Super Mom!

Every life, every heartbeat, every first breath of air begins with a mother.

Delene Christiansen was born in Salt Lake City, UT. She always had a dream of being a mother. She
would often go visit her grandparents in Fayette, UT where she would sometimes stay all summer long. While in Fayette she met a boy named Keith. She convinced him to marry her after his mission and they went off to Cedar City for school. While there they got surprised with being pregnant. Soon, they got a bigger surprise with twins. Being three hours away from family, they worked hard and did what they had to do for Keith to finish his education.  They finished school and found their way back to Fayette to start a career.

When the twins were four, Keith and Delene had another baby. Four years later they had another. Then the avalanche came. In the four years after their 4th child, they had 3 more. Four years later they were surprised with their last, and their best child.  They gave birth to a legend, me. Now in case you’ve lost count that is 8 children. I have two children, and that is hard enough. But my mother raised each of us with tender and care.

She was a school teacher on top of all of that and made sure that all of us had a good education. She always had us reading and typing. She would also make sure we kept up on our math. Every summer she would get these workbooks for us and we would have to finish one each day before we could play. My mother has a love of books and has passed it on to me. I remember she would always have a book for me to read. And then she would have me tell her what I read to make sure I read it. I’m sure she knew she didn’t have to ask me what I read but it was a great time to have a conversation and I usually learned something from it.

Mom also taught us about the gospel and would always tell us scripture stories. She would sometimes give prizes out to whoever could memorize scriptures that she would put up on the fridge. Church was important to my mom as well and she was always busy in some calling or another.

My mom also taught us to work hard and be thrifty. Mom was always on the sewing machine mending our clothes, or making new ones. She taught us how to harvest vegetables from our very large garden and then how to preserve them. She also taught us the rewards as we were able to sneak fresh peas and beans into our mouths as we picked them. My mom worked hard day and night and I never knew how much she did until recently.

She was always there to wake us in the morning for school and was usually the last one to go to sleep. I honestly don’t know if she ever had time for herself or did anything for herself. She devoted everything she had into us kids to give us a great life.

Did I mention that we were all active in community activities? Baseball, football, wrestling, tennis,
basketball, scouting, plays, dancing, piano lessons, you name it. I seriously don’t know how she
managed everything. But through it all I never felt neglected. I was able to play any sport or do any
activity I wanted. Last week Bishop Adams mentioned how his mother would stand up on the chairs
with her hands in the air screaming and cheering. He could have been describing my mom. She was my biggest cheerleader. When I was in wrestling, we had a standing joke that my friend Huston and I had moms that were constantly competing for top mom cheerleader. They would scream and holler no matter which of my teammates were wrestling but they would especially go crazy if it was us. We loved it and I always felt supported and loved by my mom.

My mom is truly my hero. Her faith and love and knowledge that she shared with me will always remain with me. I have never met a more selfless person. When she wasn’t taking care of us kids, it seemed she was taking care of a sick neighbor or helping out with the relief society. She loves everyone and does not judge. She has taught me more about giving someone the benefit of the doubt than I could begin to mention.

Changes

So I decided that after reading my wife's and my sister Rose's blogs, I should start blogging again and catching up on life. There have been a lot of changes that have happened or are going to happen soon:

- We moved (again)
- I'm going to be a Daddy!
- I switched majors (again)
- I have a great new friend

Last September, Kat started getting pretty emotional. We decided to take a test and "Surprise!" Kat's pregnant! We decided to keep it a secret to everyone but our parents and tell everyone on Thanksgiving weekend. It was really hard to keep it a secret for so long but we prevailed. I am so excited to be a dad, I have always been really good with kids and they seem to naturally gravitate towards me. In January we found out that we are going to have a boy! I am very excited to take him fishing, watch him play sports, and maybe even coach some.

The fall semester for me was really hard. After taking Calc 2, Physics for scientists and Engineers, and a few other Engineering classes, I was worn out and barley survived with passing grades. I decided to look at other options and found out that by switching to a Business degree, I can graduate in 4, not 7 semesters. The classes would be a lot easier too. I never thought I would go the business route, it has never appealed to me; but something pulled me along that way and I have found a degree that I think I will be happy in, MIS. It took a few weeks into this semester to decide that this is what I wanted to do, but it takes in some of the engineering background I already have, and applies it to a business aspect. I get to work with computers, which I have come to realize I enjoy doing, and am enjoying all of my classes, which are ten times easier now too. I will also be receiving the same pay as I would as an engineer. I have three semesters left after this one and I can finally see a light at the end of the tunnel.

