Monday, February 19, 2007
Personal Histories
As I promised months ago I am now posting mine and Nate's personal histories that we wrote for my family newsletter this January. They had to be only two pages so they are a very brief synopsis but may interest you nonetheless. I am putting them in the comments section otherwise this would be the world's longest post and I know how Shawn hates the falling walls of text. Enjoy!
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Nathaniel Wayne Sechrest
ReplyDeleteI was born in Salt Lake City, UT on January 6, 1982. 18 minutes later my twin sister Amanda was born. I am told, though I don’t remember, that I was very sick when I was born with something called the croup. You would think that there is no way that I would have gone through twenty-four years of life and not learn about a disease that almost killed me and I’m sure is very common, but here we are and I still have no idea what it is, maybe I’ll ask Alayna. Alayna just told me it’s a really bad cough, so yes I was almost killed by a cough, try not to laugh at me.
My first memory, though people claim I’m making it up, is standing for the first time in my parents living room. I remember pulling my self up and then falling over. This may not have been the first time I stood but I do remember the self-satisfied feeling I got so I am inclined to believe it was the first. I don’t remember much else in specifics about my childhood, mostly its snippets of experiences and trips but I find it difficult to put together a complete story. The important facts, however, are these: I was raised in the same house my entire life. My family lived there from before I was born until I left on my mission. I was the only boy with an older sister and a younger sister, so I suppose I was a little spoiled for the first eight years of my life when my younger brother Daniel was born. He had the advantage of being the youngest and a boy as well as being good at baseball (this will make sense later) so I soon lost my pride of place. He became the spoiled one. Don’t worry he’s grown out of it now, mostly. We spent our summers down at the ranch. My maternal grandfather grew up a rancher in Salina, UT and he liked to take us down to the ranch any chance he got. He was very active in sports playing everything he could even being drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals. He decided he would rather go to college where he earned a Fulbright scholarship and was shipped off to Italy to teach English. These two facts had an interesting impact on my childhood. While I have always enjoyed sports I have never been a natural. I was more of a reader. My cousin on the other hand was always the best at every sport he tried, especially baseball. I could never hit the little ball. This set us at odds often enough, but being the only two boys within our age group who regularly came to family social events, made us fairly competitive with each other. I do have one other boy cousin who we would always try to keep from playing sports with us because he was bigger and slower and liked football it made it less fun, ironically, the “unathletic” one was a strong possibility for the NFL draft until he blow out his knee for the second time.
In high school I played basketball. I love basketball, and I even had a chance to play at a junior college after high school but decided that as much as I loved it the academic scholarship to BYU was a better use of my time so that was the end of my competitive career. I started playing because it was expected, but after playing a little I really came to enjoy the game itself. Because I played basketball I had built in friends all through high school, we got into our share of trouble, none of which I will relay here because I still have one more year on the statute of limitations that I’ve been waiting out, so next year feel free to ask me and I’ll tell you all about some of our “capers.”
I served my mission in Romania Bucharest. I don’t think my mom has ever forgiven Romania for not being Rome, because she grew up in Italy for a year while my Grandpa was there on Scholarship. When I opened my mission call she thought I said Rome and that was it, but when I clarified Romania, she looked disappointed and has had little to no interest in ever seeing it. In the name of full disclosure, few people ever have had an interest in seeing Romania, these people don’t know what they are missing. I served in seven different areas with thirteen different companions. I started out I Sibiu where my companion (also 6’5”) and I had the honor of running the resident Anti-mormon gang out of town. We also got a chance to teach a discussion to, get this, the King of the Gypsies. Yes the king of all the gypsies in the entire world. It turns out he is also their spiritual leader (Pentecostal) but he isn’t very creative, so he liked to chat with us to get ideas. This contributed to our running the anti-mormon gang out of town because they also happened to be anti-gypsy. You may be wondering why we didn’t try to convert the king of the gypsies, it is mostly because he ran the gypsy kingdom like the mafia, so if he had gotten baptized so would every other gypsy in the world and there would have been major problems. Those of you who have met gypsies know what I’m talking about those who don’t, trust me it would have been a problem.
