May 25, 2011

Dearest E,.

When I started this blog I didn't intend for it to turn into Kira shares her testimony three days a week. I am sorry, I am just so happy with the changes in our family right now. On Monday we had a moment that made me very happy.

Bean Dip has been in our life for the last two and one half years. We tried multiple times to be involved before, but finally got court ordered visitation in the fall of 2008. The first Christmas we had with Bean Dip we quickly learned that he was unimpressed with homemade presents, hating clothing as gifts and in general completely ungrateful. At our house presents at birthdays and Christmas tend to get semi-ridiculous. We combined parties at Grandma's house and usually have 18 or 19 people present and giving presents. In the last couple of years the middle siblings (too old for a gift to be given on their behalf and not old enough for a real job) have started making homemade presents rather then "earning" a gift from the cupboard to give.

Christmas 2008 was a special year. It was the first holiday we spent with Bean Dip and our first unsupervised visit. My parents decided early on in the year that it would be a "homemade" Christmas. Everyone worked really hard to make their own gifts to give. At first he was excited to open the 18 or so presents before him. But as he started opening it became clear what he thought of our homemade Christmas. Soon presents people had spent hours on were being added to his trash pile without concern. Then I gave him the presents from Dad and me.

We knew that his mom was struggling to afford clothing and because of my super-deal powers we had been able to buy him enough new clothes to take an entire wardrobe to his house and fill a dresser (from Santa) here with things. He was furious. Clothes are presents! Santa doesn't bring dressers! You are just supposed to give those to me because I am a kid." (I guess he hadn't realized that his new dresser was five times nicer than the used one that Taco's clothes were in.) The Santa gifts that were approved he wanted to take to his mom's house. We tried to reason with him, "What will you play with here?" But in the end I caved and allowed several toys to journey to his mom's along with the books that Santa had brought just for him.

The next Tuesday the pile of Santa books was in his backpack. "My mom says I don't have to read these so you can have them back. She bought me a bunch of video games instead." Talk about an ungrateful six-year-old. We knew our work was cut out for us and we needed to teach Bean Dip about gratitude and how to appreciate all types of gifts.

Bean Dip's birthday was this week. Grandma knew that last fall we had ordered glasses for Bean-Dip and had been unable to finish paying them off so he could get his new glasses. She decided that they would pay the balance as his "big" present and only give him a few little things. (Bean Dip was wearing his glasses we got back in 2008. He had broken all of his newer frames. This year his mom got him a pair with her tax return and he broke them after two weeks.) Glasses were a major need. But we were nervous. Everyone had seen how he reacted to non-toy presents and in a way this was a major test to even decide if it was worth gathering everyone for his birthday next year.

The rest of the kids worked hard making their own presents. One especially creative aunt took it upon herself to make him a very personal present. Bean Dip has been told a million times how much he looks like Harry Potter. At first he hated being compared to Harry Potter. This year he finally read the series (he likes reading now) and decided being called Harry Potter was cool. Knowing he had just finished reading it, Prima Donna crafted a wand and a book of spells so he could pretend to be Harry. (The wand was made out of a stick with ribbon and to age the spell book she rubbed the paper with sand to distress it. It was very authentic looking.) I eyed her gift nervously. I wasn't sure what he would think.

He open it early on. He smiled and waved it around and giggled a bit. I tucked it into the safety of my purse and held my breath as Taco brought the glasses case for him to open.

He shook it.

"Don't! It's breakable."

He looked at me curiously and began to peel off the paper. My brother, Sport, who is one year younger than Bean Dip came up behind him.

"What the...?" Sport questioned, "Mom, why did you wrap my glasses case!"

Bean Dip started tearing a little faster. Soon the blue PEZ case was out of the paper. He had Sport show him how to open it.

"NEW GLASSES!" he yelled as he took off the old ones and put them on. "Are these the ones I picked out a long time ago?"

"Yes." I looked at Grandma. I wanted to be sure she noticed the grin that was nearly too big for his face as I breathed a sigh of relief.

