Mommy and Daddy got in a really big airplane and moved to Australia this week. I was good for Mommy on the airplane. She wasn’t too uncomfortable.
Here’s Mommy the day before we moved to Australia. She is 25 weeks pregnant with me!
Daddy had to go to work when Mommy went to the third ultrasound, so Grandma Sorenson came to the appointment. I showed Grandma and Mommy how I can swallow.
Here’s my face and my open mouth.
Here’s my profile.
“I have a terrible temper, but I control it, it doesn’t control me.”
–Edmund Z Carbine, 1864-1926
I think I may have inherited the temper. Edmund Z Carbine could honestly say “I haven’t been angry in over 15 years.” I wish I could say something similar.
…the Mormons as they are called are my people, their God is my God, where they live I live (If I can) where they die I die, and there will I be buried. You see that I cannot come back.
–Adelia Rider Carbine, 1846, Iowa
Despite being driving from her home in Nauvoo, she still knew where she stood when it came to the gospel. It was true. It is true. What else matters?
When I was 14 years old I began reading the New Testament. I could see that the Lutheran doctrine did not correspond with it, so I must find something in accord with the New Testament. The more I read, the more I was convinced. Then I had an opportunity to go to some Mormon meetings. I found the spirit of God was there and the love of the brethren was great. I then began to pray in secret, alone by myself, and investigated the Mormon gospel [for three years]….I believed that the Mormons had the true gospel. But I wanted to be absolutely sure that Joseph Smith was a prophet for all people ridiculed him and told lies about him, but I did not believe it….I was sleeping in our barn on the hay in the month of August. I had prayed out by the fence before I went to lay down, but when I laid down I was seized upon with some evil power so I knelt down by the bed to pray again but the evil power was tormenting me and held me in torment; Then I lifted my voice in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, then the power left me. I was on my knees. I felt a wonderful change. I was looking and listening and heard a still voice but low saying “Joseph is a true prophet of god. The gospel is true. Why are you waiting to be baptized and receive the gospel?”…I then went up outside the barn to give thanks to God for answering my prayer. I raised my hands up high and said “Halleluia! Praise be to God and the Lamb for answering my prayer” and said “Yes, Lord, I will be baptized into the Church soon as I can.”
–Hans Olaus Sorenson, 1849-1944
Answers will always come to our honest prayers, even if it takes a long time. Are we senstive to the Spirit’s whisperings?
They robbed and stole from me my life time earning….Two long years rolled by and I never had a good night’s sleep thinking how I could get some way to recover that which had been stolen from me. Then a messenger appeared to me and called me by name, and told me not to do as I was thinking, as that was a cowardly act. And he said, “Look”, and he showed to me many great and marvelous things, and said to me, “All you have suffered and lost is not as much as a pencil dot on this paper compared to what there is in store for you. Now be contented and be happy, and do not as you were intending to do.” I awoke and found it to be a dream or vision, and jumped right out of bed and wrote it down, and I have not been troubled since, and I don’t want to harm a hair on any man’s head, but want to do all the good I can. I called that my Savior, as it kept me from doing that which I ought not to do.
–William Benona Graham, 1852-1926
Sometimes I want to hold a grudge. But that’s not the way of the Lord. I hope I can keep an eternal perspective.
[Anna Clementina Hawkins] kept company [with Lucien] for about two years. He asked [her] to be his wife. But he was not a member of the Church and didn’t want to become interested…. And [she] felt that she couldn’t marry one who was not a member of the church and was not interested, so she dismissed him, which wasn’t an easy thing to do, as she cared a great deal for him. [She] had always prayed that she would choose the right one for a husband. So now she decided to fast and pray about it….Her prayer was answered and she saw in a dream her future husband just as she later saw him as he sat talking with her father, the night he came to apply for the teaching job. She was looking through a glass door behind him. And as she went back through the kitchen, her mother said, “Is that your young man?” and [Anna] replied, “Yes, that’s him.”
–Anna Clementina Hawkins, 1865-1944
It’s sometimes hard to have faith that Heavenly Father will provide for us and guide us. But He always will. Even without dreams to guide us.
