What We Leave Behind

Most of you should probably have heard this. If not, you may need to sit down.

My family is--FINALLY--moving to Taylor, Arizona.

So, for anyone in my family or who’s a friend/associate of ours from the Grand Canyon state, yay, it’s good news. If you live in Utah you’ll probably be seeing more of us (I know I’ll enjoy having them close enough to take an occasional weekend trip). And I’m relieved that Dad decided to do this before the Second Coming.

But for our friends back in Texas, it’s kind of a bittersweet moment. Dad moved out to a little town east of San Antonio called Seguin (SEH-geen) to work at the Motorola plant not quite thirty years ago. Motorola has come and gone, but Dad brought Mom to live there and they raised five of us down in a little house right off of 1-10. We went to church in Seguin and school in Marion and although we didn’t have all the cool toys or watch all the popular TV shows we had books and friends and cats and that was enough. I don’t think the people we’ve known and loved in the area can imagine what the world is going to be like without us. I know I can’t.

View out my dad's office window. Notice the goats--
this was obviously a very long time ago

I don’t miss Texas a lot. I had bad experiences at school--some of them, yes, featured me getting bullied. Right up through Senior year. I don’t miss having to drive everywhere to get to a store or to church or to town, half the reason I never moved back. I don’t miss the humidity. Or the bugs--especially the spiders. I won’t miss the floods, and chances are where we’re going we won’t see so many of them. I won’t miss the rattlesnakes we’d occasionally get in our barn, but where we’re going there might still, sadly, be rattlesnakes, probably a different subspecies but still.

I’ll tell you what I DO miss--what I AM going to miss now that my family isn’t there anymore.

I’m going to miss our little house in the country that had grass just soft enough to walk on in the yard. We have like five pecan trees that give us nuts in the fall and in winter we crack them and give them away by the pound to friends and neighbors and ship them to far-off relatives. We have a field that we just let hay grow in and when I was younger dad would build us forts in the barn. Dad has tried getting into raising different kinds of animals--sheep, goats, rabbits pigeons, we were somewhat successful with chickens and ducks. The only critters that really flourished were the cats. We had a garden in the backyard and a little playground that got turned into a treehouse and then a fort that pretty much only the cats used. Part of the reason I turned out an introvert was because I lived too far away from friends to really hang out with them a lot. So that meant I could spend hours walking around in circles around the house and the field and daydream or just go back inside to draw or to read or to watch movies.

Guadalupe River crossing at US 90.

I'm going to miss the hills. Out where I lived there were just low rolling ones everywhere. If you're from Utah, it can seem kind of flat, but compared to, say, Lubbock, it's actually interesting terrain. I thought it was beautiful--it was the most beauty I got to see from day-to-day. And then every so often, my family would drive out into the Hill Country just a little to the west. Big, steep hills covered with brambly forests, a lot less civilized. Definitely a wild place.

I’m going to miss the rolling fields of wheat and corn that line the roads, the pastures full of horses and cattle, the ruined barns and houses that dot the landscape, the thickets of live oak and mesquite that grow here and there. We are out in the boonies enough to still have that small-town/country feel with the authentic drawls and cowboy boots and hats, but close enough to civilization that we feel, well, civilized. Mom and Dad were never really part of that culture anyway--Mom’s from (urban) Utah and my dad’s from Arizona. I built up a tolerance for country music. Enough to say that I like Rascal Flatts and Carrie Underwood and to relate to the lyrics of a few popular singles that I can’t name the artists or titles to.

I might miss Marion, a little, actually. Runs to Dollar General, driving in early on 78 from early morning seminary in Seguin. A small school that doesn’t have a lot of electives but a staff of teachers that was so supportive and wonderful to me and my four siblings. And there was nothing quite like homecoming day when all the girls who were passionate about it wore those frilly, tinkling mums of green and white ribbons.

Pape's Pecan House, Seguin, TX

I’m going to miss Seguin. Driving over the Guadalupe River every time we’d go to town and savoring the view. The Victorian houses. Just driving down College street. The old-town feeling of Court Street, the square behind the courthouse with the fountain and the statue of Juan Seguin that I regret not visiting nearly enough. Don’t get me wrong, the little Mormon meetinghouse on King and College streets is pretty. But the other religious organizations in Seguin have some fine churches too. Driving into town from you can see all the steeples as you come down the hill, and you glimpse them close-up when you drive through town. And then there’s the stores where we’d do our grocery shopping and the old library and just the landmarks you’d learn from driving back and forth a million times. Lazy afternoons at Starke Park. A lot of it has changed, over the years--the old HEB is gone and they built a bigger one. Blockbuster is gone, of course--it got divided into a liquor store and a dental office. And there’s a big, brand new city library downtown.