It was the best reaction we got all night, although he was almost as excited for the Legos. When all the presents were opened he issued a general "thank you" to everyone and trailed after Grandma who was heading into the kitchen for the finishing touches on the cake. "Thanks for the glasses," he said before dashing off to the trampoline.

Later that night as we were dropping him off with his mom the first thing he said was, "I got new glasses!" She admired them while I explained where to take him to get them adjusted. Then he asked for Prima Donna's present. He showed his mom the wand and spellbook while I unloaded the presents. For once he was excited showing her something homemade. I got into the car with a big grin on my face. Bean Dip has sure come far since that first Christmas.

With Love,

May 18, 2011

Dearest E.,

A few weeks ago at church the lesson was on tithing. And as I sat there listening I thinking about my first car, a Subaru Impreza.  The Subaru was purchased in 2003 after my brother totaled the Dodge Neon my parents gave me in high school. I was working at Sears and diligently paying my tithing. I started looking for a car the next week. I fell in love with the Jetta that was next to the Subaru on the side of the road and stopped. But my parents felt strongly that I should call on the Subaru so I did. The owner had been given the car by a friend that owed him $1800. He was asking $2500 for it. When he arrived to show the car there was obviously something wrong. He brought the battery and hooked it up. The stick shift was missing a gear knob and soon I learned it had a salvaged title. I took it for a test drive. It was a fun little car. My dad was talking to the owner and was able to bring the price down to $2200 while I drove.

Bringing a battery to your car was strange even for a roadside car. I asked about the battery being out and he confessed. It had an electrical problem and he didn't know what but you couldn't turn the lights off unless you unhooked the battery. Oh dear, major electrical issues. My dad and I still felt strongly that this was the car. With this information we were able to talk the seller down to $1800 the amount his friend owed him for the debt. Based on a gut feeling, I bought a car with "major electrical problems" and a salvaged title.

Looking nice from far away.  (2007)

Later that day I was reading my owner's manual (yes I am a dork) and I read about "emergency mode." By activating emergency mode and flipping a large switch on the steering column the car diverted all power to the headlights without needing the keys. I flipped the switch off and POOF major electrical problem solved.  Dad drilled a hole in a baseball and a homemade gearshift knob was in place.  The Subaru sailed through inspection and emissions and I knew I had been blessed.

After your dad and I got married paying tithing was a difficult subject to bring up.  He had been told some very wrong information about tithing and the LDS church and he was wary of paying 10% of our already small income to a church.  He accepted my decision and we paid tithing diligently for a couple of months and saw incredible blessings.  We found our first apartment that was in our budget.  One day out of the blue a stranger called up your dad and offered him a job.  Because she heard from a friend of a friend that he was a good worker.  Taco was born in Novemember and I did something incredibly foolish.  Instead of paying tithing I took that money to purchase extra Christmas presents, including a bunch of things for you and some to send to Bean-Dip.  We had gotten carried away and soon I was borrowing from January's tithe to pay our utilities. We didn't pay any tithing in December.

Then one snow January day Dad got in a wreck damaging the front bumper of the Subaru and we realized our insurance had lapsed.  We borrowed from February's tithing to pay for the insurance. We were getting more and more behind.  And then in February I lost my job.  Less then a week later and Dad lost his.  We went from thriving to surviving in two months. 

We could never keep hubcaps on.

 I am not saying that all those things happened because we didn't pay tithing.  But the spiral started when we cheated the Lord his share.  Interestingly enough, the package we packed for you that year never arrived in Texas, to this day we have no idea what happened to it.  The toys and clothes we purchased for Bean-Dip were thrown away without even being opened by his mother who was still very angry and wanted nothing to do with us.  

