Two years later

Two years ago:
6 children,
large savings,
no home.
income from Android apps.

Now:
7 children,
smaller savings,
permanent home, over 90k in debt (for home),
more income from Android apps.  Also, income through a series of children's books.

Progress on the hard road: minimal.

But . . . I found an old vow recently.  The vow was made almost 12 years ago and then forgotten.  The vow was specific enough and far enough away from my current life that it's elements seemed very difficult to bring about.  The vow was to

serve Heavenly Father through love and effort directed to 3 things:

• Guitar, song, and music in general

• French language , heritage, literature, and culture

• Study of the eukaryotic nucleus and all the complexity therein.

I should give a little context by noting that in LDS doctrine serving God is a broad concept and whenever the phrase is used there is an implicit reference to Mosiah 2:17 in the Book of Mormon.  In that verse an old and wise king teaches his people about service, saying

 17 And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn ^awisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the ^bservice of your ^cfellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.

So 12 years ago I made a vow to serve God through love and effort directed to guitar, French, and the study of the eukaryotic nucleus.  It's taking some thinking to figure out how to honor that vow.  But I'm going to give it a shot.

The guitar is starting to come out at family gatherings.
French is becoming my companion as I jog or mow the lawn or commute and suddenly my children have started to ask to learn the language.
But how to work in the bit about the eukaryotic nucleus . . . I don't know.  I can write.  I'm good at physics and can learn enough of a given computer language  or system to do mostly what I want to do.  But . . . I spend my days working for a defense contractor.  It's been much too long since I've lived in a world where anyone thinks about the detailed workings of a cell.

Guitar and French can be a part of daily life without being the center of it.  But my feeling right now is that to truly serve by directing effort toward the study of the eukaryotic cell I may need to figure out how to make that my day job.  That may take a little time and creativity.

Goodnight.