The New Me - Clean Shaven

I finally had to shave this weekend. Jaclyn and I were looking at different apartments and places to live this past week and our bishop let us know of a elderly brother in our ward who willing to give a place to us for free, sort of. To make a long story short, he recently returned from a 2-month stay in the hospital due to some infections. He moved in with his son, but he wants to be back in his own place. Since his wife recently died and he is still recovering, he was looking for someone to help him make and eat meals together, keep up the yard, clean the house weekly, in addition to have family scripture study, prayer, FHE, and a weekly planning session all together. He would provide the basement of his fully furnished house for rent free, utilities free, and complete with pictures of his family and wall decorations. It was a great deal on the money end, but for us to live we would be more like guests and not be given the freedom to make it our own home. For example, of the two bedrooms, we could only really have one--one of those would be given to any of his family that came over and Austin would have to move out for the time being. Besides, Jaclyn and I would be so busy meeting his needs, we wouldn't have much, if any, time to raise our own family. How does shaving fit into all of this? Well, when bishop and I talked about it before going over, bishop candidly told me the brother would probably not approve of my facial hair. He has a strict personaly, growing up in the military and while also serving at the MTC and in the temple for a number of years. Facial hair was just out of the question. Jaclyn and I discussed it and we were not happy about it, but we figured if it meant free rent and I would have to do it eventually for school, it wasn't so bad. Well, I shaved it and almost cried. I can empathize now with many of my sisters who cut 10 inches of their hair for "Locks of Love" and feel a piece of them is missing. I feel the same way. Although the housing didn't work out with this brother (even after he called us back and offered to pay us $100/month to live there), we talked to our current landlords and came to a great conclusion after an open and understanding conversation. We are staying put for at least until December and they don't have any plans to change things after that anyways. Jaclyn, Austin, and I can finally feel at peace knowing we don't have to move, but we don't feel at peace quite yet with the clean shaven look. It's going to take a few weeks.