Real Men (and I'm not talking about Home Depot this time)

Today, I realized one important thing:

The Gospel makes real men.

I'll go as far as to say that any good, devoted religion in a man's life helps to make him a real man.

There's something about putting others first, always being honest, not coveting your neighbors' stuff, keeping morally clean thoughts and actions, and always remembering that God should be involved in every aspect of your life that shapes men into unique, responsible, caring people.

Today, as I talked to a gal a work about her relationships and their ups and downs, she sighed at one point and said something to the effect of, "I just thought he was different. I thought he was that one guy that really could be this good. Then I realized, they all start out different, but in the end they're all the same." As I listened to her, I could feel her pain. I could feel her longing for something better, something she knows must be out there, but something she somehow can't find.

Then, as if remembering something, she said, "Except for your guy! Where did you get him?!"

My response was something about Isaac's good, moral upbringing and how important that is. But my ultimate thought, and my thought long after our conversation was that Isaac is the man he is because of the Gospel. There's nothing else to it, really.

Isaac grew up in a home that taught him how to love and how to be loved. He learned that lying is bad, that immoral thoughts should be controlled and replaced by moral ones. He watched his parents and how much they love each other. He learned that love is work, and it can be hard, but it's so worth it. He learned how to feel emotion, and that crying is ok, and that if he's feeling hurt he can always pray to a loving Heavenly Father. He learned that complete devotion to one person through marriage is more important than anything else he'll ever do in his life. In his childhood, these things were taught to him. But as he grew older, he began to understand them for himself.

Isaac is a real man because he continually chooses to live the Gospel.

And the reality is that because the Gospel is something him and I share so deeply in our relationship, it's a standard that we both hold one another to.

I didn't start out our relationship feeling like I had to mold him into the "good guy" I wanted him to be. I already knew what I could expect of him, because he expected the same thing of himself.

It's interesting to me how strongly I felt about this point as I thought about it today. In a time where society tries to push religion off as being unnecessary or even invasive, it's become increasingly clear what a world without religion looks like. These men without religion continue to try to find ways to be happy, ways that the world is telling them to be happy, but all they find is an unquenchable appetite.

Some of you may be thinking, "But hey, there's this one guy I know who is an atheist and he's really great" or  "I know this guy who has plenty of religion and he's the worst." In both of those instances, I completely agree that there are exceptions to this idea. Not all people everywhere follow the standard. But if we're looking for a standard to follow that would turn out as many "real men" as possible, the Gospel would be it.

Such destructive cycles between men and women have been shown in the scriptures time and time again. All I wonder is what kind of plague, natural disaster, or utter destruction will it take for our society to find the good again? What will it take to find more "real men" in our society?

I don't really have an answer for that. But I know that I'm truly blessed to have real men in my life. I also know that I will continue to fight for the real men in my life and the values that they follow until the day I die.

Sundays and Little Houses

Sometimes church is like this:

And I want to take a bunch of notes and sit and bask in the Spirit of the moment.

Then other times, like today, church is like this:

And I secretly wish our baby had already arrived so we could play with him/ her to pass the time.

Lately, we've had a bunch of interesting meetings for church. Last week, for instance, one of the deacons forgot to pass to the pianist during the Sacrament, so he went back up to pass to her and when he came down, he tripped and the bread flew everywhere. I felt bad for the poor little guy, but it was pretty funny.

Church is church, and we love to go. The unique meetings just make it more exciting. Isaac made me laugh today. Concluding a somewhat long meeting, we sang the song "Did You Think to Pray?" and when we got done, all of the Bishopric members started looking around at each other. One of them eventually got up, realizing that the person that they had asked to pray wasn't coming up. As we kinda chuckled about this to ourselves, Isaac whispered to me, "I guess someone didn't think to pray." haha, right? K, maybe you had to be there....

Anyway, life has been pretty good here at the Olive household. Just the same old stuff, really. We think we may have found a new spot to live, but we're still checking it out. It's a little 2 bedroom house that looks like it would be fun, but we haven't seen the inside yet, and we figure that part is pretty important. We're getting more and more excited to move, though. Even Isaac has expressed his excitement every now and then.

Our neighbors haven't been making us any eager to stay. After the whole car-hitting thing, we haven't cared for our neighbors very much. But last night made me hate living in an apartment even more.

I was awoken by a loud thud on our bedroom wall (a wall shared with another apartment). As I sat up, I heard a guy and a girl shouting at each other. I went to the bathroom (because let's be honest, I have to do that all the time anyway...) and when I came back, I just listened for a while. It was easy to hear every word they were saying, because they were shouting at each other at the top of their lungs.

Apparently, Aaron, the guy, got kicked out of a party and the girl came to pick him up. But then Aaron got mad at her because she was texting some unknown phone number on her phone, whom Aaron assumed must be another guy. When I woke up, the first think I heard Aaron shout was that he was an "f-n police officer" and I thought, "Oh good, maybe the cops are already there." But then the girl shouted back "No you're not, you got fired you @#*%^ ..... @&@**$" And the conversation went on from there. I was ready to call the cops just to file a noise complaint, but then I heard this:

BAMMMMMMM!!!! (Against our bedroom wall)

And then the girl screaming, "You don't have !&@^  to  !*&#@&# get violent!"

To which the guy yelled back more profanities. And that's when I knew I'd be calling the cops.

Isaac woke up around this time and I told him what was going on.

The cops came quickly and knocked on the wrong door for the noise complaint. They actually knocked on the door of the neighbors that hit our car, so we kinda had a laugh, wishing we could tell them to just talk to those guys, too. But we directed them to the other apartment and they took care of whatever was going on.

