Missionary Mom

Earlier this year I joined the elite membership of a special group of women. I'm proud to be a missionary mom! Our son, Elder Shawn Christopher Cudworth, is part of a recent wave of missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to leave on their missions. More than a dozen young men and women from our ward in South Jordan, Utah, alone are serving as missionaries.

 

 

LDS Church President Thomas S. Monson announced today that there are now 80,333 LDS missionaries serving in more than 400 missions throughout the world, up from 58,500 a year ago. An announcement was made a year ago to lower the missionary age for men from 19 to 18 and the women can now serve at 19 instead of 21. This created a "bubble" of missionaries who are flooding the Missionary Training Centers (MTC) in Provo, Utah, and other locations. It's an exciting time for the Church as the Lord is hastening his work and all members are being encouraged to participate in the work.

Many sacrifices are being made not only by the missionaries, but also their families to allow them to serve in the United States and overseas. Our sons and daughters are putting their educations and jobs on hold to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to serve others. But, with the sacrifices also come many blessings.

What a great support group and network of missionary mothers I have in my own ward and stake. A bag of Bliss chocolates showed up in my mailbox the morning Shawn went in the MTC from a mother who was preparing to send her daughter on a mission. I savored every piece of that candy that wasn't on my diet, but I ate it all anyway when I missed Shawn. I returned the favor when her daughter left for her mission to Australia. The missionary mothers in our ward have hugged and cried together as we share stories with each other. I was so excited to share a picture of a sister missionary from our ward who just arrived in South Dakota this week. It was sent to me by my nephew who is serving in South Dakota. It's a small world!

It was harder to say goodbye to our son than I thought it was going to be. This was different than sending him off to college.  I couldn't turn off the tears. They were tears of joy, but also it was hard to let him leave knowing that we wouldn't get to see him for two years! Women serve for 18 months. I never had brothers and it was not as common for women to go on missions when I was young. At the age of 20, I married my husband while I was still a student at Brigham Young University and I didn’t have brothers. My husband, Gregg, is a convert and he didn't serve a mission, so neither one of us had much experience to know what it was like to send off and support a missionary.

 

 

 

Shawn received his call in the mail signed by President Monson in November 2012. "You are assigned to labor in the Oregon Eugene Mission," said the letter. There was shopping to do as we outfitted our missionary with shirts, ties, suits, shoes, and a bike. We dropped him off at the MTC in February after a wonderful farewell. He gave a powerful talk on his conversion in the Highland 1st Ward in South Jordan and we held an open house in our home that was attended by many wonderful family members and friends. Shawn had a joyous sendoff only to be sent home six weeks later after he came down with mononucleosis and strep throat. He was home for six weeks to recuperate and then went back out again in May, so we had to say goodbye twice! I think it was harder the second time. Elder Cudworth is now part of the Oregon Salem Mission, which is one of the 58 new missions opened in July.

 

 

 

We have watched our son's testimony grow as we read his weekly letters and e-mails that I keep in a red binder. Our testimonies have also grown as our family learns from the experience of supporting a missionary. It takes time, but it's important for us to send our weekly e-mails, letters, and care packages, which he anxiously awaits. Today I will ship him a box containing his favorite pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. He is finally hitting the six month mark, so we have only 18 months to go. We were able to Skype on Mother's Day and will get to call again on Christmas. The key is to keep busy and the time will fly by until he comes home on April 14, 2015!

Summer in Review

I love living in Utah where we have four distinct seasons, but I must confess that my favorite season of the year is summer.  I enjoy skiing on The Greatest Snow on Earth® in the winter, but I don’t like to commute in the snow.  Throughout the year, I try to talk myself into falling in love with the other seasons by celebrating the fall, winter, and spring holidays; however, I long for the long days and warm nights in July when patriotic and pioneer festivals are in full swing and I can walk my yellow lab, Chloe, late at night.  I also enjoy eating fresh summer fruits and vegetables such as local watermelon, peaches, and salt and pepper corn and viewing wildflowers including the sunflowers that dot the landscape in South Jordan. 




Wild sunflower in South Jordan




Stadium of Fire

My first revelation that summer was soon coming to an end (besides back to school advertisements) was earlier this week during water aerobics in the outdoor pool at my gym in South Jordan.  A flock of birds, either pelicans or cranes, flew overhead heading south.  I thought to myself, “Wait a minute; they’re going the wrong direction.”  I also noticed this week that it was dark at 8:30 p.m.  It was inevitable.  All good things must come to an end.  Like a school girl awaiting her first day of school, I wondered what I will report on as the highlight of my summer.  Did I get to enjoy the outdoors and play enough in the sun to carry me through the cold weather? 

The beginning of the summer was an unanticipated job transition.  When vacations are usually underway in June, I was taking some time off to reorganize and plan the next phase of my career.  I left the Office of Tourism after nearly eight years as a deputy director to take on a new position as communications and marketing manager with the Office of Energy Development.  There would be a learning curve until I felt at ease with my new subject matter.  My new office is located at the World Trade Center at City Creek, the heart of downtown Salt Lake City, across the street from Temple Square.  What’s not to love about that?  I also was able to line up an opportunity to teach a communications class at Brigham Young University, my alma mater, beginning in the fall. 

