6 de febrero 2005

"Dear Family,

"...In the last few days I have been asking in my prayers to feel the love of the Savior for me and for my investigators. I have had so many experiences of being in a lesson or teaching with a member and suddenly I just feel an outpouring of love for that person. Often it has happened while singing a hymn. Song is a way we show our love for the Savior and often when we can feel His love for us.

"I also have been praying more for each of you and have felt a deeper love and connection to you in the past week or so. We are all so connected, one to another, by the love of the Savior. Charity is His great love for each of us and the way we must feel love for each other. Without charity we are nothing. We must learn to love one another and sacrifice one for another. It is what the Savior did. It is how we can grow personally.

"When we (collectively or individually) sin, we begin to isolate ourselves. Sin not only separates us from God, but from one another--our eternal family. It is Satan's plan that we lose the connection and it is the Savior's plan that there be a "welding link of some kind (DyC 128:18). We must fight to stay connected. We must sacrifice our own selves to do it. There is no other way. I feel a deep connection to each of you as you sacrifice to write to me, to mention my name in a prayer, etc. I connect to you as I do the same. I feel a deep love and connection to the Honduran people as I knock on their doors and climb the hills where they live and pray for their hearts to be opened. I feel a love and connection to my Savior as I study His life and His gospel, as I represent Him and try to emulate Him. I feel connected to my Heavenly Father as I commune with him in personal and companion prayer. We are to love one another. It is how we show our love to our Eternal God.

". . . He is calling us to come. We must go hand in hand. He stands at the door and knocks (Rev 1:18) and waits ever so patiently for us to hear his voice and understand the call. I know He loves us. I know I cannot make it alone. It is why we came to earth as families. Man was not made to be alone. It is not part of the plan to come alone. We must join hands. We must love one another as the Savior loves us. We must go and do what He is calling us to do and BE. Hand in hand--each connected and part of the family of God. I have grown to love the plan of salvation. It is so complete, so hopeful. I know this life is not the end. The Father wants us to be connected with unbreakable bonds to Him forever. . . .

"I am grateful to be alive, grateful to taste the bitter and the sweet, grateful for changes, grateful for constants--things that never change; I am grateful for the truth. It is what makes us free. I am grateful for each of you and the light you bring in my life--the joy of reading a letter sent from one of you--or of feeling your love at random moments throughout the week. I feel your prayers and testify that God does answer them--giving me health and strength, loving companions, open-hearted investigators, testimony, and faith. I send you all my love, blown with a kiss--

love,
Hermana Torgerson
Carly Jane"


Today I was feeling so very far away from home. I remembered feeling the same way as a missionary and so decided to go through some of my letters home and remember what I said about it then. Interesting that this one was almost exactly three years ago. I am so grateful for my book of folded and stickered missionary letters. I cannot tell you how many times that book has become a source of inspiration to me in the last few years. I am so grateful for my testimony and for the experiences I have had that have prepared me to be where I am now. I am so grateful for the Great Plan that promises us to each other no matter where we are living now. I am so grateful for the golden connection forged in the temple sealing room that brings peace into my life again and again.

Dancing

"I'm going to dance and sing," she said. "There's no one here to see me--the seagulls won't carry tales of the matter. I may be as crazy as I like."

She caught up here skirt and pirouetted along the hard strip of sand just out of reach of the waves that almost lapped her feet with their spent foam. Whirling round and round, laughing like a child, she reached the little headland that ran out to the east of the cove. . . "
Anne's House of Dreams


Well, I am not on the beach, but I have been dancing and singing! We have had some snow in Blanding and I just can't keep all my energy inside! The few days I have been going on nighttime "snow walks" in the fresh fallen powder and then turning music up and having dance parties in my apartment. I am sure my neighbors living behind me think I am crazy because you can see through the curtains in my front room... but I just can't help myself. I have a long wooden floor that is perfect for modern dance improv: twirling and leaping and sliding.

ps. We just barely missed a snow-day today. Everyone pray for snow in Blanding! It is a life-long goal of mine to experience such a thrilling and unexpected holiday. Just think, a whole day stuck inside to bake and read and sew and dance...

Anne

"And people laugh at me because I use big words. But if you have big ideas you have to use big words to express them, haven't you?"
Anne of Green Gables

"For a moment, Anne's heart fluttered queerly and for the first time her eyes faltered under Gilbert's gaze and a rosy flush stained the paleness of her face. It was as if a veil that had hung before her inner consciousness had been lifted, giving to her view a revelation of unsuspected feelings and realities.
"Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one's life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it crept to one's side like an old friend through quiet ways; perhaps it revealed itself in seeming prose, until some sudden shaft of illumination flung athwart it's pages betrayed the rhythn and the music; perhaps... perhaps... love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship, as a golden-hearted rose slipping from its green sheath.
"Then the veil dropped again; but the Anne who walked up the dark lane was not quite the same Anne who had driven gaily down it the evening before. The page of girlhood had been turned, as by an unseen finger, and the page of womanhood was before her with all its charm and mystery, its pain and gladness."
Anne of Avonlea

" Gilbert drew her close to him and kissed her. They then walked home together in the dusk, crowned king and queen in the bridal realms of love, along winding paths fringed with the sweetest flowers that ever bloomed, and over haunted meadows where winds of hope and memory blew."
Anne of the Island

"'But there is no danger of your being kidnapped, Elizabeth.'
'The Woman said there was if I went anywhere alone ot talked to strange persons. But you're not a strange person, are you, Miss Shirley?'
'No, darling. We've always known each other in Tomorrow,' I said.
Anne of Windy Poplars



