Sunday Night Walk

Tonight we went on a wonderful Sunday walk.  We walked around OU campus.  Wow, what  a beautiful place.  The flowers and the sculptures and the buildings and the fountains.  I could spend so much time just sitting and drinking up all of the beauty.  

The picture above is all four of our children enjoying one such beautiful fountain that was donated to the university by the class of 1935.  I vow that we will have many more such walks in the future.

Change

Last night I had a dream.  You know those dreams that you have that bother you even while you are dreaming it? Well, it was that kind of dream.  I dreamt that Doug was asked to move to Seattle to teach there and we were going to have to leave Oklahoma. In the dream we were packing and driving away from our current position.  I remember that I cried and cried.  In fact in the dream I remember realizing that I was crying much more than I had when I had to leave Idaho.  Despite how sad I was I remember that our extended family was super excited to have us so much closer.            I woke up.


It was then that I realized how much I love being here in Oklahoma.


Last week our ward here in Oklahoma incurred some boundary changes.  CHANGE.  Many people in our ward were a bit melancholy today as we went to church, because they were missing some of their dear friends.    It didn't hurt our family too much, because we are still learning who is who in our ward.  In fact, there are less people now, so now I hold out some hope of getting to know everyone a little bit better and a little bit faster.

Perhaps this is what brought on the strange dream I had.

As we were in church today there were three speakers, all the members of our bishopric, our leaders.
One is a new friend who actually used to be the bishop of another ward (and by 'used to be', I mean up until last week. His family was affected by the re-allignment of the ward boundaries, and our Bishop called him in place of his counselor that was affected by the boundary change as well).  All the speakers today spoke about the same topic:  CHANGE.  Our new friend shared a conference talk that had a beautiful analogy about a root bound plant.  It is so great that I have decided to share it with you:

When a choice plant became root bound and began to deteriorate, a young friend of ours decided to transplant it to a larger container. Carefully he lifted the greenery from its small pot and put it into its larger home, trying to disturb the roots and soil as little as possible. The novice gardener watched and waited. To his dismay, the plant still struggled. Our friend expressed his frustration to an experienced gardener who offered his services. When the plant was placed in the gardener’s hands, he turned the pot upside down, pulled out the plant, shook the soil from the roots, and clipped and pulled all the stragglers from the root system. Replacing the plant into the pot, he vigorously pushed the soil tightly around the plant. Soon the plant took on new life and grew.

How often in life do we set our own roots into the soil of life and become root bound? We may treat ourselves too gently and defy anyone to disturb the soil or trim back our root system. Under these conditions we too must struggle to make progress. Oh, change is hard! Change can be rough.

The Lord does not want His church to become root bound and stagnant. Constant revelation through the prophets is needed for the growth of His kingdom.

There is nothing so unchanging, so inevitable as change itself. The things we see, touch, and feel are always changing. Relationships between friends, husband and wife, father and son, brother and sister are all dynamic, changing relationships. There is a constant that allows us to use change for our own good, and that constant is the revealed eternal truths of our Heavenly Father.

Marvin J. Ashton, Progress Through Change

If you are interested in reading the rest of this great talk, you can go here.

I suppose that the reason that I feel so impressed by this talk was because lately we, the Sturges Family, have gone through quite a bit of change.  We moved from our home in Melba.  Melba truly was our home in every way.  We put all of our heart and soul into that small community.  It hurt when we had to leave.  Melba helped Doug and I become who we are today.  Melba is a major part of our children's childhood.  

It was challenging for a while.  I have missed much of our Idaho life.  But, now that we have been here for three months I find that I am growing.  I am changing a bit.  I am becoming exactly what my Heavenly Father wants me to be. He is blessing me in so many ways.  Our children are also feeling the comfort of Heavenly Father's blessings.  It hurt some to have my roots pulled apart, but hopefully in a year or so I will be a more beautiful plant that has learned to take on new life and GROW.  

How have you found that CHANGE has blessed you?

The last few weeks

The last few weeks have been full.  Mostly of adventures we would rather not have.  Doug has had some complications that have resulted from his knee surgery, and he has been through many doctor appointments.  Last Friday he was meeting in OKC with a physician and if we had not gone through this experience, we would not have met Howdy.  Howdy was Doug's nurse.  She is a woman of about 45 years of age and had some fun stories to tell.  I just thought that it was super fun to say,"See ya later Howdy."  What an oxymoron sentence.  How often does one get to say such things.  Well, what I didn't know was that as I left the parking garage I was going to meet a parking attendant named Yajuanna.   That's right.  As I read her name I asked her how she pronounced it.     How would you say this unusual name?   You wanna guess?

You Wanna.

  That is how you would pronounce it!  So on my way back home I called my friend Peggy and told her of both of the unusual name I had come upon in the last hour.  She is always good to cheer me up with a laugh.  I also called Megan (my sister-in-law) and she and I chuckled about these for a bit.  I always need a good laugh, so I decided that this was a blessing from Heavenly Father.





This we Doug and i were blessed to have my step-mom come into town to enjoy the role of Grandma.  When we were still in Idaho we learned that there would be a Husband and Wife Conference in Dallas that was in October.  We arranged with Sharon to come and she was super happy to help us with this need.  I gotta say that the kids were equally as pleased.  They were able to go on adventures with her and be spoiled by her.  I don't think the visit will ever be forgotten.  It was so good to have her come and it felt like home with her here.

As Doug and I went to Dallas we followed the directions to meet at the front of the Dallas Temple in our athletic gear. ( I loved meeting there.  I had forgotten that the Dallas temple and the Boise Idaho temple were built around the same time, so they both look very similar. Another blessing to me.)  As the group gathered we were told that we were going to run "The Amazing Race", and we were handed our first clue.  Doug and I were super excited about the theme of the conference because this is our all time favorite TV show.  We love the challenges and the travels.  The amazing race that we ran was as a couple and each clue was to teach us how to unite together.  During the first leg of the race we had to do numerous exercises, stack cups, find our name in a room of 1,000 cups, and list characteristics we love about each other.  The second leg began the next morning and we were thrust on a train into downtown Dallas.  We had to take pictures of ourselves next to four different "features" of Dallas.  The third leg of the race we had to share painting a picture and then finish the race with running a three legged race.    Honestly, I believe that this conference could not have been more custom made for Doug and I.  We had a blast.

Sometimes I think Heavenly Father must look down from heaven above and just laugh.  Am I crazy or have any of you had this thought as well?

I was so nervous about going to this conference.   I wonder if God giggled in excitement for what He had in store for us.  He knew that Doug and I needed the conference to be planned exactly the way it was planned.  He knew how much fun we would have with the challenges and also how we would be able to come closer together with them.  We also were able to get to know other couples better by going through some of the challenges with them.

I am so thankful that Heavenly Father knows what I need.  I am also so glad that He knows my future and is concerned for me.  Heavenly Father has built me up from my past experiences for a reason, and He has a path for me to go.  I am very happy that I don't know the future.  I know that if I knew the future that I would shirk from what I need to go do.  I also am so thankful for personal revelation.  I can communicate with my Heavenly Father and through personal revelation He can communicate with me. He can guide and direct me if my heart is pure.    I am so thankful for the examples of those that are around me.  I love that I can follow what is good from each of their lives.  I am so blessed.