May 23, 2009 Journal

We had stake conference last week. One of the speakers on Sunday morning gave a talk that really helped me to understand a principle of the gospel that I have been struggling with. I always wondered how Heavenly Father could keep forgiving us for making the same mistakes over and over again. She used the example of patience. She said that every night she would pray for forgiveness for being impatient with her kids and said how she would try to do better but she always felt how could He keep forgiving her for not learning this lesson of patience that she kept asking forgiveness for and asking help with. She felt unworthy to keep asking for his help when she was impatience with her children the very next day. A few days later she was listening to her little girl practice on the piano and it came to her (through a still small voice), that she wasn’t upset with her daughter for all the mistakes she was making on the piano selection, in fact she loved that she was trying over and over to get it right. A little voice whispered to her this is how it is with Heavenly Father. This life is our practice session, we keep practicing each principle over and over until we have it down and then we move on to the next principle. He is willing to forgive us over and over because he knows this is our practice time some things we may need to practice on for most our life and other things we will master and move on. It was like an epiphany to me.

We are on our way to Green River to run in the 5k Memorial Race for the year anniversary of Keith Young’s death. I can’t believe it has been a year from his death. That was a crazy time. Jon was graduating from High School. He had lacrosse stake finals, and track state finals. Marci had just had Meg I went out for 3 or 4 days at the beginning of the month and then I asked Jessica if she would go out to help Marci for a few more days because it was such a busy time and I couldn’t stay longer. While Jessica was there Marci had appendicitis and had her appendix removed. It was such a blessing that Jessica was there when it happened. But it was a stressful and busy time. Anyway back to traveling to Green River, Jamie and Kirk are coming with us. The race is at 10:00 am Saturday. We will run the race, visit for a bit, shower and then head back home.

Mindi and Dave came in on Wednesday evening. They went to Logan Thursday and where suppose to be there until tomorrow, but Dave has an appointment with a dentist in Provo for an associateship tomorrow morning so they will be home without us for a day darn it.

Sunday May 24
We are now back home from the race and it is Sunday morning. I was pretty impressed with myself, I came in 74th in the race and my time was 42 minutes and 17 seconds for a 5 k. They said they had around 380 runners/walkers. Jack signed me up for a runner although I don’t run the whole time I run two minutes and walk a minute or something like that. But it was good he signed me up for that because if you were a walker you couldn’t run at all. A cute friend said she was going to have to talk to her personal trainer because here I was I had Lymphoma and I beat her. The Young’s are an awesome family. It was a real honor to participate and be part of Keith’s memorial run. We saw so many dear people that have impacted our lives. It was wonderful to be there.

This is the Thursday I would usually have my chemo treatment. I am so glad that I don’t have to go in for that today. Hip Hip Hooray! I feel great. I feel like it was a dream and I finally woke up.

It is sad how quickly when a crisis is over our total dependence on the Lord slacken s a bit. Worldly thoughts and feelings come back in a rush. Before I was hoping to live through this experience and every day was a gift. Now I am worrying about how long will it take for my hair to grow back (it seems like it will take forever), dieting, wrinkles and insecurities. My feelings seemed to change overnight from how grateful I am for who I am to worrying about all my short comings and all the things I need to improve on.

This experience gave me the opportunity to be humbled and over flowing with gratitude for each day and for each person in my life. It gave me the opportunity to learn more about my Savior and my Heavenly Father. I want to do all I can to continue to have the feeling of gratitude and love for my Heavenly father and my Savior as I did through this experience. To remember I am a daughter of a Father in Heaven who knows me and loves me and blesses my life in ways I never thought possible. I want to remember the wonderful power of prayer and the strength I received everyday from all who were praying for me. I want to remember always how loved and cared for I felt by all my sweet family and dear friends.

Sunday was a great day. I got to talk to all my kids including my missionaries. It was so wonderful. I talked to Jessica in the morning and Jonathan at night. Since Australia is 17 hours ahead of us Jon called on his P-day. We called Jessica per her instructions at a member’s home at 10:30 am on Sunday morning. They both sounded so great. Just a few times did I have to stop talking so they wouldn’t hear the tears in my voice.

