Oct 1, 2013

For some time I have been contemplating dusting off my blog.  Today I finally found the courage to do it.  I have been following a couple blogs and Facebook groups where people share intensely personal experiences and how the Lord used adversity to help them grow.  It is my desire to share the things I have learned in the hope that it will bless others the way those people have blessed me.

Oct 1, 2013.  This is a day that I will forever remember.  On that day I turned 31 years old.  It is also the day my husband received his cancer diagnosis.  I remember scheduling the appointment thinking why would I want to find someone to watch my little one on my birthday so I can drive with my husband to Seattle to visit with an oncologist?  That thought only lasted a moment before my desire to have an answer as soon as possible pushed it aside.  He'd had an MRI, been sent for a biopsy and now we were getting results back.

I was devastated.  My husband has a heart condition and I knew when I married him there would possibly be complications down the road but I'd never imagined it would be cancer or that he would have trouble so young. Usually when you see an oncologist they sit down with you and make a plan of attack and move forward.  Everyone says it gets better when you know what is going to happen and they feel hope again. The plan was to remove the mass and hope it doesn't come back. No joke, there was no follow-up and no plan B. Only now do I understand the gravity of what that meant.

This month marks the three year anniversary of his cancer diagnosis and he has been called home to the God who gave him life.  I never could would have guessed that his life would have been taken so soon after diagnosis but I have also come to understand that, while extremely difficult, this IS God's plan.  His time on this earth was coming to an end and the cancer was a gift to prepare me to live without him. In essence, God needed him for another work and we were warned that his time on earth was coming to a close.  So often we talk about what cancer takes from us but cancer also gave us the courage to say things sometimes left unsaid, the need to hold each other a little longer and hug our children a little tighter, motivation to spend more time together as a family, and motivated me to work a little harder to be a good wife and create a peaceful atmosphere in our home.

Someone commented to me last October how much our family had grown spiritually and I explained we had paid a high price for those lessons and they pointed out that we continue to pay the price for them.  That is true now more than ever as we grieve Matthew.  I take great comfort in the fact that Heavenly Father has gotten me through every challenge He's ever put in front of me and while it seems impossible that the heartache I feel will ever go away I know that through the atonement of Jesus Christ I will experience joy again in this life and the life to come.

My Missionary Service-Training

As part of my service I spent 10 weeks at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, UT.  (This is how everyone's service starts.)  My parents dropped my off, I was issued materials, assigned a dorm and given a couple hours to unpack before classes started.  My time there consisted of training which was vigorous.  Our instructors were amazing.  They were college students who had served full-time missions and taught us doctrine, language classes, and built up our faith by sharing their experiences.

 

Our average day we got up at 6:00 AM and went until 10:00 PM.  There is a cafeteria there and a gym (we had assigned times to use the gym) and we spent most our time in classes.  We learned to teach the basic principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ first in English and then in Spanish.  We took turns teaching other missionaries in training and had two hours of personal study each day to work on our knowledge base.  The schedule was rigorous but it was amazing how quickly we progressed.  There were challenging moments as we spent most of our time in a 10 X 15 classroom with the same 10 other people everyday but in the end I had 10 great friends who had shared their story of their faith growing and helped my faith to grow.

 

When the time came to fly out it was hard to say good bye to the MTC.  I was so touched by the people I met there and the experiences I had helped me be more prepared to go and give of myself.  One of the biggest lessons I took from the MTC was the realization that the Lord uses regular people to teach the gospel and do His work.  Peter was a fisherman who became a disciple and teacher, he wasn't an educated man or a man who was a great public speaker yet he was chosen.  This gave me some confidence that the Lord could shape me into someone that could help others.

Mother Tereasa once said something to the effect that I am just a pen, the Lord is the author, I am just an instrument.

