Girls

I have been pretty lame in following my goal of writing in this blog. Lots of things have happened since my last post. New nieces, fun summer, not so fun hip surgery. In the last year or so 3 new baby girls were added to our family. I have been able to see and hold all of them. If you know me, you know how much I love holding babies. The whole Oxytoxcin hormone release, make you fall in love with the baby thing, happens to me on a very large scale. I know there are very few things that break through my hard exterior, my serious, analytical face that most people see. Seriously folks, my co-workers put down characteristics in a team building exercise. Focus, analytical were mentioned several times. So, the babies...they make all of that melt away. Music does too, but that is for another post. While I was in Utah this summer, I got to meet my new niece Matilda Meye. Julie's 7th child. She is a beauty like the rest of her siblings. Micah and Julie have great genetics! I decided to take family pictures with my girls and included Myla age 16, Julie's oldest child and Matilda. There are a couple of pictures with me holding Matilda but the one that I love is one where I am holding her up and looking up at her. If you look at my smile, that is a great way to see what is inside. Tenderness, joy, vulnerability, emotions. My own 2 daughters bring that out in me. In a different way, now that they are much older. But I could seriously hold a newborn all day and not care what is happening around me. Last summer I visited my sister Aimee, who had her 6th child, Emily Lynn. Yet another time of that side of me coming out. This year Adam and Cyndi have been blessed with a foster baby. Same thing. Holding those sweet little babies opens up a side of me that is hard to find any where else.

Mom

Today my siblings and I, those that live in the area, had breakfast with my mom.It was her birthday on the 15th. She is a great woman. Raised 6 kids, 5 who were born in a 6 year period. That is because when the twins were born, #4 and #5, John was 5 almost 6, I was 4, and Jean was 2 almost 3. Crazy...right? My admiration for her grew by leaps and bound when I had both my girls. My girls were 18 months apart. It was then that I realized my mother is a saint!!!! She and I struggled during my teenage years. Mostly because we were both stubborn. And I thought I knew it all and she didn't. The teenage brain damage curse. She recognized our similarities and would tell me a story every once in a while. As a believing and practicing Mormon, I believe that there is a life before we come to earth called the preexistence. We were spirits created by Heavenly Father and lived with Him before coming to experience mortal life. So, my mom had this story about us. It goes something like this: In the preexistence she and I were good friends. And we decided she would come down to here to her family, and eventually become my mom. that way we could one day enjoy our friendship. And finally after many many years of my personal struggles in which she largely had to sit by and allow me to exercise my free agency by hurting myself with an eating disorder (18 years, it took my a looooong time to learn that Heavenly Father loved me no matter what which is another entire post), we love getting together. Talking about and watching college football, traveling and more. I am so glad she is my mother. I am so glad she came down first. I got to play sports and she didn't. She sacrificed my hours shuttling me to and from practices, games, and the ER (many many times as I had no problem sacrificing my body to the sport I was playing). She is 70 which is one more year older than my dad was when he passed away. I hope I get to enjoy many more of her birthdays!