Mailing packages to my missionaries can be a little scary and frustrating. Last Friday I was mailing packages to Jessica and Jonathan. I weighted the packages and did the online postage thing because you save about $2.00 per package if you print your postage online. I used my bathroom scale to weigh the packages. I thought I had the right weight. When I added the weight of the contents of the packages they came to about the weight that I had got from my bathroom scale. Another advantage of doing your packages from home is that this way you just have to drop the packages off on the counter by a postal worker. I was watching my granddaughter Kari so I got her all buckled in the car and got my packages and off we went to the post office. We headed into the post office. I let the postal worker know that the packages were there and we left to go to my car. The postal worker came running after me all huffy and puffy and told me that the weights were all wrong. He kept muttering about what a big head ache it was going to be to fix it and all the paper work. I asked him what he wanted me to do and he said well you made the mistake you take them home and fix it. It is a small post office with only one postal worker and the line was backing up, but I still thought wow, this guy has had a bad day. When I came back home I decided to do the priority mail flat rate box that is the same price as long as what you are mailing fits unto the box and weights less than 20 lbs. (I think). It was only $1.50 more so I requested a refund online for the other postage. By this time there was no way I would get to the post office before 4:30pm so I had to do postage for the next day. Saturday I printed the postage packed my two boxes in the flat rate medium size boxes, grabbed my tape and scissors and headed to the post office thinking this will be a snap. I would have done all of it at home but I decided since it was the same price I could add more weight to the boxes so I stopped at the store to add more stuff to the packages. My tape ran out as I was trying to close the packages and put the customs forms on, so I still had to wait in line and have a postal worker help me. But it didn’t take as long as it would have if I needed them to do everything. Another time I was mailing packages to my missionaries I got to the Post Office at 4:25pm, the line was so long that by the time I got to the front it was 4:55 pm, I was new to mailing stuff internationally and didn’t have the customs form filled out and the postal worker took one look at me and said you have to come back tomorrow we are closed. I was flabbergasted! So there you go, two of my post office adventures for the last few months. I get a little nervous whenever I have to mail a package. Kind of like that Seinfield comedy show when they say no soup for you, because one of the characters did something the cook didn’t like.

Jack and I are in Boston. It is a charming city. So much history, beautiful old buildings and churches. We are loving being here.

A couple of nights ago we went to the opening ceremonies for the AAO (American Association of Orthodontists) and listened to the Boston Pops. They played award winning show tunes from Movies and Broadway. Most of the movie tunes were from movies when I was a youngster. It was fun to hear them and very nostalgic. One of the selections they played was “Some Where Over the Rainbow”. It brought back a very real picture of myself around age 11.

My home had a large patio area over our garage. I remember putting on roller skates and skating around this patio singing “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” with so much longing and angst wondering if my dreams would ever come true. My dreams have always been pretty simple and basic. I wanted to love someone with all my heart and have him love me back and I wanted to be a mom. As I was sitting in the concert listening to the Boston Pops play this song I realized my dreams have come true and not only come true but have gone beyond what I ever could have dreamed or imagined and of course I started crying as I realized the little girl who just wanted to be loved and give love has been blessed with so much more than she ever deserved or dreamed or imagined.

How thankful I am to my Heavenly Father who always blesses us beyond our understanding. I could never of dreamed I would have 8 amazing beautiful children and 6 other children whom I love as my own as each has entered my heart as they came to love one of these amazing children of mine, tons and tons of beautiful grandchildren to dazzle me with light, love and laughter and a constant and true source of love everlasting in my faithful, and loving Jack. The little girl longing for dreams of love and someone worth loving, the dream, the pray, came true.

My heart literally over flows with love and thankfulness to my Father and my Savior for the many miracles that have happened in my life and for his constant care in watching over me. We take the church so much for granted, I can’t even imagine how people live without its principles and knowledge. Without knowing why we are here and knowing about our Savior and all he has done not just for me but for each of us. Without knowing we have a loving Father in Heaven who knows us and wants us to return to him. Without knowing we can live again with our most precious family if we but follow our Savior and our Father in Heaven. It is truly and honor and a blessing to belong to the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

I just needed to say again how very thankful I am for the love and support I have felt during my little skirmish with cancer. The many lovely meals and surprise goodies have blessed both my heart and my body. The tons of emails, notes, visits and loving thoughts, have helped me to stay positive and happy which everyone knows is the first step in healing. The constant faith, prayers, fasting, putting my name on the temple rolls and loving priesthood blessings have helped to heal my broken body. Thank you, thank you so
much for your love, faith, concern and support. My life has truly been blessed by each of you. I just want to gather each of you close to me and give you a big hug and tell you personally how much you mean to me. You have made a difference in my life. My dreams could never come close to imaging I would be blessed to love so many people! I love you, I pray for you, thank you again for all you have done for me.

Since I wont be writing progress reports every week, I feel a little awkward just sending you my weekly journal writings, I will continue to post these on my blogspot at www.margofeller blogspot.com. I will send my progress journal entry after I have had my quarterly pet scans. So in the meantime check out my blogspot if you get the chance or want to.
Love,
Margo