Children And Media

 It's Summer at the King house which means lots of outside time!  Parks and lakes and playgrounds, Oh My!  We've had some serious reflections on how we spend our time lately.  Well, we've always been concerned about how we spend our leisure time and now that the kids are getting older I have become more interested in what is in their best interest.  I remember when my oldest turned about nine months old and I was thrilled that I could sit him in front of "Little Einsteins"  and he'd be entertained for an entire half hour.  It was a little while before I started wondering how much screen time was good for my child.  I found this article from the American Academy of Pediatrics that gave the guideline of media for children.  You can read the article by clicking here.  They recommend no TV (I interpret this to mean any time with an electronic device) for children under age 2 and for children and teens no more than 2 hours per day.  Two hours a day you say, how will I keep from going crazy.  I thought that too at first and would like to share some things that shaped my opinion.

My sister challenged me to a media fast about a year ago.  Her challenge was to stay away from things that were meant to entertain and focus on things that really matter.  I was allowed to set my own rules so I gave myself 10 minutes of facebook per day and left my cell phone home most days.  I was also encouraged to limit music and books unless they were spiritually uplifting.  I know, it sounds crazy and I'm so glad I did it.  My immediate recourse when I'm limiting my computer time is to read a book or listen to music so it was really hard at first but I started to notice a change in my home.  I noticed I wasn't really listening to my kids and most of the time it took them several times to get my attention.  The saddest part of all of this is they were so aware that they weren't getting my full attention.  I was, in essence, saying to them, "what I'm doing is more important than you."  I was amazed at how they would jabber constantly when we were driving when I was actually listening and they were so funny.  After a while I enjoyed listening to what my children were saying.  It was great.

So, after having this experience I realized I was in need of having my own media time limited.  I sat down with my husband and we set some limits.  I didn't want to go as extreme as I had during my media fast but it was clear I needed to make some changes.  We set up our router so our laptop has internet access only after 3 PM on week days (we have a desk top that's slow but I can still use it if it's something I really want to do).  We also put an internet curfew of 10 PM so there is no internet after that time (I found I was staying up late on the computer and not getting enough rest and was a bear to my children the next day).  I'm much more pleasant when I haven't been sucked into a screen for hours on end and my whole family benefits.

I've noticed that my kids have the same tendency to be grumpy when I turn their computer game or TV show off.  We've tried several things to help this.  I once had my kids earn their TV time by doing chores (at that time my oldest could earn three tokens a day and they were worth 1/2 hour of screen time).  Now we have a designated TV time from 3:00-5:00 on week days but they have to straighten up the living room and put their toys away before they can have it.  We have also taught our children that media is a privilege and can be lost if their behavior isn't good.  Often they will fight in the morning and loose their privilege and I will give them an opportunity to earn it back by doing extra chores.  Some days they choose to go outside and play instead of doing the extra chores but it was their choice.

Anyway, we've tried several things to keep our kids involved with real life.  From what I've noticed they want to do what I do so the most important thing is to establish good habits myself and they will be prone to follow.  I worry about a society that is addicted to media and always has their face in a screen of some kind.  I honestly believe it isn't healthy and it's hurting us socially. So, you might wonder, what do you do with all that media-free time.  Here's some of the things we like to do:  make cookies, play with play dough, draw, read, sing, work in the yard, clean the house, visit a friend, play games (hide and seek, tag, cards, checkers, freeze tag...), build a fort, ride bikes, take walks, visit the park, go second hand shopping, canoeing, visit the library, invite a friend over, do letter worksheets, paint, and that is just the beginning. 

My life has been so much better as I've worked to make media an smaller part of it.  Family movie nights are a treat and there are even afternoons when I'm having a hard day that I sit with the kids and watch a movie with them during their TV time.  It's also helped me to focus on what's really important.  One of the strategies we've really applied to our parenting is to spend less money on our kids and more time with them.  I'm hoping that the good habits we develop now will help us get through life as our children grow and it gets more complicated.  I know things will change as our children grow and our methods will need to be adapted for our current situation but this is what's working right now.