Well after a whirlwind year of moving across the country and back, we've finally gotten everything together to be able to move out on our own again. We've decided to rent an apartment, and put our dream of home ownership on hold for now. (We've been actually throwing around the idea of building our own house) After looking at various apartments, we've decided and been accepted to Stonybrook Apartments in Epping, NH. They are brand new, (just finished in Nov. 2009)
Some things they feature are: geothermal heating which basically pumps water from deep in the earth up to a pump which then uses the forced water to heat or cool your home, and then in the summer, takes your warm air from your house, and pumps it back into the ground, also cooling your house. (it's a pretty nifty concept if I do say so myself) So you're not necessarily paying for heat, you pay for the electricity that the pump uses, (which is pretty minimal)
ceramic tile in the kitchen and bathroom
updated appliances
A DISHWASHER!!
pet friendly (dogs only up to 25lbs though-so much for my hopes of getting a Great Dane!)
Each apartment has their own little balcony/patio
a fitness room
a lounge area to use if you have lots of guests over (my instant thought was for church parties/activities)
laundry on site
etc etc
We're excited! Our move in date is March 1st. We're hoping to be able to move our stuff in the weekend before since the 1st is a Monday. For me, I feel a little nostalgic to move to Epping, because my dad used to live there, and that's the town where I graduated High School. It will make the commute for Nick and I more even. This will be our 4th ward in less than a year though. We will now be a part of the Exeter ward. Both Nick and I have never actually been to the Exeter ward, but we've always heard good things, and after being in 3 different wards, we've come to the conclusion, that it doesn't matter what ward you live in, they're all good in different ways.
We'll post pictures once we get settled in. Woohoo! for living on our own again!!
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
New Years 2010
Well, last year my New Year's resolution was to keep up with this blog and write at least once a month. Well, I may not have written every month, but I have written at least 12 posts this past year, (15 to be exact) so I think that I've done pretty well. I hope to continue to keep up with it this year too.
This year, Nick and I were able to spend New Year's together ALONE! :) Which, when you're living with your In-laws is a HUGE blessing. Nick's family went to Florida over Christmas vacation, and we had the great Christmas gift of having a house to ourselves! I felt so nice to be able to just cook my husband dinner for once. It's interesting the things that you really miss when you don't have them.
We watched the ball drop and had a marathon day of playing World of Warcraft. Which has become our go to game to sort of "get away" and to keep our sanity. We may play it too much, but whatever is necessary to keep things together.
We also don't really do resolutions that we feel we have to stick to, but try to make goals to try and improve our lives each year. Resolutions always seem like, if you screw up once, it's over, where as goals you can always try to do better and if you fall off one month, you can alwyas hop back on.
Some of our resolutions/goals for this year are:
1. Get our own place ASAP :) (We're thinking March 1st)
2. Read our scriptures on a more regular basis (currently we go through spurts, where we are really good about reading them all the time, and then we slack off for a week or two)
3. Attend the temple once a month (this is a carry over goal from last year, we're really good about doing this but we like to keep it on our list)
Other than those three, we decided that we didn't want to do too many resolutions/goals this year. Our main goal is to just get our lives back. Nick loves his new job at Onesky and I really enjoy mine at Lifeshare. So far things are on the right track to get us to where we want to be, it's more of just waiting for time to help us catch up.
This year, Nick and I were able to spend New Year's together ALONE! :) Which, when you're living with your In-laws is a HUGE blessing. Nick's family went to Florida over Christmas vacation, and we had the great Christmas gift of having a house to ourselves! I felt so nice to be able to just cook my husband dinner for once. It's interesting the things that you really miss when you don't have them.
We watched the ball drop and had a marathon day of playing World of Warcraft. Which has become our go to game to sort of "get away" and to keep our sanity. We may play it too much, but whatever is necessary to keep things together.
We also don't really do resolutions that we feel we have to stick to, but try to make goals to try and improve our lives each year. Resolutions always seem like, if you screw up once, it's over, where as goals you can always try to do better and if you fall off one month, you can alwyas hop back on.
