My Calling, Part Two

I know that we don't "own" our callings. I've seen real scenarios when people feel this way, and it isn't good.

I know that callings aren't actually based on career paths or personal identity, either.

I also understand that know-how is not what qualifies a person to receive a calling, not even a music calling. Actually, I learned that from Sister Newman specifically. But that's a tangent.

I know that sometimes bishoprics and branch presidencies can make mistakes. They are unlikely to do so when issuing a calling, since every calling is prayed about specifically. But even if they did, God does not make mistakes. That means he would have arranged for the bishopric's mistake long in advance. Callings are all ultimately from God.

I would not refuse a calling. If the logistics of my situation were a barrier to performing my calling adequately, I would explain those logistics and follow my leaders' counsel. I trust my leaders.

I have experienced firsthand that my priesthood leaders are flawed mortal men AND simultaneously chosen and qualified by God. I sustain and honor them, and always have. One important way in which I honor my leaders is by not saying bad things about them. I have not and never will do that.

I needed to gain a testimony in the leadership pattern for temple and family history work before I was given this calling. I can see now that some of the painful and difficult experiences I've had in the past several years were to teach me that the leadership pattern itself is inspired. When Sister Newman was first called to be the Stake Family History Center Director I met with her frequently. I taught her a lot of the know-how things. I set up an online sign-up system. I fixed some of the broken or poorly configured computer settings. When she had to be with her father, I conducted the large bi-stake family history activity. I knew how I would've done things, had I been in her shoes, or if I were to ever have become in her shoes. I thought about it explicitly. That way was "Kate's Way", not God's way.

Though I had a LOT of knowledge of facts and tools, I lacked her understanding of and faith in the priesthood leadership pattern as it relates to family history and temple work. I didn't even know that was something I lacked, either. It took a very long time and a lot of internal pain to learn that.

I have experienced being a ward temple and family history consultant for a long time, so I know intimately what some of the barriers and frustrations are in that calling. I am about to enter graduate school, studying Corpus Linguistics; I care a *lot* about words, and the words and titles in the church are changing on purpose, for inspired reasons, and especially in this part of the church. I'm also overwhelmed by things that are very different from what overwhelms "normal" people; juggling multiple big projects doesn't scare or intimidate me and I generally do well with it - ex.: I taught Middle School Arabic, have five kids, am learning Czech, etc. I have a deep understanding and interest in the details about how many family history tools and resources work, as well as 12 years of experience using them as they've evolved and changed. I have a firm testimony in the importance of temple and family history work. I believe it to be the work of salvation for the human family, so it's the most important work on the earth. It is the same work as bringing children into this world to create families and sharing the gospel with the world through missionary work. All of these are just the same work from different angles. I have a firm testimony now that the pattern we have is inspired. It is not the pattern I would naturally choose myself, either! I constantly have to look towards that pattern and align my will to match it, but my mind and heart have changed so that I can!

So now I have the unique position of having the know-how, the motivation, the experience, the contacts, the energy, the testimony, and the calling. I've been given the power to both run this center and teach the leaders in my stake their specific role in this work. I do not think that's a coincidence. I really want to have the chance to fulfil both these roles of sys admin AND leader-teacher. They seem at variance with one another, and perhaps in the future they will be, but I think it isn't a coincidence to give both jobs to a single person while people are learning to follow this new bottom-up approach. We need to get the center itself in line with the new philosophy of how to do temple and family history work. It's easier to do with one person in charge.

I feel like God has directly shown me that he wants me in this position now, and that I can fulfil this calling if I rely closely on the leadership pattern he established. I'm not the logical choice for this calling from an outside   perspective (ha!), but my inner self has been uniquely prepared and qualified, which is what matters. I have faith that God will help me arrange the logistical side of things.

My Calling

This weekend I had one of the most joyful spiritual experiences of my life, so I want to write about it.

Here's a timeline of events leading up to this weekend:

In 2012 I was called to serve as a ward family history consultant in the Nottingham Country Ward in Katy, Texas. We moved to Iowa in July of 2013, and I was called to serve again as a ward family history consultant in the Ankeny Ward.

During this entire time I served as a ward family history consultant. Bishop Russell called me to serve as the "family history consultant - lead." This meant that I was supposed to lead the other consultants, make sure they were trained, and coordinate our efforts to help the members in the ward in their goals. The goals were never explicitly stated at this time, but they were certainly along the lines of: take names to the temple, help build a deep love for their ancestors, and build familysearch family tree's giant tree for the whole human family. When Bishop Russell set me apart, he gave me a priesthood blessing that I will never forget. Picture a sharp, witty, confident, athletic man in his 40's or so, placing his hands on my head with one of his counselors, and while saying the words to his prayer, he just becomes completely overcome with emotion, taking long pauses and crying. I don't remember everything he said in that prayer, but he specifically blessed me that I would find names in my family that were difficult to pronounce for people who have been waiting for a long time, and that they would accept the temple work being performed for them.

For the next three years, without exception, every single time I took names to the temple, they were mispronounced. These were my Czech family members. It became some kind of delicious inside joke, this repeated consternation and frustration on the part of the temple workers. They often apologized for butchering the names. Krčmarský, Pavliskovec, Chodura, Michna...these are the kinds of names that nobody could pronounce.

There is nothing that can compare to the feeling of peace and assurance that I have in the temple while performing the ordinance work for these people to whom I owe my life.

There were a lot of realignments of ward and stake boundaries between 2013-2016. The ward was split in half vertically, then the wards were unbalanced so they changed the dividing line to be vertical, then the stake was realigned due to the large growth of members in the area (which is probably mostly a factor of how much this place is growing in general). It is hard for me to keep track of all the changes. We had four different bishops in four years. The result of all these changes was that I knew almost all the members in both the Ankeny wards.

In 2016, the title of the calling changed to be "ward temple and family history consultant." This news was given at RootsTech 2016, which I attended.

In 2017 (I think?), the little corner of North Ankeny in which I live was assigned to the newly created Rock Creek Ward. All of us who were "switching" wards suddenly lost our callings en masse. I approached Bishop Morales, the husband of my good friend Melanie, and jokingly asked him when he was going to call me to serve as a temple and family history consultant.

I was called as the First Counselor in the Young Women's Presidency, which meant that I was in charge of helping the 12 and 13 year old girls. They did not give me a temple and family history calling.

I continued to pester the bishop about it. He was annoyed. I was way more annoyed. I felt like the blessing which Bishop Russell had given me was not totally fulfilled; that my calling wasn't "over", that I hadn't finished - that I'd been robbed of an opportunity to serve; after all, I'd only lost it because the wards had been changed. Bishop Morales gave me an excuse that I could not stomach at the time: I was pregnant so they didn't want to overwhelm me with responsibility, and they wanted me to focus on serving the YW. It was like they were wrenching a piece of my identity from me, and I was doubly pissed because this was the one semi-professional thing that I had to show on a resume for the past decade of my life as a stay at home mom. Far more than that, I was incredulous about anybody else being as qualified as I was, which, while a super prideful attitude, was probably objectively true at the time. I had yet to learn that know-how does not really equate to ability to teach or mobilize others; not by a long shot.

At some point, I remember sitting in the car with Danny outside of a bookstore. I had been bitterly complaining, sharing my thoughts about this situation. Most of these thoughts centered on me not believing that my calling could be inspired from God. That thought was deeply disturbing to me. I still felt like my church leaders were inspired, but it felt like for the "lesser" callings, they were just getting warm bodies. Also, the reasons given for why I was not given the calling I wanted was unacceptable to me.

