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Patricia

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Winter Olympics sometimes haunt Patricia Shelley Bushman. Raised in Downy, California, she figure skated competitively from age 5 and participated in the Olympic trials at age 14. But before the 1976 Olympic games, she made the agonizing decision to retire from skating. Unhappy because of her choice, she determined to always achieve personal excellence thereafter.

Ten years after studying film at BYU, 30-year-old Patricia was working her dream job in the motion picture industry and teaching figure skating at the Rockefeller Center. She felt "deliriously single" in a life full of service, Church, reading, quilting, and writing. But at age 33, another decision-Serge Bushman-came into her life, and they fell in love in New York City.

Four years later, she was raising their first son in Moscow, Russia. Life in Russia was challenging and lonely. Buying sufficient food required half-day trips across the city to 12 different stores. "How did this little girl from southern California get here?" she asked herself regularly. Now making home in Kansas City with husband, son, and daughter, Patricia reflects, "I guess I have learned to act upon the good works that I see in others, and that has made all the difference in my life."
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