At the end of November of last year, we received a note from our apartment managers telling us that our lease is up and to renew our lease, they were going to charge us $50 extra a month. We didn't like the sound of that, especially with a baby on the way, so we started searching for other places. Kat found us a great apartment that gave us an extra bedroom and charged us $100 less. We moved in at the first of the year and got settled in. At church a man introduced me as my downstairs neighbor and wanted to make sure we didn't hear his kids. I told him that we couldn't hear anyone but our upstairs neighbors who make a lot of noise. I forgot his name and didn't hear much from him for a while. (I know, I am a bad neighbor, I am very introverted). A few weeks later as we were leaving for church, they came out at the same time and invited us for dinner that day. We excepted, eager to meet new friends and meet them we did. The fun part of this story is their last name is Friend. Ben and I have a LOT in common. Actually, I don't think I have ever met anyone who has more in common than he and I. We both love college football and fishing, both love Mt. Dew and breakfast burritos, and get along great. Ben has turned out to be an excellent friend and is always willing to let me tag along with him fishing. This last spring break we went fishing every single day. It was a lot of fun. The Friends have also helped us with a lot of good programs and helped us get ready for baby.

Changes are happening more and more it seems, so I'm going to try and update my blog at least once a week.

Logan

It's been a while since I have blogged and I figured I ought to. Kat and I moved to Logan a month ago and half of that time, i've been gone training with the Army and good ol' Dugway. I'm loving this new place we are in and I'm loving Cache Valley. We are going to dedicate this new move to a new life and the best summer ever. My job now is to find a new job and to get back in shape and stay there. I have a feeling that this summer will be a great one, and I'm going to do all I can to make sure it is! So here is to Logan, a new start, a new life!

Busy Bee!

Wow! The last month and a half has been extremly busy for me. I started school back in August and my day usually consists of going to the math lab at 830 to get ahead in math, then math class at 930, where i then return to do the homework assigned, i then go to my other classes with an hour break inbetween for lunch until 330. At 330, I go to work until 11, where I continue to be blessed working with the girls and helping them change their lives and become better people. It's really heart breaking to here some of the stories of what these girls have been through, but it is a very rewarding program. We recently had two girls graduate and it was hard to see them leave. They have made so much progress and I hope they can continue on the path they have set for themselves. Aside from the busy schedule, I continue to be the husband of a very very busy Relief Society President. The rare moments we do get to spend together, she is always busy visiting sisters, being on the phone talking to sisters, or doing something else.

Now, I'm not complaining, or saying that we never get very much time together, but the times are not as much as they used to be. This weekend has been fall break, and it has been a great vacation for me to let my brain get a rest. Kat and I took the break and took off to the Vernal Temple on our quest to visit every Utah temple. It was quite the drive and it was a wonderful temple! The Manti Temple has been closed for cleaning and as I was in the temple, I got the most peaceful feeling and realized that even though we didn't have a temple open that was 5 minutes away from us, it was worth the drive to the temple.

Speaking of worth the drive, We also got to have the oportunity to go to General Conferance. It was amazing! We had close seats and learned a lot! I am so thankful to have a living prophet who guides and directs us! Our breaks went out on the way there and when we went to fix it in Salt Lake, they wanted to charge us 400 bucks! Well, Kat and I decided to just drive it to Gunnison and take it to Reids where we knew they would not try and cheat us out. It ended up costing us a little over 100 bucks this time which was much better. But even though the trip ended up being a bit more pricey than what I wanted, it was well worth being able to be in the same room as the prophet and apostles and recieve instruction from them.

Letter to Ephraim City

Dear Ephraim City,

I was talking to my bishop the other day and he thought I should write this letter to you and thank you for letting me go. I truly would have never received so many blessings if it hadn't had been so. Since you have let me go, I enrolled into Snow College and decided to go into Engineering. I love my classes! They keep me so entertained and although I am very busy right now, I can see now that this is where I should have been in the first place.