Some of our resolutions/goals for this year are:
1. Get our own place ASAP :) (We're thinking March 1st)
2. Read our scriptures on a more regular basis (currently we go through spurts, where we are really good about reading them all the time, and then we slack off for a week or two)
3. Attend the temple once a month (this is a carry over goal from last year, we're really good about doing this but we like to keep it on our list)
Other than those three, we decided that we didn't want to do too many resolutions/goals this year. Our main goal is to just get our lives back. Nick loves his new job at Onesky and I really enjoy mine at Lifeshare. So far things are on the right track to get us to where we want to be, it's more of just waiting for time to help us catch up.
Christmas 2009
Even if this Christmas wasn't what we normally would envision for ourselves, it was still a great Christmas. Nick and I both felt that we needed some way to be able to make this Christmas "ours". We felt awkward being a part of his family's traditions, so one thing that we did was to buy a little tree and we put it in our bedroom so that we could put our own presents under it, and our own ornaments on it. It was a huge help to be able to make the holidays seem a lot less awkward.We didn't have a star that would fit our little tree, so we Macgyver'd a star out of two dollar store star ornaments, and tied them together around the top of the tree. We thought it worked out pretty well.
Here are a few memorable ones...
This one is to me from Nick, he made it look like something from the Jewlery store Zales...
But inside were a few marshmallows and a note that read
"You've been naughty, so here's the scoop...You're getting nothing, but snowman's poop!"
Another creative idea, this time from me...A BOX OF POPCORN!
But what's this? A coupon for a movie night! "To be performed without whining or complaining."
Some other things we got each other were:
From me to Nick:
some Axe shower supplies
A new white dress shirt
the video game Demigod
and a new wallet!!
From Nick to me:
Ferrero Rocher's
a new watch
The Sims3 video game
a coupon to get a perm!!
After we opened our gifts to each other, we had breakfast with Nick's family, and then we exchanged gifts with them. They were very kind to get us a bunch of gift certificates to be able to go out on different dates. Nick's mom wrote me a very nice letter, telling me how much she appreciates having me for a daughter in-law and also gave me a statue of Joseph and Mary on a camel holding baby Jesus, so that I can paint it. There is a tradition in Nick's family to paint ornaments every year, and they all make fun of me because it takes me HOURS to paint ONE ornament (I'm just very particular :)) but I love to do it, so this will definitely be something to keep me busy.
Later in the day, Nick and I went to visit my family. This year my mom decided to have Christmas dinner with Keith's sister, Missy and her family. It was a nice change, because Keith's side of the family is one that we don't get to see very often. Missy has a son named Cameron, who is around Ryan's age, and it made me feel really old, because I haven't seen him since he was probably about 5, and now he's around 13, so I was totally that weird distant family member who says,
"The last time i saw you, you were THIS big!"
We all had a good time though. Here's a photo of my Uncle Todd and my brother Ryan goofing around.
My mom's side of the family, since there are so many people usually does a get together every year where we draw names for the kids earlier in the month and do a Yankee swap for the adults. The weekend after Christmas we went to my grandfather's house.
My mom is one of 6 kids. I am the oldest of the nieces and nephews. All of my other Aunts and Uncles are just starting their families, so I get counted as one of the adults now. One of the cutest moments of the party was when my cousin Ben, opened his gift, which was from my mom. He is at the age where he loves to dress up in different costumes, and really wanted a batman costume for Christmas. My mom found the only one in the entire store! he was SO excited when he opened it up, and of course he had to put it on right then! He looked so adorable!
and then to finish it off I have a picture of my two favorite boys.
Ah brotherly love! :)
Overall it was a great Christmas. Nick and I are very grateful to be able to have so many family members to be able to spend the holidays with.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
6. Nick got a new job!
This is our miracle story. (besides all of the other wonderful blessings we've had this year)
I'll start from the beginning. During Stake Conference back in November, President Donahue gave a wonderful talk about prayer. I was the only one who attended conference this year because everyone else in the house was sick (most likely with swine flu-doctors don't want to see you if they suspect you have it) I came home and gave my report of conference to everyone in the house, and went on my merry way. Nothing in particular stood out to me during conference, and I didn't think much of it.
A couple weeks later Nick and I were at the Harvest ball. Where we were able to speak to a lot of our friends from Somersworth. While there we spoke with Brother Della-Piana. He came up to us and told us of his little miracle.
Him and Kristie were so moved by President Donahue's story about prayer, and a story that he told from his mission that they decided to take that same concept and apply it to their lives.