Since I still haven’t received my visa, I am still in Chicago, waiting for the next stage of life. My husband has his visa, so as soon as I get mine we can mail off our 800 pounds of stuff and then get on a plane ourselves.
I’ve started some projects in the interim. The one most interesting to me right now is family history work.
A few years ago, when I first got off my mission and did not yet have a job, I scanned a number of personal histories from Dad’s Big Box of genealogy. I found them interesting. I wanted to continue the project but then I got a job and got busy. The files were backed up to a CD and on my computer.
Of course, at least once in the next few years, my computer crashed and I lost the hard drive completely. Last year, someone asked me if they could have a copy of the files. To my distress, I found that the CD backup was cracked. Thus, hours of scanning and OCR-ing (is that a verb?) were lost. Back to the Big Box, I guess.
So when I found out last week that I still don’t have my visa, I thought maybe this was a good time to pull out the Big Box and start over. Besides, last year I acquired a more powerful scanner when I married my husband. So, I set the scanner on autofeed, and in a few days the files were scanned. (Of course, the scanner lamp is almost burned out…) Now I am OCR-ing those that didn’t read well. I’ll add files to the server as I get to them.
I have simply loved reading the stories of my ancestors. My husband and I just returned from a Church History road trip. Now I find out that our ancestors were there at Winter Quarters and Far West and Nauvoo. Reading their stories makes it even more real than it was last week.
Here are some questions for the immediate family. Do you know who is who?
(an elderly Indian came along and had pity on her; after she healed, he sold her to the settlers at New Amsterdam [supposedly])
(the mother and daughter, both midwives, paid their way by caring for the captain’s wife)
(he was shipwrecked coming home, landed on a remote atoll in the South Pacific, and lived on turtles for two months before a rescue party was successful)
(she later had 14 children of her own, including our ancestor)
(in Utah!)
(I have a friend from there)
Are you intrigued? Click on the Sorenson Family History tab above to find these personal histories. Here are the ancestors from above. (As I add files in the next few days, I’ll update this post to indicate which file to reference for the details.)
To celebrate our anniversary, we went on a road trip to church history sites.
We started in Winter Quarters in Florence, Nebraska (outside of Omaha). I have never been there before. Because it was the first stop and we hadn’t yet talked to dozens of missionaries, I enjoyed it the most, I think. I was very impressed with the sacrifices the early Saints made AFTER all the struggle in Missouri and then leaving Nauvoo. They were driven out of their homes time and again. Now they were so grateful to have a roof over their heads. 10-15 people spent a year in a tiny cabin smaller than my storage unit. They had gone through so much. And then they would have the ordeal of crossing the plains. So many people died, and yet they were grateful to the Lord for the gospel in their lives.
And should we die before our journey’s through,
Happy day! All is well!
We then are free from toil and sorrow, too;
With the just we shall dwell!
But if our lives are spared again
To see the Saints their rest obtain,
Oh, how we’ll make this chorus swell–
All is well! All is well!
My husband and I attended a session in the Winter Quarters temple. It was a special experience. I felt close to the early pioneers who gave so much. I wondered what Heavenly Father will ask me to sacrifice. Has he already asked me? Have I willingly given of my time and talents? Will I be ready and willing to do what is asked of me in the future? I don’t yet know what “plains” I’ll have to cross.
We then drove to Missouri. We visited the Independence Vistors Center, Liberty Jail, Adam-ondi-Ahman, Far West, and a few other locations where various sections of the Doctrine and Covenants were received.
Then we headed to Nauvoo. We’ve both been there a number of times. By this time, we’d be driving a lot over the past few days. So we were pretty tired. We went on a tour of the Joseph Smith Mansion House and Red Brick Store, and we enjoyed walking the streets of old Nauvoo. Tuesday morning we enjoyed the sunrise over the Mississippi River (though we were a little too late for good pictures) and we went to a session in the Nauvoo temple. Another good experience.
After a stop for Nauvoo fudge, we headed on home.