I’m going to miss the nearby town of New Braunfels. Landa Park. Playing church basketball with the girls over there. Hobby Lobby and Target and all of the best shopping! The hotbed of local German culture and the Edelweiss Inn that was oddly enough featured in a movie I saw at BYU International Cinema. Clear Springs...do they make onion rings like that anywhere else?

I’m going to miss the creeks and the little places for camping in and around Seguin and then the state parks up in the Hill Country (fall is the best time of year for camping in Texas, fall being November). The Hill Country, beautiful and remote and covered with wild forests. Wildflowers, every spring: bluebonnets, Indian paintbrushes, Indian blankets, primroses. Spring is my favorite time of year in Texas. It’s the best place in the world to be in springtime.

More or less what our highways look like in the springtime, in a good year (Pinterest)

I never went to Austin very much--well, except their airport, but that is a small airport that tbh I am glad to see the last of for now. But everyone in that part of Texas knows that Downtown Austin is a place to be avoided at rush hour. The few times I have driven through downtown Austin, though, I loved it. We would combine with the stakes in Austin for Youth Conferences, and let me tell you Austin is where the cool (Mormon) kids are from. A lot of those cool kids are here in Provo.

When people ask me what part of Texas I’m from I say San Antonio. Because it IS the best part. Marion is close enough to the Alamo and the downtown museums that we took epic field trips in elementary school. My parents, they’re from out of state, and they’re...tourists, so they like taking us to the tourist magnet, the Riverwalk in downtown San Antonio, but it’s a beautiful place with bridges and boat rides and the best of local culture on display. Better than Venice. The zoo is...mediocre but the last time I went was over ten years ago. The Japanese Tea Gardens at Brackenridge park are spectacular.  I went on field trips to the auditorium at Trinity University to see plays based on classic short stories when I was in middle school. And then I graduated from high school in that auditorium.

Downtowm SA

San Antonio also has the best freaking NBA team. I am a Spurs fan for life.

The Church built a temple in San Antonio. It has beautiful stained-glass windows and in one of the ordinance rooms a mural of the Hill Country with wildflowers painted by a lady from my home ward, the late Ardyth Haecker. It was completed in 2005 and the night before the dedication I was part of an enormous cultural celebration in the Alamodome. The temple is on Stone Oak parkway, overlooking Loop 1604 (another place to avoid during rush hour), right on top of a hill at the edge of the Hill Country.

Corpus Christi is where my family would go to the beach. And it's getting its own post.

Gosh, I love Texas history. I grew up right in the middle of where some of the more significant events happened, so I’m biased. But we had our own war of Independence from Mexico. We had an epic last stand at the Alamo. I read a biography of Sam Houston a few years ago and let me tell you, we need more people like him in today’s government. He may have been from a pro-slavery state but he was vehemently against the other southern states’ wanting to break with the Union right up until the Civil War, at least that’s what I gathered.

And NO state has state pride like Texas. I may live anywhere else in the world, but I will always own my Texas pride.

I like to think that the Texas flag is made out of part of the US flag.

Edit of a personal photo of the Alamo

I’m going to miss the culture. There’s the cowboy/folk/country element, for sure. My brother David spent several years growing up playing fiddle at the local oprys and I went to a few of his shows--lemme tell ya. But there is also a strong Latino heritage in the area, lots of Spanish place names and architecture and glorious, glorious mariachi music.

Also, the FOOD. Food is very important in south-central-whatever-Texas. Everybody (except me) loves spicy food. My home ward would do a chili cookoff nearly every year. My mother is going to miss the tamales. I’m going to miss the breakfast tacos made on homemade flour tortillas, wrapped in tinfoil, stuffed with cheese, egg, potato sausage, bacon, onions, refried beans, and other fillings and toppings to taste.

arielle clementine

My mom served her mission in Houston, Spanish-speaking. We almost never went to Houston (but before the temple in San Antonio was built the adults in my ward would go to the temple there every so often, and let me tell you the Houston Temple is beautiful). But my mom learned to make somewhat authentic Mexican food--enchiladas, fajitas. We’re taking that with us. To this day a quesadilla is a staple of my diet.

I’m going to miss driving through West Texas. Yes, it’s a pain in the butt, but I learned to enjoy the ride, especially when every landmark we passed would mean we were that much closer to that somewhere else we wanted to be. You go into the Hill Country, and then pass through lots of plateaus and buttes right up until you reach Fort Stockton, and then after that you’re in a desert and it’s so barren that you can feel the moisture coming off your skin, but at least there’s mountains. And then, after like six hours and six hundred miles, you’re in El Paso.