Update

It has been awhile since my last post. I had started a post about music but I have still not finished it. Hopefully I will get back to writing more often. I have found this fall and winter to be the hardest I have experienced in a long time. The second year of mourning for my father's death seems to hit me harder than the first year. I am not sure if that is because the reality is here, present, right before my eyes. I just don't know. When I think of getting a priesthood blessing (I have had three this past year), I automatically still think of him as my go to priesthood blessing man. Luckily I had an incredible blessing in April this past year given to me by Bishop Poulsen and Keone Liddell, a counselor when Bishop Pouslen was bishop. Both are extremely compassionate men and understand the struggles I have had with SSA and many more. When they laid their hands on my head to give the blessing I felt a tap on my head. My dad would sort of tap on our heads with his big round fingers, once or twice as he was giving us blessings. So as Keone tapped my head I knew my dad was there helping to give that blessing. And when I gave a talk in my new ward, in which in the past he was a Stake High priest assigned to the ward and many knew him well, and where he would stand to give talks, I felt him with me. Then after the talk Brother Johnson who knew my dad well, came up to me and told me he knew that my dad was up there with me. Those were great tender mercies. But my heart still hurts. I miss him often and have cried this year more than I have ever cried in my entire life. Maybe it is because my sister lost her father in law very suddenly right before Christmas. He just fell over and had a stroke. Just out of the blue. My heart ached and aches for their family and my sister. I was able to spend some time with their family this past summer. What a great family. Just salt of the earth kind of people. Then on Friday I received a text from my mom that my younger sister had possibly suffered a stroke! So my heart started racing. Luckily I was able to leave work and go to my mom's house where she and my children were. By the time I arrived we updated on Julie's condition. Most likely she suffered a very bad migraine which can mimic a stroke. She still has follow up Doctor's appointments and more tests to validate the diagnosis. However, I immediately thought of what happened when my dad died. And this is why. I had planned on taking a Chinese friend from Hong Kong back to the Temple's visitor center. The day my dad died I had made plans to take my friend. When my dad started going downhill fast, I was at the Portland Temple's visitors center with my friend. It wasn't until I took him home that I checked my phone and received the texts, and phone message that I needed to get to the hospital right away. I missed his passing by 5 minutes. If you know me, you know I am never late...ok 99.9% never late. So one of the very few times I am late it happens when I needed to be there. I needed to be there for me, obviously and I know in my mind that my dad would not have been sad about it. But my heart wishes I could have been there. When I did arrive and my mom told me he had passed I wailed. The kind of wailing that I have never experienced and one that shook my entire body. I remember my niece asking her mom "why is Aunt Annie crying like that." It was the sound of a piece of my heart dying. So getting the news about Julie, made me worried about taking my friend to the visitor center. When we were heading there I asked him if he had been to the visitors center since the last time I took him. He said no. But some tender mercies happened when we arrived at the visitors center. My friend told me on the way that he was thinking about taking out his endwoments. He had attended baptisms for the dead for about a year with the youth of his ward. When he told me that he was thinking about it...my hairs stood on end and I felt the tingley feeling through out my body. Definitely the spirit. When we got to the temple I went over to where the Book Of Mormon's in other languages were shelved. I grabbed the Chinese BOM, which so happened to be the version that they use for the Cantonese speakers. I forgot that they have an interactive thing set up so when you pull the BOM off the shelve the interactive part starts reading a passage in the language. It so happened the scripture being read was Moroni 10:4-5. You know the one that says if you ask with real intent, having faith in Christ you know if what you are asking is true. Another tender mercy for me. I felt the spirit and at that time I was hoping My friend had too. I was hoping it would help him make the choice to go to the temple. I then turned to the wall that was behind us that had many pictures of saints that had written or participated in mormon.org with their testimonies, videos, etc. I immediately recongnoized a stakie from my mission. Kristie Ho was one of those faces. She and another teenager (remember I was on my mission in 1993-1995)Katie, were two of the greatest stakies (ward missionaries) I had on my mission. So I took a picture with my girls, my friend and I standing below her picture. It brought a great smile to my face. I believe she served a mission and married in the temple and has two beautiful daughters. I am friends with her on FB so I posted the picture. But that is not all! As we were leaving and getting on the highway, I told my friend I didn't want for him to feel pressure about going to the temple. I wanted him to know, no matter what I trusted what ever decision he came to was the right one for him. Well, after I said that he told me he felt the spirit in the visitor center and that he wanted to go now and not wait. YAAAAAAYYYYY! I can't wait to see him go. What a special blessing it will be for him. I plan on getting the headphones and listening to it in Cantonese. While I was getting closer to his house I flashed back to the day my dad died. It was raining like it was the day my dad died, it was about the same time. I immediately thought of my sister and although I was pretty sure she was still fine I checked my phone...and she was!