Let me start by paraphrasing the story.
While President Donahue was on his mission, they were in desperate need to find a new mission apartment. The one they had wasn't in a very good neighborhood. The mission president had asked Brother Donahue to go with him to look at apartments. President Donahue, like anyone looking for a new apartment, looked in the newspaper, and cut out different ads for different places that they might look at. When the mission president picked him up that day to go look at apartments the mission president took him to the closest apartment complex to the mission president's office. They went in and the mission president asked if there were any apartments available. The landlord said, "No, we just recently rented out the last one." The mission president then began to ask various questions about the new tenant and found out that he was a new doctor, and was completing his residency at the nearby hospital. President Donahue the whole time kept thinking, "If there's none available here, let's move on to the next one." The mission president asked the landlord if he could put a deposit on the apartment that the doctor had rented, and that if the apartment wasn't available in a week the landlord could rip up the check, after much reluctance (this was a doctor of course, they're usually well off) the landlord agreed to the terms. President Donahue was confused, he thought that they were supposed to find a new apartment, but after only looking at one, and that one didn't have any available he wasn't too sure that they should stop their search so soon. Upon questioning the mission president, he stated, "We're going to pray for that doctor to leave." and that's what they did. They said a prayer together, and prayed that the doctor would find a better opportunity elsewhere so that they could move into that apartment. A week later, the mission president got a call from the landlord saying that the doctor had been offered a new job at a much more prestigious hospital to finish out his residency, and that the apartment was available if he still wanted it.
When speaking to the Della-Piana's they told us about how they had been trying to sell their house for quite some time. After hearing this story, they prayed that if the time was right, that they would sell their house. The next day, they got a phone call for someone to view the house. By the end of the week, those exact people, put in an offer.
After hearing these two stories, Nick and I decided to put the Lord to the test. Nick wasn't getting enough hours at the YMCA, and the split shift wan't working out so great. He had been looking for a new job for a few weeks, and was having a tough time finding anything. The previous week he didn't find a single job to apply to that he hadn't already applied to. After talking to the Della-Piana's we prayed that a good job would open up, and that the person who was previously in that position would find a better opportunity elsewhere. We prayed that if this is what we were supposed to be doing right now that the Lord would show us some sign to confirm it. The next week, Nick had 2 call backs from jobs, and 2 interviews set up. At one of the interviews he learned that the person who was in the job previous to it opening up, had moved up in the company. A week later, and after a second interview, this was the job that he was offered. He starts work on Monday December 14th. He will be working for a company called One Sky Communties which also helps adults with developmental disabilities, but he will be working in their office as a receptionist. It is the best job that he has had since we have been married. We are SO very thankful and grateful to our Father in Heaven for reminding us that miracles do happen, and reminding us just how mindful he is of our needs.
I'll start from the beginning. During Stake Conference back in November, President Donahue gave a wonderful talk about prayer. I was the only one who attended conference this year because everyone else in the house was sick (most likely with swine flu-doctors don't want to see you if they suspect you have it) I came home and gave my report of conference to everyone in the house, and went on my merry way. Nothing in particular stood out to me during conference, and I didn't think much of it.
A couple weeks later Nick and I were at the Harvest ball. Where we were able to speak to a lot of our friends from Somersworth. While there we spoke with Brother Della-Piana. He came up to us and told us of his little miracle.
Him and Kristie were so moved by President Donahue's story about prayer, and a story that he told from his mission that they decided to take that same concept and apply it to their lives.
Let me start by paraphrasing the story.
While President Donahue was on his mission, they were in desperate need to find a new mission apartment. The one they had wasn't in a very good neighborhood. The mission president had asked Brother Donahue to go with him to look at apartments. President Donahue, like anyone looking for a new apartment, looked in the newspaper, and cut out different ads for different places that they might look at. When the mission president picked him up that day to go look at apartments the mission president took him to the closest apartment complex to the mission president's office. They went in and the mission president asked if there were any apartments available. The landlord said, "No, we just recently rented out the last one." The mission president then began to ask various questions about the new tenant and found out that he was a new doctor, and was completing his residency at the nearby hospital. President Donahue the whole time kept thinking, "If there's none available here, let's move on to the next one." The mission president asked the landlord if he could put a deposit on the apartment that the doctor had rented, and that if the apartment wasn't available in a week the landlord could rip up the check, after much reluctance (this was a doctor of course, they're usually well off) the landlord agreed to the terms. President Donahue was confused, he thought that they were supposed to find a new apartment, but after only looking at one, and that one didn't have any available he wasn't too sure that they should stop their search so soon. Upon questioning the mission president, he stated, "We're going to pray for that doctor to leave." and that's what they did. They said a prayer together, and prayed that the doctor would find a better opportunity elsewhere so that they could move into that apartment. A week later, the mission president got a call from the landlord saying that the doctor had been offered a new job at a much more prestigious hospital to finish out his residency, and that the apartment was available if he still wanted it.
