"Come to Know the Savior by Serving Others Daily"

This week's question by Family Search is: What goals are you actively working toward right now?

This sounded really similar to "What goals do you hope to achieve this year?", which I already wrote about in my 2017 resolutions post. So I thought I would write about some other things I'm working on that aren't part of my resolutions, but then in Sacrament meeting this past Sunday we were introduced to our ward goal for this year:

Come to know the Savior by serving others daily.

A talented sister in my ward designed and made magnets for us to stick on our fridge that have our ward goal on it and a quote from President Henry B. Eyring:

"The Savior called us to serve others so that we could strengthen our own faith as well as theirs. He knows that by serving Him we will come to know Him."

 The talks in Sacrament meeting were about our ward goal. One of the speakers likened this goal to the #LIGHTtheWORLD campaign during December. She said that she felt so stressed out at first trying to do the daily service suggestions, she thought, "Oh my gosh, this is just one more thing to do!" She told us that on December 1st, her son had to get five teeth pulled at the dentist and after his appointment she spent the entire day taking care of him. At the end of the day she realized she had not done any #LIGHTtheWORLD service, and she was so upset that it was day one and she was already failing. Then the thought came to her that she had been lighting the world by taking care of her son. Taking care of her son was service.

This story really touched me because as a SAHM I have no idea how I can serve someone every day; but I can serve my children and my husband every day. I already serve my children by helping them get dressed, getting them food, teaching them how to share, etc. I can increase my service to my children by not making them wait when they ask me to read to them or play with a toy with them. I already serve Gerson by preparing his lunch the night before work, splitting up the bills so none are forgotten (the money comes from the same place, but we physically take care of different bills so we know they always get paid), and helping him with anything that he asks. This year I want to increase my service to Gerson by getting up with him in the morning and helping him get ready for work.

I can also serve friends, neighbors, and strangers as the opportunity arises. One thing I want to do is talk kindly to strangers on social media, even if they aren't. I want to compliment people that I normally don't talk to as often.  I just want to increase kindness, and I believe that is a form of service.

In February my Relief Society's activity is a service auction. I am either going to offer up a homemade chicken alfredo dinner or bake cake called Butter Finger Ecstasy Cake.

In Primary, Benjamin was given a paper to ask the parents for help in noticing acts of service. It says:

"Please help me recognize ways that I have served someone so I can share about it in Primary!"

Benjamin is a really good helper. When I ask him to get me a clean diaper for Luna, or the wipes, or to open the fridge and get Luna her sippy cup, he does it very enthusiastically. Sometimes he helps without me asking. When he does those things I'm going to point it out to him, thank him, tell him that is service and it makes Heavenly Father and Jesus happy.

I'm really excited to work on our ward goal for this year. I'm especially excited to work on it with Benjamin.

I Taught Myself How to Cook

This week's question from Family Search for #52Stories is: What is something you taught yourself to do without help from anyone else?

I taught myself how to cook!

My mom is an amazing cook, and so she never really needed help making dinner each night. I was also extremely busy during my teenage years. Most nights I was either at work or at dance practice, so I never had time to learn. Yeah, I could follow box instructions for things like Hamburger Helper, but I couldn't make anything like Lasagna.

When Gerson and I got married, I suddenly realized that I needed to know how to cook! Due to my lack of cooking knowledge mixed with going to school full time and working part time, I spent the first couple years of our marriage making Hamburger and Chicken Helper, frozen dinners, and easy stuff like tacos, plain chicken with boxed potatoes, spaghetti, etc.

When I got pregnant with Benjamin I stopped working, so I was free in the evenings. I decided that I would start working on my cooking skills. My mom had given me a cookbook full of her recipes when I got married. I started trying my favorite recipes. Through cooking foods I already knew how they should look and taste, I was able to learn how to follow cooking instructions and learn cooking terminology.

My mom gifts me a subscription to Kraft's quarterly magazine every year, and she signed me up for emails from them. So I slowly started trying their recipes that sounded good to me. In between my mom's recipes and Kraft's, I continued to do Hamburger and Chicken Helper to give myself a break. By the time Benjamin was about a year old, I stopped making Hamburger and Chicken Helper; and now for the most part, the dinners I serve my family are homemade. :)

As I got more comfortable with cooking, I started changing recipes that we didn't love in order to make them better for our taste buds. Some of those changes worked, some didn't. I have a three strikes policy to those kind of recipes. If I make a new recipe and we don't love it, but it has potential I'll change something the next time I make it. If by the third time I make it, we still don't like it I'll scratch it. We also have a only-one-new-recipe-every-two-weeks rule. I also have created a recipe blog: Mrs. Weasley's Kitchen, where I post the recipes I have successfully changed.

