could understand. But there is self-loathing on his part. And though love can be true, the receiving party needs to be able to accept it as true. Just about every week for the last 15 years I've put his name on the temple prayer rolls. One day, I can only hope he can know just how unconditional God's love is - not just for humanity - but for him. Because what I learned from him is that God sees our worth even when we don't.

Max's mother had not gone to church since Max was 8. He is 12 now. She has started coming back which thrills me to no end. Maybe she will keep going. Maybe she won't. I hope she will. I'm that friend still quietly praying, holding my breath at a distance, hoping things will turn out. Influencing when I can. It may be years, but the prayers and silent support are still there. Tonight we were up until 11:30 working on a miserable project and it ended with a big hug and her saying I was there for her whenever she needed me. It is my prayer that I could be and if not that someone else will be. I love her and truly want what's best for her. Even if that means patience for years and years.

But tonight I was thinking, what if that were me? What if I stopped believing? I hope that someone would be there, either patient with my hurt, or my anger, or my lack of perspective and remind me that He is real, His love is pure and unconditional in an incredible way. And that His love for humanity is great, yes. but His love for me, is real and forceful. I just hope someone wouldn't let me forget that. And if it isn't their place to tell me because of my own lack of faith at that time, I hope they will still be willing to follow the promptings they get for me, because I will still need them.

Moroni 8:26

...perfect love, which love endureth by diligence unto prayer...

The Things I Forget

My funny moment of today. Though Max is 12, he has not yet been baptized. In fact, he just started coming back to church two weeks ago. I've thought that he probably needs some scriptures, and that maybe he'll need to get some from the library until he gets some of his own.

Today I was surprised to see he had some. 

A nice set even.

Me: Max, did you get those scriptures from the library, or are they yours? (Thinking they must be from the library, but maybe he bought some?)

Max & Mom: Oh, funny thing about those scriptures, you should see who gave them to him. Look, they even signed on the inside cover!

They open the cover and show me and it says - "To Max on his 8th birthday. Love, Chantal"

....Stunned because I tooootally do not remember getting that for him...

Me: .....hahaha. No way, it's from me! Oh, I totally didn't remember that I gave that to you. (I'm normally horrible at gifts of any kind.)

We are all laughing about this.

I even had his name engraved on the front. 

Mis En Place

I read an article a while ago about this notion about Mis En Place

French for 'put in place'. 

It is the first thing they teach students in cooking school, 

and for some, the article said, 

it becomes a way of life.

The article completely piqued my curiosity

about Mis En Place

See an explanation of mis en place here.

I've been trying to apply this principle

to my life

To adopt it as a life style

Application Example:

Tonight I made my list of things to do

Like I try to do nearly every night

(Because I learned in my Learning How to Learn class on www.coursera.org

That the ideal time to make your list of things to do for the next day at night before you go to bed

because your brain will process how to get that list done while you sleep

And I'm all about letting my brain do the work whilst I sleep.)

I've learned over time that the first step to an effective list of things to do is

the list

And the second step is 

the organization and prioritization

of that list

And the third step is sort of a mis en place principle

of getting everything you need to accomplish that task

on that list

(For example, if you need to call the utility company

Your list says call the utility company

then next to it is the phone number

and next to that is the account number

Now everything you need to do that task is there

And in my experience

procrastination goes way down)

So tonight I made my list

Then prioritized my list

And organized my list

And added all of the things I needed to complete the tasts

And put my running clothes out

And laid out my outfit for tomorrow

My food for the week was made on Sunday

And the letter I need to give to my neighbor is by the door

And the book I will read in court is in my purse

And the thank you card I want to write is in the book

And when I get to work

My list of things to do is already there

Because I read one time that you should always end your work day by writing your list for the next day

Because the next day when you get to work, you don't waste time trying to remember what you needed to do

So, every once in a rare while

I get organized

And I just enjoy it
Because life gets messy
And it's nice to know that for a few moments
I had it together.