When speaking to the Della-Piana's they told us about how they had been trying to sell their house for quite some time. After hearing this story, they prayed that if the time was right, that they would sell their house. The next day, they got a phone call for someone to view the house. By the end of the week, those exact people, put in an offer.
After hearing these two stories, Nick and I decided to put the Lord to the test. Nick wasn't getting enough hours at the YMCA, and the split shift wan't working out so great. He had been looking for a new job for a few weeks, and was having a tough time finding anything. The previous week he didn't find a single job to apply to that he hadn't already applied to. After talking to the Della-Piana's we prayed that a good job would open up, and that the person who was previously in that position would find a better opportunity elsewhere. We prayed that if this is what we were supposed to be doing right now that the Lord would show us some sign to confirm it. The next week, Nick had 2 call backs from jobs, and 2 interviews set up. At one of the interviews he learned that the person who was in the job previous to it opening up, had moved up in the company. A week later, and after a second interview, this was the job that he was offered. He starts work on Monday December 14th. He will be working for a company called One Sky Communties which also helps adults with developmental disabilities, but he will be working in their office as a receptionist. It is the best job that he has had since we have been married. We are SO very thankful and grateful to our Father in Heaven for reminding us that miracles do happen, and reminding us just how mindful he is of our needs.
5. We got a second vehicle!
With Nick's job at the YMCA it has been tough figuring out who gets the car. The YMCA job is a split shift, and with my job, I need the car to drive my clients around. Thankfully Nick's parents have been very kind with driving Nick to and from work to get him home in the middle of the day. (of course we cover the gas money) We decided that we needed a second vehicle, just something cheap that will get him to and from work and school. After searching craigslist we went out and looked at a few cars and settled on a '95 Chrysler Cirrus. We were able to talk the previous owner down to $350 (yes, that's the correct number) We test drove it, and everything seemed to be in decent working order. The only issue which we knew about, which the previous owner told us, was that the power steering didn't work. Not too big of a deal we figured, especially at that price.
We drove the car home that day, with no problems at all. Things were looking good. That is until Nick's dad went to move the car so that he could get his car out of the driveway. When he moved it, he came into the house and said, "I see your ABS brake light is on." Nick and I were both like...um...it wasn't a few minutes ago! :)
Since then, the transmission has started dying, on occasion it decides that it doesn't want to shift out of first gear, and it has trouble idling when you first start it up. *sigh* I guess it was too good to be true! Thankfully we've still been able to drive it, once you get it going, and as long as you don't go over 40MPH you're good. Things have been easier with our commutes to work, but unfortunately, we're going to have to purchase another vehicle, one that is a bit more reliable.
We drove the car home that day, with no problems at all. Things were looking good. That is until Nick's dad went to move the car so that he could get his car out of the driveway. When he moved it, he came into the house and said, "I see your ABS brake light is on." Nick and I were both like...um...it wasn't a few minutes ago! :)
Since then, the transmission has started dying, on occasion it decides that it doesn't want to shift out of first gear, and it has trouble idling when you first start it up. *sigh* I guess it was too good to be true! Thankfully we've still been able to drive it, once you get it going, and as long as you don't go over 40MPH you're good. Things have been easier with our commutes to work, but unfortunately, we're going to have to purchase another vehicle, one that is a bit more reliable.
4. We left our jobs in AZ, and moved back to NH
So, if you read our last post, you basically know why we moved back. Soon after we felt that we needed to move back, Nick and I both gave our 2 weeks notices, packed up our belongings, (which wasn't too difficult because we hadn't fully unpacked everything yet) and drove back to good ole New Hampshire. We were so sick of driving across country at this point that we wanted to get back ASAP so we tried to drive as long as we could. We left on Saturday, August 1st and arrived in NH on (I believe) August 3rd, or early on the 4th.