Our Stake President moved and Bishop Morales became the Stake President, and Bishop Pack was called as my bishop. I was called to serve in a second and very obscure position in the ward: "Sunday School Teacher - Teacher Council Facilitator." Every time I tried to do something, it didn't work. None of my plans to help create better, more effective teaching in my ward worked. I definitely had a lot of know-how, but I couldn't do anything. It was a sucky feeling.

And suddenly, there were some massive, massive changes to everything at church because President Monson died and President Nelson became the prophet. There was so much change. A new way of approaching church was rolled out. We were supposed to have a "home-centered, church-supported" church experience. The church provided us with these really great teaching tools for implementing a much more relaxed kind of religious education experience in our homes. The entire idea is to focus on the individual person. The teacher council remains a thing, but basically - church time was cut by 30%, church programs like YW were made to be bi-weekly instead of every week, and the plan for me to somehow help teach the ward teachers to be better was subsumed in this bigger, much, much better plan to help the entire church be better. To me, this felt deeply personal. Like, it was as if God was trying to tell me individually, "Your plan is on the right track. You understand the goal. But I have a much better way of getting there. Let me show you."

At some point, I was released from the Young Women's Presidency, and later as this Sunday school teacher. And at some other point (sorry that I am bad with remembering the details) I was given the calling of Ward Temple and Family History Consultant - Lead. I was elated. This time, I would do even better. I would show "them" all that I should have had this calling all along. I was going to do great things...

...but none of my efforts worked, just like with my other "failed" calling of Teacher Council Facilitator. Literally everything I tried failed. People didn't listen to me. I wondered if people were just tired of hearing me beat the same drum, or play the same few notes on the piano. The church had made massive organizational changes so that now, there was no space to meet with people one on one at the church with a computer to do family history with them during second hour. Temple and Family History had been organized under the direction of the High Priest Group Leader, but suddenly, there was no more High Priest's Group (a big change made by President Nelson). For about six months, Temple and Family History Consultants were "rogue." We didn't have a leadership pattern to follow. We didn't report to anyone, and we just did our best to keep following the basically uninformed goals of the members, or our own ideas about what we should be doing. I felt kind of sick about it. I didn't like it. To me, it felt like I was supposed to both make a plan and implement it, single-handedly, but whilst being burdened with the implicit limitations of being a really big nerd, a really overenthusiastic person, and not having any kind of authority to make decisions about holding meetings, making changes, or doing stuff like that. It was crappy.

I remember that at some point, I just felt like giving up. I would help people who came to me with help (I'd get a phone call about two or three times a month from someone about family history), but I just stopped going out of my way to help others. I tried to attend these bi-weekly meetups that my ward was trying to do, but the attendance there was pitifully low, sometimes just me and the hosts. Or if I was the host, sometimes just me. It was beyond discouraging.

Then, something horrible happened.

I attended RootsTech 2019 and a new Temple and Family History Leadership Instruction was "unrolled." There were numerous things about this meeting that I disliked, but I will not dwell on all of them. Basically: we were given some new instructions.

Wards and branches were to create a Ward Temple and Family History Plan in their ward/branch councils (a member of each auxiliary attends this, plus the bishopric, plus some other people; it's pretty small).

A Ward Temple and Family History Coordination Meeting should be held "regularly." Sometimes, this could mean a giant group text, rather than an in-person meeting. This meeting is for Ward Temple and Family History Consultants, plus a couple other specific people (which I'll talk about in a little bit). The point of the meeting is to coordinate efforts to implement the Ward Temple and Family History Plan.

Finally, the bishop was to pick one of four patterns of leadership for the ward, the first one being strongly suggested. I've listed them in order of who reports to whom.

1.
Ward Temple and Family History Consultants
Ward Temple and Family History Leader
Counselor in the Elder's Quorum Presidency
Elder's Quorum President
Bishop/Branch President

2.
Ward Temple and Family History Consultants
Counselor in the Elder's Quorum Presidency
Elder's Quorum President
Bishop/Branch President

3.
Ward Temple and Family History Consultants
Elder's Quorum President
Bishop/Branch President

4.
Ward Temple and Family History Consultants
Bishop/Branch President

The advice was for the bishop or branch president to pick one and NOT KEEP IT A SECRET. You laugh, but, that has been a big problem, actually!

What bothered me deeply was that this new calling named "Ward Temple and Family History Leader" was a priesthood calling. The fact that it was a priesthood calling was not what bothered me, at least, not most.

During the meeting at RootsTech I was sitting with my friend Kami, who I hadn't seen in ages, and another ward temple and family history consultant from my ward, Gigi. I was trying to figure out if that was or was not a priesthood calling. I couldn't. At the end of the session, I marched up to the front of the auditorium (a giant ballroom with at least 500 people in it) and literally pushed my way to the front to talk to the speaker, who was some member of some seventy. I do not remember his name. He almost didn't answer my question, but I basically shouted at him that I needed him to answer me. My question was, "Is the 'Ward Temple and Family History Leader' a priesthood calling?" He said yes. He could not tell me why, except that it was what the First Presidency had prayed about and felt inspired to do. Then he left before he was swarmed by a huge number of other people with questions. It seemed like very few other people were as visibly concerned about this issue as I was.

I was really, really upset. Did this mean that I was being automatically released again? Did the fact that I am a woman disqualify me from serving? If so, why? If I wouldn't know why - still, what was expected of me next? Why didn't they acknowledge that likely over 80% of the people in the church with the calling of "Ward Temple and Family History Consultant - Lead" had been women? Why weren't we ever even given some kind of tacit acknowledgement for our service?

This basically ruined my trip.

I tried to talk about it with my in laws, but that didn't work. Do you know how many words it takes to explain something like this to someone else? They did not understand or relate to my feelings, and their reaction was unhelpful. I felt like nobody understood or cared about my feelings, logic, previous service, or just basically, me at all. Danny tried, but he couldn't give me any kind of guidance about what to do next.

I made an appointment to meet with my bishop. I knew that his time is limited, and so I wanted to go into our meeting with organized thoughts. I didn't want my emotions to rule the conversation, and then get nothing resolved. I sat down and created a giant flowchart of my thoughts and feelings. It was...very large. It helped me a lot. In the end, it boiled down to this question, "What is expected of me now? What is my role?"

My bishop was not very understanding at first. He looked at my spreadsheet but, for the second time, I felt like I was being scolded for asking questions. This is deeply against my personal values. I am not in this church because of coercion or being a lemming. I very deeply value asking questions and having my answers taken seriously, even if I don't always get straightforward answers from leaders. I know for sure, without any doubt, that the only one who can give perfect answers to my questions is God.

By the way, I spent a lot of time fasting and praying about this, too. I was also reading my scriptures in depth.

So yeah, my bishop was not very happy with my attitude. He was frustrated. He did listen to me, though. Bishop Pack and I have the same kind of outgoing, trying to please others personality. To see him so visibly upset about my attitude, to see him worry about my faith - which, to me, was not really the issue at hand - this probably was an important part to what happened next.

While reading my scriptures, I stumbled across the Old Testament story of Naaman. To sum up this story, basically there was this powerful leader named Naaman who got sick with leprosy. He believed the prophet Elisha could heal him by the power of God. He tried to ask Elisha what to do, but Elisha sends a letter telling him to go bathe in the river Jordan seven times. Naaman is super pissed off at the way Elisha tells him - how dare he not even come outside to meet him, how dare he send a letter, isn't this disrespectful! Naaman almost refuses to follow this counsel, but one of Naaman's servants convinces him to just try it anyway. So he does and is healed.

