A Little Piece of Hesstory: Parallels

We spent this afternoon with someone I admire so much. Truly. I really can't explain it, but when it comes to moms, she's my icon. I just love to sit and watch her in action. She's just really got her head on straight and always has had.

As I watched her son speak in church today before he leaves on his mission, I thought of her. I thought of the influence a mother really has on the life of her child.

I feel blessed in my life to have had people such as this placed in my path. I don't think she knows what an influence for good she's been on me. Even though we've been miles apart for years, those foundational lessons I learned from observing and talking to her have stuck with me. Those were simpler times, and I just absorbed as much as I could from her.

We were placed together as visiting teaching companions. We were both newly married after returning from our missions not long before. We never really discussed our missions much. We were both concentrated on husbands going to school.

We were pregnant at the same time. We would take our babies for walks almost daily through the little town we lived in. We would go down to the craft store in town on a regular basis and buy the remnants of the fabric they had left over and would make overalls--her for her son, me for my daughter. I think we almost got to the point where we could make those overalls blindfolded and with one hand tied behind our backs.

These were such wonderful times.

One thing I learned from Lynda was to never budge. Know your standards and live them. Don't be afraid to face hard things in defense of what you believe to be right. I love her for that!

As I reviewed our lives, it almost made me laugh to think of how parallel our lives have been. Way back then, our husbands were both going to school to become teachers. Her's to teach high school science, mine to teach elementary school. Both husbands ended up becoming administrators in funny ways. Our children are very similar in ages even though we moved away a long time before most of them were born. Now, our oldest children, the ones who rode around town in strollers while their moms chit-chatted about life as new moms, will be serving missions at the same time.

Lynda's son will enter the MTC in two weeks (the day before his 19th birthday and the Warden's and my 21st anniversary). He will head to the Alpine German-speaking mission. #1 will follow four months later. Really, who would have thought this would have happened all those years ago?

The other funny thing...as I mentioned earlier, Lynda and I didn't talk about our missions much way back then, but I knew where she served...the Philippines. Yep, you got that right.

Today, when we were with them, Lynda got out her photo albums and some of the memorabilia from her mission to share with #1. So fun! She lent her a tape of children's songs in Tagalog. It was very encouraging to hear stories about the wonderful people of that country and about her experiences.

It's crazy how things come around. It will be SO fun to share mission experiences between our families. What a blessing to have such people in our lives!

As we rode home today, I felt a further boost to be the best mom I can be. I understood a little more my importance to my children and their futures.

How grateful I am for wonderful friends!