Dear
Matthew,
Hey Happy Birthday! I hope that you get a lot
of missionary work done, unless you get a day off or something. Do you get days
off? Anyways here are some pictures of snow and cold people for your companion. At church today there was a returned
missionary, remember Marshal Levi? Well he changed like a bunch and if really
different, I didn’t even know him and I could see the difference. If you
remember the farewell talk he gave he was quiet and unsure but today he was
very confident and stuff like that, anyways
its super cold in the house and my room doesn’t have the bunkbed any more! Its
awesome. Anywayseres good bye!
-THoams
Dear Elder,
Happy
Birthday you old man! You’re freaking
turning 20! Ew. Just kidding!
What are birthdays like in Mexico?
Are you going to do anything special?
How does it feel to be a… non-teenager?
I hope that your day goes well!
Love,
Katrina
Matt,
Happy
Birthday! It’s the big 2-0! How does it feel? Haha. How are things going?
Marshall Levi came home today! What a funny kid. We’ll have to set up a big
clock for you when you give your homecoming talk because missionaries tend to
go WAY over time. He threw off the whole church schedule! Well I hope you enjoy
the pictures! Have a great day
Miriam
Dear Elder,
Hi! Happy Birthday!!! Are you having a good day? I hope so!
I hope it is the best ever. We
went outside and took pictures for you yesterday. I hope you liked them. Tell your companion that we wish we were in
Mexico right now. We are soooo tired of
the snow! It has been cold, foggy and
snowy for quite a long time now. I’m so
sorry that we don’t have any pictures from youth conference. We are the lamest picture takers in the
world! We are so happy that you could
baptize Angel. Now that he’s entered in by
the gate, he is on the road to happiness!
I know Heavenly Father is so happy with the work that you are
doing.
Today we are
going to tear out all the green carpet.
Preston is here to help. So far
we haven’t done much today, but we did get to Skype with Lily and
Cassandra. Dad and I sang
“Protocoligorically Correct” to her a few times because Slipper and the Rose is
her favorite movie, and that is her favorite part of the movie. I can’t say she loved it necessarily, but
she’d sit frozen, listening to us sing.
There probably isn’t much difference between the old guys singing it on
the movie and a coulple of old people singing it on Skype.
Cassandra!! (She has asked that I don't post public pictures of Lily, so...sorry!)
Yesterday I
went to 6 hours of church. We stake
leaders attend every ward conference, and this year the stake presidency decided
to double up on them as often as possible so that we would be done with all
ward conferences by the beginning of March.
I think it’s a genius idea. At
the ward conferences, I am teaching 15 minutes of the lesson to the young
women. It went pretty good
yesterday. My lesson leaves ample room
for the girls to talk about what they’ve learned and share their experiences,
and I wasn’t sure if they’d participate much, but they did a great job. I plan on improving my lesson to include
Christ more. The lesson is on becoming
truly converted, and as President Geslison pointed out in his sacrament meeting
talks to the wards, conversion is all about coming unto Christ.
Last night
we played a couple of rounds of that one game where you write a sentence, draw
a picture, write a sentence, draw a picture, etc. It was lots of fun, but after two rounds, Dad
had to leave, so we read scriptures and had prayer with him and then played
another round after he left. It was lots
of fun. After that, I was excited
because it was only 7:00 and I thought I was going to be able to get to bed way
early. I got into my nightgown, and
started brushing my teeth when the guy from Lowes came over and then Preston
came over. So much for making an early
night of it!
Saturday Dad
spent much of the day at Lowe’s. He was
not happy. Their computer wasn’t working
and it messed up our cabinet order. We
were there for hours Friday, too, and have to go back in today. Fun stuff.
We are getting some discounts because of it, though. Saturday night the Yarringtons came over for
a double date with me and Dad. Dad and
Bro Yarrington talked guns and then we had fun playing Dominion a couple of
times. It’s a pretty enjoyable
game! After that we went out for frozen
yogurt. The kids were so sweet; they
watched the Yarrington’s kids for us. It
was a good evening.
I told you
what we did Friday—Lowes. Besides that,
the week has consisted of Dad and me working, the kids going to school,
etc. Wednesday night the kids went to
young men/young women. They played a
game based on “bachelor pad.” It was
Thomas’s idea which is funny because he hasn’t even seen the show. We looked up it’s premise on the internet,
and he planned challenges and everything.
He said that at first the activity didn’t go well because no one would
listen to him, but then he got a microphone, and it turned out very well. Good for him!
I’m so glad the leaders stood back and let him do it.
Miriam has
had a frustrating week because she kept getting ice cream and Katrina and
Thomas kept eating it. Last night, she
and Katrina talked Thomas into baking them some brownies, and it looked like
Miriam would finally get a treat, but, in a cruel attempt at a joke, Thomas
used salt instead of sugar in the recipe.
I discovered his devilry as he was baking them when I tasted a bit of
the batter. Why I kept his diabolical
plan a secret, I have no idea. After a
few minutes of trying the brownies, Katrina was chuckling about the joke, but
Miriam went to bed and we probably wouldn’t have seen her the rest of the night
if it wasn’t for Preston making a surprise appearance and cheering her up. After he left, Jon came to further assistance
by giving Miriam his ice cream and not letting Thomas have any of it. Most family dramas center around food, you
know. Just kidding!
Well, Matt,
that’s about it. I wanted to send you a
picture of Dad tearing up the carpet, but it’s 11:00 and he still hasn’t
started! It’s going to be one of those
days! I love you, Matt. I am so glad that twenty years ago you were
born into our family. You play such an
important role in my life and I am so proud of you!
Love,
Mom
Happy Birthday!
Dear Matt,
Thank you for your emails, I am glad
that Angel got baptized! What a great
picture that was! I liked what you said
about being on the front line, lots of
food for thought. I have been trying to
be of more use lately, trying to reach out to people more.
I hope that you are having a wonderful
day! Yesterday I really enjoyed being in
church, I had read a conference talk about what we think about during sacrament
and I was looking forward to trying to be more focused on some things. Also Elder Levi returned from his mission
and talked yesterday, it was really wonderful to hear him, he mentioned, and I
thought of you and also of my mission when he said this, but, he said that he
realized just how important it was to follow all of the rules to get the blessings
of Heavenly Father. So yesterday was a
good day.
The rest of the week was not so smooth, I
finally closed on Grandmas house, and it ended up being a pain, I had to call City Power to transfer the utilities to the new owner, but they decided
to just shut off the power, so my poor renters were in my mom's basement with a
new baby and no heat in 20 degree weather, so I had to do some quick calls but
they weren't nice about it, they finally got it turned back on but now they
want to charge me 75 bucks, sigh, Then when I went to pick up the check, I did
it on my lunch hour but it took longer because their scanner was broken and I
was three cities away, so I called my aide to cover for me being late but he said, that
he had to go to a doctors appt. Arrrrgh!
Anyway, so now that we have money we
went to finalize our kitchen cabinets, and to make that long story short, they
had a glitch in their computer system and it ended up taking days and hours of
our time, so... we still have to go into Lowes today AGAIN! but on the interesting side, for a while I
had a check for $180,000.00 for selling my moms house!!!!! I guess I could have run off the a small
island somewhere :) but mom would have been mad so I just split it up with my
brothers and sister.
Today I am going to rip out the green
carpet in the upstairs so they can finish painting and then I will see about
getting the chirstmas lights down. We
had fun this morning skyping with Lily and Cassandra. Well, I love you and can't wait to hear your email,
we always read them at family night to all of the kids, I really hope that you
have a wonderful day
Love,
Dad
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