Oh, wow. Here it comes.
If anyone had told me when I was in high school that I would wind up as an English teacher I would have doubled over laughing. I loved to read when I was in high school. I was good at diagraming sentences. In fact, diagraming sentences made me look like an ELA hero. But I have never been and probably never will be very good at spelling, though I keep working at it. In the day, BYU had a Senior literacy course that everyone had to pass to graduate. Spelling was a large part of it. I was intimidated.
I have always enjoyed writing. In elementary school my Second Grade teacher, Mrs. Searle had us write and illustrate our own stories. I still have the book that we made stashed somewhere in all of the stuff I won't let Mother throw away.
In Eighth Grade Ms Woodward helped us write and produce the school play. I think I have mentioned that in another post, so I won't go into detail here.
In Ninth Grade I started writing poetry for the school creative writing section of the year book.
In high school I took Mr. Fredreickson's Creative Writing class. He gave little instruction, but gave points for whatever we produced. So, I wrote a lot of crap, and a few pieces that I still like.
Despite all of this, I saw writing as something that I would do as a hobby or leisure activity. In high school, I expected that I would become an architect. (We would have been richer if I had.)
My family has been in Education for many generations now. My grandmothers were both teachers. Lenore Cannon Wood was an English teachers. Joseph Earl Wood was one of her pupils. Hahaha. I have some of her English texts. It is interesting to see what grammar points were emphasized one hundred years ago that are no longer even discussed. My father and mother were both teachers. Eight of my parents' children had been teachers or are teachers. The name Bennion is common in Education in Utah. So, it was easy for me to envision myself in that calling.
When I returned from my mission I took a Shakespeare class from Allie Howe, a woman from the stake I grew up in and to whom I had delivered newspapers as a boy. She was a delightful teacher and knew how to spark insightful discussion. I loved the class so much that I decided to become an English teacher--Senior proficiency exam be d.....d.
When I met your mother and we decided to get married she and I decided that we would not make enough money as an English teacher, so I changed my degree to Pre-Physical Therapy. I would have been a great physical therapist, no question. And I would have loved doing it. But we missed one very important thing. We didn't ask the Lord if that is what he wanted us to do. I know from experience that it is not easy to get an answer from the Lord to that question. But, there is a reason for that.
Nephi tells us in the Book of Mormon that he went and did the thing that the Lord commanded knowing that the Lord would prepare away to complete the task. The story does not tell that getting the plates was a walk in the park. It was hard. But Nephi persisted because he knew that the Lord had commanded it. In my case, I did not persist in becoming an English teacher at that time because I did not have that knowledge that this was the path the Lord wanted me to follow. And, I didn't persist in becoming a physical therapist for the same reason. If you have to fast and pray many times. If you have to pray all night in a wrestle with the Lord. If you have to go off on a hunting trip turned all night prayer, do it. Do it until you get the answer, because whatever you chose to do, there will be obstacles to overcome and you will not have the necessary faith to confront those obstacles if you do not have the assurance that you are doing what the Lord wants you to do.
I was four credit hours away from my Pre-Therapy degree. I needed one Organic Chemistry class--a very hard class. But I was certainly capable of passing it. We sent out application to a few Therapy schools to no avail. The field was very difficult, and someone who still had a class to complete was not going to get a look.
Mom and I were struggling financially. We were getting some help from Grandma and Grandpa Brown, but I was so prideful that I did not want to ask for it. There would have been a way to get school loans or other financial aid to attend therapy school, but I didn't seek it out, nor did I really know much about it. I didn't have the focus of the faith to pursue it. So I dropped out of school for a while.
I had been working in the Temple laundry with your Uncle Doug, and working at Burger King trying to get enough to provide. Mom had a friend in sales (Denise Farnsworth) with a company named SILO. Without a college degree she was earning what seemed to me to be a lot of money. So I put in application.
At first my applications were thrown in the trash, though I didn't know this. I kept asking and kept applying. Finally there was a change in leadership in SLC. The new district manager didn't know that the Orem store manager had requested that I not be hired. I got an interview. The district manager liked me. I got the job. And the Orem store manager was surprised. My persistence had paid off.
I could tell you a lot about how difficult it was to learn how to sell electronics, but that is another story. Initially I believed that I would sell for a few years and then get back to school. The years passed. And then more passed. In my mid 30's working for RC Willey's, I began to think of my alternatives. I was soon approaching the point of no return--the point at which I could not make any career change.
A chance to work with Steve Hullinger came up and I took it, but in three months it was evident that Steve's company was not ready for a full time full salaried salesman. I was in my mid thirties, with a family and a mortgage, and no job. I experienced more anxiety than at any other time in my life. My mother (with no contact except from the Spirit) could feel it. I got a call from Aunt Katherine, whom mother had called and asked to check on me.
This time you mother and I went to the Temple to ask Heavenly Father what he wanted us to do. I was a Scout Master at the time and had the most incredible time with the boys at Summer Scout Camp that I thought that I would really enjoy being a school teacher. I had applied to be readmitted to BYU with a change in major to English Teaching and had been denied, basically because I was four credit hours away from a different degree. But at the Temple Mom and I both felt that I should try again to be admitted to BYU.
When we left the Temple that day I found a leaflet tucked under the windshield wiper of our car. I was angry that someone would try to sell by placing leaflets in the Temple parking lot. "Money changers in the Temple" was what I thought. So I took the leaflet to see to whom I would be sending a nasty letter. It read, "Because you have served in the Temple this day, you will see more clearly. The American Fork xxth ward Beehives have cleaned your windshield." Mom and I had a good laugh, but felt that it was true. We could see more clearly that we had before.