The point of the story for me was that the way the revelation is disseminated may have been really distasteful (mostly, I feel like it is a reflection on a broad level sexism that exists in my culture that is not specific to just my church), but that does not invalidate the revelation itself. That was the exact message I needed to hear at the time.

My bishop had scheduled to talk with me again, and when we did, I explained to him what I had learned. I still didn't really understand some things about this change. I was mostly concerned about the real, practical implications for me. I wanted to know what was expected of me. In this second meeting, we talked a bit more about what I was to do. Basically, "wait for the ward council to develop the plan." We were to follow pattern #2, the one without a designated "Ward Temple and Family History Leader." I was also given the explicit assignment to be the "leader" of the Ward Temple and Family History Consultants. Bishop had talked about it with President Morales, and they were both united on that.

So, yeah. I was the "leader" but still, without a voice on the ward council, what could I do? I was to implement a non-existent plan.

Danny had been worried sick about me, my faith, and my feelings. He tried very hard to be supportive, but it was not easy for him to understand all the emotions going around in my mind and heart. A lot of them were deeply bitter and cynical, but I think not exactly in the way that Danny thought. I still held a lot of doubt about whether or not my calling could be from God, even though I had already had a powerful lesson about callings with my other super weird teacher-teacher calling. Finally, one day I just explained to him the feelings of my heart. I explained through tears that I felt that I had done as much as I felt I could do, and I felt like the lesson that I had learned was that God is in charge of my calling, even though I didn't really get it. I felt like my lesson had been to admit that all my plans to be the best consultant ever, to just light a fire under my ward and have us all become super enthusiastic and effective at family history, that my desire to do things my way - all those things were not really the right way to approach this problem. I told Danny that I felt like I'd learned it, and now that I'd learned it, I was waiting to be released, since apparently I was good for nothing, useless, and ineffective in this calling.

The next day, I was asked to meet for an interview with a member of the Stake Presidency, and oh, yeah, you can bring your husband with you.

Those are code words for you are going to get a stake level calling.

Well, sort of. I was actually worried about it. I had given my spreadsheet to Bishop Pack. Maybe the Stake Presidency wanted to talk about it with me, too. But I was over those feelings. I didn't really want to rehash them again.

I figured that it was most likely a calling, though. I thought about it. Stake level callings for women are about a 60% possibility of being in some kind of presidency, a 30% possibility of being in something obscure like a Self Reliance Group Facilitator, and then there's always the 10% chance of something else unexpected. The interview was going to be a week later. I had to wait.

It was a really, really long week.

Danny and I went to the interview. President Helton asked if I was serving in any callings. I said I was a Ward Temple and Family History Consultant. He looked so visibly relieved after I said that. He told me that they would like to extend the call to me to serve as a Stake Temple and Family History Consultant "chair." I thought, "Hmm...I think that's...not a thing." I looked at him, puzzled. He said, "The Family History Center Director. Brother and Sister Newman are moving to Mississippi, and we want you to replace her."

Well, of course I said yes. It would be another two weeks until I'd be officially called (the calling announced in church) and set apart (given a priesthood blessing by the laying on of hands with specific direction and guidance for the calling. This is done for every calling in the church, from Prophet to nursery worker).

The line of authority goes like this:

Stake Temple and Family History Consultant
High Counselor over Temple and Family History
Stake Presidency

This means that suddenly, I will have the power to do stuff.

That day, I tried really hard to find out what the heck a Stake Temple and Family History Consultant "Chair" does. I quickly found out that the real name is simply: "Stake Temple and Family History Consultant" but that I also have an additional "title" in the church's online system (which is a headache) and that is "Stake Temple and Family History Consultant - Family History Center."

To me, this is a little bit of an inside joke. I feel like the words and phrases used in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (hahaha) keep getting increasingly multi-syllabic. I never expected to have a longer calling title than Sunday School Teacher - Teacher Council Facilitator. Well. I was wrong. Makes me wonder what my next calling will have to be to beat it...hahaha.

President Helton told me they still hadn't called the new High Counselor, and they were all going to be reassigned duties, so he didn't know yet who would be over Temple and Family History. He told me to just wait until I was set apart and then I'd find out soon thereafter.

I called Sister Newman, who is a dear friend of mine. My first round of being a family history consultant, I would go to the center every week. I met some really great people there, including a patron who was not a member (about half of them are not) who was looking for his Czech ancestors. I helped him find his village of origin, and later he was able to visit it. We are still friends, and he and his wife are great people. Anyway. Sister Newman is also a great person. I really love her, and will miss her. I talked with her at length about my role as a Stake Temple and Family History Consultant. We arranged to meet yesterday evening after I was set apart.

I discovered from Sister Newman that the Des Moines - Mt. Pisgah Stake does not have its own Family History Center. They use ours. So I invited their Stake Temple and Family History Consultant to come to our meeting. The center is about a 25 minute drive from my house.

I was set apart. My bishop was thrilled to see me. Honestly, I think I was a little bit awkward. I am often awkward. I try but sometimes I don't know another way to be that is also genuine, and genuineness always wins out for me, I guess. Brother Cox and Bishop Pack laid their hands on my head and set me apart. Brother Cox gave the blessing, and it was really good. I wrote it down later. I asked bishop if he knew how my name came up. He said he didn't really. Neither had President Helton. The blessing promised me I would learn that information.

On my way to the meeting, I got a call from Brother Billings. He is the high counselor over Temple and Family History. I invited him to come to our meeting, and he did.

The meeting was the best meeting I have ever had with anyone in the church.

Ever.

We were all exactly on the same page. Sister Rich, Sister Newman, and Brother Billings are highly competent people. We discussed our plan moving forward. Brother Billings had some advice from the Area Authority over Temple and Family History, which is one level up from the Stake. They told him that, essentially, his job is to motivate the Ward Temple and Family History Leaders, counselors in the EQ Presidency, counselors in the RS Presidency (who also attend the Ward Temple and Family History Coordination Meetings), EQ and RS Presidents, and bishops/branch presidents, while my role is to be the toolbox. Give them the tools they need.

The fact is, the church is moving away from a top-down approach to a lot of things, including Temple and Family History. It is supposed to be a ward level approach, with the importance and emphasis on the individual rather than on numbers and programs. Here's the updated guidelines to what Handbook 2 has to say about my role:

If the stake has a family history center, these leaders assign consultants to serve as staff members there as requested by the stake temple and family history consultant.

The stake presidency may assign one or more high councilors to train the ward temple and family history leader (if called; see 5.4.1) and members of the elders quorum and Relief Society presidencies who lead temple and family history work. As needed, these high councilors also coordinate the stake’s efforts in FamilySearch indexing and at family history centers. They may be assisted by a stake temple and family history consultant.


Family History Centers

Some stakes have family history centers, which exist primarily to help Church members identify their ancestral family members and provide temple ordinances for them. Community patrons are also welcome to use the resources at family history centers.

These centers provide access to the Church’s microfilmed family history records, to family history computer and Internet resources such as FamilySearch, and to training on how to do family history work.

Basically, there's really just one job that I have: "help assist the high councilor/stake presidency." That is a big, big change from how things were in the past, when there weren't even ward-level consultants.

