What a week!

I love Sunday’s because I have a little time to reflect on my week and finally write about it.

This week Sean had a meeting with the District President who informed him that his proposal to merge our two branches into one large branch came through from Salt Lake and he was in turn released from his calling as Branch President.  When he came home that night he looked like a huge weight had been lifted from him and he could breathe just a little bit better.  Both of us in fact.  I have been so stressed for him and us lately because of this extra responsibility he had on top of his studying for his exams right now and us moving. 

We have learned that the Lord knows our timeline.  We had no idea when he would be released but decided to put our faith in the Lord and wait for him to decide, that He would know what would be best for us.  The request for the merge to happen was answered abnormally fast and definitely in the time that it was meant to happen. 

Both of us feel incredibly blessed to have had this calling in our lives.  Sean has learned so much from serving others in the branch and learning the true meaning of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  When I was in college and Sean was on his mission, I was making decisions that weren’t the best and leading me off the path that I thought I would take.  As Sean continued to write me letters every week and I him, I realized that if I wanted to be in the same place as him when he got home, I had to change my life and start doing what he was doing.  This is the second time in my life that I feel the same thing has happened.  With him being Branch President, the support that was required from me was not only being supportive of his time away from us, but I also felt the need to improve my testimony, patience, acceptance, faith, knowledge of the gospel and importance to “Serve the one” like President Monson talks about.  I felt like if I faltered in one area of my life I would make him falter and couldn’t buoy him up as well as I should. 

I feel a vacancy in my heart.  I should be leaping from the banisters, which I am slightly, but I realize now the love I have developed for our branch and for Sean as a Branch President.  He has taught me about not judging others, as they are probably doing the best they know how.  Every circumstance is different than what I know or what I have and I will never understand it not being in that person’s shoes.  To be able to look at somebody with eyes like that can change everything you think about them.  This is a lesson I will always cherish and take with me forever. 

I know we have been blessed in so many ways over these years and am so grateful for those blessings.  My heart is so full right now!

A couple of months ago Sean challenged the branch to do their own genealogy and take our names to the Temple to hopefully baptize an entire ward.  This weekend we went and 67 out of our usual 80-ish people went (including all the primary children) and they baptized 370 people!  It was an amazing experience and definitely a testimony builder for everybody that came. It was a great way to strengthen the Branch before this merge and I’m sure made things easy to accept today.  It’s hard for people here to get to the temple in Toronto which is 3 hours away.  About 30 of us went up the night before and had some fun at the hotel and then the rest of the people car pooled on Saturday morning.  There are so many people that don’t drive or have cars, or are single so that is the way we roll around here…carpool!  We should really have a bus that runs on Sunday just for picking everybody up to come to church!

So here we are, Lotti is walking around in her swimsuit, Taylor is playing with the boys Skylanders like they’re a family, the boys are sitting at the table here trying to write down all the 50 states and comparing lists, and Sean is putting my buns in the oven for dinner! When he walked in the house just shortly after we got home we were all in a state of shock, as was he I’m sure!  I’m looking forward to this new way of life seeing my husband on Sunday’s!

This week he’s off to Montreal for some training for exams so should be a fun week!