Jobless and sufficiently humbled we promised to do better.  And eventually we both found work again and started doing well.  But we still didn't pay our tithing first.  We paid the bills and food and entertainment.  At the end of the month if anything was left and I felt guilty enough about it we paid tithing, but only on my income.  We certainly weren't thriving, but we had food, shelter and safety.  About this time we started to notice the "salvaged" part of the Subaru.  The person rebuilding the Subaru hated hot cars and so they thought it was brilliant idea of putting in an a/c air compressor unit twice the size of the factory default.  And it did cool the car very well, unfortunately it place serious strain on the engine and especially the starter if you forgot and left the air on.  After a while the starter periodically went out. Since it was a manual we could always pop the clutch and get around the starter so we weren't too worried about replacing it. Thus became the car that started when it felt like it. 

Lovely matching dents.

Popping the clutch wasn't easy.  In most situtations it was a two person job, one to push the car and one to pop the clutch.  With a decent hill you could start it rolling running alongside and hop in and pop it by yourself.  We started referring to it as running on faith and prayers. Because if I cried and prayed hard enough on days when I was alone with baby Taco and it would start. That was just the beginning of car problems.  One of the worst was the day that Dad put a big dent in both doors.  He was trying to pop the clutch infront of Grandma's house and they have three large maple trees in the park-strip right by the street.  He had the passenger door open and didn't notice until it hit the big tree and got a nice dent.  Unable to pop the clutch he managed to push it into the driveway and turn it around so he was pushing downhill instead of uphill.  And smack this time the drivers door hit the tree.  At least it matched.

But as I was sitting in church (on May 8th to be exact), I realized that it was also a very real example of tithing blessings. When I first started to "cheat" at tithing the car started having problems (we got in a wreck, the insurance lapsed, the starter went out). It seemed like the money that should have gone to tithing was going to repair the car. I suddenly realized that the months I didn't pay tithing were the months of car repairs. The months that I paid tithing were months the Subaru ran great.  I think it was something I knew at the time, but refused to listen.  After all tithing is a principal of faith not finance.

The window started slipping shortly after Burrito was born.

The last couple of years have been incredibly difficult financially for our family.  I was finishing up school and not working and Dad has been mostly unemployed since Sept. 2008.  For many months the only thing paying our bills has been Taco's disability payments.  When we first started living on SSI I asked my bishop if I should pay tithing on it. Mostly because I wasn't sure the social security office would approve if I was audited. I was counseled that the Lord would understand why we haven't been paying.  As I listened in church a few weeks ago, I realized that I should be paying on Dad's unemployment.  In my heart I promised to be better and approach Dad with this story and ask if we could began paying again.  (Remember Dad had gotten a job less then a week ago and our income was about to change.)

On Monday the 9th of May I had an afternoon interview. While I was getting dressed for the interview, I sat down with Dad and told him about what I had realized about the Subaru and tithing. Together we thought back and he realized what I was saying. He listened carefully and thought about it and agreed that not only  should we pay tithing on my income, but we would tithe both incomes. He also agreed we needed to go back and pay tithing on unemployment for the first four months of the year so we would be full tithe payers at the end of the year.  I can't even begin to express how much his support means to me.  I know there will be many blessings to come from this act of faith.

May 14, 2011

Dearest E.,

I asked Dad what I should write about today.  This was his suggestion.

Bean-Dip had a rough Saturday.  We have been working hard to complete his scouting goal and finish his Wolf before his 9th birthday (in 9 days, believe me he is counting).  Unfortunately we had a late start to scouts.  Most boys work on their ranks for a full year. He became a Boy Scout mid January so we had less then five months to complete a year's worth of achievements. The wolf has twelve sections to complete. Each section has about 6 activities to complete.  Once a scout has earned three sections they receive a progress bead.   At first he wasn't really excited to earn things, but after a couple of pack meetings with boys being recognized he got the bug. 

The first three beads came easy.  We completed most of the fitness "feats of strength" the first night he became a scout.  Then we had a lot of discussion on safety and emergency preparedness.  Soon only two sections were keeping us from completing his wolf: collecting and duty to God.  The collecting was only an issue because Bean-Dip kept forgetting to bring his collection over to show to another scout.  We finally improvised and added another 10 rocks to his at-home collection just so he could present it.  But there was still that tricky Duty to God section.