The promise is that as we implement these changes, the Lord will hasten his work on both sides of the veil and we will be blessed in the process. I know that's true.

I asked Brother Billings if he knew how they had decided to call me to this calling. He said that yes, my bishop had recommended me. As he had been thinking and praying about it, my name was strongly and obviously the right one. He knew it must be inspired because the feelings he had were strong, and we have never met before. He didn't even know what I look like. I am not the obvious choice for this calling because I live far away and have 5 children ages 1-10 - actually, those things make me a very bad choice for this calling. Sister Rich suggested that maybe they should call two people to take on the role of running the center, since that is a really big role and the other role of helping train the consultants is deeply necessary and takes all her time. I learned in the meeting that she is actually not in charge of the center, though she has been helping to step up because Sister Newman was unable to do some things since her father had been dying and she had been taking care of him.

But no, the key belongs to me. Literally. I have the key, all the passwords, and I am now the sys admin of a very small computer lab in Des Moines that is dedicated to the most important work that exists on the earth today. 

They also decided to not release me as a Ward Temple and Family History Consultant. Between the time when I was issued my Stake Temple and Family History Consultant calling and was actually set apart, my ward had another one of these Family History "meetups" at the Clawson's house. Sister Clawson is the Relief Society Counselor over Temple and Family History, and Brother Clawson is the Elder's Quorum Counselor over Temple and Family History, so that simplifies things.

There were about 20 people there, and it was extremely successful. Everybody was engaged. Everybody had someone to help someone else. Multiple people had life-changing experiences. People found their ancestors. I talked at length with Brother Clawson about the Ward Temple and Family History Plan. He is a computer programmer, and we get along really well. He knows how to get things done and work with people. He's also been a bishop before, so he understands how some of these stupid bureaucratic things work. He is attending the Ward Council and getting them to create the plan (really, more like, approve the plan that he and I created and that he pared down to be 2 or 3 lines). He and his wife are a real joy to work with in the ward. 

The clear message to me in all this is that I can be successful at my calling. God wants me to be. I need to continue to rely on him, because his hand is right there, in the very small details of my life. The timing of all these things is too good to be a coincidence. I suppose a cynic would disagree, but I think that'd mostly be because you haven't walked in my shoes or experienced it firsthand. Brother Billings, who is a practical, businesslike, efficient Middle School Principal, telling me, "Yeah, I just got this really strong feeling like I needed to call you right now, but I was saying to myself, 'no, no, she was only just called today...' But I'm so glad I did, so that I could attend this meeting!"

If things hadn't lined up the way they had, I would not have had as strong/firm an understanding of God's hand in the importance of the changes in this work. I guess I needed to live the contrast a little bit in order to understand the new changes. I was looking at it the wrong way: the Ward Temple and Family History Leader does not replace the Ward Temple and Family History Consultant - Lead, but the High Priest Group Leader. Organizing the ward in the new way means that the consultants, who are usually kind of quirky, reserved, or otherwise weird - not the best people people - will get to focus on implementing the plan, and not creating/cheer-leading it, too. Giving the ward council the responsibility to create the plan and giving the priesthood leaders clear roles in implementing it really is inspired. It will work better. God knows better than me how to lead this church, and my job is to do my absolute best to try to follow.

I am VERY happy about this new calling, about the people I work with, and about the future of Temple and Family History in both my ward and the church as a whole. This is likely to be one of the most influential callings over the most people that I will ever have in my entire life.

It feels like God is telling me that I did a good job learning what I was supposed to learn, and that he trusts me to help with his work. There is not much else that can compare to that feeling, except the additional sweet feeling that he cares about the small details that are just sometimes too hard to explain to others. The things that are too long to write about or discuss, or for which I struggle to assign words. It matters a lot to me that my God knows me, and cares enough about me to make that known. I feel doubtful that this message will have any kind of the deep and personal meaning to anybody reading this that it does to me, and that makes me feel a little bit frustrated. I wish I could explain my heart better. I know there will be typos, too...earugh...

I was able to bear my testimony to these three people in this meeting. It was one of the most genuine testimonies I have every born in my life. I'll echo it a little bit here: I know that Jesus Christ leads the church, that my calling is inspired from God, and that God knows me and loves me. This is the best feeling there is.

A Letter of Forgiveness to My Culture

Why I am writing this:

Holding on to these nasty negative feelings about my culture is not good for me. Nobody wins a prize for being a martyr. I will feel better if I let go of my anger and turn it over to the Lord. This is the point of my religion.

I'm not going to let go of my desire to fix the world and make it a better place for my children, but I do not think the vitriol, hatred, disgust, or loathing are helpful. I don't need to be a bitter man-hating woman to improve the world.

I will have to revisit this later when my feelings have deepened and matured. Right now I don't have a lot of nice things to say, so it has to be short.

****

Dear Culture of Mine,

You know we've had a rocky relationship. Even now I find it intensely difficult not to write snide and insulting things about you. When I think more deeply about it, I realize that most of the things that are difficult for me to understand and appreciate about you are not your fault, they are caused from the fact that this is a fallen world outside the presence of God. Aren't all your other brother and sister cultures equally flawed, then? Why should I especially hate you more?

I shouldn't.

There are some things about you that I prefer to any other culture around. But this isn't a list of your pros and cons, it's an offering of forgiveness, and a clumsy one at that. It would not go over so well to a human.

Here goes.

I forgive you for objectifying me and the women (and also the men!) around me. I will never agree with it, but I know that I simply don't need to hold onto this feeling anymore. I can take my anger and observations and place them on an altar of sacrifice for somebody much more qualified to deal with.

I forgive you for the pain and suffering you've specifically caused in my family and also generally caused all around me.

I don't understand you perfectly, but I know God does. I have faith that God is powerful enough to fix massively broken things and make them perfectly right. I also have faith that God cares about all the things I care about, and I care deeply and intensely about making you right. I care about fixing you, but I definitely cannot do that alone, nor can I be as effective as I might if I were not burdened down with these intense feelings of malice towards you.

I am not actually sure if this letter will "count" as forgiveness. Or count "enough." I am not sure if going through the motions of saying you forgive someone or something for a deep wound or wrongdoing they have inflicted upon you is enough. I haven't had a lot of experience with dealing with the forgiveness side of the repentance coin; I know repentance works, and that the motions matter. But to forgive feels hard because I am very hesitant to "give up" my intense emotions about a cause and conviction which I know are right.

The thing is, I don't have to give up my willingness and desire to cling to my ideals and strive to improve you moving forward. This forgiveness is also not going to suddenly give you free reign to do whatever you want to me; I'll continue to maintain a healthy distance from you, but I will also no longer have to carry the hatred in my heart.

From time to time, I will have to come back and reread these words, reconvincing myself that they are true.

I know that Heavenly Father has the power to forgive, and also the power to help me forgive. I'm pleading for him to give me some of this power. I think it is my right to claim it as his daughter. It is a promise he gives to all his children everywhere, through the atonement of Jesus Christ. Not only can we be forgiven every time that we repent, but we can also have the capacity to forgive others even when they don't. The wrongs will be made right somehow. I don't know how, but I have faith that it works. I cling to that faith.

Culture, it seems you'll never repent, and I'll have to live with that fact for a long, looong time yet.

I forgive you anyway.

Sincerely,
Kate

Nudity and Competition

I am not done talking about this yet.

I want to write a little bit more about what it's like to be a woman in a culture where female nudity is ubiquitous. It isn't quite to the point in the United States were there is full frontal nudity on highway billboards like I have literally seen in Europe, but I think that's probably just a matter of time.

