Fasting From Social Media

Every April and October, our church holds a General Conference where we hear from our Prophet, apostles, and other church leaders.

This year, the Prophet extended a challenge:

1. Go on a 10 day social media fast (and fast from other media that is not uplifting),
2. Read the Book of Mormon between now and the end of the year, and mark each verse that speaks of the Savior.
3. Establish a pattern of regular temple attendance.
4. Participate fully in Relief Society.

At first I was reluctant to do a social media fast, for a couple reasons. In an effort to curb my all too real social media addiction, I had Trevor change all my passwords so I can only get on when he's around. That alone has cut back my social media use quite a bit. Also, the Prophet extended the social media challenge to the teenagers this summer (only 7 days instead of 10) and at the time my husband challenged me to see if I could go 2 weeks instead of just 1. So my first thought was, wait, I already did this. Do I need to do it again?

But.... what came to my mind is the story of Naaman--he was sick with leprosy and came to Elisha to heal him. Elisha actually didn't even come to talk to him--his servant did. His servant told Naaman that he would be healed if he washed in the river Jordan 7 times, Naaman was a bit insulted. That seemed ridiculous to him I guess--he'd expected a big dramatic healing, and he certainly thought the . In his words (2 Kings 5):

"11 But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper.

12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage.

13 And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?"

I'd like to think I would do something big if President Nelson asked it. Pick everything up and move to Missouri? Join Zion's Camp? Live the Law of Consecration? I hope that I would do it.

It hit me that if I want to follow the prophet in the big things, I need to follow him in the little things too. This was a small thing that he asked for--a simple thing. I needed to act on it.

And it has blessed my life! In additional to social media, we were challenged to give up other media that is not uplifting. During conference, I was prompted that I needed to give up certain news sites and advice columns and general time wasting websites that I've been spending a lot of time on, things that have filled my internet time since I cut back on social media.

I hadn't realized how much those things were cluttering up my mind. Without stressing about the news going on every day, I could focus more on my life and my husband and the things that matter most. Without spending so much time on time sucking websites, I had more time to do other things. I read my scriptures more (okay, some of that was the Book of Mormon challenge), I did some family history, I spent more time on uplifting meaningful things and I felt closer to my Savior and my Heavenly Father.

It was a successful experiment! Trevor is hopeful that I'll give up social media altogether like he has. I'm not ready for that yet, but I think I need to continue to cut back--not just on social media but on the internet in general. There's more to life!

Memories

My grandmother wanted a representative from each family to speak at her funeral, so ultimately 3 grandchildren ended up speaking. I volunteered to speak for my family since I am the oldest... we are by default the tribute children.

Here's what I shared:

               I thought long and hard about what memories to share today about my grandma. It’s hard to pick because I have so many!

               My grandma always made me feel very loved. She was always happy to see me or hear from me. I knew I could tell her anything—she would patiently listen to my childish flights of fancy, and later to my dating woes or school stresses. My family lives in Colorado so we were farther away than the other grandchildren, but somehow Grandma always stayed in the loop on our lives. Whenever I talked to her she’d know exactly what was going on in my life and she’d ask about specific details of my latest adventures and struggles. I knew she cared about me because she remembered all the little details of my life.

               She was always patient with me, no matter what. I can’t remember her ever being mad or impatient with me. I remember when we came out to visit as kids, my sister and I would sleep in the room across from my grandparents’. We would often stay up late talking and giggling, but Grandma never complained or shushed us. She told us she was happy we were enjoying our sister time.

Grandma was selfless and she would bend over backwards to serve those around her. When I grew up, I moved out to Provo to go to school at BYU. My sophomore year I moved out of the dorms and into an apartment. I didn’t have a car, and neither did any of my roommates. I didn’t have a good way to go grocery shopping. Grandma and Grandpa came every week that first semester to take me to the grocery store. It was a big sacrifice of time—I think it was at least an hour round trip—but they did it to take care of me. Figuring out what groceries I needed was a learning curve—I was so slow at first! But they were always patient with me and never made me feel rushed, and they were always willing to give advice. Afterwards they would always treat me to Burger King, and where they would listen to all my stories of life at the Y. Their service made me feel so loved. When Christmas came, they drove me all the way to the airport, even with snowstorms pending.