The Strange Thing About Being You

I met someone recently who was saying that inevitably in life things go awry. That's just the way it has always been. "Just watch and see!" she exclaimed, "Something will go wrong. That's just the way it always is with me. I am always that one bizarre exception."

I sat there thinking, that is definitely not the case with me. I mean, certain things will predictably go wrong. I will get lost. I'll burn a meal. I'll lose my phone or my keys, I have my trials that come up from time-to-time, but otherwise, things don't go wrong as a matter of course.

And she wasn't making it up either. She kept telling me stories of these outlandish things that happened to her. Things that totally weren't her fault. She followed the rules, and as luck would have it, in story after story, her twist of fate was just unfortunate.

My twist of fate is a little different. I have this strange phenomenon that tends to occur more and more as my life is more in order (i.e. live closer to the Spirit). This was especially prevalent while I was a missionary. It was so uncanny. As any good piece of literature has threads running through it, or themes, so is my life. These threads or themes will typically be present for about two weeks. Then the theme changes. During the time of each theme, I will usually run into people who are uniquely suited to this recurring theme. And the books I will read - they all lend to this cohesive theme.


For example, on this last trip I was reading a book about a newspaper editor who kept his paper going throughout the war. He detailed his struggles to both establish and maintain his right for independent news reporting. I was captivated by his struggles to fight the new democratic government who was trying to control his paper the way things were done during the Yugoslavia communist days. It got me thinking and pondering freedom of the press.

I had the book on my lap during my flight from Austria to Sarajevo - and who did I sit next to on the airplane but a man who was a war correspondent for 18 years and who knew the author. Yes, yes he did.

We spent the rest of the airplane ride talking about news, freedom of the press, Bosnia, politics, and the Balkans and he was fascinating.

And you may think, well, you were on a plane headed to Sarajevo, so the odds of you meeting a person who knew him in a city of 300,000 are not too bad. But a seasoned war correspondent who spoke English, had covered the Bosnian war, and of all of the people on the plane he was assigned the seat next to me, and who was also willing to talk to me for the entire flight? Come on.  And things like this - totally unplanned, are not  out of the ordinary.

Did I mention that when we got to Croatia we were stopped by a radio reporter who was doing a piece on whether or not people thought the press was free in Croatia? And that it also happened to be  Free Media Day? The reporter recorded our entire conversation as we spoke about freedom of the press in Croatia. I asked her a lot of questions.

Well, today was my day for returning my library books. Being the dutiful citizen I am 3/4ths of the time, I returned my Bosnia books. When I originally checked out these books, there was one book that I had seen in the list of books about Bosnia - one about the forensics of the Bosnian war. Not knowing much about the Bosnian war before leaving, I didn't opt to get this book.

However, while we were going through the museum about the mass genocide in Srebrenica, Bosnia I realized I wanted to read that forensics book. The one picture from the museum that really made me realize I wanted to was a picture of a huge warehouse full of evenly spaced blue tarps, and each tarp had a skull, bones, and clothing of a body they exhumed. Oh my goodness. What an awful task. The recordings further explained that they have primary, secondary, and tertiary graves, so piecing together bodies that may be found in multiple sites (sometimes up to seven) is difficult. Even though it has been 20 years since the war, they aren't done yet. It made me think of the forensics book I had chosen not to borrow and I made a mental note to borrow it when I got home.

Well, wouldn't you know that as I returned my old books the librarian seemed incredibly knowledgeable about Bosnia. NBD, he lives in St. Louis, and he is a librarian. They are smart people and we have lots of Bosnians here. I shouldn't be surprised.

I asked him to help me locate this book. All I gave him for clues was that it had something about forensics and Bosnia. He looked for a while and came up with nothing, but finally he found it. I went to get the book and then came back to him to check me out.

Wouldn't you know - of all of the librarians on this entire planet - this guy has a morbid obsession with genocides. He has done a great deal of reading about Bosnia. He has even  read up about ones all over the world. Did you know there was one in East Timor - of all places? Well, they stopped it before it became mass genocide, he said.