In early June, I took my two girls down to Mesquite and Las Vegas, Nevada, to visit our good friend, Evey, and her husband Len.  My youngest daughter, Mackaylee, 14, had never been to Vegas before and it was an eye opener for her.  We laughed at her first impressions of this international destination considering her age.  “This town is sexy,” she said.  “I love this town.”  We looked for family friendly activities and settled on the Titanic exhibit at the Luxor, shopping at Caesar’s Palace, and the pirate show at Treasure Island.  The Titanic exhibit is very well done and is a “must see” if you’re ever in the area.  Artifacts including a chunk of the ship are on display.  Make sure to ask for a student discount if anyone in your party is carrying a student ID card.  We enjoyed dining at Cheesecake Factory at Caesar’s Palace, but I wouldn’t recommend taking a family to the pirate show.  It contained unnecessary sexual innuendo that was not appropriate for small children. 

 

 

Mackaylee and I also got to spend the night at the Heber Valley Girls Camp for a Youth Conference.  It has been a long time since I slept in a sleeping bag, but at least it was in a cabin and our campground actually had ice thanks to Marjorie Pay Hinckley, wife of LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley and the camp’s namesake, who insisted that the girls needed ice when she visited the site in the mountains east of Heber City. 

My husband, Gregg, and I celebrated the Fourth of July with our daughters, my sister, Terri, and her family at Stadium of Fire in Provo.  The fireworks display is always spectacular and big name entertainment included Kelly Clarkson and Carly Rae Jepsen. 

                                                                                                                     

 

                                                          
                                  

At the end of July, my oldest daughter, Megan, and I traveled to Oregon for my high school reunion.  It was fun spending time with my best friend in high school, Sue, who lives in Lake Oswego, and other classmates in Corvallis.  We took a guided Segway tour of downtown Portland, which is a great way to see the city and learn a little history of the area.  Riders can travel quite a few blocks in a short amount of time.  Many tourism destinations offer visitors similar tours.  We got to see the LDS Temple in Lake Oswego.  I was hopeful that maybe I would bump into my son, Shawn, who is serving a mission in the Salem Mission, but no such luck. 

 

 

We have been to our family cabin in Mackay, Idaho, a couple of times this summer, but there hasn’t been much down time this summer for an extended stay. 

 

 

Megan and I have a tradition of attending the Utah Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City every summer.  We haven’t made it yet, but we’re hopeful that we can see a play or two before the curtain falls for the season. 

There’s never a lack of summer happenings in Utah and surrounding states.  The only problem is trying to figure out how to squeeze it all in. 

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Jerusalem in Utah

This past week was my last week on the job as a deputy director at the Utah Office of Tourism and Film, an agency of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development.  Marshall Moore, director of the Utah Film Commission, invited me to join him for a visit to the LDS Motion Picture Studio’s ancient Jerusalem movie set in the small Utah town of Goshen, located south of Salt Lake City.  I had been bugging him to see the set for some time and this was my last chance to visit the set since there were only three more days of filming for the two-year New Testament film project.  I am a big fan of the Bible videos produced by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I had already downloaded some of these video vignettes on my iPad for my youth classes.    

It was a privilege to go inside this closed movie set filled with Roman soldiers, extras, and crew members.  Marshall, Mimi Davis-Taylor of the Film Commission, and I hopped in the Suburban and drove to Orem to pick up two digital media instructors from the Utah Valley University to witness some of the final scenes of the project being shot on film, real 35 mm film.  Producers of the project explained that film is still the best medium, despite the popularity of digital cameras. 

As we drove past dairy cattle in the countryside, we could see the movie set off in the distance.  Approaching the site, we stopped at a guard station to gain permission to enter.  I think I would have driven past the set if I didn’t know it existed, even though it spans the size of two football fields.   

It took the LDS Church two years to build the set out of commercial grade materials in Goshen, a rural Utah County community with biblical references.  The local landscape resembles Jerusalem during the time that Jesus walked the Earth.  Media reports indicate the set is good for 20 years, but the producers expect it will still be standing in 75 to 100 years.  I was allowed to take a few pictures of the set with my phone for educational purposes.  The only other Jerusalem set in the world is reportedly in Morocco.  I have never been to Israel, but experts say the set is very authentic and mostly true to scale.  Some of the scenes will be digitally enhanced to extend the exteriors and provide other special effects. 

The Motion Picture Studio in Provo has a strong reputation for training many prominent LDS filmmakers since it was created at Brigham Young University in the 1950s.  Over lunch, I had a fun time talking with our hosts and guests about BYU’s film reputation.  Many of them, me included, are BYU Communications Department graduates.  We compared notes about taking film, journalism, advertising, and public relations classes in the 1970s and 80s. 

The filming has wrapped, but the Church’s filmmakers are still in post-production to create the videos that will help people understand the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.  I went back and looked at the videos on my computer with more appreciation and was able to recognize the set locations we walked through during our afternoon set visit.  For just a few hours, I felt like I had walked where Jesus walked.  The videos are available online to download at no charge at http://www.lds.org/bible-videos.  More than 900 films have been filmed in Utah.  For information on filming in the state, visit http://film.utah.gov/. 

Here Goes Blogging...

Welcome to my new blog, “Travels With Tracie.”  It brings together two of my passions, travel and writing.  I have spent most of my career writing news stories for radio and television stations and economic development and tourism-related press releases for state government, including the Utah Office of Tourism.  I have traveled to many destinations across the United States and overseas representing Utah, including China and South America. 

Raising three kids and holding down a full-time job has left little time to catch my breath, let alone find the time for creative writing.  My oldest daughter recently graduated from BYU and is teaching school.  My son is serving a LDS mission in Oregon.  That just leaves my youngest daughter at home.  We love having a teenager around because she keeps us young and my husband and I aren’t quite ready yet to be empty nesters.  I also just switched jobs.  The change should give me a more flexible schedule and more time for service and to seek new journeys and adventures. 

I hope you will enjoy my posts as I travel through life and share my faith-based thoughts, images, and observations.  @tracieutah on Twitter