Ever Changing Path

Most of the time, we mortals assume our life is on a predictable and planned path. We want to believe we have control over what our days will bring and ultimately, our destiny. But rarely, is this Truth!

Sure, planning for our future, setting goals, getting an education, saving money, and looking forward  to the future are important aspects of being human and ensuring relative success in living. But believing that our lives will be exactly as we plan can set us up for disappointment and frustration.

We are here on this planet to learn to be better humans. In so doing, our lives will take bends and turns to place us in the very situational classrooms needed, to learn just how to do this. And, we will continue to be placed in situations until we learn the lessons we need to learn.

That being said, our journey these last few months (years??) has not been the one we planned. Retirement, relocation, travel and adventure on the great and beautiful roads of the US has not come to pass as we imagined. Instead, we have been taken on a journey of the heart. We have been asked to travel deep into the canyons of compassion, the byways of understanding, and the towering peaks of grief, forgiveness and love.

There is no road map for this journey. We have been asked to travel this road one mile at a time. We have only been given the Compass of the Holy Spirit to Light the path and show us the way we must go. Some days, the road has been dark with clouds of confusion and fear, and we have lost our way. But always, when we sought the Light, we have been shown the way, once again.

No matter the difficulty of the paths we've been asked to walk, we have been shown  astounding beauty to sustain us; we've been taught how to love more deeply; and we have come to better understand the meaning and necessity of persuasion, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, and love unfeigned. We have been given knowledge and insight, as well as, pure and personal spiritual gifts and experiences to lift, encourage, and strengthen us.

We, of course, will continue to plan, because planning is part of the fun. But we have learned to be a little quieter as we plan. We have learned to listen for that still, small Voice who guides us on the best path, this path of being human, and learning to do it a little bit better, each day.


August/September community service via Sister Jose's Women's Center and Arizonan's for Children and JustServe.org

Finding Our Way Down New Paths

The last two months have been a true exercise in resilience and flexibility. What started as a predictable summer, took a quick turn towards unpredictability. Within a week of taking our house off the market, we received an offer to buy, that we could not turn down. This offer required a 4 week move out and close date, and so the whirlwind began.

Sorting, packing, discarding, and selling 25 years of belongings was no small feat! Preparing two adult children for college residency for the fall complicated the move, while determining where we would live and where to store our belongings, stimulated our best organizational skills!!

By June 26th, we were packed, kids moved to their college apartment, belongings in storage, final papers signed, and we closed the door on our family home for the last time.

With the future wide open for Ray and I, we determined we would restart our traveling service mission in a new 24ft Lance travel trailer. After finalizing that deal, we hit the road.

First stop, our mountain house in Alpine, AZ for a week to catch our breath, enjoy the 70 degree weather, and plan our next adventure.

By mid-July, we were on the road and headed for Cloudcroft, NM. What a beautiful, quaint little town. We parked our trailer at Deerhead Campground just outside of town. We began everyday with a hike into town for breakfast, to enjoy the free WiFi so we could work, and then set off for some adventure.

Our service projects here included learning to crochet tiny newborn hats, crocheting squares for blankets, and photographing headstones at small family cemeteries for the genealogy project "Billion Graves".  As always, we watched for trash pick-up along our hiking paths.

As we crossed New Mexico, we loved encountering serendipitous adventures like the Very Large Array space observation fields (think the movie "Contact"). The first nuclear detonation site, White Sands Missle Range, and Sunspot Solar Observatory  and a many ghost towns. One we just had to check out was Mogollon, NM.

We returned to our mountain home in Alpine, again to regroup. Ray is scheduled for work trips all through August, so our cross-country service mission will continue at the end of August, while celebrating our 35th wedding anniversary.

With starting and stopping our planned year-long road trip, we decided, after much looking and deliberation, to buy a house near Oracle, AZ. We've downsized in square footage and stuff, but up-sized in the surrounding beauty. We have an abundance of desert and mountain hiking trails right outside our back door, mountain views surround us, and new adventures await! 

This summer we've found time for family camp outs, and celebrated our oldest granddaughter Jennah's wedding, a long awaited trip to the temple with our oldest daughter, Heather, all our summer birthdays, a quick trip to Disneyland, and a new car purchase for Audrey, and Sam starting at ASU in just two weeks.

Our next travels will take us to the Pacific Northwest for a stay in the San Juan Islands, then across country to New York, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Illinois, celebrating our anniversary with a church history tour and stops at as many temples as possible. We will continue to seek out service opportunities using the JustServe app. We are so thrilled to be able to enjoy our beautiful and amazing country and the chance to find ways to meet new people, share The Gospel, and serve along the way.

Our lives are thrilling and sometimes move faster than we want. Yet, we are blessed beyond measure. We are blessed with people to love, the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, our health, and each other. On to new adventures...

On the Road and Off Again

Last week, we set off on our Great Traveling Mission, heading south to pick up some warm weather and begin our adventure. The weather was perfectly warm and the desert still golden with Palo Verde blooms, all the way to the US border. Our drive south was perfect, stopping for some really "bad-for-you" road food, while we slowly wove our way down the back desert roads, listening to old 70s music. One of our road games we've always played is "guess the year of that song".  We have tons of fun and get to reminisce and share memories generated by all those old rock songs.

Our first "Service Rest Stop" was just north of Tucson, near one of our favorite little towns, Oracle, Az. It's a slow, artsy, oak and boulder filled town. We love the once-a-week farmer's market and the little community garden. Sitting in the shadow of the Catalina mountains, it was the perfect first stop.

Here we decided to get out and clean up the desert nearby. It didn't take long until we had two garbage bags full of road rubbish, construction trash, and debris from the winds we had all week. This is an easy way to serve any community or neighborhood and we thought it was a good way to start our mission and something we can do wherever we go!

We didn't stay long in Oracle, as we were feeling some pressure to get down the road, due to a few appointments later in the week. But before leavine, we had a little lunch at the Oracle Patio Cafe, where you can always find happy people, fresh delicious lunch, and live music on the patio. With our bellies full, we headed south on Hwy 77 towards Tucson.

Searching our JustServe app for our next service opportunity, I was excited to learn of an organization called Impact of Southern Arizona, a community action organization serving homeless families, home bound seniors, low income families, and so much more. One of their probrams is to provide books to children to whom t hey provide services.  Books are donated and collected from the community and then distributed to every child they serve!  What could be better...books and kids!!

We decided to focus on the importance of books in our lives this past week after talking with friends, a couple of weeks ago, about how reading can change and save lives; how sharing a book together can be a way to communicate when nothing else seems to work; about the traditions and love we can share with each other by reading together and how imagination, self-esteem, learning,  and relationships can be strengthened through reading.

So this past week we focused our service efforts on books and reading.  We collected books for kids. We began reading to each other while driving. We started a summer reading club with our grandkids who came to visit, and really started focusing on the power of books, reading, and sharing.

With this on our minds, we were had to smile (really big) when we saw this young couple reading to one another while we were having lunch one afternoon in north Tucson. It was amazing experience to see teens reading, laughing, and discussing a book instead of staring at a screen.

Books enrich our lives! Reading Matters! Pass it on!!

Until next time,

Ray and Merrie
The Adventurists