From Sibiu I took a short hop to Pitesti for a three weeks in a pre Christmas transfer then I was off to Bucharest, where I got my greenie. We had fun together until one day who should we run into but the leader of the anti-mormon gang from Sibiu. He and I had a “discussion” and I haven’t seen him again. From there I went to Ploiesti, Bucharest again, and then spent my last three months as a branch president in Deva. I know you are all probably thinking that I just like to talk about my calling, but I mention that because it played a special part in the branch there. It made me sad when I was called initially because I would have to spend much more time with members, something I had never done much, preferring to proselyte and find new converts, in my mind my job was to find and baptize, other missionaries could work on reactivating. I think that probably was a large reason why I ended up there. Long story short, I know “too late”, Deva was the greatest place I have ever lived and I love the members from that branch more than any of my friends from home, and that is the single place I am most excited to go now we are in Europe.
Now to the most important and influential part of my life. When I got home I returned to BYU but not right away. I decided my first order of business was finding a wife. Predictable I know. I dated the girl who wrote me on my mission for a month or so before she broke it off, I am a man I can admit that. It was in hindsight the best thing that ever happened to me. I then dated several girls all in this seemingly unending quest to find the perfect girl. In dating all these girls I made friends with many and that is what made the difference. One day I got a call from a girl who was friends with the girl who wrote me on my mission. She told me there was a girl that she worked with that I had to meet. I was cooking a pot pie at the time, and so I was reluctant to go but decided that I had 35 minutes to go down and meet this girl and get back while my pot pie cooked, so I went. That girl was Alayna. My pot pie burned. We were married 10 months later, It was hard being at BYU after we got engaged, watching my friends meet girls, date them, get engaged, and then get married, and in some cases, get pregnant, all in the time we were engaged. The day finally came and we were married in the Salt Lake Temple. We then finished school and took off for Law school at Notre Dame. It has been a great experience and we have really learned to depend on one another. As you all know the next stop was London and we will let you know how that went for us as soon as we get back. As I write this we are on our first vacation with each other since our honeymoon so you´ll forgive me if I end it here.
Alayna Kristy Sechrest
ReplyDeleteMy name is Alayna Kristy Sechrest, but it used to be Alayna Kristy McVea. I was born on June 9, 1985 in Orem, Utah. I have lived in Utah, Indiana, Arizona, and I currently live in London, England. I am tall with brown hair and green eyes. Some of the most important things to me are Family, Friends, and Education.
Family
I have always been a homebody and have always had a soft spot for my family. My Mom, Peggy, and I are better friends now than we ever have been. I have a lot in common with my Mom and I got a lot of my skills and personality traits from her. She was always very creative when I was growing up. I remember she always had a new adventure and something new for us to learn. She taught us how to make Indian jewelry out of feathers and beads and she told us the best ways to build forts. I remember every few years my Mom would bring out her wedding dress and let me and my sisters and my friend Rachael try it on. I remember thinking that the dress was so long and pretty but the hat was a little silly. She always encouraged all of us to try new things and be brave. One year my voice teacher wanted me to sing “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music for my high school concert, but Mom suggested that I do something a little more fun so I sang “Don Juan” instead and for once, I wasn’t even a little scared to get up there and sing. I remember that she knew every word to every song and she knew the best bedtime books like “Where the Wild Things Are” and “The Unicorn That Had No Horn”.
Some of my best memories growing up were the times we went to Pismo Beach. My Dad worked at Vandenberg Air force Base so every summer for a few years he would get us the best hotels and townhouses on the beach. We would swim and boogie board and my Dad would take us to cool little beach shops and the best seafood restaurants. I love Pismo so much that Nate and I even went there on our honeymoon.