One of my favorite memories of my time with my grandma happened last year in February. I flew out to Utah for one of my friend’s weddings, and I stayed with Grandma and Grandpa. That weekend Grandma and I spent a lot of quality time together, going out to eat, talking about life. I was happy that my friend was getting married, but I was also sad and worried that I was still single at 29. Grandma and I had some heart to heart discussions about how she still had hope that I would find someone. She was so encouraging…. Back then I told her I was going to give up on men and go buy a house and a dog. She always told me that I could have all 3. In the end, she was right! One of the last things she said to me was, “You did! You got your husband, your house, and your dog!”

When I got married last year, she was too sick to come to the wedding, but I was able to stop by her house and model my wedding dress for her. I felt her support and love that day even though she wasn’t physically with me.

When we got the news a couple weeks ago that Grandma was going into hospice, I hopped a plane the next day so I could come say goodbye. I think all of her kids and grandkids came to see her that day. My siblings and I got to visit with her for a few minutes. We started to leave her so she could get some rest, but she called us back so she could share some spiritual experiences she had in her life concerning death. She bore her testimony to us that there is life after death, and she promised us she would be okay after she was gone. That was so comforting to me, and it’s something I’ve thought about often since. She was the one dying, but she comforted us.

I love my grandma so much! I will miss her. But I am so grateful to know that families are forever, and I know that I will see her again. I look forward to that day.

Grandma

Grandma and Grandpa and baby me

Today I got word that my grandma passed away.

I know it was a relief for her. She suffered so much on her way out!

But we will miss her so much. I am so grateful to know that families are forever and I will see her again someday. I know that right now she is enjoying a happy reunion with her parents and her brother and my cousin Jess... everyone who crossed over before she did.

I don't know what I would do if I didn't know there is life after death. That brings so much hope and peace to my life!

Grandma

Last Sunday, after much encouragement from my husband, I flew out to Utah to see my grandma one last time.

I'm so glad that I did. Nearly all of Grandma's descendants still live in Utah--I think my mom, my sister Shauna and I are the only exceptions, and the two of them have been with her for the last couple weeks taking care of her.

Because I flew out, ALL of Grandma's blood descendants came to see her last Sunday. All the kids, all the grandkids, all the great-grandkids. Grandma was still in good spirits there. She bore testimony to us that there is life after death, that she is not at all afraid of death and she knows she will reunite with our loved ones in the Spirit World. I am so grateful that I was here to hear her words.

I've stayed in Utah since then. Grandma is not scared of death, but dying is another matter. My poor Grandma is dying of starvation. She has inoperable tumors sealing off her intestines so no nourishment can get through. To make it worse.... she had kidney issues just a week ago that led her to retain water.... and her body is relying on that water now to keep from dying from thirst. It means that we get to keep her longer, but it is prolonging her suffering.

It's been so hard to watch her slip away. By now she is very far gone, hallucinating and not responsive to the people near her. She's on a morphine drip but she is still in pain.

She's still hanging on. The nurse thinks it will be another week. I don't know how she could go on another week in this condition.

Saying Goodbye

Today I got word that they are putting my grandma in hospice care.

It's been about a year and a half since she was diagnosed with cancer. At first we were all in shock, but we were optimistic. The doctors thought she had a good chance.

She struggled through the agonies of chemotherapy. Eventually she got the exciting news that her cancer was in remission. We were so relieved.

But... things took a turn for the worst again. We found out the cancer was back.... It was a bit of a roller coaster ride from there. We knew she might die, but things kept happening that would give us a glimpse of hope.

Just yesterday, there was a glimpse. Her doctors decided to try a new treatment on her. They weren't giving up.

And then.... today I got word that she's been taken to the Huntsman Cancer Center. The cancer is even more advanced than they realized. They are moving her to hospice on Monday, and they expect she'll live another 2 to 4 weeks.

I feel... numb, almost. I can't quite believe that it is true. It hasn't sunk in yet. But at the same time, I can't stop thinking about it. Every time I move on to thinking about what I need to get done today (Oh yeah, I still need to shower.... I really need to straighten this kitchen... etc. etc.), I feel guilty... going about my normal life when hers is ending.

I want to go visit her. It's been too long! When I lived in Utah I saw her often, but it's been over three years now since I moved back here. I still saw her occasionally. The last time I really spent time with her was when I flew out for Melissa's wedding last year in February. I stayed at my grandparents' overnight and my grandma and I spent a lot of quality time together. It's actually one of my favorite memories of being with her.

I saw her again last June when I flew out for Kristie's wedding. But already she was not up to staying at the wedding celebrations very long.