My Jade

I am constantly amazed at my children. Today Jade gave a talk in Primary...probably one of her last. First I have to say I am grateful that their father called me to tell me that she had a talk, so I could be there to hear it. I am quite sure Jade wanted me to come (it was a daddy weekend) and she is very persistent. What I did not know was that she mentioned me in her talk. Her subject was about thankfulness. At the end of her talk she used the letters to the word thanksgiving to tell what she was thankful for. For letter A she said she was grateful for "Andrea, who is my mommy." Nothing means more to me than hearing that she is thankful for me. Nothing. There is more! After she ended her talk one of the leaders said "I bet if the letter P was in Thanksgiving you would say you were thankful for Primary." Jade said, "or Piper." Double wow! I don't think I ever would have thought about being thankful for my siblings at age 11. Of course I am thankful for them but as an 11 year old I was more interested in soccer, basketball, and track and field, and NOT my siblings. How grateful and humbled I am by my daughters. They have taught me more about everything than anything before them.

My dream

When I was young I wanted to be a football player. Soccer was acceptable for girls to play, but not football. My dream was to go to BYU and be the place kicker...my way of finding a way to play football. My favorite movie was the called something like the Quarterback Queen and it was about a girl who played football at a high school in Oregon. My favorite halloween costume was a football player. I used to go through the JC Penny catalogs and look at the football costumes you could buy. I did try to play Rugby when I lived in Hong Kong in 2003 but my body was just beginning to break down and I sprained my ankle. I was so close. I hurt my ankle the practice before we practiced tackling:(. Don't get me wrong, I loved soccer, it is my favorite sport. But football...ahhh...I had a dream. Now I watch football when I can and love talking about college football with my mom. It's one of the things we have in common...watching college football and talking about it. Maybe in Heaven I will play. That would be one of my ideas of what Heaven is like:)

The world is a small place

I just got off the phone with a sister who I taught in the MTC. Her husband is SSA. After I posted on FB that I was SSA she messaged me to tell me that she had just returned from a conference helping wives whose husbands are gay. I love how small the world is and how great inspiration works. My next big project is to write an essay and send it to , a group that are people who are gay and their loved ones, striving to follow the teachings of the gospel. I am so impressed with those couples who are able to stay married and active. I am so grateful to this sister who reached out and talked with me. I am not a group type of person but there is something to be said about finding people who understand. I don't really have that in my neck of the woods. I hope I can start to make a difference.

This past week I have felt a great amount of support from many of my good friends and family. I am so grateful for all them. THANK YOU! This post is going to be about free agency. I had a discussion with a lady at the gym. I am usually not a talkative person when I am working out but for some reason this gal seemed like a very open person. Initially we talked about the tv show that was on, I asked her where she was originally from, etc. Get to know you questions. While talking with her, I had the feeling I should open up to her about myself on a more personal level. I had already figured out she was gay and had a girlfriend. She knew I was LDS and served a mission. So I dived in and told I was SGA (same gender attracted). She told me she was wondering if that was the case. And then she started asking me a million questions. Like, how could I give up the possibility of a sexual relationship, did my family disown me, and the one I usually get, doesn't the church kick people like me out. It was an interesting conversation to say the least. To answer her the question about not having a sexual relationship I pointed out to her that no matter who you are, your orientation, your marital status, relationship status, and plain old living breathing person, we are all giving up one thing for another. We are in a constant state of choices and consequences. And we should be in a constant state of taking responsibility or owning our choices and the consequences. This is what I am trying to teach my girls. I give them choices and try to help them see the possible consequences but allow them ultimately to make the choice. This lady at the gym was one of the very few people I have told about myself that actually understood what I was trying to point out. Yes I am gay, yes I am LDS, yes I choose to be active in the church and yes I am not in a sexual relationship. I have learned, the hard way, that no matter the excuse, your choices are yours. Satan would have us believe we are forced into things or that its not our fault. Anything to get us to avoid the reality of our choices and their consequences. I avoided my choices and consequences for many years. I tried not to think about who I was hurting. I tried very hard to blame others for my choices. All of that time I lost because I chose to run away from my choices. I can never get those years back. However I can choose now to do better. I have had people become very upset with me for not following their idea of how I should live my life...from both the LDS and non-LDS sides. I try very hard to make choices based on my relationship with Heavenly Father. I know my life choices will not make sense to many people. But I am not living my life for other people. I am not perfect at it but I am trying and I won't give up trying. And I respect that each one of us has the God given right to choose for themselves.