Moving...again! August 2021
This was definitely an interesting and stressful way to begin a school year! The first few days of school, I drove the girls from Lilburn about 45 minutes to school to drop them off and pick them up. Lydia was such a sweet big sister and came with me to drop them off, and I'm so glad she did - not only for her company, but also because I got my 3rd flat tire in about 4 months. What in the world?!? Anyway, I spent most of the day trying to find a tire for my car, but luckily we have a car for the girls to drive here, so I drove that to pick them up. Anyway, I can't even begin to express how proud I am of these girls and the way they're bravely starting another new school for the second year in a row. They don't know a soul, and they have no idea what they're doing, but they did it. The second week of school, Susie started early morning seminary and the driving the week before was taking 3+ hours for pickup with traffic, so when the movers came on Monday and loaded up the furniture, we stayed in a hotel near the schools. Originally, we thought we were moving in on Wednesday, but there were some problems with painting the new house, and a couple of other delays, so all in all, we stayed in the hotel for 8 days. It was an interesting way to start a new ward, new soccer team, new seminary, school, etc., but we did it! Lydia was a trooper - I was sorry this was the way she spend her last couple of weeks at home before leaving for college, but she was an amazing helper. During the day, we'd unpack some of the boxes that had arrived at the house, she did lots of school pickups for me, and was just generally an amazing helper.
We got pretty creative with food at the hotel and even got some kebobs at the grocery store that we did at the outside grill for Sunday dinner while we were there. It was a good little home away from home. We were delayed enough moving in that the movers ended up moving things in on the first day of transfers - definitely 10 out of 10 would not recommend...but we survived because the Hiltons and some of their friends were angels. They helped hang things, arrange things on shelves, unpacked several boxes, and put sheets on beds. I will never forget the surprise and relief I felt coming home late that night from welcoming in our new missionaries and feeding them and getting them settled in Lilburn that Monday night to come home to so many nice things done in the house. I was expecting overwhelming chaos and we had beds to sleep in and enough functionality to do transfers the next day, too. What a gift of love, what good people! The following day, we fed the new missionaries breakfast and did our usual trainings and meeting their trainers. Then we gathered the whole mission because Elder Bednar had agreed to address our mission over zoom kind of as a celebration of our completing our 65 days of reading the Book of Mormon.
I have better notes somewhere else, but here's what I remember from our discussion with Elder Bednar:
1) He read little excerpts of Joseph's personal journal and writings and then read parts of scripture from the Book of Mormon, D&C. There was no comparison - he couldn't write very well, but when he was translating the word of God, or receiving revelation from God it's a totally different result, and a different voice.
2) He compared the Book of Mormon to a flashlight and mortality to being in a dark room full of sharp objects. If we have the light on, it's not a problem to navigate it. If we don't we will almost certainly get hurt and lose our way.
3) He recommended we study the Book of Mormon with a particular focus (for us it was the enabling power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ since we've been studying Elder Bednar's talk on that "In the Strength of the Lord") So we will study and mark all the references to grace, the enabling power of God, and people doing things in the strength of the Lord. We will mark the spine of that paperback inexpensive copy as "enabling power of Jesus Christ" and write a one page summary on it. After that we'll repeat the same exercise and reflect on what we've learned that time that's different. As we read those two times, we'll have lots of ideas of other areas we want to focus on as we read. I'm almost done with this the first time and it's like the Book of Mormon has come alive for me. I have loved it for a long time, but it's different now, and I can't wait to read and I'm genuinely disappointed when I have to stop and go do other things. I have over 40 ideas written down of other areas I want to study with a focus on.
There was a lot more to it, but I'm just so grateful for the leaders of our church in general, and Elder Bednar specifically for the way they/he use their time, energy and lives, living and preparing themselves in a way that blesses us all so much if we'll follow their counsel.
So, we were able to successfully complete another transfer, and it was through the help of others and the sustaining power of the Spirit and enabling power of the Savior for sure. That might sound strange, but there's honestly no other way we could have done all the things we did these past couple of weeks, and honestly past many months. We feel it every day and are so grateful.
As part of moving, we're learning there is a crazy process for school drop off and pickup here in Forsyth county. I wait in unbelievable lines every day for both school drop off and pickups. I have tried so many creative ways to get around the system, but they're intent on the parents following these crazy lines. I can't say enough about how inefficient it is, but I'm learning to just be productive with my car waiting time, and to enjoy the time with the girls when I'm waiting with them. It's a good hour process to pick Natalie up in the afternoon, and in the morning I wait for Suse for seminary, then drop her off, so that's a good 2 hour process. So it's a good lesson for me in enjoying the journey. Natalie gets out late - at 4:15, and we're not home til 4:45. Suse is out the door at 6:45 and home by about 3:45. Suse has been doing club track with a club called jackrabbits. I'm super proud of her - again she doesn't know a soul, and she does these grinding workouts. Goose is with a new soccer club and really likes the girls. I'm not sure she's learning a ton, but she seems happy. I also found both of them in person music teachers, so that's exciting. They haven't had a live piano or cello lesson in a year and a half, and it makes all the difference to be live and in person.
In short, moving was super disruptive, it was a huge process again to get the documents and get them enrolled in schools again, we lost and broke things in the process, but we're glad to be where we are. It's been a good move, for sure.
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