Monday, July 9, 2012

July 9--Dear Elder: Disneyland or Bust!

Dear Elder,

Hi! It’s Monday morning.  EARLY Monday morning.  In fact, it’s 3:30 Monday morning.  I have been awake most of the night because Dad and I are sharing a queen sized bed in the hotel room, and every time I get to sleep, he moves and wakes me up.  Finally I gave up and got out of bed.  I’m not too worried about getting no sleep since I’m sure that after walking around Disneyland all day, I’ll have no trouble sleeping the next time I try.  I just realized that I didn’t send you a letter by pouch yesterday, and I’m very unhappy about it.  That letter with excerpts from the whole family was supposed to be sent by pouch, not email, but I forgot and sent it by email instead.  Now you won’t get a pouch letter this week.  I am so sorry about that!
 
I hope you had a very nice weekend in Mexico and enjoyed going to church for the first time.  Church was wonderful yesterday.  Tanner Tagg gave his missionary talk, and it was wonderful!  He’s learned and grown so much.  His mission was in Tampa Florida and he had some wonderful experiences bringing people to a knowledge of the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Sunday School and Relief Society were nice, too.  Both lessons were on missionary work!

After church, we took awhile getting ready to leave, but were finally gone by 4:30.  Don and Renee came over about 3:00 to take care of Grandma.  It was very nice to see them and they got a kick of watching us load up to go and then leave the car again one by one to do different things and then finally load back up again.  We had a nice time on the road.  We listened to two talks by Jon Bytheway.  One was called, “Turn off the TV and Get a Life,” and the other one was about the lessons we can learn from the war chapters of the Book of Mormon.  We also read a conference talk by Elder Hales called “Coming to Ourselves.”  It was a wonderful talk.  I also called Grandpa on the phone and talked to him for awhile until we lost service.  He is growing lots of eggplant, zucchini, and butternut squash in his garden.

We ate lots of vegetables on the road because I cut up all the vegetables left in the fridge for us to eat so that they wouldn’t go to waste.  We also had boiled eggs for the same reason.  We were supposed to have sandwiches, but forgot the bread.  All we had were two white pieces of bread.  Thomas didn’t want them—he actually doesn’t like white bread and won’t eat toast or sandwiches with the exception of PB&J.  Anyway, we didn’t want to go to the store on Sunday, so Miriam and Katrina both had a opened-faced white bread sandwich, Thomas ate a few pieces of meat, I had pastrami spread with cream cheese, topped with pretzels, and Dad had pastrami spread with cream cheese wrapped over a boiled egg.  The boiled egg thing tasted quite good, so Dad had a couple and Miriam and I each had one, too.

We got to the hotel by 9:00, read scriptures, and were in bed by 10:00.  Right now, Dad is awake, too, and I’m wondering if he will soon say, “Let’s go.”  I hate to wake the kids up, though.  Anyway, we should be in Disneyland by noon, enjoying the rides, etc.  That will be very fun.  It is good to be doing something different for a change, and it has been nice traveling with the fam.

My goal for today is to see, hear, feel, and taste. I want to look outside myself to the needs of others.  I want to hear what people mean when they speak, not just what they are saying.  I want to feel love and the Holy Ghost, I want to taste the joy of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Quite a goal for one day, and knowing me, I'll probably forget all that and just be a hedonist.  I hope not!

I hope all is going well for you, and that you are getting the hang of the language, finding lots of good people to teach, and eating tons of delicious food.  Most of all, I hope you are filled with the Holy Ghost and the pure love of Christ.

We love you very much.  You are in our thoughts and prayers.
Love, Mom

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