I was raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS) or Mormon.  I've been mostly inactive for the last ten years or so.  Dad was raised Catholic and left church as a teenager, he is still very spiritual but prefers to practice his faith outside organized religion and calls himself a Pagan.  Since the beginning of the year I have been attending church fairly regularly with Taco and Burrito.  Taco and Burrito have been attending church with Grandma and Grandpa for the past 18 months or so.  Bean-Dip's mom was also raised LDS she does not go to church.  He used to attend church with his Grandma D and Aunt Kitty but when he was six he stopped attending.  Last year he went home on weekends before church, this year he stays Sundays until 5pm.  Since his scout den is attached to Grandma and Grandpa's ward we decided it would be good for him to attend when he could, so every other weekend or so Bean-Dip joins us for church. 

In the LDS church children are baptized at age eight if they wish to become members.  Bean-Dip's mom felt strongly that he shouldn't make the decision until he was 18.  (In fact pressure for him to be baptized was one of the reasons he stopped attending with his Grandma D.)  For a long time we danced around the fact that he was attending church on a regular basis because we didn't want to upset her.  In March I nervously asked Dad what I should do with this section.  For a minute he became briefly unglued wanting to know what the LDS church had to do with cub scouts and why there was a religion sections and on and on.  I tried to explain that it was set up for all religions but now I knew this was a sensitive subject for Dad and Bean-Dip's mom and I wasn't sure how to address the Duty to God section in his wolf book.  So I kept procrastinating until we nearly jeopardized his chances at earning his wolf.

The discussion questions should have been easy: What is faith?  Why is it good?  What is Duty to God?  Not wanting to upset Dad I waited for a time he was in the grocery store and Bean-Dip was attentive. 

Me: "Hey Bean-Dip, what is faith?"

*silence*

Burrito: "Believing in Jesus"

*Taco and Burrito launch into a discussion on Jesus while Bean-Dip sulks quietly.*

Me: "Come on.  What do you thing faith is?"

Bean-Dip: "I don't know. I am stupid."

Me: "You are very smart. Do you think it is believing in something you can't see?"

*silence and sulking* Dad returns and rescues him from the conversation, for now.

As we drive to the fishing hole I tell Dad about the conversation and why it is important and beg him to help me with this later. On the way home from fishing we try this conversation again. Bean-Dip pouts and refuses to participate. I needed to run into the store for Grandpa so while I was in there Dad and Bean-Dip had a heart to heart when I came out Bean-Dip had something to say. "I don't like church." he proclaimed. I got frustrated. We drove home in angry silence.

When we got home Taco and Burrito went inside to watch tv and Dad, Bean-Dip and I sat in the van for a heart to heart. Dad talked about his experience with religon growing up and why Bean-Dip had it easy. I talked about how attending church was a good way to make more friends and get to know his den better. About half way through the conversation we all realized something. Bean-Dip didn't understand what faith was because it wasn't something his mom talked about. We each attempted to explain this abstract concept in ways that weren't religious so he could understand it better for what it was. Toward the end of our discussion, Bean-Dip was clearly frustrated and wanted to know why we had to talk about everything so much.  He started listing the things we had discussed for scouts that he was sick of talking about.  When he was done I chuckled.  If he would have answered the questions in the first place instead of pretending like he didn't know the answers we could have finished all these scout discussions in 5 minutes instead of having hour long discussions.  

I thought he would be mad about scouts for a while when we finally came inside. I still wanted to show him the academic and sports belt loop and pin book I had purchased for him.  I showed him what he could earn.  He wanted to work on the bowling one right away.  Together he and Dad discussed the rules of bowling and youtubed professional bowlers while I cooked dinner.  I guess he does like scout discussions after all.  After our late dinner it was time for pjs and bed.  As they were heading up to change Bean-Dip lingered, "Kira, are you going to come up and read the story and scriptures tonight?"  Maybe Bean-Dip likes church more then he wants us to believe.  

With Love,