Honestly, some of the Victoria's Secret posters are far, faaaar more disturbing: body positioning, age of the model (some cannot be more than 10 years old!), and somehow wearing a little bit of clothing and taking it off is a far different message than just baring it all out in the breeze. But loads has been written and discussed about what does or does not qualify as porn. I'm more interested in explaining in a little more detail one of the ideas from my previous post about where nudity does and does not belong: the issue of personalization of media. 

When I watch a film, read a book, look at a piece of art or an advertisement, or whatever, I insert myself into the image. This process tends to be very subtle; there's the "fourth wall" that remains securely in place, except as an occasional joke for a moment in experimental pieces. But I'm still there. I am not an innocent bystander. The art doesn't "happen" to me, I consume it. I am a piece of it. I am involved.

When the message of the media is not in line with my deeply held beliefs, I feel annoyed, insulted, frustrated, and disgusted. I don't like it. It's not pleasant. These are all easy to understand. When the message of the media is "women are for sex" then I consider that the piece is a blatantly sexist objectification of women. But it's not just some anonymous idea of "women."

It's objectifying me.

Because I am involved in the piece, and not just a bystander, it's deeply, cruelly personally about me.

One might wonder if there's a space for nude art that is created by and viewed by only the same gender, but there are obvious issues here (cough cough not everyone's straight), not the least of which is that we live in a social world. I am as straight as you can get, and yet when I think of "sexy" I always think of women instead of men. Is this cultural conditioning, or something else? The fact is, I can't check either my sexuality or my societal biases at the door of the art gallery/movie theater/library/etc. and since I am a participant in the media I choose, even if ever so passive, the art is always going to have some kind of message about me.

You chose me because x.
Your reaction to me is x because of y personal experience.
Look at me, look at me, look at me! You'll remember me, and that imprinted memory will give me power over you!

No, the fact is that I believe that nudity for recreation, even if it could magically become asexual (which it can't), is wrong outside of marriage. I wish that I could say that I do a perfect job at following this simple and straightforward guideline, but I definitely don't. There's also all kinds of fuzzy degrees: is an allusion to sex in a book okay ever, for example? Anyway, I think that sometimes the line between "recreation" and "academic purposes" is the fuzziest spot for me; I can spend all this time happily living in meta-land (like now, writing this post), or studying things vaguely (or directly) connected to the sex lives of my ancestors (one of the most interesting things to me bar none), but I would probably do better to just move on. Dangit, but it's interesting.

And I'm not finished yet because this is important. I really want my male friends to get this, since apparently some of you haven't spent much time considering what female nudity all around is like from a female perspective.

There is a strange interplay between modesty and your feelings about your own body. The clothing one wears can give you a sense of power and control, especially over men, but also over women in a weird way. This interplay extends vicariously through the aforementioned personalization of media. Let me explain.

My guess is that when a straight man sees a beautiful woman who is wearing very little clothing in real life, his reaction would be something like this:

[feelings of arousal]
Wow, she's hot! 
Therefore either: look away!
                      or: look closer!

When I see a really beautiful woman who is wearing very little clothing in real life, this is the kind of thing that goes through my head:

[feelings of alert attention]
Wow, she's hot! Why?
Why is she wearing that? What is she trying to do? Who is she trying to impress? What is she saying?
Therefore: Is my _____ as _____ as hers? How do I look compared to her? What will [x person] think of her? Will [x] like her _____ more than my _____? How can I redirect the attention to me? I wish my ____ looked more like that. How can I get to look more like that? 

Men don't go through the emotional roller coaster of comparison and competition that women do when we are confronted with sexually provocative women. I am sure this is not just a US-culture phenomenon, either; it would actually make a lot of sense if it were a biological trait we evolved to have. At any rate, this kind of comparison is the lifeblood of negative body image, a rampant plague of western culture here and abroad that afflicts the vast majority of women in developed countries at some point in their lives. I am confident that women from many cultures experience this, though I'm not confident that most women would be able to articulate it or honestly and openly confront it. It's difficult to think about, so a lot of women pretend they don't notice. And, sigh, perhaps some really are that oblivious or blind to reality. #thinkiestthinkers #lonelytower

As I illustrated above, media is participatory and necessarily always includes some kind of message about me to me, even if it's subtle (and in advertising, it never is subtle!). It doesn't really matter if the sexually provocative woman is a real, live person or an image of one - the comparison and competition are still there. Only this time, I am literally comparing myself to an object and sometimes feeling inferior. That's nasty!

It is a lie to say "we show "asexual" nudity because it's sophisticated." If such a thing existed, and if it were true that "sophistication" were the ultimate goal, then there should not be such a drastically unequal female : male nudity ratio in media. The truth is that men buy hypersexualized female imagery because it turns them on, and women buy the same stuff because they have become a perverted kind of idol/role model/idealization of what we can/should/might be. You know, to turn on the men. Sick.

Of course this kind of blatant cultural dishonesty annoys me. But it's much more than just being annoyed. It's a deep, personal kind of offense which fills me with disgust and anger.

Now do you understand?

Where does nudity belong?

Where does nudity belong?

Let's define nudity as exposing private parts of the body so that they can be seen by others. Let's define private parts as the buttocks, penis, vagina, or breasts of a human being.

Clearly, these are natural body parts. They belong on people. Sometimes they should be seen. For example, if you are at the doctor and you're getting your prostate examined for cancer, your penis should be visible. Or if you are in the hospital and you're delivering a baby, your vagina should be visible. Or if you are changing the diaper of an infant, that nudity should be visible. Sometimes it's not about visibility at all, but purely about function. For example, if you are getting dressed in a changing room. Or if you're peeing in a urinal. Or if you're breastfeeding that infant. The nudity in these situations is all basically amoral. In other words, the purpose of the nudity doesn't have to do with whether or not it's good or bad. It's functional and necessary. It belongs.

However, just because it is amoral does not make it asexual; human sexuality is involved here. After all, a big purpose human sexuality and maybe even its primary function, is to produce offspring. When you're in labor, isn't that literally what you're doing? Of course childbirth is connected to human sexuality. Of course things connected to human sexuality are not asexual. Duh.

Another obvious example of where nudity belongs is during sex with your spouse. Here we leave the world of "shoulds" and instead move into "coulds." It's no longer amoral, it is about morality. It is deeply concerned with right and wrong. Surely, you could use your imagination to think about ways in which nudity in sex might be "right" or "wrong." Those limits are really personal and unique to every individual couple, and a lengthy discussion about these possibilities definitely doesn't belong here.

I believe that while some nudity is not explicitly sexual, none of it is ever completely asexual. I believe that there are a lot of loud voices in my western culture trying to convince the world that nudity can be asexual, therefore it belongs in a lot more public places. I think this message is a lie. I strongly dislike this lie. I find it to be beyond deeply irritating - it's infuriating. The problem is not that people believe differently than me, it's that they impose their different beliefs on me by plastering images of naked people everywhere.

My belief is human sexuality should be private because people should follow the law of chastity, which is complete abstinence outside of marriage and complete loyalty within it. When nudity is plastered where it doesn't belong, the message everywhere is, "let's talk about sex, baby!" Literally. That's not private.

Isn't the claim that nudity is never asexual the same as saying pictures of hamburgers are always anti-vegan? Well, flashy adverts of hamburgers literally are always about eating meat (or something like unto it). Is pro-meat always anti-vegan? Maybe. Is pro-sex always anti-chastity? Definitely, definitely not! There's a LOT of room for sex in chastity. I have five kids.