By my wedding in November, she was too sick to come. The last time I saw her was a couple days before my wedding. I stopped at her house to show her my wedding dress. She told me she wished so much she could come to the wedding ceremony, but I understood that her health was too fragile.

I ended up having to rush off at the end of our visit. I was supposed to meet Trevor in Salt Lake City to get our marriage license. I wish I'd stayed longer with her then.

I'm wondering if I should fly out to see her one last time. Unfortunately I have a bad cold right now..... and the last thing I want to do is hasten her end. :(

I'm going to miss her so much. But I do know families are forever and this will not be the end. I need to keep that in my mind. Death is only a temporary separation.

My last time with Grandma before my wedding

When a Non-Musician Marries a Musician

Okay, I admit it. Music has never been a deep passion with me. I love listening to it, but I've never devoted myself to the study and practice of musical performance.

I mean, sure, I had 6 years of piano lessons as a kid. My mom warned me when I quit that I'd regret it someday, that I might regret someday that I couldn't play in church when a pianist was needed. Since I hate performing in front of other people.... I have never regretted that.

I dabbled in choir in elementary school and middle school. But by the time I was 12, I was extremely self conscious of my voice. I remember distinctly a caroling trip I went on as a Beehive. I noticed that no matter where I went in the group, the people in front of me would glance back at me as I sang. In hindsight, this could have been for lots of reasons. I was typically towards the back of the group, and maybe they were looking for people from another car to arrive and looking at the road, not really at me. Or, they didn't notice my quiet stealthy self coming behind them, and they were startled to know I was there. It could have been a lot of things. Unfortunately 12 year old Shelece interpreted this as people judging me for singing badly, and I resolved to sing less in church. I would sing bits and pieces of the hymns, but trail off anytime I felt like I was off on a note, I would stop singing and mouth the words--which often meant skipping the high parts, the ends of lines, and sometimes even the beginning.

I did end up taking voice lessons from my aunt one summer, and though I learned a lot, I ultimately realized my heart wasn't in it. The kicker was when my aunt told me I could pick any church song I wanted, any song at all, to learn next. I went through the books and picked out... the Latter-day Prophets song. Why? Because I figured if I was going to learn a song, I might as well learn something useful like all the names of the prophets. My aunt allowed this, but later on, she admitted that she was very frustrated with my choice. She thought I'd pick something melodic and beautiful, but a song meant to serve as a memory device was... well, not what she was thinking of. That's when it occurred to me that I wasn't invested in music--it never occurred to me to pick a song because it sounded pretty and I wanted to sing it.

So fast forward a lot, and I fell in love with Trevor, who was born bleeding music from every pore. In our singles ward days, he launched a triward young single adult choir, and I came.... because I liked him. It was... all right. There were lots of choir newbies that he'd recruited. We didn't do any super hard songs. I lived in fear of days that I was the only soprano who showed up (I think that only happened once!), and I was super intimidated when our friend Daniel took over the choir directing, because his mom is a professional and he took things up a notch that was hard for me to meet. But he was still patient in teaching us very basic choir things that I didn't know--what the director's hand movements meant, what some of those weird Italian words meant on the page, etc. etc.

Trevor even got me to be part of some stake music choirs, which weren't so scary because the choirs were so big my voice didn't stand out. Although I learned quickly that choir is about critiquing the people around you to help the whole choir improve. People near me have often offered suggestions for me to improve. This is a normal thing, and their suggestions are helpful, but when I'm already terrified and self conscious, it just escalates the anxiety.

But in our new ward... oh man. Choir is on a higher level than I can possibly achieve. Almost everyone is super musical. They throw around music terms that I have no clue how to interpret but everyone else clearly gets it. We've been trying to learn Mormon Tabernacle Choir arrangements.... I am NOT a MoTab soprano!!! They go so impossibly high and I can't even touch it. I've been doing my best. I don't really read music, and I don't understand how to read parts. Other people can take an arrangement and look at it--they see which notes their part is, and off they go. I can't do that. Sometimes people will say something like, "Can you sing a high A?" I HAVE NO IDEA. I hear note names and I don't hear a corresponding noise in my head. I learn songs by listening to the music and trying to copy the people next to me. I realize I should raise my hand more and have them play my part, but I recognize that if I do that it's likely the Director will make us sing the part I'm confused about, and pay especial attention to my voice to see if I get it now.