I love to cook now. It's really therapeutic to be in my kitchen cutting food, stirring food, etc. It's a good time to think - or not think. Gerson's favorite dish I make is Roast with carrots and potatoes topped with gravy. My favorite dish I make jumbo pasta shells stuffed with chicken, broccoli, and homemade Alfredo sauce.

I also recently sewed myself an apron too!

Family Search's #52Stories Project

Family Search, the LDS Church's family history website, has created a fun  project for 2017 that I am going to participate in. The project is called #52Stories and they introduced it in an article titled "Define Your Dash". Angie Lucas, the article's author, said that the dash in between our birth date and our death date represents our life. Only those who know us well will know what is in each of our "dashes", unless we record our lives for our posterity.

Writing our life's story in one sitting is a little daunting, and quite frankly, impossible. So Family Search came up with #52Stories. Family Search is encouraging us to write down one story from our life once a week for this year. At the end of 2017 we'll have 52 stories from our lives! Whether we write, type, share or keep it private, it doesn't matter.

To help give ideas about what stories to share, Family Search has a list of 144 questions. They also post one of those questions each Saturday on their facebook and Instagram page.

I created a new category on my blog: #52Stories, where I will be sharing stories from my life based on the weekly question from Family Search! I'm really excited about this because I've been feeling a little "writer's block" the past couple months, so I'm looking forward to some ideas on what to write about.

For January 7th the questions was: What goals do you hope to achieve this year? I already wrote my goals - or resolutions down - at the beginning of the year: My Resolutions for 2017.

For January 14th the questions was: What is something you taught yourself to do without help from anyone else? To read the story for that one, stay tuned! Also, if you plan on participating in this project, and you want to share your stories as well, please let me know so I can look for them, because I would love to read your stories too!

Goodbye, Tiger

On  January 10, 2017 my 18 year old cat, Tiger, passed away. He gave us a huge scare back in May 2016 and almost died then. After that, I had a feeling this would be his last winter. We've known for a while now that Tiger was reaching the end of his life. He lives at my parents' house, but he is my cat. My mom has been giving me updates ever since our scare in May. Updates included when his eating habits decreased, when he would cough up blood, and his breathing sounded weird. But all of those were temporary, so we thought he would keep hanging on and pushing through.

On Sunday, January 8, my mom told me that Tiger had not eaten food in three weeks. They didn't want to ruin my holidays, so they waited to tell me until after. Then everyone in my family got sick, and my mom didn't want to add the stress of Tiger on top of that. He was drinking his water, but not eating his food. My mom and brother told me that the past couple of days he had stayed inside of his bed laying down, and not doing anything except for breathing - and an ear twitch if they touched him. I asked them to please give me updates at least twice a day: in the morning when they wake up, and at night before they went to bed.

On Monday, January 9, my mom texted me that she had a fever of over 101 and she would not be going to work the next day. After I read that text I felt an impression in my heart that she had a fever so that she could be home when Tiger left us and we could spend the day preparing him and his things to say goodbye.

A little after Noon on Tuesday January 10, my brother Michael called me. I said, "Hello?" I heard Michael breathe, but no words were said. I asked, "Is he gone?" Michael said, "All signs point to yes." I started crying and said, "I'm coming over right now." I started throwing whatever I could think of into the diaper bag: extra clothes, diapers, sippy cups, the baby monitors, and my laptop. I threw shoes and coats on my kids and we left.

As I was going through this frenzy I was crying, and it upset Benjamin and Luna. I tried to explain as best I could, "Benjamin, Tiger died this morning. That means his body is here, but his spirit is not. He is with Heavenly Father right now."  Benjamin asked, "Tiger is at his friends house?" "No," and I repeated myself. "Tiger is happy?" More tears. "Yes."