My culture bombards me with messages about sex at all times and in all things and in all places. Last weekend, the music floating down from the parade float - horribly filthy and worse still - violent! And in the presence of tons of blissful oblivious children. I was so ashamed. What kind of world are we giving to them? What kind of messages are we teaching them about how people are supposed to function in relationships? It fills me with fury. I want a world where even if people don't obey the law of chastity, they still allow me and my children to do it peacefully. How can I participate in even very basic social activities like walking in a parade with my kids and also stick to my values and standards? Basically, shut my ears and squint?

Nobody is going to argue that the music I heard was not about sex. To do so would be completely ludicrous. Lyrics like "'Cuz if you're under him you ain't gettin' over him" lack any kind of subtlety. You know what annoys me far, far more than dirty lyrics of pop songs that everybody will forget in a few years? The so-called "sophisticated" glorification of the female form in art (especially painting) that is just a lie: let's not kid ourselves, it's just porn by skilled craftsmen.

I love the style of French Impressionism. It is beautiful, different, innovative. My favorite museum in France, besides the Rennes Musée des Beaux-Arts was the Musée d'Orsay. Do you know how many naked people adorn the halls of that building? Do you know how weird it is, the experience of walking around these huge galleries, seeing female body parts (which I possess) displayed in all kinds of states - some grotesque, some clearly seductive, some completely ridiculous (like, they didn't even try; but neither does Barbie, so...), some just super weird. To me, the message is clearly, "Women are for sex." That is deeply against my values. I am not "for" sex. I am a human being.

You ask, what does "looking like you" have anything to do with it? And don't these bodies look different - all different sizes, shapes, colors, etc.? The fact that I share the basic anatomical structures with these nude women on the walls is deeply embarrassing to me. I would never sit naked on a picnic blanket surrounded by a group of men while my buddy is bathing in the background. Never. Yet here we are, sitting here, looking at this painting together of this exact subject. Perhaps I overpersonalize or over-insert myself into the art - and perhaps that is a personal flaw. Yet, think it's a somewhat universal experience. We all look at the art and see ourselves reflected somewhere in it. I don't think I'm supposed to look at myself in the mirror and say, "I am an object. My sole purpose is to pleasure someone else." That is totally evil. See "I am a human being."

You ask, well, can't the message be, "the female body is beautiful"? I am not really sure what you're asking. On the surface, it sounds like you're trying to suggest that female nudity is separate from sexuality, but if that's the case, then where does the "beauty" factor in to any of it? Why exactly do you think it's beautiful? Isn't it because it's a biological fact that male biology is driven wild with desire/pleasure/attraction by the female body? Isn't "nudity in art is about the female body being beautiful" just another way of saying, "Men have historically designed and ruled the world, so men decide what kinds of beauty 'count'."

Yes, of course that message is annoying to me! Adding a proportional amount of penises (peni? Pene? Penum?) to the melee is not the answer!

Honestly, the answer is straightforward: I will choose to be careful about the media I consume. Yes, that means I will forgo movies, films, paintings, books, music, and any other kind of entertainment which I deem to be unacceptable. Or in other words, if there is anything beautiful, lovely, or of good report, or praiseworthy, I will seek out those things.

Turns out there's quite a lot of excellent, interesting, valuable, well-crafted stuff that is not filthy, and filtering is another potential solution in some instances. I don't need to waste my time feeling sad about what I'm missing when I choose to uphold my values, and neither do you.

If you don't share my opinion about where nudity belongs, that's fine. I promise I will not judge you very harshly, and that we can still be friends. Sometimes it can be really painful and difficult to navigate the media in this world, and sometimes I don't do a perfect job upholding my own values. I ask you to not be too harsh on me when I end up caving to hypocrisy. I, too, am not perfect.

Thoughts about Religion 2019

A couple of thoughts about religion that I've realized this year:

People very often don't understand what they actually profess to believe. It's common for people to claim to believe the Bible but not have a clue about things like John the Beloved still being somewhere on the earth today, the idea of the laying on of hands, the concept of the holy ghost, the fact that their marriage vow literally says "till death do we part," the importance of keeping the spirit of the law of chastity (don't even lust after a non-spouse in your heart), keep the sabbath day holy, Jesus Christ is the God of the Old Testament, etc.

I like how Catholicism is reverent about Jesus Christ. If we really consider Jesus to be the God of the universe, the almighty savior of this and other worlds, then it seems incongruous to plaster his name on a parade float in place of an animal in a crude vernacular slogan, or to place his name in a stupid joke. Devout Catholics understand this idea. They are reverent about Jesus Christ's name. Some kinds of evangelical Christians consider the biblical injunction to take upon yourself the name of Christ to mean say it as often as possible, and to put it on as much stuff as possible. I don't understand how it's possible for this to not conflict with the third of the ten commandments: don't take the Lord's name in vain. See first point.

People can like the stories in the Bible and use them in their art without believing they are true, or all true. See point about not understanding what they profess to believe. If you think the stories of Jesus are a series of nice, happy, inspiring tales but they aren't true, then... How is it nice, happy, or inspiring that he was a liar and a con artist? It doesn't make any kind of sense. If you revere the apostles in your art but you don't know who they are or what they did, is your art even about them or about your desire to conform to a set of ideals or values that are external to your own? Aren't you a sell out?

I always used to approach my religious education from a perspective of, "My ancestors used to know more about the scriptures than I do." While in general, society might used to have known more about it in the past, I think it's likely I know my scriptures better than a large percentage of my ancestors. The Bible as I know it hasn't existed in English for that long. My ancestors haven't always owned it. If they owned it, they didn't always read it. If they read it, they didn't always study it or think about it in as great depth as I have. If they studied it, they still might not have understood it. It is a huge blessing to have modern tools to help us read and understand the scriptures. I know my scriptures. I love them. Sincerely.

I believe in limited agency. I believe that God has an intimate hand in guiding our lives. I believe we have less control over the circumstances and situations we find ourselves in than we tend to think. I believe the test is, "what is the honest desire of your heart in this situation?" and not, "what will you do in this situation?" What you do is a reflection of what you desire, but they aren't always connected. I believe that God is capable of an incomprehensible level of interference in our lives. He doesn't force our agency, but that agency is a function of the sincere, innermost desires of our hearts, not the results of our choices.

And that's all for today's edition of Thoughts in the Middle of the Night. See us again next week...

Elementary Education Has Been Going Terribly Wrong For A While, But Maybe Not How You Think

My friend asked for my opinion about this article, so here it is.

***

I think this article is trying to say, "It looks like there is research supporting the idea of a knowledge-based rather than a skills-based curriculum." That's an interesting and complicated question.

What the article ends up mostly saying is, "American schools are horrible and it's mostly the teachers' fault. Shame on them for using Google and Pinterest." Giant. Eyeroll.

There's also a little bit of doom, gloom, Everything Is Awful - no real focus on solutions, no real questioning why France moved away from a knowledge-based curriculum. I mean, presumably there was a reason! Wouldn't that be more interesting to talk about than a few anecdotal experiences where a kid did a unit on hearts and "talked about plasma the whole year" or this other kind of curriculum became the silver bullet that fixed little "Matt"'s entire perspective on learning and education? 'Nuther. Giant. Eyeroll.

