The Life of Sandy
(This was written by Sandy's husband, while Sandy was taking a nap. I am going to try to recall facts off the top of my head, but Sandy may want to add &/or delete when she is awake, so take these facts with that in mind).
Sandy was born in the rather historic city of Alton, Illinois, which had been made famous for its status as a place of riverboat gambling, a stop on the underground railroad, the home of Elijah Lovejoy, an early hero for freedom for the press, and as the home of Robert Wadlow, the tallest human in recorded history.
She grew up in the nearby town of Godfrey, Illinois, across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Missouri. She attended Gilson Brown Elementary School from 1973-80, West Junior High School and then Alton High School, class of 1986.
On May 3, 1989, Sandy began her mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She was called to the Norway-Oslo mission, where she was to teach the gospel in Norwegian. But she was visa-delayed for seven weeks, and began her mission in Ventura, California. When she finally got to Norway, she served in Oslo, Trondheim, Skien, and Stavanger. It was in her final city of Stavanger where she met Elder Hellebrand for the first time, and got to know him for a few weeks before she had completed her mission.
Sandy returned home to Illinois after her mission and attended Southern Illinois University, where she received a Bachelor of Liberal Studies in 1993. She then moved to Provo, Utah to hang out with buddies she had met on her mission while she prepared to serve a two year stint in the Peace Corps. It was in Provo that Sandy met Rob for the second time, although, again, neither recognized any special sparks other than a good friendship.
In 1993, Sandy left for a stint in the Peace Corps that took her to Guinea-Bissau, in West Africa. Guinea-Bissau shares a border with Guinea-Conakry and Senegal. She served as an agricultural volunteer, with Fula women rice farmers. She found that the Guineans already knew how to plant rice, but the cultural exchange was still beneficial for both parties.
In May 1995, Sandy suffered from kidney stones and was sent home a few weeks before she was due to leave the country anyway. All medically evacuated Peace Corps volunteers were sent to Arlington, Virginia for treatment, and who happened to now live in Arlington, but Sandy's old friend Rob. This time they read C. S. Lewis together and watched Elton John concerts together and attended Les Miserables on Broadway and overall it was a very different atmosphere than it was before. The kidney stones then sort of mysteriously vanished, as if they had completed their work as Cupid's little arrows.
In September 1995, after only four months of dating steadily, but six years of friendship behind them, Rob and Sandy decided to get married. They married in December 1995 in the Washington, D.C. Temple. Both were as sick as very sick dogs that day. Rob had a fever of 104.7, and Sandy was exhausted after battling the flu for over a week. They then U-Hauled across the country to Oregon, carrying Sandy's great-grandmother's 100+ year old upright piano in tow. Across the country, Sandy and Rob stopped in Illinois to have a reception there, and then in Utah to have another reception, as their friends and family were quite spread out geographically.
Then it was on to Oregon, where soon Rob and Sandy decided to buy the smallest house in the city, I'm sure. But it had a nice big yard and lots of fruit trees and it was in a nice quiet neighborhood. But as the family grew by a dog, then a cat, then a kid, then another kid, it became expedient that they obtain another place of residence. In October 2000, they moved within the same city to a larger house in a newer neighborhood, with lots of young families.
After close to a decade in Corvallis, Sandy and family moved to Virginia where Rob had accepted a math teaching position. She enjoys the new house and is currently serving as an early morning seminary teacher. She gets up pre-dawn and teaches high school kids about the scriptures before they head off to school.