I looked at what I would need to graduate as an English teacher. I wrote up a plan that would involve night classes and summer school. I could take every class that I would need without taking up a regular Fall or Winter classroom seat except for the classes I would need for my teaching certificate. These I would have to take in the regular classroom.
BYU accepted this plan and I started my work. It took me a while to complete the home study courses. I went back to RC Willey with my hat in hand and begged for my job back, which they were happy to give. This was a blessing because it meant that I would have health benefits for the family. I was able to do my home study when time allowed. But I loved the coursework and advanced with all A's.
The trial of my faith came when it was time to do my student teaching. I was working about 30 hours per week at RC Willey's. My typical day started at 5:00 a.m. I would get up and shower and prepare for the day so that I could see the family at breakfast. I had to leave to be at Provo High at 7:30 a.m. I student taught for Mrs. Merrill, who was at the end of her career and was being treated for cancer. Consequently, I picked up more than the normal three hours of class time, but taught for her for most of the day. I had to be at RC Willey's by 5:00 p.m. so would grade papers and write lessons until then. My shift at RC Willey's went until 10:00 p.m. at which time I would go home, and grade papers/write lesson plans until past midnight, sometimes until 2:00 a.m. I was averaging about four hours of sleep each night. I loved Saturday nights because I didn't have to get up so early on Sunday mornings. Sometimes I worked until 10:00 on Saturdays and sometimes until 6:00 p.m.
On one particular Saturday I was off at 6:00 p.m. I was looking forward to the first night with eight hours of sleep that I had seen in more than a month. John was not home, but I wasn't worried. At 8:00 John was still not home, but I still wasn't worried. At 9:00 we started calling the neighbors. Nobody knew where John was. At 10:00 p.m. I was livid (turning red with anger). My eight hours of sleep was starting to diminish. By 11:00 it became evident that I would not get the sleep I had been savoring. Mom wanted to call the police. I wasn't ready to do that. Mom went to bed.
I had made the rule for myself a rule from the beginning that I would not go to bed if my children were not at home or otherwise accounted for. So, while I was waiting up for John I decided to work on my lesson plans. That way the time would not be wasted. Around midnight I reviewed an idea I had been presented called "paradoxic logic," which basically says that you should never try to fix something until you have considered ten ways that you could make it worse. At 12:30 a.m. I realized that I might make my problem with John worse. If I jumped him when he came through the door and fed him all of my pent up anger, he might not ever want to come home. The more I thought of ways that I might make things worse, the softer my heart became. But at 1:00 a.m. he was still not home. According to my memory it was about 2:00 a.m that John came through our back door smelling of Sen-Sen (usually used by teens to cover up the smell of smoke). I sat him down and explained how precious an 8 hour night of sleep would have been to me. (At this point 4 is all I would be getting, once again.) And I explained to him that as precious as that night of sleep would have been, he was more precious. I knew that he had been out doing what he shouldn't have been doing. And I hoped that he would not be so careless with my sleep in the future.
I don't know if that night made the impression on John that I hoped that it would make, but ultimately I think that it did much more good than the hurt I would have done if I had unloaded all of my anger.
I was able to overcome the difficulties and road blocks and earn my degree because I knew from having prayed, fasted, and visited the Temple, that this was what the Lord wanted me to do. We did it. During this time of study, Mom and I attended an evening fireside broadcast by the Church on the topic of missionary work. L. Aldin Porter was speaking on the topic of Convert Retention. As he spoke I felt a strong prompting from the Spirit that I should take my family and move to the mission field where we could be involved more directly in missionary work. But I said within myself, "I can't ask Jodi to leave the nice home her parents have helped us to buy, or the wonderful ward that we have, or the closeness to her family, or the other many blessings that we have in Utah Valley." And I didn't think more on it. However, less than a couple of minutes passed when you mother turned to me and said, "I have the strongest feeling that we should move to the mission field. I would have more opportunities to serve in the Church if we did." It was as if the Spirit said to me, "Well, you may not feel like you can ask her to leave these nice things, but I can ask her." I told Mom what I had felt and we both knew that this is what we had to do. So, we started looking for teaching positions in the mission field. You know the rest of the story.
It is important for me to mention a couple of things. First, my patriarchal blessing tells me that I should take advantage of the wonderful educational opportunities that are ours, that I might call upon that education in my hour of need. I have always wondered what that hour might be, and it became evident in 2013 when I was diagnosed with cancer. It is a blessing that I was not a salesman at that time. My patriarchal blessing also tells me of the many people in whose eyes I would see the light of the gospel shine as they came forth from the waters of baptism. On my mission I baptized only a couple--not many. So I have known that there was more missionary work for me to do. I have been blessed to perform the baptismal covenant in Finnish, in Spanish, and in English. I have had several opportunities to baptize people into the Church since our move to the mission field. I believe that there will be more opportunities. Mother's patriarchal blessing tells her that she will serve in the various organizations of the Church. In Pleasant Grove the ward was so big and the Saints so active that Mom was not getting the opportunity to serve that her blessing promised. It is not likely that she would have been given the opportunity had we not moved. In Scott City, Mom was called as the Young Women's President. In Missouri she now serves as the Relief Society President.
Read your patriarchal blessings. Seek the Lord in fasting and prayer until you know what it is you are to be doing so that you can have the faith and focus needed to overcome life's obstacles--which obstacles always get in our way when we are doing something worthy.
That's probably enough for now. Life is good.
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