Silver Team

Back in June Mori's swim coach came and told her they wanted to test her out for the silver team.  She was excited, but told the coach that she wouldn't be swimming for the month of July.  I was puzzled at why she would tell her coach that.  She did have girl's camp and a couple trips, but was still planning to swim.  I'm totally onto her now and I think I agree.  Silver swimmers swim twice a day in the summer; 5 to 6 days a week (about 4 hours a day).  Not to mention she won't be the fastest in her lane, but the slowest.  Coach Christina came to me and said she is killing everyone in bronze.  She really needs to move up, because she won't progress if she's not getting a good work out. They take August off, so she headed back to swim in September, and they tested her out.

 I hate when she tests out.  She's nervous, I'm nervous; so I send Greg.  He can handle the stress. Parents can not be on deck, but sit up in the mezzanine.  Our swim club just decreased the time you had to swim in order to make it on the silver team.  I was with Seth at his football game, and I'd call Greg every few seconds to check on her.  He said "well she must have made her times on that, because they're going onto the next section".  I was relieved until he said, "BUT she hasn't swam her fly yet!"  She jokes that she looks like a dying seal when she swims the fly, she hates it.  Then he called and said "She's giving me thumbs up, so I think she did."  I said, "Watch out she'll be telling you she needs a pie."  Sure enough she made her symbol for pie.  That girl loves strawberry cream pies from McDonald's more than anything in life.

She came home tired, and cramping.  She put warm packs on her calves and arms, then headed to bed.  I asked her how it was.  She said, "Awesome!  The coaches were all cheering me on, even coach dink!"  (Coach Dink earned his name from us when Mori was 10 and she was trying to test up for the very first time.  There were a group of kids attempting to test that day, and he looked at Mori and said, "You out of all of these kids is least likely to succeed".  I couldn't believe a grown man would tell a 10 year old that!  What a fool!)  Coach Walker, the head coach, even left the gold swimmers to cheer her on.  Coach Walker really, really likes Mori, because "she's coachable".  Way to go Sis!  We are so very proud of you.

As a side note both Kira and Mori were excited for an upcoming swim meet, September 30th and October 1st.  They were really looking forward to seeing where their hard work would place them in competition. I received an email last week for the meet's registration.  I was sick when I had read they had changed the dates from Friday, Saturday to Saturday, Sunday.  I texted a friend and said WHY WOULD THEY DO THIS!!!!  She replied that they were making a point to the LDS swimmers.  I talked to the girls and they said they would just swim Saturday.  Just swimming one day of the meet deems you incapable of winning or placing at the meet. I said, "OK it's general conference."  Mori and Kira were unanimous when they said, "Never mind, I'd rather listen to the prophet, Conference is my favorite time of year!"  It warmed my heart.

A few days later I was talking to a friend on the phone, and she was making fun of one of her friends who was refusing to run the St. George marathon because she wanted to watch conference.  That friend's daughter was also really sad to go go Homecoming over the women's session of Conference.  I said, "Well good for them that they have their priorities in order!"  She responded with "Well that just isn't the way I was raised!"  Frankly I could care less how a person is raised.  When you are an adult you can choose the right regardless of your raising.  If prophets and apostles are going to be speaking, and something trumps that our priorities are out of whack...whether it's swimming, running, cleaning, shopping, etc.  Where are you placing your tent? She stated that Sunday was good enough for her, it was just too overwhelming to listen to all of it.  We are giving a sign to Heavenly Father by what we are choosing to do during that time.  I realize one is not breaking the Sabbath day on Saturday, and I absolutely understand circumstances sometimes render you unable.  However, when circumstances do allow are we taking the opportunity to feast on the words of latter day prophets and apostles and align our priorities to show HIM that our hearts are turned to Him?  There is so much turmoil and chaos in the world, we need to know His will and desires if we are His people.  How will we know if we aren't listening, if we are too busy to stop and listen?  As a side note if we are missing those times, and going back as a family with those we have stewardship over and really listening it's different than altogether deciding we have more important things, and not ever going back.  I guess that hit a nerve.

Children, you might be asking yourself in years to come what our family would have done if Mori and Kira had chosen to swim on Saturday.  In Executive Counsel meeting dad and I decided that Sunday WAS NOT an option.  However, if the girls did swim on Saturday we would go and support the girls during the morning session, and request that no one was put on relay teams so that we could make it back for the afternoon session. The following Saturday we would have scheduled the morning to watch conference  as a family.