Nick's parents were very kind to let us be able to live with them. We told them that we would even sleep on our air mattress in the living room. We didn't want to inconvenience anyone more than what we knew we already would. To our surprise, when we arrived we got our own Extreme Home Makeover moment when they stated,
"WELCOME HOME PETRIE FAMILY! WELCOME HOME!"
They then proceeded to cover our eyes, and move us across the house. When we were allowed to open our eyes, to our amazement, they had redecorated their old office into a beautiful bedroom, just for us, complete with new furniture and everything we could possibly need. (Even a bag of skittles! -YUM) We were in shock. This was way more than either of us could even have dreamed of. We were (and continue to be) extremely thankful that they have been so kind and generous to us.
So, Nick and I for the last few months have been living with his parents in Chester, NH and attending the Derry ward. Nick is currently the 2nd counselor in the Elder's Quorum presidency, and I work in the Nursery (which I absolutely love)
A few weeks after we arrived, after much searching, we both were blessed with new jobs. I got a job working for a company called Lifeshare as a Life Coach working with adults with developmental disabilities and helping them to be more independent and help to integrate them into the community. Nick got a job with the YMCA working with elementary aged children at a before and after school program.
Since then it's basically just been us trying to get everything in order so that we can save up for our own place again. We're hoping to purchase some type of home of our own. (we're not too sure exactly what yet) It's now December and we're starting to feel like we'll never make it, so many things keep coming up, that it's been making it hard to save as much as we would like (which will be another post) but we're trying to stay optimistic.
Nick's parents were very kind to let us be able to live with them. We told them that we would even sleep on our air mattress in the living room. We didn't want to inconvenience anyone more than what we knew we already would. To our surprise, when we arrived we got our own Extreme Home Makeover moment when they stated,
"WELCOME HOME PETRIE FAMILY! WELCOME HOME!"
They then proceeded to cover our eyes, and move us across the house. When we were allowed to open our eyes, to our amazement, they had redecorated their old office into a beautiful bedroom, just for us, complete with new furniture and everything we could possibly need. (Even a bag of skittles! -YUM) We were in shock. This was way more than either of us could even have dreamed of. We were (and continue to be) extremely thankful that they have been so kind and generous to us.
So, Nick and I for the last few months have been living with his parents in Chester, NH and attending the Derry ward. Nick is currently the 2nd counselor in the Elder's Quorum presidency, and I work in the Nursery (which I absolutely love)
A few weeks after we arrived, after much searching, we both were blessed with new jobs. I got a job working for a company called Lifeshare as a Life Coach working with adults with developmental disabilities and helping them to be more independent and help to integrate them into the community. Nick got a job with the YMCA working with elementary aged children at a before and after school program.
Since then it's basically just been us trying to get everything in order so that we can save up for our own place again. We're hoping to purchase some type of home of our own. (we're not too sure exactly what yet) It's now December and we're starting to feel like we'll never make it, so many things keep coming up, that it's been making it hard to save as much as we would like (which will be another post) but we're trying to stay optimistic.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
3. Amanda's new calling! and Other Church Issues
About a month after we moved to Arizona. This is where the story gets interesting. Nick and I were having some difficulties adjusting to life in our new ward. It was very large, and we didn't feel too welcome. Whenever we met someone the conversation went something like this,
"Hi! How are you? I'm________, are you new to the ward?"
"Yes, we just moved here from NH."
"Wow! NH! That's quite a ways. Where are you staying now?"
"In the Orange Grove Apartments."
"Oh...Well it was nice to meet you." Followed by a quick exit.
Our ward boundaries were a little weird. There was about a 1mile square block around the chapel (which was also a stake center) which were the ward boundaries. Our apartment didn't fit into this boundary, but was part of the ward. Our apartment was actually about 3 miles from the building. The reason for this was that there were so many apartment complexes in the area that instead of having them all go to one ward, they decided to split them up, each apartment complex would have a different ward. The majority of our ward was very affluent, except the people who lived in our apartment complex. There appeared to us, to be a separation of the two classes, where one would look down upon another, regardless of anything else. It only mattered where you lived, and that was all you were judged upon.
