Living with "A Pair of Ducks"

Greetings from sunny Colorado!  We made it!  My family and I are out here for a month of missionary preparation and training at MTI.  We are learning about phonetics (read twisting our mouth in goofy positions), cross cultural issues, and how to stay emotionally/spiritually health as missionaries.  Our girls are also being taught some of the same concepts, but at a much simpler level.

One of the things we learned this week was about a yellow ducky named "Yay Duck".  Yay Duck has everything good and exciting happening to him.  Some Yea Ducks for our family is getting to go to France, traveling, and making new friends. 

But there is another duck.  This duck is not so much fun.  His name is "Yuck Duck".  He has been through a lot.  Some of our family's Yuck Ducks are moving, saying goodbye to dear friends, and missing our church family.

We have some really awesome Yay Ducks and some really hard Yuck Ducks.  Yay Duck and Yuck Duck always swim together.  They are inseparable. Where one is you will find the other. Together they make a "pair of ducks" or a paradox (Yes, I know.  It's cute and punny, and there was a lot of groaning when the teacher said it.).  But it is true.  We are living with a "a pair of ducks".  We have good, we have bad.

So here is our "Pair of Ducks" update.

Hannah's Yea Ducks

• She loves her "school".
• Her teacher's name is Hannah too.
• She is making some wonderful friends, and she has told me that she is good at making friends and wants to make some more.
• She is learning how to express her emotions by talking through them.

Yuck Ducks

• She feels nervous when meeting new people and trying to make friends.
• She misses her doggie, Chai girl.

Amelia's Yea Ducks

• She is potty trained!  And now she has her first set of big girl undies, complete with cartoon characters.
• Since she is potty trained, she was graduated from the 1 year old's classroom to the 2-3 year old classroom.  (They have cooler toys and crafts.)

Yuck Ducks

• She is teething and not sleeping well and cranky.  She also knows what she wants, but cannot always communicate that to us, and then gets crankier. 
• She misses mommy and daddy.  This is the first time where she's spent the majority of her day away from us and it is hard on all of us.

Jen's Yea Ducks

• We get to live in one place for a month!
• I am gaining perspective on my children and getting to see them through a different lens (This also counts towards a Yuck Duck).
• I am learning amazing tools, like how to twist my mouth and tongue to make sounds not found in English, to help with my language learning process.
• I am meeting and connecting with other missionaries.

Yuck Ducks

• I miss my home, my family, my friends, and my church.
• I miss a quiet rhythm.  (We eat all our meals in a dining hall together, which is very noisy and over stimulating.)
• I know that more hard goodbyes are coming up and that each month that passes takes us closer to saying goodbye to loved ones for three years.

These are the "pair of ducks" that we are living with right now.  There are many Yay Ducks and many Yuck Ducks.  And it is okay.  They go together and it is okay to feel both.  So Dear Reader, if you could pray for us about our Yuck Ducks and rejoice with us about our Yay Ducks, we would be so blessed.

I know that I am not alone in this, so what are your Yay Ducks and your Yuck Ducks today?  How can I rejoice with you and pray with you?