June 30th

Today was kind of a roller coaster of emotions. I can tell I’m overly hormonal because everything makes me cry. Jesse and I got up and got ready for church and I was on time, but he was really dragging his feet. It made me feel disappointed because I really wanted to get there a little earlier so I could socialize before the meeting started. We got there and I got to sit next to Anna (which always makes me feel good) and I had found a bunch more toys for Lilly to play with. She loved them and I think Anna appreciates it too. Sister Kilgore talked about Family Home Evening. I felt so silly I did not even know she had not been a member her whole life! I really enjoyed her talk! President Peterson’s son (I can’t think of his first name to save my life!) talked about his experiences on the Pioneer Trek. He did a lot of stuttering and was kind of vague but I think most boys his age are like that when they talk in front of big groups of people. It reminded me of my experience on our pioneer trek. It was such an amazing experience for me! After his talk we sang Battle Hymn of the Republic. It made me feel proud to be a member of the gospel and reminded me of singing it in the Tabernacle building with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Plus singing with Anna always makes me feel better about myself (and in awe of her amazing talent!) Sister Sherby gave an awesome talk about the Holy Ghost and Jesse was totally paying attention. He said he could tell she was a teacher. For some reason I kept spacing off. I was thinking about our meeting later with President Peterson and how guilty I felt. I know that everything happens for a reason but I am feeling particularly overwhelmed with feelings of fear and doubt. I’m scared that I’m going to hate my job in Worthington, I’m scared about how far into debt we are, I’m disappointed how many Sundays I am working this month because I feel like its setting me up to fail again (which only makes me feel even more down-hearted that I fell in the first place.) I’m scared about writing papers because I feel like those were big parts of my downfall last year and I’m scared that I will be a slacker student again. I’m terrified that I won’t make it through the program again this year. I’m scared that I won’t make friends. That was really hard for me last year too. I remember how hard it was for me listening to all the fun things they were going to do together and how disappointed I was that I never got invited. I just felt engulfed but all these little pressing doubts. I really tried to pay attention to Sister Sherby. I have a lot of respect for her, but I was also distracted by all the babies! One of the new soccer girls was holding Violet Nelson and I felt kind of jealous. I’d really like to develop more of a relationship with them and their kids; I’d like for us to be closer! The closing song was America the Beautiful. The words “Oh beautiful for heroes proved in liberating strife. Who more than self their country loved and mercy more than life” made me feel the spirit. I felt proud of all those that are out their serving our country and defending our freedoms.

            In Sunday school we talked about faith – specifically how to develop it and how to nurture it. Brother Holloway is so knowledgeable about the scriptures and I could tell Jesse was paying attention. I was a little distracted by the babies and I sensed Jesse withdraw a bit when Brother Holloway started talking about forgiveness and repentance. I know he’s angry and he has every right to be but I don’t know how to help him understand why it’s so important for him not to hold on to those feelings. He left to do errands the third hour and President Peterson talked about bearing our testimonies and what we should be saying when we do. He talked about the difference between witnessing what you know to be true and sharing the fun details about yourself.  Sister Holloway offered that how the fun details don’t help us feel the spirit and can set us up to offend others around us. She remembered what I had told her about someone who had deeply offended Jesse last month and some of the offensive things that person said and was referring directly to it. She has one of the biggest hearts! I know she deeply loves each and every one of us in the branch. I was really trying to pay more attention and to participate but the lady sitting next to me had a little baby and I was really trying to fight the urge to ask her if I could hold him. She was new and she didn’t know me from Adam, but he was just so cute with his little purple plaid shirt and tiny little corduroy pants. I’m a hopeless case, however, and when I did finally ask her, she let me hold him. It was wonderful. I was truly on cloud 9 for at least 25 minutes+ and I soaked up every minute. I had kind of wished Jesse hadn’t left but at the same time, but I think he would have seriously frowned upon me asking a near stranger if I could hold her baby! Goodness he was sweet though! I introduced myself after class was over. Julie and her husband have 5 children. Ephraim was 16 days old and they had 3 other boys and one girl. She told me they are originally from St George and he will be a doctor at the Spencer hospital. Standing there waiting for Jesse, I also got to talk to Lisa for a little bit. It was only President Peterson’s 2^nd week as the new president and he had a few other people to talk to besides us so it was a bit of a wait before we talked to him. It was a good meeting though. I felt like he was talking to us like he sincerely cared. I’m not saying that President Olsen didn’t, but I don’t think we communicated as well. President Peterson asked us to kind of start from the beginning and tell him more about what he could do for us. He took notes on all the things we told him. I told him we need a new home teacher. The person that we have right now is nice, but he’s very quiet, almost awkward, and he isn’t very committed about coming to see us (hey, not saying I’m perfect either.) I told him that there aren’t very many group activities and it seems like they are always scheduled when Jesse has to work! Jesse needs to be able to get to know the other men we got to church with in an informal setting where he can feel more comfortable. I also told him that we totally understand that the people with families don’t necessarily feel thrilled about the idea of packing up the kids and driving an hour plus all the way to Sheldon to be there for an hour and turn around and drive home. We don’t have kids, but we totally get that’s not an ideal situation, but how do you invite yourself over to other people’s homes without being totally rude or intrusive? When you’re a kid and you want to go play with your friend you just show up and knock on their door, but that’s not necessarily how it goes when you become an adult. He laughed out-right at me for saying that. We also talked about how Jesse doesn’t want to forgive. He encouraged Jesse to pray about it. I tried to explain that Jesse doesn’t want to try, but his counsel was the same. We ended our meeting with a prayer and I felt good about the things we had discussed. The ride home was depressing. It’s a topic neither of us enjoys discussing but can’t really avoid either. We came home and snuggled and vented. I told him about all my fears. I cried a lot. I’ve been doing a lot of that lately. I can’t seem to turn them off. He just held me and listened while I whined and cried. He told me something that completely caught me off guard. He’s been a lot more supportive of me wanting to be a mom as of late, but I still was still shocked! He told me that he wants to get me pregnant now, and that he would if it weren’t for the risk that I wouldn’t finish school. My mom had morning sickness most of her pregnancies, and while we both understand that every mom and every pregnancy is different, this makes both of us extremely nervous. He said he wants me to be happy and there’s really no point in waiting any longer. We had originally intended to take a nap but we talked for an hour instead. We got up and Jesse started on his wild hair. He decided he was sick of looking at the crappy shower and sick of the crappy shower knob. It’s a piece of junk. He said I’ll just take off this one piece of paneling and replace the shower head, knob, and faucet. He had no idea what he was getting into! The one piece of panel was lipped under the drywall. The drywall was lipped under the linoleum decoration/wallpaper. In order for him to take out that one piece, he had to take out the drywall and cut a piece of the linoleum. While he was working on that I busied myself de-cluttering the bathroom cabinet and the drawers in the kitchen. We both kept busy and got to bed late. Jesse finished most everything except the caulk and we went to bed at about 1230-ish. I was both emotionally and physically exhausted.