I have been able to get a job, and although the pay is less than half of what you paid me, I am much happier. This new job allows me to go to church every Sunday and participate in ward activities. This job has allowed me to do service to the community and affect the lives of teenage girls who are trying to figure out where to go in life. Most of all, this job does not get me up in the middle of the night after I have been off shift and it doesn't stress my wife out, making her much happier.

Even though my pay is not good here, We have been able to live better than what we did when I was working for you. We are saving money now rather than living paycheck by paycheck. I was able to receive a very generous grant from the government for my studies, and we have been able to pocket all of it because the Army pays for my tuition. My new job also allows me to study 4 out of the 8 hours that I'm working on most days, and they changed their shifts around just so I could keep working there and go to school at the same time.

I must also thank you for bringing me down to Ephraim. Although I am not particularly fond of Ephraim, I love being back in a small town atmosphere. I have been able to do missionary work here, which is my love of life, besides my wife of course. My wife has been called as Relief Society President here in the college married ward. She loves this calling and is very busy and probably wouldn't have been able to have this experience had we not moved down here. The school here is just right and the teachers here are awesome!

Anyways, I will end my letter now. Just know that we are doing very good now and Thanks once again.
Best regards,
Andy Bartholomew

Summer!

So I guess I should blog and catch up on life. I have been slacking off on my blogging and need to get better at it. Well, school starts tomorrow for me as I go a week early to take a math refresher course. I haven't had math since I took college algebra in High School almost 6 years ago. Hopefully I can remember everything and start right into pre-calculus without any problems. I will go to school till 330 and then work from 330 to 11. It's going to be a busy school year but I'm excited to start school again and learn some cool stuff.

I also went to the eye doctor the other day and he thinks my twitch is a reaction to the bad allergy's i got when I went out to Boston to get married. He gave me some medicine and told me it would take 3 to 4 weeks for it all to stop and get kicked out of my body. Hopefully this is the case and I believe it is, because my twitch hasn't been as bad lately, except tonight.

We had a family reunion the last weekend of July and it was a blast. I got to do plenty of fly fishing and hiking and spend great quality time with my family. We went down to Zion's national park and had a lot of fun there too. While at the reunion, we learned that my grandpa had finally died. It is a good thing because he was suffering from cancer and is now back with his wife, who died in march. It's great to know about the plan of salvation and the concept of an eternal family. Grandpa really looked at peace at his funeral and left a great legacy behind.

Annual Training for the Army was in June. Although it got very boring sometimes, it was a great experience for me. I got to train on driving paladins and also refreshed myself on loading and firing it. It was a lot of good quality time for the six of us who ate drank and slept on the paladin for two weeks. I learned a great deal and even got to see wild horses up close.

While I went to AT, I surprised Kat with a ticket to Boston so she could go visit her parents. For the most part, she had a great time and loved it.

In may, all's I did was work. Work has been very good to me. It has it's challenges at times with girls but for the most part it is very rewarding. I have had some girls leave and graduate the program and now I wish they were back. I always wonder what they take out of YWEC. My work actually changed their schedule just for me so I could go to school. We used to go 6-2, 2-10 and now we will go 7-3 3-11 so i can come to work and still get plenty of hours.

Kat has been extremely busy lately with her new calling as Relief Society President. She is really enjoying the calling, though sometimes when she starts stressing out I have to remind her that she can't run faster than she has the strength. With her new calling and her new job as a preschool teacher at Snow College, She is also going to be kept quite busy these next months to come. All in all though, it should be a lot of fun and a great adventure.

P.S. oh yeah, I don't know if you've checked my health tracker up above, but I am loosing a lot of weight. since March, I started working out and watching my weight a little bit and lost about 15 pounds. Two weeks ago, Gary sent me a diet paper that is similar to the paleo diet. It has done wonders for me! I'm already down another 15 and keep dropping daily. I don't go hungry at all and I work out a little bit. It was really hard because I broke my diet the first weekend at my grandpa's funeral and then again at a friend's house on Sunday when they invited us to dinner. Getting back on and staying on my diet Mon Tues and Wednesday were very difficult. I started really craving sweets, breads, and dairy products and I plateaued on my weight loss . I succeeded the temptations however and stayed strong to my diet. It has paid off as I began to consistently loose weight again. The consistent weight loss is what is keeping me on my diet as I don't dare break it again. This week I get to start eating fruits which should be good to change my diet up a bit.