Not to say that the people weren't nice. There were a lot of great people and great families within the ward, from both aspects of the spectrum. Coming from small ward, NH this was very difficult for us. We would get so upset because we felt like, "LDS people are supposed to accept and love everyone, regardless of their circumstance." We had a lot to learn of the different trials that different wards faced. It definitely opened our eyes to a broader picture.
My visiting teacher came over one day and actually brought up a conversation about it without me bringing it up, and told me that the ward used to be a lot worse about 20 years ago when her husband grew up in it. When she was married to him, and they moved back into his childhood ward, she was really afraid about belonging to this ward because of how judgemental they were. When her husband was growing up, the ward boundaries were the same, (minus the apartment complex) but that even in that 1 square mile there was a huge difference in income. On one half of the street, you had some really rich members, and on the other half, you had some really poor members. Things didn't get better until one woman who was in the "poor" bracket, became Relief Society President, and said something similar to, "We're all different, and we have no right to judge another's circumstance. We can have no idea what another family is going through financial or otherwise." From what my Visiting teacher described, things are 1000x better now than they were then. I was very grateful to have a visiting teacher so in tune with the spirit to be able to send this message along to me, so that I didn't fall into the same trap of judging others. Thanks to her I am able to have a much better understanding and love for this ward, rather than resentment, to know how far they have come.
What does this have to do with me getting a new calling? You'll see. :)
So, one Sunday, I was pulled into the Bishop's office to receive a new calling. I was called to be a Laurel Advisor. I was thus sustained during sacrament as such. That afternoon,(Church went from 11am-2pm) after sacrament, I attended Young Women's for the first time, in which the YW president came up to me and said, "Oh! You must be the new Mia Maid advisor." I informed her that as far as I knew I was the Laurel Advisor, to which she replied, "Oh. Well the Bishop must have made a mistake, we don't need a Laurel Advisor."
Well, what a way to get under my skin. The whole day I kept repeating in my head, "Smile, be nice, be nice." I was very upset needless to say. Thus began my trial #2 with the church. I had a really difficult time with the fact that if the Bishop is supposed to be calling people, based upon spiritual impressions, how could he have given me the wrong calling?
I hadn't been set apart yet, so I decided to wait it out and talk to the Bishop later.
That Wednesday after mutual, the group drove down the street to visit the previous Mia Maid Advisor, who had recently been married, and moved out of ward boundaries to give her a going away present. To which the YW president she thus introduced me as the new Mia Maid advisor in front of everyone. I took her aside after the activity and politely said to her, "As far as I know, the Bishop has called me as the Laurel Advisor, and I feel uncomfortable with you introducing me as something that the Lord hasn't called me as." She politely nodded, and we went our separate ways for the night.
The next Sunday, the Bishop's called me into his office, and explained that he was mistaken, and that he needed me as a Mia Maid Advisor. I asked if I could have some time to pray about it so that I could receive the same answer, at this point I was still quite upset over the issue, and needed some more spiritual guidance.
While we were praying about this issue, and a lot of other things, we got the impression that we needed to move back to New Hampshire.
The Sunday after that, the Bishop wasn't there, so his counselor took me into his office to set me apart. We informed him, that we had decided to move back to NH, and that we would be moving in 2 weeks. He decided to still set me apart because that's what he was told to do, which was fine by me.
So what does all this have to do together? It was a big trial for us to learn to understand the church as a whole, and to learn to love and not judge our fellow ward members despite their shortcomings. It was a huge trial for us to even go to church on Sunday because we really just didn't want to be in that environment. I suppose what we really had to learn was that old famous saying, "It's the church that's true, not the members." Through all this though, I think the most important thing it did was that it brought Nick and I closer to our prayers and our scriptures, as we sought them for guidance and comfort.
BTW has anyone ever heard that you're not keeping the sabbath day holy if you go swimming on a Sunday?
::SMILE!::
"Hi! How are you? I'm________, are you new to the ward?"
"Yes, we just moved here from NH."
"Wow! NH! That's quite a ways. Where are you staying now?"
"In the Orange Grove Apartments."
"Oh...Well it was nice to meet you." Followed by a quick exit.