It's just another example of the myopic nature of reporting. This reporter gets this idea from somewhere, tries to research it, but doesn't really seem to do due diligence in fact-checking, makes assumptions about the way things are from the way things really seem to be. This wouldn't be so annoying if I hadn't been on the other side of this, as an actual teacher. Teachers coming out of the "mill" a decade ago were taught explicitly, even at BYU - which is one of the MOST conservative schools in the country, that the NCLB act was a piece of garbage, that good, effective pedagogy has stronger correlates to relationships and communicative learning strategies than any kind of formal assessment, that assessments are really poor measures of "progress", that the best way to learn reading is to learn to love reading, etc. My prof told us, "The only thing good about the No Child Left Behind Act is its name."

Everybody loves to complain, complain, complain about NCLB, Common Core, "the good ol' days when people learned things the 'right' way", etc. It is not very interesting to me to read these kinds of sob stories about how horrible the world is.

I agree with the teacher about my country turning much more from knowledge to skills based curricula. I can see that by comparing my own experience with that of my children. But it's... It's not so simple.

I had units on Greece, Volcanoes, Ancient Egypt etc. as an 8 year old kid in 3rd grade (which I actually remember; I LOVED learning about hieroglyphics! It was - and is - fascinating to me). My kids have units on Greece, Volcanoes, Ancient Egypt, etc. But they also bring home this stupid reading chart.

I hate the reading chart.

They are supposed to track their minutes of reading, getting some quota (which I don't remember). My kids are going to read because they are in a house surrounded with books, with parents who too often get sucked into their projects on their computers, and who really, really care about ideas, knowledge, and learning. I'm not worried about my kids reading enough. If I worry about anything, it's that I worry about them enjoying it enough.

But I don't worry about that very much because I know that they do.

I think the thing the author fails to connect is the correlation between interest and learning. It's not about the curriculum being designed in x or y way - at least, not directly. It's about the curriculum's ability to tap into a child's interest. It is conceivable that there are weirdos who get really excited about, oh, say, explicitly learning the rules of diagramming sentences [raises hand]. But yeah, most people are more likely to be interested in knowledge that they can more easily apply to their own life.

I can easily believe and accept that reading comprehension is more based on one's interest/personal connection/background knowledge of a topic than raw ability. I see this in my Reading Comprehension practice sections for the GRE. I don't do as well at answering the questions when it's a topic I don't care about, or know anything about. Flies in petrie dishes, certain proteins affecting x change in cancer cells, motion detectors on cameras, Swedish Feminist playwrights: all real topics of essays, all really boring to me, I didn't do as well on these sections. 19th century classicists couldn't accept the idea that Greek statues were not originally white, but actually painted! Picasso's blue period was kinda weird! This Play Wasn't Actually Racist - the Critics Were! Those are way more interesting to me. I did better when I was interested. I was more interested when I had some kind of personal connection to a topic.

Any TESOL teacher could tell you that there's a difference between knowing content and being able to express that you know it; that's kind of like, the entire point of TESOL. The best TESOL class I took was about Assessment. I will never forget thinking about how unfair it is to penalize an L1 Spanish speaker for their inability to understand the English on a Science test. We aren't assessing his Science knowledge here, but his English. Which do we care about, really?

As for the idea of using the idea that 95% of grade school teachers use Google and 89% use Pinterest as an insult? That's kind of like insulting the idea of using a library. Google and Pinterest are repositories. What's wrong with scouring the internet for ideas? I guess the thing she was trying (but failing) to say was that it's a bad idea to get worksheet after worksheet from the Internet, without any kind of thought as to how it fits in the broader curriculum.

The idea of focusing learning in at least semi-cohesive content-based "units" is the bread and butter of the world language classroom. I've read papers about how this relates to SLA. One of them bore a title like this, "Learning Grammar Explicitly is Boring." Well, no sh***, Sherlock. Doesn't take a genius to notice that.

So, what, is the solution for the teachers to ALSO be the experts on curriculum design, along with daycare provider, babysitter, values-instiller, technologists, lunch duty specialists, and possibly eventually weapons carriers (!!)? I don't like this conclusion. It is not fair, especially because if this lady cared to dig a bit deeper, she'd find that many teachers actually are experts in curriculum design, but the facts are that the battle in school is usually political. The real problem is not so much there, but here.

***

So what do you think?

Mundane Entropy

"Have you ever been on a listserv where somebody writes something dumb and then somebody else responds and is like, "Wow, that is so dumb. Why would you send that to everybody on the email list?"

Yeah, that happened a few days ago, and it's kinda similar to when somebody hits "respond all" to say, "remove me from this list!" and then you get like, dozens of people doing the same thing. GUYS! This restaurant in SLC next to the FHL just closed! Um, why would I want to know that? I'm in Germany! Oh hey, I liked that restaurant. Me too! I used to go there once a year. And on and on and on.

"Yeah, that's happened to me. What I always think is this: 'aaaaand... it's not more of a waste of time to comment what a waste of time that was?"

This is basically how I feel about my life a lot of the time. Hear me out. I want to write away some of my frustrations with this day, but so much of it will be *exactly* as stupid as responding to a dumb email. Detailing how frustratingly, painfully, mind-numbingly exasperating certain parts of my day were, well... is it even worth the time/effort of recounting it?

I guess the only thing that can unequivocally be deemed less worthy is writing about the internal debate. hahaha. Meta me strikes again :-D

***

I've written about this before somewhere, but I really believe it to be true. There's like, an internal person and an external person. My internal person is feeling great. She's happy, well-balanced, really full of energy and light. So please don't get the wrong ideas from the frustrations I'm going to be venting in a moment. I am not depressed. And I'm not in denial.

You don't believe me.

Oh well. Whatever.

***

I started my day by getting up at 6 am. That is really early for me. And for anyone who goes to bed at 1 am. I am trying so hard to want to go to bed earlier, but it's really hard. Both Danny and I are NOT larks. We are both addicted to being together. Last night we were doing something really fun - some family history research on his Scots. His idea. It was so fun! We didn't crack anything exactly, but we did sort of prove that what is there, unsourced, in FamilySearch, is plausible. One of the sons apparently did not immigrate because his wife did not want to come. So basically, if you didn't immigrate in the 19th century, you lost your ties to the church and presto, your 2nd cousins 7x removed will be researching your lines in an effort to find family names to take to the temple (that's what it's like for Danny's side. I can spend literally about 15 minutes searching and find a whole branch of my Czech side to work on. But we were researching his family, which is really fun).

Ahh I love writing and thinking about this. It's so fun.

But it's not what I came to this computer for.

I woke up at 6 am, called my dad. The train was late. I got to go back to sleep. Yay.

I started getting ready for the day, making breakfast for everyone, etc at 7:30ish. I texted with my Czech friend for a while. Had some top secret news to be revealed in three weeks (a new calling, shhh) to discuss a bit.

"Mom, can I have screen time?"
"No, we are about to leave to pick up Opa."
"When are we going to leave?"
"In like, 8 minutes."
"Oh, but can't I have some screen time for those 8 minutes?"
"No!"
"Well, can I bring the kid phone in the car to play on while we drive?"
"Sure, whatever. You have to find it"
"Okay!" rushes away to get it.

"Hey mom, can I have a ride to Ben's house?"
"I thought you were going to ride your bike?"
"No..."
"Okay..."
Okay, well now we are late. My dad's calling me. "Hey pop, sorry. Yeah. I'm at Ben's house. Don't worry, we are all in the car. Yes, I'm on my way. Be there soon." He hangs up a bit quickly. Sigh.