Butte visible from Interstate 10 just outside of Fort Stockton

It’s not just saying goodbye to all of these places, though. Moving means saying goodbye to all of the people that my family has spent the last twenty-odd years building relationships with. Each ward unit in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is supposed to be like a family, but no ward IS a family more than the Seguin Ward of the Kyle Texas Stake. When my dad moved there, it was just a branch. There was a Spanish branch there for a little while, but we’ve been a ward since I was a kid. Dad got to be bishop for a little while, even. There weren’t a lot of girls in my young women’s group, but they were some of my best friends growing up. Our chapel has hymnals in both English and Spanish.

There’s a handful of families that have been there as long as Dad has, if not longer. And there are families that come and go that you never forget. Some of them are transplants from Utah/Idaho/Arizona, like my folks. Some of them are local. A lot of them are converts. We have dinners parties like no one’s business--Thanksgiving, Christmas, Halloween, boy scout fundraisers, that sort of thing. Back in the day when General Conference was only broadcast to the chapels we would have pot-lucks in between the Sunday sessions.  And yes, we take turns feeding the missionaries.

LDS Chapel, Seguin

On the Stake level, we’ve made a lot of unforgettable friends too. Up until 2008, we were part of the San Antonio East Stake. Then we got put into the Kyle stake. Our stake center in Kyle is a 45-minute drive from my house and it made no sense for my family to attend functions there. But we stuck it out. We made it work. We have friends clear up and down I-35 from the east side of San Antonio to New Braunfels to Buda, friends with whom we share a common faith. After Dad got released from being bishop he served off and on in the high councils of both stakes. Since he and mom both speak fluent Spanish they have usually been assigned to work with the Spanish-speaking members on ward and stake levels.

We have friends outside of the church, too. My mom says that her co-workers at the Seguin hospital are like family to her, and she will miss them. I didn’t have a lot of friends at school--I had social problems. The few I did have were priceless. I sadly didn’t realize it until my last couple years of high school. But I did learn. No one can ever take their place.

Texas was never home for my mom and dad. Other people who live there, they have their parents and siblings and aunts and uncles and cousins living close by, they get together every so often. We have to travel out of state to see our extended family. But now Dad is moving back to his hometown, we’re renting a house from his aunt right next door to a place where one of my cousins is living and a couple of doors down from a few other cousins. It takes two minutes to drive to his mom’s house, but if there’s good weather and you feel up to it you can walk.  Mom can take weekend trips up to Utah to see her family. That’s their idea of being home. So I’m happy for them. And I’m happy for my younger siblings who get to have that experience.

Winter Sunset, I-10 West of Seguin

That little house in Texas is home to me in the sense that it’s where my story began. It’s the place that, after much trial and adversity, I was able to get away from in order to accomplish Great Things™. It’s enough of a home that I have a few ideas for potential fantasy novels set in that region, so if I want to take a trip back I can definitely call it “book research”. If I’m ever successful as an author, I will come back for book tours and give inspirational speeches to kids telling them that they should read books and go places in life. Yes, Texas is home, but there is so much more to the world.

So the Cole family is leaving Texas. We're going to be closer to our extended family. But we will miss the family that we had here. We will remember it as a place of the world that we made a little brighter. That is reason enough to say we’re happy that we were there.

Remembering President Hinckley

(I apologize for the crappy formatting. Much to learn I still have. :/ )

So a brief intro for those of you reading this who are not members of my faith: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is led by living apostles and prophets. They lead the Church based on direct revelation from God. The current prophet and president of the Church is Thomas S. Monson. Today’s blog post is about the fifteenth president of the Church and President Monson’s predecessor, Gordon B. Hinckley. President Hinckley’s teachings are the course of study for Priesthood and Relief Society classes in the Church this year. Reflecting on President Hinckley’s life has caused me to feel, how shall we say, a little nostalgic. But personal blogs are for reminiscing, so let me put it to use.

lds.org

A Leader During a Time of Change

Technically Ezra Taft Benson was the prophet when I was born. But I don’t remember him. Or President Howard W. Hunter. I don’t remember when President Hinckley became the prophet. He was just always there.

Gordon B. Hinckley made a huge mark on the Church. His administration was a time of growth and growth requires a lot of energy. So I remember his energy, and the energy that everyone in the Church felt at that time. He did a lot in bringing the Church into the public spotlight and representing us to the media. He brought the Church into the age of the Internet. When I was a little kid my family had to go to our chapel to watch General Conference, but by the time President Hinckley passed we were staying home for 3 or more sessions and watching or listening to it on the internet.

