Going through Memory Boxes

My parents were planning on retiring this next year but have just been asked not to but instead to extend 3-6 years and to move to the Bay area, where my Papa will be the head of the institute in Saratoga and oversee 4 stake's seminaries in the surrounding area. They will move there at the beginning of August.

So you'd think that now we're all adults me and my siblings would have grabbed all of our junk from Mom and Dad's house by now... Actually Nathan and I have been trying to take our "stuff" back home with us a little bit at a time, most times we go to visit since we've been married.  I lived at home longer than any of my other siblings and so I think I had the most stuff.

Anyways, the point of all this is that my parents brought up 5 boxes of my stuff when they came up the other day and I've been sorting through them. At first I thought "Why on earth did I keep all this stuff?!" Things like old programs and letters, posters and pamphlets, thank you cards and wedding invitation... I still threw most of it away but as I read them it touched my heart how many people I have loved and have loved me in my life, and how many awesome opportunities I've had. 

I got to work as EFY counselor and BC for 3 years in Arizona and Las Vegas and all over the Midwest. There were envelopes of notes, letters, and pictures from my EFY kids and counselors I was blessed to worked with. I thought of all the fun and crazy things we did and I sat there laughing in the kitchen. I'm still friends with many of them but it made me want to check up on all of them, send them my love back and just say thank you for the influence they had on me and how much their little notes meant to me all these years later. 

I got to go study abroad in Florence, Italy and visit beautiful places like Venice, Verona, and cinque terre, as well as backpack through Rome, Paris, and Berlin. I found a poster for a benefit concert I put together in order to raise finds to go there.  My study abroad was only made possible because of very generous donations from friends and family (nearly $2,000!).  In one of the boxes I found that list, paper clipped to a stack of congratulation and well wishing cards.

Programs and pamphlets from operas and musicals I'd sung in, awards I had won, notes from music classes and voice lessons, thank you notes from singing at funerals... 

Before my mission my mom took me on two separate temple trips. One up to the Utah Temples and the other to the California temples. There was a pamphlet from each of the temples we visited together. My heart filled with love for my mom who took the time to take me to all those temples and who taught me to love the temple in the first place. I thought back on how much fun we had together and how much I grew spiritually. Those few months before my mission were very hard and the temple literally became a sanctuary for me.

Letters from old boyfriends, first boyfriends, stockers, and countless journal entries where I go on and on about all the boys I liked and that like me.  My spelling is horrendous, my hand writing less then beautiful, pictures that are not so stunning but the memories were awesome.  Going through them and seeing all these funny things made me remember this one day, years ago, me, Mom, and Whitney were sitting going through memory boxes and we were laughing at how dumb we were/sounded.  I remember Mom went and got her small white journal and started reading to us.  "My friends are..." and she listed like a page full of people, then she said "There are so many more, but it would take WAY too long to list them all!"  We were all laughing so hard that we had tears running down our faces.  There were tons of journal entries like this that she read to us, all of them had us holding our sides from laughing super hard.  It was fun to see how funny, just like me, my mom was when she was little, when you think you are so cool and all that and how ridiculous you really sounded but you look back on them.  My Mom's so fun and down to earth, we can laugh about how silly we were; I'm sure she pulled it out to cheer me up and show me that we were all once like that.

There were letters from friends I've had over the years, people that were some of my closest friends.  They had huge impacts on me.  Not that I've forgotten them but sometimes I forget just how influential they really were in my life, helping me grow into the person that I am today.  Lindsay Snow, Marci Porter, Daniel Scow, JR Payne, Ryan Leavitt, Kevin Gunderson, Annie Marrie, Chris Noorda, Sorella Carrol, Janessa Evans, Ambre Pitkin, Jasmin, the Redaelli family, Constanza Purpari, Sorella Booth and MacKinnon, Erica Tello, Nick Baker, Sorella Giammaria, Loren Noel, Daniel Jolly, Kim Drusedum, Robert Wilhelm....

There were sweet letters from my Mommy.  I think I love notes/letters so much because she wrote me so many.  All of them praised me, told me how amazing I was, and how lucky she felt to be my Mom.  She would leave me these loves notes often.  I have never questioned whether my Mom loved or believed in me, never.  Even when I had my rough years, my mothers love was never questioned because she was always there for me, loving me, expressing faith and confidence in me, praying for me, wanting me to succeed.

Letters from siblings.  Seth and I went to High School together and we were best buds.  I found a sweet letter from Brandi Lynn that I don't know if I'll ever be able to throw it away.  Whitney's funny drawings of me being all boy crazy and of Moons with our moon song.  She's one of my very best friends in this entire world!

I have had a beautiful life!  I am so tremendously blessed!