When ye are in the service of your fellow beings....

Kat and I started new jobs this week! We got a call on Monday as I was registering for classes at Snow, from the LDS Employment. They told us someone just came in looking for workers to start immediately. We got the number from them and called the lady who had just came in. When we called the lady, Merleen, She told us to go to the Young Women's Empowerment Center (YWEC), and ask for Heather. When we arrived there (it is only about two blogs from our apartment) Heather was really excited and after we filled out the application, basically gave us a job on the spot without an interview or anything.

YWEC is a treatment center for teen girls that have had some trouble in the past. They vary in their backgrounds but they are here from all over the state and some from other states. They range in age from 13-17 and I am the first male "staff" they have had. Our job is to watch the girls, mentor them, and make sure they don't get in fights or run away, etc. We also cook dinner for them, or help them cook, and teach them things.

Heather told us that we would start out at minimum wage, but that things were changing and hopefully soon, we would be able to get raises. With Kat and I both working there, we will make the same amount of money as I did working for Ephraim so the stress of not having enough money for rent and things is gone.

I wasn't sure how I would like the job however, but since Tuesday, when I started, I have not had ANY doubts about this job. I LOVE this job! I have fallen in love with the girls here and I feel as they are my little girls, or my little sisters. The way they look up to me is amazing. I fear I am the only male role model these girls have ever had in their life, it's so sad. I feel like I am on my mission again, I really do. Working with these girls has renewed the same kind of joy and happiness i had while on the mission, well, that and I have also started reading the scriptures again every day for personal study (something I had been slacking on). I feel so comfortable working with these girls and have already done a lot for them, not trying to brag. I have counciled with one girl struggling with very low self esteem. She had mentioned earlier that she was LDS, so when she had a meltdown, I sat down with her and talked with her about what being a Child of God meant. Since then she has been a different person. Another girl had an allergic reaction to something but it got really bad. I wasn't sure if I'm allowed to do it and I'm still not positive I am, but I asked the other staff that was with me if I could give her a blessing, to which she replied "please do!". I asked the girl if she would like one to which she said yes. She is not LDS so I explained to her how the blessing worked. Two of the girls there, both were LDS, asked if they could sit in. I told them they could (the rest had gone to bed). I gave the blessing and ten minutes later, she had calmed down, the hives were subsiding, and she fell fast asleep on the couch where we could watch her. I do not say these experiences to brag, but to testify of the power of God and the many ways he works.

There have been other opportunities for me to teach and uplift the girls, but I will not tell them all. They are in there for a reason and sometimes they act out and are disrespectful, but I still can't help myself wanting the best in them. I can see them working on their goals to get better each new day, and the hours fly by when I am there. I also learn a lot from them. I see so much potential in each and every girl there. I wish sometimes that I could guide them in the ways I know to be true, but seeing how I can't (separation of church and state) I try my best to lead and guide them without bringing in the Gospel.
My patriarchal blessing tells me how I am to be a guide and councilor, and comforter to those who come to me. It also speaks a lot about missionary work. As I was sitting in church today, I could not help but feel like Kat and I were sent here in Ephraim, not to be a cop, but to have the opportunity to help these girls. I feel like this is the very reason I lost my job, not because of the excuses they gave me, but because the Lord had other plans for me. I am happier now than I have been in a long time. I have that feeling of peace come over me as I serve these girls and help them get past their past, and teach them how to become better people, and to know how to live good lives. I really feel like I am on my mission, because when I'm not working, I am thinking about them and thinking of how I can help them. I never thought I'd say this, but I am glad that I lost my job. I realize now how stressed i was as a cop, and how much time it took out of my life. I have new guidance now on what I want with my life and now I see how much happier Kat and I both are now that we are constantly serving others, and by doing that, serving our God. We truly have been blessed to be able to have this opportunity and I look forward to continuing on with this service. I hope whoever reads this will be inspired to serve others and really see how much happier you become.