When we got to the house, Michael helped me get Benjamin and Luna inside. I asked Michael where Tiger was, and he pointed to Tiger's house in our backyard (he has a big dog house equipped with a bed, food and water bowls, and a heater during the winter). I was halfway there, when I spun around and fell into Michael's arms and cried my eyes out. I really cried. I can't remember the last time I cried like that. I couldn't control my voice, my screams, my body. I just sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. At one point I felt new arms wrap themselves around me and heard my mom say in a choked up voice, "Oh Chelsey, I'm so sorry."

After what felt like an hour, but was only a few minutes, I wiped my tears and went out to the backyard. Michael came with me and my mom kept Benjamin and Luna inside. When I saw Tiger the tears came back, and I fell on the ground and started bawling and screaming again. I sat there on my knees, hunched over his bed, and petted him while I cried. Michael cried with me. I told Michael that the night before I had wanted to come see Tiger to say goodbye, but had been unable to, and now it was too late. Michael told me to not beat myself up over that, Tiger knew that I loved him.

When I was a bit more composed I asked Michael to tell me everything. He said that he had slept in until 11:00 and once he was up he went to check on Tiger. He said that the past couple days he had dreaded being the one to find Tiger dead, but that morning as he walked to the back door he felt calm and peace, he already knew. He could tell just by looking at him, but did a thorough check to make sure, and then he called me. I asked if he had an idea of when: was it during the night, or in the morning? He told me with the research he had done on rigor mortis that Tiger most likely died that morning, not during the night.

My mom had also researched that cats often will leave before they die, and so the fact that Tiger stayed nearby speaks to us that he loved us and wanted to be with us. Micheal also told me that up until the night before he died, Tiger's back was to the door of his house which faces our house. Tiger had turned himself around so that he was facing our house when he died.

We knew that different cities have different ordinances about burying pets in backyards, so we tried to find out what Provo's is. We could not find any information.  Every city employee that we talked to transferred us to someone else, no one knew a d*** thing. We ended up leaving a message for animal control, and hours later when they had not called back, my dad went to their office which is in the police station. It turns out that there is not official animal control office. It's simply a couple officers who are assigned to "animal control". And once again, the people at the police station could not answer our questions.

I wasn't fully on board with burying Tiger. It was simply one of my options. I was also considering cremation. The closest place to us is Pet Reflections in Pleasant Grove. I liked the information on their website, and so I called them to find out details and prices. After a lot of thought, tears, and talking to everyone: my mom, dad, Michael and Gerson, I decided to take Tiger to Pet Reflections, get his paw print in ceramic with his name, birth and death dates engraved; but I wasn't going to keep his ashes. I decided that I also wanted to keep his collar and food and water bowls.

This morning, January 11, Michael helped me take Tiger to Pet Reflections. We said a prayer before we left, which we both cried through. When we walked in, the lady asked how she could help us, and I just started crying. She invited me to sit down and asked if I would like some water. I asked for a tissue. I told her I was bringing my cat in. She filled out all of the forms for me for his paw print and the cremation. When all the details were written out, I took off his collar and handed the box he was in to her. She walked him into an other room, and I broke down, and started having second thoughts. I asked her to wait, that I wasn't sure if I could handle not coming back for his ashes. I asked her to give me some time to talk to my brother. She told me that lots of people change their minds and that I could have as much time as I needed to figure it out. She suggested that I go home and spend a good amount of time to figure it out and then call them and tell them what I decided. They would hold onto Tiger and not do anything until I called them. I remembered that I had not eaten breakfast yet and that would probably help me. I thanked her and left.

When back in the car I started crying again, and I had to wait a few minutes before I could drive. We got McDonald's and headed back to my apartment. The farther away I got from Pet Reflections, the clearer my mind became. Michael kindly reminded me of what I had said before we got there. I had said that if we buried him, I would look out in the backyard and it would feel weird to know his body was there, but not his spirit. And that if I kept his ashes, I would feel weird looking at the box they were in and know that was what was left of him. I had said that the paw print was the most important keepsake of him that I wanted. That was the piece of him that I could comfortably have in my home.

When we were done eating breakfast I called Pet Reflections and told them to go forward with the original instructions. They told me it would take a week to a week and a half before the paw print is ready for pick up. I am probably going to be super anxious and emotional while waiting for that phone call.

Michael stayed with me the rest of the day. We chatted, got lunch, and watched Fiddler on the Roof.

