Bio of Tana Martin Page

Family: Married Randy M. Page. Children: Michaelene, 21, has just left the MTC for Portland, Oregon to work and wait for her visa to Caracas, Venezuela. She is an accounting major at BYU. Nate, 19, is in the MTC on his way to Osorno, Chile. He is on the BYU track team. Emily, 16, is trying to get adjusted to school and life in Utah. Chris, 14, is having lots of fun adjusting to school and life in Utah. (We just moved to Provo from Moscow ID). We have been blessed with four terrific kids who love being together and making each other laugh. They are all smart, talented, athletic, and good looking - not sure where all that came from, but it's all true.

Church: For four years - until our move to UT - I served as the Pullman WA stake RS president. That was an incredible blessing and awesome opportunity - much like serving a mission. I have just recently been put in as a Laurel Advisor.

Education: My husband and I share the same field only he is in Community Health while I'm more in School Health. He got his master's degree at BYU and I taught school at Farrer Jr High while we dated. We then went to Illinois for graduate school. Our first-born wasn't in a hurry to leave heaven so I got my master's degree while Randy got his PhD. We walked across the stage to get our diplomas when she was less than a week old. After graduate school we did a lot of moving around the country - to lots of places I note others from the mission field have been. Our journeys were in order... Logan UT, Cortland NY, Greeley CO, Moscow ID, Columbus OH, Moscow ID, Provo UT.

Work: Sharing the same field with my husband has worked out quite nicely. I teach his classes for him (he is a professor- now at BYU) when he is out of town or is real busy, and we write college textbooks together. I was adjunct faculty at the University of Idaho and for about the past five or so years I have usually taught at least one class a semester. My favorite class to teach is stress management - because it's so applicable! Right now I'm "retired" but I might begin teaching at the Y in the next year.

Comps: Susan Lathrom and Sandra Morrison in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Susan Whaley in Tegucigalpa. Haydee Cerrato in San Jose, Costa Rica. Estela Marroquin, Soni Ferre, Pamela Christianse, OraLee Black, and Kathy Burnhan in Managua, Nic. Haydee Cerrato in Liberia, Costa Rica.

Memories: I will never forget an unexpected over night trasnferr to Managua. President Eager told me when I entered the mission that I would never serve in Nic. because I was too blond and too little. I replaced a sick sister Whaley. I was taken right away to our new room where I discovered a huge garobo in the bathroom. (There's more to that story, but that will have to do for here.) I also remember when President Muren made a "zone" of all Welfare Service sisters in Nicaragua to work with all the branches there. Little did we know how we were working to help prepare them to literally go it alone for a long time.

I'll never forget awakening to machine gun fire while serving in Nic., or the day we traveled to Managua and back - all day just missing gunfire and having people in Masaya stare at us through cracked doorways because we were the first people they had seen walk down the streets after a Sandanista raid. My mission helped define who I wanted to become and the kind of family life I wanted to have. It has made all the difference not only in my life, but in that of my children as well.