I have four siblings. We grew up in the desert of Mesa, AZ and my two brothers and I were buddies when we were little. Nick is two years older than I am and Luke is two year younger. Nick was always the leader of the gang. He came up with stuff for us to do, and usually this stuff got us in trouble. He came up with the idea to build a tree house in the Palo Verde tree in our back yard and I fell out of the tree more than once. He always came up with the stories we used to torture Luke with and then Hannah when she came along. We told Luke that Grandpa said Old Man Marley Lived in the shed by the basketball hoop and then we would dare him to go out there at night and touch the door, and we would occasionally lock Hannah up in the “Dark Room”. The boys and I played night games with our neighbors and we McVea’s would gang up on the neighbors. Even though we all fought each other, Nick would defend Luke and me and make sure we stayed mostly out of trouble.
As we got older, I became better friends with Hannah and Shelby. They came along later in the family and so I always saw them as an annoyance when they were little but I probably was just secretly jealous that they were such good friends with each other. Now they are what I miss most about home. Hannah keeps me cool because she knows what to wear and what music to listen to. Shelby has the same space cadet streak in her that I did and entertains me with her strange pets like Stella, the Black Widow Spider.
Now my family is my husband, Nate, and me. I met Nate while I was working at the Expedition Café at Thanksgiving Point, long before I even started BYU. I was only a freshman so I told Nate he would have to wait and I worked hard on school and dated other people. That lasted about two months before Nate finally convinced me that he was the guy for me. We were married on May 1, 2004 in the Salt Lake Temple. We have been married for almost three years now and have been so busy we feel like it has flown by. Nate’s schooling has taken us across the US and now to the UK. In addition to adding Nate to my family I also added his wonderful family whom I love.
Friends
Besides my siblings, my best friend growing up was, and still is, Rachael Mangum. Rachael and I were in the same class in fourth grade and have basically been inseparable since. Of course, we have had world-class fights but we always come back together. It also helped that our moms were best friends too. Rachael helped me to be creative and spontaneous. She was always good at anything she tried and so I competed with her and she helped me be better. She taught me how to be a little girl because I had grown up around boys. She helped me get my first boyfriend (and break up with him). We came up with the craziest games and looking back I think we were truly insane but we had so much fun that it didn’t matter. One of my favorite things we did was borrow the Mangum’s video camera and record little skits that would make our parents crack up. When I was around Rachael, I was not self-conscious and shy. She brought out the fun side of me. She visited me here in London about a month ago and I don’t remember the last time I had so much fun, except maybe the last time I saw Rachael.
I have had many other friends along the way, including Marie Hatch who kept me on the straight and narrow, my crazy freshman roommates, and Nate’s friends and family, but none as lasting as Rachael.
Education
Even though I am now on a short sabbatical from BYU, I am learning more than ever. Last year in Indiana I learned how invaluable a college degree is so you don’t have to work at the Blood Bank forever, and that cold weather and homesickness really does make me physically sick. In London I have learned that the world is filled with so many different and interesting people that there is no way we could really understand them all. I have learned here that I am braver than I thought I was and for the first time I feel like a real grown up. I have learned that people are basically good and that everyone takes the world at their own pace (the pace here is slightly faster than it is back home). In marriage I have learned a little. Nothing in the world can make you instantly unselfish but marriage comes pretty close. I suppose parenthood would do that too, but I wouldn’t know yet. Nate is far more adventuresome than I am and he has taken me places I never dreamed I would be. The adventures we have faced in life have brought us closer to each other. They have also made me reliant on the blessing of the gospel. I have big plans and even bigger dreams and I may even accomplish some of them, but for now, I am very content where I am.
i really enjoyed reading these. very nicely written. and i felt like i learned more about the both of you. how often does you family do this newsletter?
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing. It was interesting to read about your lives and get to know you better. Living across the county, the details of our family lives are harder to come by.
ReplyDeleteIt is a monthly newletter and we usually just write about what went on that month but for the start of the new year they wanted to do a little bit more. I really learned a lot reading them even from family members I am really close to.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing these wonderful life stories. I feel like I've had a little trip through your lives and know you better and love you more. It was so interesting; you're both such good writers. I don't check your blog as often as I'd like. I hope I'll do better. Again, thanks. We're glad to be related to you.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Aunt Verona