When (if) we have time again, we’ll have to go to Kirtland and Palmyra. For now, I sincerely hope our next trip will be to Australia!
Daniel and Grandma sing “I Am a Child of God.”
I left my husband to organize boxes while I went with Mom, Elizabeth, Daniel, and Jessica to visit Jenny, Leah, and Chris in Utah. Mom, Jenny, and I went to Women’s Conference Thursday and Friday while Elizabeth babysat and visited some friends. It was a great time. We stayed up late and played games. And Mom, Elizabeth, and Jenny all shared good advice about preparing for baby.
It was a great time, but it was good to come home to my husband. I told him about our weekend. He says it sounds like a long sleep over. Yep, that’s what it was.
Awaiting Elder Holland
Mom, Jenny, and I heard Elder and Sister Holland speak at Women’s Conference.
Daniel and Leah chasing each other
Daniel and Leah enjoyed chasing each other around.
A giggly video.
Daniel and Jessica BYU fans
Siblings Daniel and Jessica are BYU Cougar fans!
Cousins
Cousins
Cousins Daniel, Jessica, and Leah
My unborn baby with his cousins
Me (and unborn baby) and my nieces and nephew (note my growing bulge!)
Grandma with her grandkids
Grandma and her grandkids (except for the one on the way)
We are well in the middle of packing. The apartment is littered with boxes, and random things are on the floor. Last night, we mourned the fact that we won’t have a clean home again for a long time. Now we must be in a state of chaos for a while. First, we’ll be living somewhat temporarily in my parent’s house. Then we’ll finally get Visas and head to Australia. We’ll living in temporary corporate housing for a few weeks. Then finally we’ll move to a more permanent home. Hopefully, we’ll then get all the goods that we’ll ship over there.
In the mean time, I’m packing up things we won’t be using for two years. It didn’t take long to pack up our books. They fit in about eight small U-Haul boxes. I’ll miss them, but most of them can be gotten from the library. And some are on the Web. But I cried as I put my crystal glasses in a box (with lots of cushioning). I didn’t feel like doing all the china last night, too. It’s so hard to say “good-bye,” even though I know we’ll see this stuff again.
I do not have much experience with packing. When I went to college, I took my suitcase out in a two-door Nissan. Then I supplemented what I forgot with my frequent trips home, every six months. I had to move my apartment a few times. When I needed too, I just waited until moving day and took frequent trips in the car I was borrowing. I don’t think I ever got boxes to move things.
When it was time to return home from college, I waited until the day after graduation when my parents showed up with the huge conversion van. It took a while to fill it up with my stuff. It was packed to the gills. But again, I don’t think I did fill boxes. Most things were loose in plastic bags. I was more concerned with finishing cleaning the apartment to pass my cleaning check.
When I got married, I again did multiple trips by small car to move my things in to my husband-to-be’s apartment over the course of a few weeks. It took a while. But it got moved in.
This time, it’s different. We’ve already taken down one four-door car full of stuff. It’s amazing at how little fit in the car. Then yesterday we took down a van load. Maybe another car or van on Friday, and then next Saturday, we’ll take 17 foot moving van. Most things will go in to storage. But, as my husband points out, maybe it will be very nice to not be tied down to material goods.
I guess we’ll see.
I told one woman in my ward that not only are we moving to Australia, but we’re also having our first child. Her question surprised me.
“Are you coming back to the States to have the baby?”
“No. Australia has excellent medical care.”
“But then your baby will be an Australian citizen….”
She told me of a number of people, cousins and friends of cousins and neighbors, who had babies in a foreign country and then the baby had dual citizenship.
I know I had read it somewhere, so I found it again.
This is from an Australian citizenship website.
I am about to give birth in Australia. Will my child be an Australian citizen?
A child is an Australian citizen by birth if, and only if, at least one parent is an Australian citizen or permanent resident at the time of the child’s birth in Australia.
So never fear, my child will not be an Australian citizen. I am sure you were all quite worried. I’m just glad the answer was so easy to find.
FYI, one of the ways to become a U.S. citizen is
By birth, either within the territory of the United States or to U.S. citizen parents
Visit source.