Our ward boundaries were a little weird. There was about a 1mile square block around the chapel (which was also a stake center) which were the ward boundaries. Our apartment didn't fit into this boundary, but was part of the ward. Our apartment was actually about 3 miles from the building. The reason for this was that there were so many apartment complexes in the area that instead of having them all go to one ward, they decided to split them up, each apartment complex would have a different ward. The majority of our ward was very affluent, except the people who lived in our apartment complex. There appeared to us, to be a separation of the two classes, where one would look down upon another, regardless of anything else. It only mattered where you lived, and that was all you were judged upon.
Not to say that the people weren't nice. There were a lot of great people and great families within the ward, from both aspects of the spectrum. Coming from small ward, NH this was very difficult for us. We would get so upset because we felt like, "LDS people are supposed to accept and love everyone, regardless of their circumstance." We had a lot to learn of the different trials that different wards faced. It definitely opened our eyes to a broader picture.
My visiting teacher came over one day and actually brought up a conversation about it without me bringing it up, and told me that the ward used to be a lot worse about 20 years ago when her husband grew up in it. When she was married to him, and they moved back into his childhood ward, she was really afraid about belonging to this ward because of how judgemental they were. When her husband was growing up, the ward boundaries were the same, (minus the apartment complex) but that even in that 1 square mile there was a huge difference in income. On one half of the street, you had some really rich members, and on the other half, you had some really poor members. Things didn't get better until one woman who was in the "poor" bracket, became Relief Society President, and said something similar to, "We're all different, and we have no right to judge another's circumstance. We can have no idea what another family is going through financial or otherwise." From what my Visiting teacher described, things are 1000x better now than they were then. I was very grateful to have a visiting teacher so in tune with the spirit to be able to send this message along to me, so that I didn't fall into the same trap of judging others. Thanks to her I am able to have a much better understanding and love for this ward, rather than resentment, to know how far they have come.
What does this have to do with me getting a new calling? You'll see. :)
So, one Sunday, I was pulled into the Bishop's office to receive a new calling. I was called to be a Laurel Advisor. I was thus sustained during sacrament as such. That afternoon,(Church went from 11am-2pm) after sacrament, I attended Young Women's for the first time, in which the YW president came up to me and said, "Oh! You must be the new Mia Maid advisor." I informed her that as far as I knew I was the Laurel Advisor, to which she replied, "Oh. Well the Bishop must have made a mistake, we don't need a Laurel Advisor."
Well, what a way to get under my skin. The whole day I kept repeating in my head, "Smile, be nice, be nice." I was very upset needless to say. Thus began my trial #2 with the church. I had a really difficult time with the fact that if the Bishop is supposed to be calling people, based upon spiritual impressions, how could he have given me the wrong calling?
I hadn't been set apart yet, so I decided to wait it out and talk to the Bishop later.
That Wednesday after mutual, the group drove down the street to visit the previous Mia Maid Advisor, who had recently been married, and moved out of ward boundaries to give her a going away present. To which the YW president she thus introduced me as the new Mia Maid advisor in front of everyone. I took her aside after the activity and politely said to her, "As far as I know, the Bishop has called me as the Laurel Advisor, and I feel uncomfortable with you introducing me as something that the Lord hasn't called me as." She politely nodded, and we went our separate ways for the night.
The next Sunday, the Bishop's called me into his office, and explained that he was mistaken, and that he needed me as a Mia Maid Advisor. I asked if I could have some time to pray about it so that I could receive the same answer, at this point I was still quite upset over the issue, and needed some more spiritual guidance.
While we were praying about this issue, and a lot of other things, we got the impression that we needed to move back to New Hampshire.
The Sunday after that, the Bishop wasn't there, so his counselor took me into his office to set me apart. We informed him, that we had decided to move back to NH, and that we would be moving in 2 weeks. He decided to still set me apart because that's what he was told to do, which was fine by me.
So what does all this have to do together? It was a big trial for us to learn to understand the church as a whole, and to learn to love and not judge our fellow ward members despite their shortcomings. It was a huge trial for us to even go to church on Sunday because we really just didn't want to be in that environment. I suppose what we really had to learn was that old famous saying, "It's the church that's true, not the members." Through all this though, I think the most important thing it did was that it brought Nick and I closer to our prayers and our scriptures, as we sought them for guidance and comfort.
BTW has anyone ever heard that you're not keeping the sabbath day holy if you go swimming on a Sunday?
::SMILE!::
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