During his time as prophet, membership in the church passed 11 million worldwide and then accelerated (Today we’re past 14 million). President Hinckley made long, arduous trips across the globe to visit as many of the Latter-day Saints as he could and to meet with world civic leaders.

lds.org

And he built temples. Dozens of them. President Hinckley had a deep reverence for the temple. It was mentioned at his funeral mentioned that every time he reached the underground parking entrance to the Salt Lake Temple he would remove his hat as a sign of respect. With such a reverence for the temple, it’s not surprising that he made such an effort to bring the blessings of the temple to the saints around the world.

While Gordon B. Hinckley was the president, the Church went from under 50 temples in the early 90s to 124 or so in the late 2000s. The San Antonio Texas temple was one of these temples. I saw him in person twice in my lifetime: when he came down to Texas in June of 2001 I think to announce the temple and in May of 2005 when he came for the dedication.

He held a special meeting for the youth right before the Heart of Texas Jubilee, the cultural event we had slaved putting together to celebrate the temple. He told a lot of jokes, I recall, but I can’t remember exactly what most of them were. He did say to the adults that this meeting was for the youth: “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” He gave us four of his nine “Be’s” but I can’t remember which ones. President Hinckley put a lot of emphasis on the youth, in his ministry. He taught us to stay true to our values, no matter what.

ksl.com

I remember at the dedication he made a joke about green bananas and advised against growing old. He also apologized for his husky voice due to the superior air quality of San Antonio to Salt Lake. That’s some serious shade right there.

He was just so COOL. But more importantly he loved all of the members of the Church. And everyone who met with him felt it.

A Wry Sense of Humor

One thing I loved President Hinckley for was his humor. He was known to share funny anecdotes in his conference talks. And he could crack good one-liners occasionally.

But one way he made people laugh, though, was how he surprised them with his personality. Mike Wallace’s introduction to Standing for Something is one of the most hilarious things ever written, mostly because it is about how taken aback he was to interview President Hinckley, and about how agog everyone else was that President Hinckley had the nerve to go on Sixty Minutes. Nerve. That’s a great word to describe president Hinckley.

President Hinckley didn’t let old age slow him down from doing the Lord’s work--or being his usual exuberant self. I remember at his funeral, President Monson told this story. He and President Hinckley went to the same doctor. One time at a doctor’s visit, the doctor told President Monson that President Hinckley didn’t actually use his cane to support himself while he walked. More often than not, he used his cane to wave at people. The doctor politely asked President Monson if he would intervene and tell President Hinckley to actually use his cane like he was supposed to. But President Monson replied, “You’re the doctor. You tell him.”

 (lds.org)

When he rededicated the Tabernacle on Temple Square, President Hinckley informed the congregation with some regret that, although many improvements had been made to the historic structure, the benches were still just as hard.

On humor, he said, “In all of living, have much fun and laughter. Life is to be enjoyed, not just endured.”

He saw humor as a better way to handle life’s difficulties than anger or despair, and that was part of his overall philosophy.

Gordon B. Hinckley and Optimism

Gordon B. Hinckley was an apostle and later president of the Church in times when the world at large was undergoing political, economic, and social turmoil. An address he gave to BYU in 1974 came right on the heels of Nixon’s resignation. He commented on how he had read in the newspapers about Gerald R. Ford pardoning Nixon, and more disturbingly how public opinion at the time criticized Ford for doing so. President Hinckley said to himself, “Surely, this is the age and place of the gifted pickle-sucker.”

“I come this morning with a plea that we stop seeking out the storms and enjoy more fully the sunlight. I am suggesting that we “accentuate the positive.” I am asking that we look a little deeper for the good, that we still our voices of insult and sarcasm, that we more generously compliment virtue and effort. I am not asking that all criticism be silenced. Growth comes of correction. Strength comes of repentance. Wise is the man who can acknowledge mistakes pointed out by others and change his course. I am not suggesting that our conversation be all honey and blossoms. Clever expression that is sincere and honest is a skill to be sought and cultivated.

lds.org

What I am suggesting and asking is that we turn from the negativism that so permeates our society and look for the remarkable good in the land and times in which we live, that we speak of one another’s virtues more than we speak of one another’s faults, that optimism replace pessimism, that our faith exceed our fears.”

Gordon B. Hinckley was President of the Church when 9/11 happened. In the General Conference that followed--the very weekend that the war began in Afghanistan--President Hinckley gave an address that, in my opinion, reflected his teachings on the need for hope and optimism even in times of distress.

