smells like home

I love my mother. She sent me some of her famous peaches from the tree in our back yard. Have you heard of the famous Graf peaches? They are incredible. Truly amazing. Pretty much world-renowned.

One of my favorite times of year is when the peaches come on at the Graf house. There's a two week window of opportunity to harvest when they're perfectly ripe. The peaches demand our attention for those two weeks and we must obey, so they don't go to waste. My grandparents come up to help and sometimes my aunts. We spend a lot of time picking, washing, peeling, slicing, canning, making jam. It's a time for peach cobbler, peach pancakes, peaches and cream. It's a time for family, for chatting and laughing and working together.

I love the sweet peach smell when you walk near the trees. I love climbing up to pick the ones that fall off the branch into my hand. I love inhaling that sweet scent, feeling the itchy peach fuzz on my arms. I love walking into the kitchen to see my mom's whole counter covered in giant orange and red fruit. The whole place smells like peaches.

Imagine my delight when I opened this package and was hit with that exact same smell! I stuck my face in the box and breathed it in. It smelled just like home. It's heavenly!

Last week was really tough for me. I felt overwhelmed at my new job (I got yelled at on my first day for not printing a form fast enough - yeesh). I miss the mountains terribly. I came to the realization that this New York thing is really happening, probably for a couple years. I had a tearful meltdown on a crowded street in the middle of lunch hour in Midtown - thankfully Klane was there for a shoulder to cry on. I planned an emergency weekend trip to Utah, then realized it wasn't possible. I realized I'l miss Peach Season at my parents' house! It was a rough week.

I'm amazed at how mindful our Heavenly Father is of his children. So many things happened last week to build me up and give me some perspective. The lesson we taught on Sunday was on overcoming adversity by turning to the Savior. So I spent the whole week studying scriptures about how Christ perfectly understands what we're feeling and is always there for us, and realizing that my trials pale in comparison to the things others have gone through. These verses from D&C 121 and 122 were especially great:

"My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes."

"...Know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good. The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?"

This week has been a lot better. It's still hard, but I'm going to be okay! This is where we're supposed to be right now, and we're grateful to be here. We'll have our whole lives to live in Utah, but for right now we're going to live life in New York to the fullest. We can't always choose our circumstances but we can always choose our attitude, which shapes our experience. Happiness is best found in the journey, not in a destination.

(But a few fresh peaches from home can't hurt!)