A "run" back in time and a lesson on sacrifice

In the spring of 1973, I bid a teeth-gritting, heart-wrenching farewell to my boyfriend of two years.  I was 18 and he was 19.  He was choosing to honor his responsibility to the Lord and serve as a missionary on the other side of the country for 24 months.  I would not see him at all during that time, and phone calls would be very rare.  Email was non-existent then, and all other forms of communication, other than good old-fashioned snail mail, were unavailable.  He was my best friend and yes, I was as much in love as any 18 year old can manage.   The hardest part was that neither of us knew for sure if we would "make it", meaning would I remain unattached and would we still feel the same after so long with such minimal contact?  They say only about 10% of such couples do.  But in spite of those unappealing stats, we both knew what had to be done.

Now in all honesty, and even though I was supportive, if he had changed his mind, stayed home, and offered marriage, I would started sewing my wedding dress right then and there.  The responsibility to go was not stressed back then, as it is now.  So I wasn't such a noble and faithful giant.  But religious missions for the boys are part of my culture and heritage.  And I knew it was right.

A thin missionary and a very fat tie.

A good definition of a sacrifice, is giving up something of value in exchange for something better.  Not that I met anyone better that he.  But I spent those two years at Ricks College, an owned-by-my-church junior college, that sat on the treeless hills next to Rexburg, Idaho.   And while I was there I fell in love again, with life.

Other than a couple of married cousins who lived nearby, I knew no one in Rexburg.  I moved into the upstairs of an old brick home-converted-to-apartments, about 1/2 block off campus, with several hand-picked-by-God roommates.  (Thanks to facebook, I found one of those roommates about a year ago and now get to see pictures of her grandbabies.)

(2011)   It's still a great old house.

The entire student body of about 5000, gathered in the indoor stadium for an assembly at the start of the semester, and we sang the "Mormon" children's classic, "I am a Child of God."  I grew up singing that song at church, but I will never forget the feeling I had at that moment in that stadium.  This was my first experience in a large group of LDS people of my age.  I had never before really realized the magnitude of that in which I had been raised.  I grew up in Oregon, in a school system where only about a dozen kids shared my religion.  I had experienced large church gatherings and conferences, but nothing like this.

Do any of you recall the children's story of the Saggy Baggy Elephant?  He felt he didn't fit in with the other animals because his skin was too loose and saggy.  He tried many ways to shrink his skin so that it would fit better, but nothing worked.

  Then he encountered other elephants.  Their skin was saggy too!  And it looked good on them!  And he realized he belonged to something much bigger and more wonderful than he ever knew!  Take the baggy skin out of the story, and I felt like that little elephant.  I had found something wonderful to which I had belonged all along.  I was home.

Those two years at Ricks College were truly God's gift to me.  The school has since become Brigham Young University - Idaho, but the "Spirit of Ricks" still wafts through the campus.  Among my generals, I focused on classes that would give me useful office skills - such as shorthand and the proper use of electric typewriters and carbon paper.  High tech for sure!  Computers were still big boxy things that only a handful of people knew what to do with.  And woven throughout every class was the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Our instructors always found a way to tie spiritual growth to every aspect of an 18-20 year-old's life.  We applied the gospel to biology, English class, accounting, and even to an evening swimming class which, although it seemed like a good idea during registration, I quickly learned to hate.  (I still don't swim.)

I graduated with my two-year degree in the spring of my 21st year, about one week before the young man to whom I had said goodbye 24 months earlier, returned home.  We had both accumulated a sack-full of old letters that had traveled across the country, and the growing question of --- did we "make it"?

Needless to say, we were married about five months later.  This brings me back to that lesson on sacrifice.  Giving up something of value, in exchange for something better.  We both put our faith on the line, said goodbye, and stepped into the unknown.  He feared the infamous reputation of Ricks College for being a likely place to find one's spouse.  I knew that two years would be a very long time.  We both gave up something of value ... for a while.  In exchange, I was given two years of magic, and much-needed personal growth.  He gave two years of honorable service to God, and the blessings have poured in ever since.  And I have no doubt that his decision to go, and my decision to not stand in his way, did indeed give us both something better.  Something with which to teach our children.  Something eternal.