Following other sopranos worked somewhat okay when I had a really strong singer next to me, but she has just moved away. Last week I skipped choir, and Trevor said no sopranos came. I was so grateful I didn't go. This week I was scared unto death to go because I thought I might be the only soprano there, but Trevor really really wanted me to go. So I showed up, and... there were 3 sopranos, me and two teenage girls. We did a warm-up. The Director brought out a MoTab arrangement he wants us to do that goes very very high. I noticed there were a few spots where sopranos sing alone, and I got very nervous. But things went worse than I ever imagined.... It was probably my fault (?!?!?!?). I mentioned that the timing at the end of the song was hard for me--all 4 parts sing amen at different speeds and a different amount of times, and I get lost almost every time. So we listened to a recording of the song twice, and then we tried to sing through it.

All 3 sopranos struggled so hard to hit the high notes, but I struggled more than any of them. (For any musically inclined people reading this... basically in this section we had to hit a high G and a high A.) And then.... the director's wife suggested that the sopranos should sing alone, since we were clearly a problem. So for the next eternity  20 minutes or so, the entire choir listened to us as we struggled... I could NOT hit the high notes. I sounded squeaky and breathy and horrible. IT WAS MY WORST NIGHTMARE COME TO LIFE. Here I am in choir so people can't hear my voice much, and I'm being called upon to suck at singing while everyone else in choir listens to me. People tried to help us by offering changes to the music (that meant very little to me. Let's bring that one part down an octave--okay, I get  that it won't be as high, but what note are we going for?). I was DYING. I did see a bit of humor--Trevor assured me that choir wasn't so bad, and then everything I ever feared about choir came true.

Fortunately... the Director soon realized that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir arrangement was far out of our reach, and had us sing "Nearer Our God to Thee". I could handle that... although I felt guilty that my failure was partially responsible for us switching to an easy song. He looked right at me as he said we'd switch to Nearer because it had a much smaller range and was easier to sing.

But at the same time.... I realized then that despite my newbieness and struggles, I'm not an awful singer. My guess is, the MoTab sopranos have an epic range. It's okay I don't. That doesn't mean I'm a failure. I am behind the curve of a lot of choir people because I'm just trying to learn this stuff at age 30.... but in a lot of ward choirs, that wouldn't be so out of place. There are ward choirs literally begging for people to join, experience or no.

It just so happens this choir is more advanced than that, and that's great! They can do a great job singing amazing musical numbers.... and I can listen from the audience and smile at them.

Or maybe I'll still hang in there, for Trevor's sake.... If we stick to Nearer My God to thee, I can handle that... Sorry to lower the quality of the choir, ward peoples! At least I'm trying to add my voice.

A Year Ago

A year ago, I was in a dark place.

I'd met Trevor a couple months before, but he'd never called me, and I wasn't sure if he'd lost interest or if he was busy finishing up his master's degree in Boulder. (Thank goodness it turned out to be the second option!)

I was navigating yet another quarter life crisis and trying to figure out what I needed to change to feel like I was progressing. I considered a PhD, and even purchased the books to study for taking the GRE again, but... I realized that truthfully, that wasn't what I wanted to do with my next five years.

I'd finally saved up enough for a down payment on a home, but every time I tried to get serious about house shopping, I just didn't feel good about it. Finally I prayed about it and felt pretty firmly that I shouldn't be buying a house just yet. So there went that option.

The bright spot in my life was my sweet little baby Molly.

Look how tiny she used to be!

Mother's Day came around. Shauna and I went to church with Mom and Dad--we were spending the day together as a family to support Mom for Mother's Day. I... didn't take it well. I felt like I was surrounded on all sides with women my age married for years with multiple kids. (Cuz... I mean, I was.) Salt in the wound.... the life I'd always longed for that seemed forever out of reach.

I came home and cried and cried. It was really embarrassing, because it was obviously putting a damper on my mom's special day. But my mother was really patient with me. She told me she thought that my husband was closer than I thought. Of course, we'd all said that before about my husband, and he hadn't showed. So I wasn't terribly optimistic (but she did help me feel better).

What I didn't know, and what I had no way of knowing, was that I was exactly one week away from going on my first date with Trevor.

It was a good thing I hadn't applied for any PhD programs--I needed to be here to date him. It was a good thing I hadn't bought a house--that meant we've been able to pick one out together, and build it with a family in mind. God had been reassuring me for years that everything would work out... and finally, it all came together.

I guess I am writing this to say... don't give up. Whatever trials you are facing, hang in there. Things can and will get better. You may not know when or how... and it may not be as soon as you are hoping for. But sometimes, the answer to your prayers really is just right around the corner.

As my cousin Natalie always says, it will all work out.