I just left the library chuckling to myself. Of course, of course the random librarian who checks me out while I get my Bosnian forensic book has a morbid obsession with genocide. It is a coincidence, but these instructive coincidences happen all the time - when I am in tune. I think many of us probably have strange things about being us. I don't know what yours are, but I suspect there are patterns of some sort that run through your life, too.

What's Your Secret?

Today I went and visited a woman who has multiple sclerosis (MS). She had brain surgery recently. She is blind in one eye. She and her husband can barely walk. Yet there she was, as she is month after month, with a big smile and a cheery disposition. I know I've asked her before, but I had to ask her again - how is it you stay so happy?

She told me that as a child she watched the movie Pollyanna. I've never seen it, but she says it is about a girl who always looks at the bright side. She took this to heart and for many years always looked at the bright side. That seems to be what has helped even with her MS.

She isn't my only sick friend. Not all of my sick friends are doing as well emotionally, which is why she is so intriguing. Some are also dealing with major depression.

I have two friends who are my most happily married friends. Of course I was curious about why their marriage was going so well. I am better friends with the wife. In fact, she is someone I've written about in the past, so I REALLY think she's stellar. Her husband is only months older than me and put himself through medical school with no help from a spouse. He didn't get married until after medical school was done. Early in their engagement he suggested that they make it a habit to express frequent appreciation for one another. She attributes the success of their marriage to this habit.

Combine these two people I observe and I implore you to read these two articles:

http://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/complaining-rewires-your-brain-for-negativity-science-says.html

http://theweek.com/articles/601157/neuroscience-reveals-4-rituals-that-make-happy

So, as you can see, gratitude is HUGE for your brain and your sense of happiness and well-being. I read those two articles and have been really making it a point to be more thankful ever since.

Which of course makes me think of my last companion on my mission - the epitome of all things great. As I had written in the blog post where she was SOTM:

She is a natural optimist. She naturally sees and points out the positive things around her. She takes delight in the day-to-day things that most of us take for granted. It isn't like she consciously decides not to complain, it just isn't part of her nature to do so. You'd be hard pressed to find a picture of her where she isn't smiling. (You'd be hard pressed to find moments in life where she isn't glowingly happy.)

She also insisted that we only say positive things about each other during companionship inventory. At first I was totally skeptical, but in practice, it was just amazing. Feeling appreciated and having someone notice the things that they appreciated about you on a constant basis was AmAZinG. The odd thing was, I thought that not speaking our frustrations would cause the problems to grow. In the end, I think not saying the things we appreciate causes the love not to grow.

In conclusion, be more grateful and express appreciation in your relationships. It should turn out well.

Book Review: Rising Strong (Brene Brown)

"It's so hard to be face down on the arena floor, but if you open your eyes when you're down there and take a minute to look around, you get a completely new perspective of the world. You see more struggle - more conflict and suffering. It can make you more compassionate if you open your eyes and look around while you're down there."

When Nikki dropped off this book for me to read, she sat down in my living room and we caught up on life. Her uncle had just died a few days before, and she described to me how she could hardly even drive back from Colorado when she heard the news because she was crying so hard. It felt like a piece of her was gone. When she got home, for the first time in her life she has absolutely no motivation to do ANYtHiNg. This was something she had never experienced before.

As I sat there listening to her I had tears streaming down my face. Just a few days before a guy I had really liked broke up with me - so my emotions were especially sensitive.  In hearing about her pain I could empathize on a level that I normally couldn't. It was like I could feel her pain. So when I read the bolded text above, it really rang true to me. When you are down, you can understand the struggle in others better. (It seems I read Brene Brown's books whenever I've just gone through a break up. I read Daring Greatly after my last break up.) Honestly though, I think that is the perfect time to read them because it gives you a sense of purpose as you lean into your pain and cope with it in a healthy way.