One of my favorite Blandingites confided in me recently that one of my dear students said (and I quote): " She is just like Anne of Green Gables; she loves us so much we just can't be bad for her!" Well, if you know me much, you know that I LOVE ANNE and there is no greater compliment I could ever have been given. In honor that compliment, I have been reading the Anne books (I am in Windy Poplars) in order to better live up to the ideal--and am loving every second of it. I tell you what, these books get better and better every time. I have included some favorite quotes for your enjoyment. Don't be surprised if more follow...

all things red

Although it seems that I just posted a day or so ago... I couldn't resist! I am so proud of my new new little projects (the pillow and the hand bag). I am going to have to work on perfecting the bag because I really didn't know what I was doing and just starting measuring and designing and sewing... so there are (quite) a few flaws, but for a first project, it didn't turn out half bad!

Books! Books! Books!

What books do you love and why?

Catacamas

I walk through little rows of Provo houses,
Soft colors in the starry night,
And I ache
For Catacamas:
Adobe huts and dirt roads and
Fireflies flickering.
Inside, dying embers float down
And gas lamps burn.
Flashlights swing limp
In the moonlight that guides
Tired feet through wild grass
As peace falls thick as dew.

This is my favorite that I have written and true tonight, except I am no longer in Provo.

Catacamas at sunset--I lived at the foot of the hill this photo was likely taken from.

















Catacamas in the day:

Writing Log

Source: book, Teacher Man by Frank McCourt, pg. 19

Passage:
"Instead of teaching, I told stories.
Anything to keep them quiet and in their seats.
They thought I was teaching.
I thought I was teaching.
I was learning.
And you call yourself a teacher?
I didn't call myself anything. I was more than a teacher. And less. In the high school classroom you are a drill sergeant, a rabbi, a shoulder to cry on, a disciplinarian, a singer, a low-level scholar, a clerk, a referee, a clown, a counselor, a dress-code enforcer, a conductor, an apologist, a philosopher, a collaborator, a tap dancer, a politician, a therapist, a fool, a traffic cop, a priest, a mother-father-brother-sister-aunt, a bookkeeper, a critic, a psychologist, the last straw."

What Works: Firstly, McCourt pulls the reader in with the dialog style beginning of short sentences, each occupying its own line. The line breaks simplify what he is saying so that we, the reader, take the nanoseconds needed to identify with each individualized statement. Although this rhetorical strategy is appealing, I most appreciate the way he balances it with his use of asyndeton (lack of conjunctions) in the paragraph following. By eliminating the final conjunction before the final phrase of the sentence, "the last straw," he places equal value on each of the roles of the teacher; no one is more or less than the others, emphasizing the reality that a teacher is all of those things in one tidy(??) little package. And yet, by breaking his parallel structure of beginning each phrase with "a" and suddenly ending with "the," he causes the reader to pause a moment longer of his last idea, even while keeping them equal.

Using it:
Instead of writing a paragraph, I could write short statements.
Anything to catch the attention of my reader.
They think it is a dialog.
I think it is a dialog.
It is, in my head.
And they thought I was writing an essay.
Writing in this style can be part of any essay. Or not. As an essay writer, I can use a comma, a semi-colon, a conjunction, a line break, a fragment, a run on, the lack thereof.

PS: My AP students write five of these "writing logs" each week on any five pages of any reading (although, they are only require to explain when they could use the identified writing techniques rather that imitating the writing in their "using it section") I was just having too much fun! I am LOVING Teacher Man and identifying beautifully with his first year teaching experiences of over 30 years ago, so I thought I would share some of it with you.

The Little Engine that Could

For some obnoxious reason I am really nervous to start school again tomorrow. Two weeks really is a long time... what if I don't know how to do it any more? Ha! That was funny--I didn't really know how to do it before! Anyhow, I have the butterflies in my stomach--it's like I was 12 years old: I have mentally prepared myself with what I will wear and completely cleaned my classroom (dusting, washing the tables, finally hanging the clock) and all that silly stuff. I know I made a lot of mistakes last term that I don't want to repeat, but I am still not quite sure what the perfect late work policy is... so I have the jitters that I have to somehow, magically, figure it out before 8am tomorrow morning! But my mind just keeps coming up a blank. I told myself before the break that I was going to come down on them pretty hard (tomorrow), but I don't know if I can do it. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

I love Tanner, he loves me...

We love Brayden, yes-sir-ee.

They love me and so you see,

I am a happy Aunt Carly!
(this is how Tanner and I communicate... he is so fun to talk to on the phone!)

Homemade Chicken Soup

One of my new winter resolutions is to make soup on a frequent (weekly) basis. I started today with my favorite chicken noodle. I loved using my new red pot (thanks to Paige). Doesn't it look good?





2 cup small pasta
1 cup carrots, chopped
1 cup onion, chopped
1 cup celery, chopped
2 chicken breasts or 6 chicken tenders
5 cups chicken broth (3 cans)
3 cups water
1 1/2 cloves garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon thyme

Place all ingredients except pasta in soup kettle (bright red is preferable). Bring to a boil. Simmer 45 minutes. Bone chicken and cut into bite-size pieces; set aside. Bring soup back to a boil. Add pasta and cook 8-10 minutes. Add chicken and serve. (Mother's recipe)

Meet Bella

The latest addition to the Carly Jane household is a beautiful blue and red betta fish. She survived the twelve hour trip to Blanding (whew!) and hopefully will survive a whole lot longer (seeing as there isn't a fish store within a hundred miles of me!).

Happy New Year!