To some of you, this comes as no surprise what-so-ever! But, as of late, I have had conversations/experiences that made me finally realize that I am one of those peculiar Mormons - and most likely more peculiar than most. Do I think that I was innately born that way? Well, possibly, but I mostly want to blame it on my upbringing.
You see, I was raised in a small, pioneer town in South-eastern Nevada. The population has never hit over 1,000. My ancestors were some of the founding fathers of this town. Although the population is low, there was never a lack of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (we have two wards just for our town). I was always surrounded by members of my own religion, which I'm sure influenced lots of my choices. But, I'm really sure that my "not-quite-in-the-real-world" Mom influenced me the most.
You know my Mom spends money every month on expensive cable just so she can watch the BYU channels. I don't know if she knows there are other channels. She and my Dad also volunteer/work at the St. George temple every Friday and Saturday and trying to get them to take time off is like pulling teeth. I swear you have to have a baby or do something drastic to get them to come visit on the weekends. She loves her genealogy, too. We all have many books and charts that she has created for us, so we can know our family history. I'm not making fun of her at all by telling you all of this. She amazes me at how she can live in the crazy world and not even see most of it because she is focused on what is most important. I admit, though, she is quite peculiar. And, after these experiences I've been having, I realized she rubbed some of her peculiar-ness off on me!
First off, Richard has been planning a Youth Conference the past couple of months for all of the youth in the ward. Up until last night (the conference is this weekend), he was still gathering permission slips from the boys. I was talking to one of the girl advisors, and she mentioned how hard it was to get them to commit to going to this conference. I mentioned that that was so weird to me because I never questioned going to something like that when I was younger. There's an event for church, okay, I'm there! Still to this day I don't question whether I should be supportive to a church event. It wasn't a choice growing up, and it's not a choice now. I grew up thinking that it was my responsibility as a member of a church to support everything I could. I seriously only remember missing church once because I was sick when I was living at home with my parents. And, I felt horrible for missing it!
When I started dating Richard, one of the first questions I asked is if he was an Eagle Scout. No, he isn't. His Mom gave us his scout sash last year and there are two merit badges on it. To tell you the truth, this surprised me as well because in our family all of the boys had to get their Eagle Scout awards before they could get their driver's license. I now am less judgmental of those who don't hold scouting as important as my family did, but I definitely think it is a super great program (well, maybe I don't those nights Richard is stressed out about scouts). I want my boy(s - if I have more than one) to get their Eagle Scouts. My town benefited greatly from my brothers' projects - mapping out the town and giving street numbers to all houses for the first time, putting up street signs, painting the rodeo grounds, putting in play equipment and picnic benches at the park. And, I think that it is important for the youth to learn responsibility and a variety of different things (which the scout program does). Am I really old school? Because I totally thought my Mom was and now I am thinking her same thoughts.
Okay, one more rant... yesterday at church there was a sign-up sheet that went around for those women who wanted tickets to go to the General Relief Society meeting in September. Okay, so this is like the Super Bowl/concert of the year for our awesome women's organization for our church. This is the one time a year experience we get to hear words meant for all of us women in our church all over the world! United together - awesomeness! The only time I have ever missed listening to this meeting was when I was in Romania far away from any satellite that could transmit it to us. Anyway, I was one of the last people to get this list AND to my huge surprise I was the second person to sign it. I was very surprised! WHAT?! We get the chance to be in the actual building where this event is happening and no one wants to go? I would never pass up going to the Super Bowl or an awesome concert! Okay, now that I've offended everyone that was in Relief Society and didn't sign up for tickets, I know there are good reasons to not be able to go to the actual building (Michelle, you are allowed to fly home from your Grandpa's birthday party that day without me having hard feeling towards you). It will be awesome whether you are in the Conference Center or not. It just made me start thinking why I think it is so totally incredible to be in the actual Conference Center for events like this... and then I realized that I have a peculiar Mom... and she made me peculiar, too!
Love you, Mom!