Anyway, long story, but ultimately, I lost 2 hours of sleep and ended up sleeping on the couch because I could still hear talking from the neighbors and was worried it would get escalated at any moment. Isaac sleeps like a rock, so he was out after the cops came.

Fun times. Needless to say, we're excited to be out of apartments and (possibly) into that little house soon.

Life

About 5 weeks ago, I took a very important test. It was a type of geometry test, one that required me to determine two small parallel lines placed on a  flat plane. I felt like I had studied sufficiently, but I didn't know what the outcome would be. As I read the results of the test early that morning, I realized that despite all of the preparation I felt I had had, I could never be prepared for a result such as this.

As the results became clearer to me, I remember looking in the mirror. I saw me, saw my surprised and dazed smile, and I felt my heart leap. Then... I saw my belly. I realized that inside that space, there was now a little life multiplying in size by over 1,000 times a week.

After the realization set it, I checked the test just one more time to make sure my eyes weren't deceiving me. Once I was sure, I went out to tell Isaac.

He was still sleeping, but I woke him up. Then I said the 2 words that I know every husband wants to hear at 6 o'clock in the morning... "I'm pregnant." Isaac took a few seconds to digest my words, said something like, "really?" (with a tired smile), and then got up to look at the test himself. As he studied the results of this test that had already changed my life, he said what every newly impregnated wife wants to hear at 6 am... "I don't see anything...."

Though this drove me crazy, I do have to admit that at first, the test wasn't as definitive as the one pictured above. That first day, the second parallel line was much less visible.

But as the days went on, Isaac was slowly able to see that line get darker and darker, and slowly it sunk in to him that he had gotten his wife pregnant, a fact that he began to take much pride in.

Now, a couple of doctors appointments and an ultrasound later, we actually have a picture of our little munchkin.

With a heart beat at 145 bpm, and the size he/she needs to be, it looks like our baby is doing just fine.

It's crazy to me that a baby, Isaac and I's baby, is actually developing inside of me. So far, I have felt his/her presence in only a few different ways: nausea, food aversions and cravings, and fatigue, lots of fatigue. All remind me that this baby is still doing a good job in there. He/she is still working hard and growing fast.

Each week it's a new adventure for me to read about or research what our baby is growing and how big he/ she has become. I'm so grateful for modern technology that can quench my thirst for extensive knowledge about this munchkin before I'm even able to feel him/ her inside of me.

Our official due date is September 19, 2012, so we still have a while. But I'm excited to finally tell everyone because it's all I think about these days.

Learning Lessons

Today at my day care I watched one of my kids play with the trashcan, a trashcan similar to this one:

As he kept pushing the lid back and watching it swing, I went over and told him, "You shouldn't play with the trashcan because you could pinch your fingers doing that. It will be owie on your fingers." He looked at me and understood, but decided it was too much fun to pass up.

About a minute later I heard him begin to scream because he had just smashed his finger in the trashcan.

It hit me right then about how much a parent must wish their child understood everything the way they do. On a daily basis, I'll come close to begging my 2-year olds to do something that I know will only make them happier, but they are living only in the moment and only in their own understanding. They don't see what I see.

As I thought on this principle I became 1. More grateful for my own parents, who I'm sure had many instances like this with me, and 2. For my Heavenly Parents.

I thought about how often in life we hear God's counsel for simple things like "You should read your scriptures every day." or "Pray every evening and night." He can see everything, and in the vast view that He holds, He can see that these things will make us happy. Not only that, He can see how much these things will prevent us from the "smashed fingers" in our life.

Like my 2-year olds, it's not easy for us to see what God sees. We think to ourselves, "Maybe I'll just play for a little while longer and nothing bad will happen."

But then, when something bad happens, God is always there.

When my little 2-year old smashed his fingers, I went to him and said, "See, I told you that playing with the trashcan would smash your fingers." After reaffirming that fact, I gave him a big hug and tried to comfort him until he was better. I would never dream of leaving a child to cry when they are truly hurt, even if they did something I just told them not to do, even if the consequence was deserved.

That's not to say that I could take the consequence away, because his fingers were going to hurt no matter what I did. But I could be there to comfort him through it.

It's the same with God, I think, and likely with most of our earthly parents as well. No matter what we've done in opposition to God's advice, He will be there with open arms when we hurt ourselves. How frustrating it must be for Him to watch us day by day, constantly giving and re-giving advice through His Prophets and Apostles, knowing the path to happiness, and seeing us test it anyway.

Yet, He's always there.

I guess the 2 main lessons in this all are: 1. You can learn a lot from 2-year olds, and 2. We should just do what God says and we'll be happy.

Awesomeness

I have an awesome husband.

Lately, I've been feeling quite under the weather, and Isaac has been spoiling me.

This morning, I woke up and he had done all of the dishes before getting ready for school. This means that he almost had to skip breakfast because he ran out of time. I felt so bad! I should start to be a good wife and wake up to pack him a lunch and make him breakfast before he leaves.

But alas, I remain lazy and he remains awesome.

In other news, our car got hit last night some time. We have a lovely neighbor who has some lovely friends. We went to bed pretty early last night, but I couldn't sleep due to our favorite neighbor doing who-knows-what with his friends.

This morning we walked out to find this:

All I'm saying is that the owner of the red car better not come visit his/her friend again, or we'll know. How many red cars are gonna have scrapes that just happen to match the huge one on our car? Not that I'm sure they'll remember ever hitting our car if I confront them. They'll likely be just as baffled by the scrape on their car this morning as we are, if they ever made it home.

Anyway, all is going well. I heard back from my grad school and they have invited me for an interview that will take place in March! I was very excited to hear that. So until then, it's just finishing those shuck-smackin' independent study classes so that I can actually have my Bachelor's degree. 

Someday...