We talked a little bit about my new calling on the ride down to the physical therapist, halfway to the train station.

10 minutes late to his appointment. I'm so sorry. I should have been ready earlier. No worries. Okay. See you in a bit.

Poopy diaper. Sigh. Pull over, change the kid. That diaper is probably still in my car. I contemplated littering. I would never, never do that. Instead, I litter inside my car. It's a disaster. Cheerios everywhere. Little bits of papers and underwear and camping chairs and shopping bags full of clothes to donate to Good Will or x specific person - so much stuff. Crammed. Air conditioning blowing on my face. "Cora, please feed Joey some cheerios. One at a time." So he doesn't cry. I feel so bad that he's stuck in his carseat. But my dad can't drive and my mom doesn't fly. She takes the train. So that means I am the bus.

Pick up mom. Everybody has to poop. Potty break at the train station.

"Auguhg!"
"He elbowed me!"
"What is going on!?"
"He ELBOWED ME REALLY HARD."
"He didn't give me a turn! Not one turn! And now the phone's dead!"
"Here's a charger. Stop hurting each other! Jeez!"

"Moooommy? Mommy? Can I have some water?"

"Moooommy? Can I have some screen time affer we get hoooome?"
"Moooommy? Can I tell you somefing? I need to tell you somefing. Mommy, I need to tell you somefing!"

My mom is tired, hot, and so happy to be home. She wanted to talk/monologue about the book she read. The book sounded interesting; I wish I had read it so it could have been more of a discussion. Oh well. I enjoyed listening to her opinions for the next hour and 15 minutes. We did talk about my new calling for a little bit in there, but not much. We only mentioned the Annoyingly Sad Family Drama during the last 8 minutes of the drive, and I made my position known:

"This is sad to me. I'm sorry you're hurting. Please don't tell me about it."

Hopefully that's what came across.

Okay, now we're done. Everyone's in the car.

There's no food in my house.

Swing by the grocery store.

Listening to an audiobook that is pretty lame. Mr. Lemoncello's Library. It is basically a wannabe Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with books instead of candy. I like candy better, in this one exact particular case :-D (and that's because the book was so good, ironically).

So yeah. Looooooong.

Running around in circles. Mom, mom moooooooom can I have this? Can I have that? "Go get the potatoes. No, not that bag. It has a big hole in it. Go back and get another one."

"Don't hit your sister!"

"Stay together!"

"Mom, I only want Muenster cheese!"
"What?"
Man at the counter: "I...very much doubt that. But it's over in the self-serve area."
"I think you'd like that kind." Points at colby jack.
"Can I try it?"
Man gets three samples.
Jane runs away across the store screaming, "I don't waaaaaaaaaant cheeeeeeeese!" Disappears down an aisle. I shrug. The store is pretty empty, and it's small. "John, go run and get Cora."
Two minutes later I have to go after both of them. Joey wants cheese and holds out his hands for more.
"Nobody is going to make you eat anything you don't want to eat, Cora!"
"But I don't waaaaaaaaaaant CHEEEESE!"
"Okay, okay, okay."
The chicken was on a craaaazy sale, lower than I've ever seen it in my life. .99/lb for chicken breasts. Max 20 lbs. I buy the max. I'm sending Danny to get more later. I will can the chicken. One afternoon of boring misery = a SIGNIFICANT amount of convenience later, for canned chicken. I have canned chicken 4x before and I have a pressure cooker canner. Is my Foundation audiobook ready? All the ones I've tried so far are kind of...blegh. I need an audiobook. The Egypt book I'm reading is great. The art book is great. But they aren't audiobooks...
"John, Dan, you each run and get a box of cereal."
"Yaay!"
"John, go get a box of Triscuits."
"Okay!"
"Dan, go get a gallon of milk."
Waiting for them to package my chicken.
Man next to me, "Wow, you don't even have to shop at all! You just send your helpers to do it for you!"
"heh." Weak, weak laughter.
Some meaningless chitchat with that guy.
"Mooooom I almost got the giant size!"
"Well, why didn't you? The smaller sizes aren't really big enough for our family."
"Oh! Okay." Rushes off.
"Mom, can I have goldfish?"
"No."

etc. etc. etc.

Oh. Crap.

"Alina! I'm so sorry! I forgot that Jane was at your house!" I am like an hour and a half later than I thought I'd be.
She laughed it off, and I don't think Jane was actually that annoying, but...still...
She had to rush to do stuff for girl's camp. Not a lot of talking.
A lot of hitting and punching and yelling and complaining.
"Moom can I have screen time?"
"Help me get the stuff out of the car!"
"I don't WANT to help you get it out!"
"Do you want to do laps on your bike?"
"No..."

Texting Danny rapidfire: "can you please get some chicken from Fareway on your way home?"
"Sure!"
"Can you please come home for lunch?"
"Yes!"

Danny walks in the door, everybody's running around, trying to sweep, standing right in front of me blocking the fridge as I try to put stuff away in it, begging and crying for screen time, or for this thing, or for that thing, baby is crying - it's just around and around and around and I'm getting really pissed off.

"Kate, go take a break."

I go to the pantry, sit on one of the buckets of flour, put my head in my hands, and pray for calmness and help.

***

Breathing in and out, I notice that the little person is still pretty happily blowing bubbles on my insides. My outside self is yelling too much and pissed that my kids are mostly disasters between disasters and more disasters. But my pissed off ness is not at all like my anxious-ness. Anxious would be like this:

What should I I mean what should I know I should but what I don't hmmm I guess I but what...I should..I should be doing...I really don't know but what. Um, ugh, what is what I don't what...

^ that. That is anxiety. Me sitting on the bucket in the pantry, hands shaking, not knowing what to do next, the only thing that makes sense is curling up in the fetal position on the floor and crying. Which makes no sense. At all. And I know it, but that doesn't change aaaaaaanything.

So I welcome the anger. It's like this: "What the heck. Does nobody else notice that there's like, six pieces of garbage between the car and the garage door? Can nobody else pick it up and put it in the trash? I would have done it but literally every time I am walking here, I'm holding something in BOTH of my freaking hands, including a PERSON! Why is there a pile of junk over there? Ugh! Does nobody else get that if we moved things around a teeeeeeny tiny bit, it would be organized and not super ugly and then our paper towels wouldn't have to be on the ground? I am really, really annoyed that nobody else seems to notice or fight this stupid stupid stupid endless entropy. WHY are there crumbs on the floor AGAIN. This is never ending. What the heck, stop yelling at me! STOP YELLING AT ME."

^ that. That is PMS-y anger. It's always about chores and stuff, too. It's kind of weird and stupid. Very predictable. And I was a little hangry, too. I felt much better after lunch.

I got like, half an hour. It was not uninterrupted. But it was some time. I worked on the outline for my CGSI presentation with my friend Marek. I can't wait for it. I also looked at some comments for my land records book.

***

I can't wait for school to start again. :-)

I love my five kids. Summers with five at home mean that I have very little time to pursue anything besides housework. It's mind-splittingly obnoxious. Because it's unending.

Jane is starting to "get" how to be helpful. The other day she cleaned the entire kitchen by herself.

"Wow! Jane, I came into the kitchen and was like, 'It's so clean!' You did a great job fighting the darkness!" (we just read a Wrinkle in Time together)
[holds out hands to the kitchen] "I love you, kitchen! I love you, kitchen! I love you! I LOVE YOU!"

I laughed so hard.

***

Somehow, I feel much better.