I do not wish to be an alarmist. I do not wish to be a prophet of doom. I am optimistic. I do not believe the time is here when an all-consuming calamity will overtake us. I earnestly pray that it may not. There is so much of the Lord’s work yet to be done. We, and our children after us, must do it….

God our Eternal Father will watch over this nation and all of the civilized world who look to Him. He has declared, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord” (Ps. 33:12). Our safety lies in repentance. Our strength comes of obedience to the commandments of God….

mormonhub.com

Are these perilous times? They are. But there is no need to fear. We can have peace in our hearts and peace in our homes. We can be an influence for good in this world, every one of us.

He told us repeatedly that even though there is political and economic turmoil in the world at large, we should rejoice because of how the Gospel is spreading and how medicine and technology are improving every day--in other words, how God is pouring out blessings for humankind. It is a message that is reiterated in General Conference as recently as last October, and it is a message that needs to be heard more than ever today.

President Hinckley urged Latter-day Saints to remember the Savior, Jesus Christ, who said on multiple occasions to the followers in His day, “Fear not.”

Things Will Work Out

It isn't as bad as you sometimes think it is. It all works out. Don't worry. I say that to myself every morning. It all works out in the end. Put your trust in God, and move forward with faith and confidence in the future. The Lord will not forsake us. He will not forsake us. If we will put our trust in Him, if we will pray to Him, if we will live worthy of His blessings, He will hear our prayers.

(Quote pulled from Positive Thinkers Journal)

I was in the middle of a personal crisis in late January of 2008. One Sunday night, I asked my dad for a priesthood blessing. He was in the middle of giving it when the phone rang. My mom got up to answer it. When Dad had finished blessing me, Mom told us that the call was from our grandma up in Utah. President Hinckley had passed away.

President Hinckley "knights" President Eyring after his promotion to the First Presidency, about ten years ago. From an article written shortly after President Hinckley's death
(Deseret News)

I was kind of stunned by the news. Stunned enough that the next day at school I was too dazed to pay much attention to my thorn in the flesh. Sadly, I wasn’t one of those cool teenagers who had a cell phone with a texting plan and I never got the memo that said wear your church clothes to school in honor of President Hinckley.

I was still working on getting my drivers’ license at the time and that Saturday I drove on Interstate 10 for the first time when I went out to help Dad with some errands. In the afternoon we went home and watched President Hinckley’s funeral over the computer.

Even after his passing, he made a big impact on my life. That fall, due to my increasing personal stress, I moved to Arizona to attend school for a year at Snowflake High School. My art teacher there had one of President Hinckley’s quotes on optimism on his desk. But I kind of didn’t believe in it. Optimism hadn’t fixed my social situation back in Texas.

Aggieland Mormons via Pinterest

Then in April of 2009 I went to Disneyland for the first time. Sure, it’s the happiest place on earth, but there were some stressful moments on that trip. Like how I started my period when we pulled over for a break in Flagstaff and I didn’t have any feminine supplies. And then my friends and I were running late to an event with our group and we had to almost run all the way from one side of California Adventure to backstage at Disneyland. And then the morning of the second day I woke up and threw up.

The second night for some reason I didn’t want to ride on Space Mountain. What was more, I made a fool of myself by talking my friends out of not going because we were trying our best to stay together in groups. I felt really bad afterward, and to this day I think it would’ve been smarter to just go on the ride with my friends even if I didn’t want to.

But if we had gone on Space Mountain, we would never have emerged onto the main square at Disneyland right in time for the most amazing fireworks display I had ever seen. Fireworks so big and bright that they made it look like daytime.

Disneyland

When I look back on that trip, I think of everything that went right: the nice hotel we stayed in, riding The Matterhorn and Pirates of the Caribbean twice each, the Aladdin musical, goofing off with my friends, and going to the beach before we headed back to Arizona.

And the fireworks. Especially the fireworks.

And I think of President Hinckley.  Things did work out. Some things went wrong and some things were less than perfect, but the way everything went, it went for the better.

Looking back at my life, things did go wrong, but they also did work out in the end. Leaving the only school I had known was a disappointment, but going to Snowflake for a year was one of the best things that ever happened to me. And then having to leave Arizona and go back to Texas to finish my senior year was the worst, but it wasn’t really so bad. And I was rewarded with tenfold blessings when I got to BYU.

President Hinckley was, in fact, right when he said that things do work out for the better. So I can have the faith that, no matter what bad things I’m going through right now, or will have to go through in the future, someday I will reach a better place, and I will be able to look back and see that everything that I went through happened for a reason.