"Hurt is hurt, and every time we honor our own struggle and the struggles of others by responding with empathy and compassion, the healing that results affects all of us."

This book is about how to get up after you have chosen to be vulnerable and fallen down. 

"Choosing to be vulnerable involves risk, which means you have a likelihood of failure. Heartbreak and hurt is part of the process."

Here are my favorite quotes from the book:

"If we are going to put ourselves out there and love with our whole hearts, we're going to experience heartbreak." pg. xx

"The problem is, when we stop caring what people think and stop being hurt by cruelty, we lose our ability to connect." Pg. 4

"But when we are defined by what people think, we lose the courage to be vulnerable. Therefore, we need to be selective about the feedback we let into our lives. For me, if you're not in the arena getting your [rear] kicked, I'm not interested in your feedback." Pg. 4

"Fortune may favor the bold, but so does failure." Pg. 4

"Courage transforms the emotional structure of our being." Pg. 5

"Creativity is the ultimate act of integration - it is how we fold our experiences into our being." 

 I LOVE this concept. Creativity is the process of integration.

"Humans are feeling machines that think."

"When you are on your path, 

the universe will conspire to help you."

"Experience and success don't give you easy passage through the middle space of struggle."

"Experience doesn't create even a single spark of love guy in the darkness of the middle space. It only stills in you a little bit of faith in your ability to navigate the dark."

The following quotes really made me think. I sometimes don't hold up my boundaries where I should, and I often think of it as a good thing. But my mother, who is one of the very finest people I know, holds her boundaries, and as I thought about it, all of the best and happiest people I know do. They aren't unkind, but they are kind to themselves too, and they hold their boundaries. She tells some great stories about how she processed and arrived at these truths.

"How can we expect people to put value on our work when we don't value ourselves enough to set and hold uncomfortable boundaries?"

"We don't judge people when we feel good about ourselves." P. 117 

"There is no integrity in blaming or turning to it's not fair and I deserve. I need to take responsibility for my own well-being."

"I'm not good enough and I'm better than you are two sides of the same coin. Both are attacks on our worthiness. We don't compare when we are feeling good about ourselves; we look for what's good in others. Self-righteousness is just the armor of self-loathing."

"As miserable as resentment, disappointment, and frustration make us feel, we fool ourselves into believing that they're easier than the vulnerability of a difficult conversation."

"What boundaries do I need to put in place so I can work from a place of integrity and extend the most generous interpretations of the intentions, words, and actions of others?"

"Integrity is choosing courage over comfort; choosing what is right over what is fun, fast, or easy; and choosing to practice our values rather than simply professing them."

"I am going to be generous in my assumptions and intentions while standing solidly in my integrity and being very clear about what's acceptable and what's not acceptable."

"Hold people accountable for their actions in a way that acknowledges their humanity."

"People learn how to treat us based on how they see us treating ourselves."

"If I don't put value on my work and my time, neither will the person I'm helping."

"Boundaries are a function of self respect and self love."

"Even on the rare occasion when living BIG leaves me feeling vulnerable, I'm still left standing squarely in my integrity."

"Expectations are resentments waiting to happen." Anne Lamott

"As I lay in bed that night, my curiosity showed up, as it often does, as a prayer." 

P 161

I love this.

May you always do for others and let others do for you. 

Bob Dylan

"Wholehearted was is as much about receiving as it is about giving."

P 179

Trust - choosing to risk making something you value vulnerable to another person's actions. P. 198

Power - the ability to achieve our purpose and effect change. P. 201

"We are most dangerous to ourselves and the people around us when we feel powerless." Pg. 201

"Hope is a cognitive process!!!" Pg. 202

"Hope is a function of struggle."

"Sometimes the most uncomfortable learning is the most powerful."

"We can't compartmentalize our selves. We have to put our whole selves on the table, good, bad and ugly."

Nikki and I were discussing the book on our run this morning, and we agree. This book along with Daring Greatly should be on a must read list for everyone.