Looking back, I have two regrets about preparing to say goodbye to Tiger. 1. I didn't say goodbye to him while he was still alive on Monday night. I wish I would have forfeited the dishes or something to go to my parents' house. 2. My meltdown at Pet Reflections caused me to not say a proper goodbye to him before handing him off to the lady. As I type this I have no idea if he has been cremated yet or not. I will never know when exactly that happened. And it's probably for the best.

As I lamented about these regrets to Michael, he said, "Chelsey, no matter what you had done, you would not have felt that it was good enough. There is no perfect way to do this. But, Tiger knows that you love him."

That is what I have taken away from this experience. There is no perfect way to say goodbye. And it's  hard making such permanent decisions. It's not like in the movies where we stand as a family in perfect black clothing, say perfectly scripted expressions of love and memories, and shed perfect tears without smudging our makeup. I can't look back and say, "I could have done this. I should have done that." I take it for what it is. And you know what? I did say a beautiful goodbye yesterday. Yesterday I  was alone with Tiger for a minute and I got to  tell him what I wanted to. No, it wasn't right before he got taken away from me this morning. But how do you have a proper goodbye in a cramped room with a stranger watching?

How everything went down, what I decided, was the best for my situation. No, it wasn't picture perfect, but it was perfect for me. I'm not "over it" yet. I've cried off and on for the past two days. And I will probably have more moments in the days to come. But I have had a wonderful support system. My parents have called and texted me to check up on me. Michael hasn't left my side except at night. And Gerson bathed the kids and offered to clean up from dinner. I have received lots of love from friends and family over the past two days as well. All of that means a lot to me. Thank you to everyone.

I'm going to write a second post about Tiger's life and all of the memories that I can muster. I didn't want to throw those into this post because I want to spend some time remembering as much as I can. I can't end this eloquently, so I'm just going to say, I loved Tiger. I loved him with all of my heart.

My Resolutions for 2017

Last year I started publicly announcing my New Year's Resolutions to give me a higher incentive and accountability to work on them. Influenced by an Ensign article, I picked four categories to put my goals in: mental, physical, spiritual, and social.

Mental - Last year my mental goal was to work on my patience with Benjamin Gerson. I believe I have improved in that area, of course I'm not perfect and I'll continue to work on that, but I'm ready to add a new goal for this year.

At the end of last Summer and into the Fall, Gerson and I believe that I fell under a depression spell due to spending so much time inside as a SAHM. It comes and goes, and I have had some really bad moments. Over that past few months we have found things that make me happy and help me: my involvement in Mormon Women Stand, weekly dates (we used to go monthly), visiting teaching/being visit taught, getting to go out with my mom or by myself every once in a while. So my mental goal for this year is to try to pay attention when I'm feeling down and turn to what makes me happy. Ask my mom to go shopping with me, ask my brother to have lunch with me, take the kids to have lunch with my dad, ask Gerson for an extra date one week, etc. Last year I usually waited until I was at the end of my rope and then Gerson or my parents would have to come to my rescue. This year I'm going to try to ask for help before it gets that bad.

Physical - Last year my goal was to lose weight; specifically, to lose all of my pregnancy weight and fit into my pre-pregnancy clothes. I accomplished this goal about halfway through the year! This year my physical goal is to surpass the beginner versions of my workout videos and move onto the next level for each thing I do: my 10 minute ab videos, yoga, belly dancing, and Dance Central. I believe I can accomplish this for sure by the end of the year. In working to accomplish this I would also need to add a second physical goal: to consistently work out three days a week.

Spiritual - Last year my spiritual goal was to be on time to church on time every Sunday, and I failed miserably. I think we were on time maybe once a month. Granted we had church at 8:30 am last year. This year church is at 11:00 am, and I will continue this goal of improving our tardiness. I also want to improve my reading of religious literature. I started working on this last year, but this year it's an official goal. A couple years ago I got into the habit of reading one chapter in the scriptures and one article in the Ensign every morning. Last year I added other books to my religious reading: A Marvelous Work and a Wonder, and The Teachings of the Presidents that I haven't read yet. I want to continue that this year and I hope to read one new religious book per month.

Social - Last year my social goal was to attend all Relief Society functions. I did really well for the first half of the year, and my attendance dropped to 0% the second half of the year. I'm going to keep that goal for this year as well. I want to go to all of the Relief Society activities. I really enjoy that time away from home and getting to know the ladies in my ward.

I hope you all had a fun weekend bringing in the New Year with your family and/or friends! I would like to wish you a Happy New Year and send you good luck with your goals for the year!