It's all in a name

I am one of those silly people who has had my life planned for as long as I can remember.  Of course that includes the names of all of my children.  Over the years the names have changed, but when I was about 18 I decided that I wanted all of my children to be named after family members or people who mean a lot to me.  I have 4 incredible sisters who have been wonderful examples and great friends to me.  Ella is derived from my little sister Eleanor's name and her middle name Marie comes from my older sister, Megan Marie.  I love all of my sisters and want Ella to emulate them in many ways throughout her life.  Each of my sisters has a strong testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  They have all followed my parent's examples to value education.  Each of us have chosen different fields to study, but everyone has been very driven in obtaining as much education as possible. Two of my sisters have already earned graduate degrees; Erin has her PhD and Megan has her master's degree.  My three older sisters are all married and raising their children.  I look to their examples as mothers regularly.  They are all very talented women.

When I think of the true characters of Megan and Eleanor, the two sisters whose names Ella carries, I see many similarities.  Both of these sisters are very service oriented.  As we were growing up Eleanor was always very affected by what she would see or hear about.  I remember her always wanting to help save those in the world who were living in difficult conditions.  In fact, I always thought she would choose to be in the medical field because that seemed to fit her passions so well, but she chose to get her degree in graphic design (art has always been another talent of hers.)  Eleanor is still a very sensitive soul.  When she sees someone struggling in person or through the media it is very common for her to start crying and sympathize with them.  Megan and her husband John are both very proactive.  They met in Africa on a study abroad and since then John has traveled all over the world doing research for his degrees (he just finished his PhD at Penn State.)  Megan is always serving those around her.  She faithfully serves in many different capacities in the church, but she is also an incredible friend and neighbor to everyone she meets.  Both of these sisters, okay all of my sisters, are intimidatingly intelligent.  Meg and Eleanor both earned and kept full scholarships to BYU with their ridiculous ACT scores and grades.  Meg got her degrees in Art History and Eleanor just finished her Bachelor of Fine Arts.  Last summer El did her internship in New York at Martha Stewart.  They are obviously both very talented.  I hope that as Ella grows up she knows that she has the potential to be anything she wants.  She is surrounded by incredible people on both sides of the family who will always love and support her.