Five For Friday # 5

ONE

Parker my little Japanese chin is a runner.  He loves to get away and explore.  I have a long lead I put him on in the front yard, so he can get around, but when it's on, he does his business and comes right back in, then waits to sneak out.  It's worrisome to me.  He can get pretty far away within a short time.  Coco on the other hand stay very close to home and I never have to worry about loosing him.  I was worried about how I was going to deal with this come summer when we have the door open all the time.

Little Parker with his clothes on.  I love his little paws sticking out!

But a few weeks ago, he got out MANY times and each time I did not scold him at all, just told him he's my little baby dog, that I loved him and carried him back home.  I did this over and over again for the next few days and you know what?  He's coming back on his own ALL the time.  It's so nice not to have to worry about this  anymore and I hope it keeps up!  I wasn't even planning on this being the solution.  I just did it, not knowing why, but I think it's a lesson on the power of kindness.

 TWO

I just finished reading my second book about polygamy. Each has been a little different.




The first book, Stolen Innocence concerns Warren Jeff's group. This story starts out in the metropolitan SLC area. This story is about manipulation, control, broken families and lies.  You can find it on CD and in hard cover complete with pictures.  This poor girl was forced to marry someone who had been mean to her all growing up.  Her father, mother and brother were often taken away from the family, brought back, changed, you name it.  It's shocking.

The second book, Shattered Dreams, is even more shocking.  This starts out in Murry Utah and Irene, the writer is a 4th generation polygamist.  It starts with her childhood and her mothers misery, leaving after dad goes to prison and her falling in love with a man who is 13 years her senior.  She's only 16 and is torn between marrying him or  her 1/2 sisters husband Verlan.  She picks Verlan and becomes a second wife.  Her life is mostly spent in Mexico, in farm land, in the mountains and by the ocean and for a while in Nicaragua. She lives in extreme poverty, with no electricity, no running toilets, thrift store clothes, and 25 or more people in a very small house.  Irene ends up having a total of 14 children.  The first dies the day of her birth. She struggles her whole marriage with loneliness, jealousy and her husband making promises he never keeps.  She falls in love with another man at one point, but stays in her awful situation. 

Verlan had been a temple endowed Latter-day Saint.  He ends up becoming the president of this church his brother started.  He often works in the states, and tries to find converts as far as Canada. Verlan ends up with a total of 10 wives and 58 children.  These people believed in the Adam-God theory, the "purity" principle, which means only sex for pro-creation, and glory and own worlds in the next life.  Irene can't stand the lack of sex and finally finds a text by Parley P. Pratt (I think) for 5 reasons for sex.  The Doctrine and Covenants is quoted as well as Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball.  Irene lives having to be obedient to requests that go against what her heart is telling her is wrong and there for feels TERRIBLE about herself and so unloved.  All she wanted was love and someone to be there for her.

Once Irene leaves he becomes a Born Again Christian. After reading her story, hearing how she felt and then her experience in this kind of a congregation, I believe that God is giving her a gift to live out the rest of her life, responsibility free.  She paid a great price while being a 2nd wife and this is her break.  In the next life, she will know the truth, except it and be OK.  That is my hope for her anyway.

Why do I read this you ask?   Being single so long and in the single adult program that is 31 to dead, I've often thought if there was polygamy I would be a wife and a mother and there would be no need for the SA program. I would always say I don't need a man 100% of the time, 50% or less would be fine.  Another phrase I'd say is "I'll be wife number 2, there isn't going to be no number 3"  meaning of course, a second wife after a death or a divorce.  I was a 5th wife to Jason!

Of course I would never leave the Church for such a thing.  I KNOW it is wrong, unless commanded by God.  In reading Jacob, I believe polygamy is about children.  Abraham needed to have seed to fulfill the promise.  The Mormon Pioneers needed to have children to grow the church, the gospel.  In Jacob chapter 2 he tells the Nephities that they cannot excuse by using the scriptures (David and Salomon) to have more than one wife. The Lord tells us there, He Ok'd it for Abraham and for this purpose as described in verse 30:

For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up ^aseed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things.

The Lord’s law of marriage is monogamy unless he commands otherwise to help establish the House of Israel (see Encyclopedia of Mormonism Vol. 3, pp. 1091-1095).

THREE

You know my little rescue dog Polly, well her name is now Pearl.  I got an email and a picture from the family that adopted her.  The mom even knitted her a little dress.  Here she is all clean and cute. I love her and still want to hug her!  She's such a cute sweet dog, but I'm happy to know she has a good home.  I just hope they don't smoke around her! 

FOUR

This last weekend I went with my sister Cindy, her husband Mike and Amber, their youngest daughter to take her for her second semester at BYU-Idaho.  Ricks used to be my old stomping ground and really the best 2 years of my life.  I had SO much fun there, made great friends that I am still friends with today, and got myself on anti-depressants.  The college then had 4 thousand students.  The hope how is to get 15 thousand students and they are well on their way!  The place has changed so much.  My second year I lived in Harmony House, across from the Spori building.  It's now men's housing and uses our old Vikings mascot in the name.  There are TONS of housing already gone up, and more going up.  More shops, more buildings on campus, more changes.  It's crazy!  They have a conference center called the Idaho-Center, or I-center.  It will hold all 15K students when they get them.  The conference center in SLC hold 21K.  They recently had a fire there (the one in SL) and I couldn't help but think that it would be OK if that burned down, because we have a plan B!

I also went to the temple there.  On the outside it looks like the Twin Falls temple, but it's much bigger and I have to admit I like not having to make an appointment!  The chandelier are amazing, covering the whole mechanism with those crystals  so you see rainbow colors when you look in it. I took some pictures of the temple and the conference center and some of the campus, that will be coming up soon!  Mean while you can go here to see the campus. It's beautiful!

FIVE 

I think recess is the hardest part of the day for me and there are 3 of them, totaling 45 to 60 min of the day.  Greg is usually fine playing by himself so I have a lot of down time unless the kids are coming up to me with problems.  Today I realized that all my thinking is negative.  I think negative about the kids, about Jason, other involved in that mess and even my childhood, and adult years in the past.  My life has been a disappointment to me.  I feel like a failure.  The sad part is, that in my realization (I suppose a step in the direction of healing) I don't know what to think about. Isn't that sad?  I cried about it.  I tried to think about things I could think about, but I really don't know anything that takes up enough of my life or time that would fill those minutes.

It also shows me how terrible this whole ordeal (mainly the marriage and moves) has been for me.  In my pattern changing class the teacher said she had worked with abused women who didn't even know what their favorite color was and other such simple things.  Any ideas of what I should think about?

Future posts about Castleford and BYUI coming soon!