Sunday, April 28, 2013

April 28--Dear Elder: First Installment

Thank you so much for writing about yourself.  You are very right to choose that over commenting on my letter.  You don't ever need to do that unless there is something especially want to say.  I want to know what you are doing.  Always.  I thought you knew that, but maybe not.

What??  You haven't been keeping a journal?  Go stand in the corner!!!  Just kidding, ha ha, but, believe me, you will treasure every single bit you write about your mission for the rest of your life, so please write a journal.  I always want to hear more about your mission than you usually write, but I've taken comfort in the fact that (I thought) you were keeping a journal of it all.  So get busy, young man!    "Smiley face."  Don't worry about catching up.  Write what's happening now, and then if you have more time, you can do a bit of catch-up.

It is nice to read that Elder Campos is very tidy, because it's important.  I hope that you are tidy, too.  If you aren't, it's easy to start.

How to Be Tidy In Three Easy Steps
1.  De-junk--ge't rid of anything you don't need.
2.  Organize--find a place for everything (including your study materials, toiletries, EVERYTHING), and put everything in it's place.
3.  Upkeep--Always put stuff away right after you use it.  Don't say "I'll put it away later." Don't leave something out because you plan to use it later, put it away.

Heavenly Father is a God of order, not chaos, so hooray for Elder Campos.  Also yay for you and good ol' Elder Campos for following all the steps in your weekly planning session.  You sound like an awesome team.

BTW, I see you aren't spending money.  You should.  I'm sure there are things that you need.  Go buy them.  After I finish testing, I am going to be subbing for a teacher every day for the rest of the year, so I'm rich, ha ha.  Like I told my sister Elizabeth the other day, I am making money and have no time to spend any of it.  Win win.  So, please don't hold back on buying what you need.  Do you need anything that you can't get that we can send you?  PLEASE tell me.

I sure hope you were able to make your rescheduled appointment with Martin, he sounds like a wonderful man.  I try to pray for your investigators by name, so thanks for telling us about him.  Who else are you teaching?  I also am praying that you guys will find people to teach and that your ward will help you.  Along with that, I have been praying for missionary opportunities for our family.  We are trying to invite people over for dinner more often.  Hey, it's a start.

I'm sorry you got to your meeting to hear the mission president late, but I hope it wasn't too late.  Sounds like you got to hear most of what he said.  What is a capasitation?  I can tell that the mission president is an inspired man.  I am glad he talked to you about loosening up and not beating yourself up when things fall through.  You are doing a great work!  The Lord is on your side!  Rejoice!!

Don't worry, we know that you have to write in a hurry.  We completely understand that you don't have time to be gramatically or politically correct.  You can't offend us, we love you!  The things you write are awesome, so just write, write, write.

Oh, Matt, I am deeply sorry about the little boy whose parents are contemplating divorce.  His life will very hard!  Little children suffer immensely when adults (like that dad) act selfishly.  It must be so hard for Heavenly Father to give us our agency to choose what we will do.  I comforted knowing that He is perfect and all powerful and all loving, and that through the atonement of His son, all will be made right eventually.  In the meantime, it is so sad and hard and I hope and am praying, that they can somehow work things out.  Is there any chance of that?

Our temple marriage and the covenants that we have made to each other and to Heavenly Father have blessed our family and our marriage.  We've had some very hard times, but we are sealed to each other for eternity, and that knowledge helps us care more, try harder, and never give up.  It deepens my love for your dad and you kids because my most cherished desire is to be with you all forever in the presence of Heavenly Father, Heavenly Mother and our beloved brother and Redeemer, Jesus Christ.  So...you're welcome!  I pray fervently and daily that all of you kids will have eternal families of your own because I know that is what brings true happiness.

Thanks again, Matt, for telling us more about what is happening in your life.  Good news, bad news, in between news, it all warms our hearts.

We have had a very nice week.  Daniel and Elizabeth and kids along with Jessica and Henry did come over for family home evening like we had planned.  We had Mexican food, and of course I use the term loosely.  Oh wow, I just realized that when you come back you'll be able to cook for us!  I cannot wait! I'd better get myself used to hot food so that I can enjoy it, right?  What can you cook?  Can you make tamales?  They're probably too time consuming.  What do you cook?  Remember the Mexican market we have here in town?  Hopefully you can buy everything you need.  Have you ever been fed anything gross?  I remember the picture you sent of soup with chicken feet in it.  Were they good?  It seemed like they would be all bones.  Okay.  Back to non-food subjects.

BTW, Thanks for sending the picture of you with that family.  You said they have a big house. What is it like?  They have cute little kids.  :)  They all look like Gringos.  Are there many in your area?  It is also nice to see Elder Campos in the picture.  Tell him "hi" for us!

Back to FHE.  We ate and then Thomas conducted family home evening.  Dad read to us a bit from Great Grandma's biography for our family history moment, and then Elizabeth gave a lesson.  After that we decided we needed to play zoom, schwartz, perfiggliano and as you can imagine, that really initiated Henry into the family.  Thomas also taught us how to play "Hey, Bob."  After that we ate cookies made by Katrina.  Then Daniel, Elizabeth and kids went home, but Henry and Jessica stayed.  It was fun talking with them and having family scriptures and prayer with them.  Dad and I had work the next day, so we went to bed, but they stayed chatting with the kids until 11:30.  It was pretty cool.  Thomas was quite disgusted when I still made him go to early morning seminary the next day, ha ha.

Tuesday, who knows what we did.  Wednesday, Thomas went in to interview at the water park and got the job.  Hooray!  He's very happy.  Miriam's test to get licensed got postponed till this Wednesday, so you might want to say a little prayer for her.  Dad's aide took the test multiple times before he passed.  She cannot afford to do that.

On Thursday I did lots of visiting teaching.  I also went to Relief Society where we did humanitarian service.  It was fun because my visiting teaching partner, Emily (remember Emily, my walking buddy?), and two of the sisters we visit teach sat at the same table, plus two ladies on our street as well as others.  We had fun visiting, stamping, and gluing.

Friday after work, I had a half hour to pack and then Katrina and I went to the youth camp leader retreat.  Young Women's camp is in June, and this retreat was to help the older girls plan the activities they are going to do as youth camp leaders.  They are all teamed up as big sisters to younger girls so that they can watch over them and teach them at camp.  I am over Katrina's age group.  Some of her little sisters are girls in our ward which is nice.  I really enjoyed being there with Katrina and getting to know the other girls better.  We played "Cardinal Puff," with water of course, ha ha.

We got home around noon yesterday and Dad was gone to Salt Lake with his sister, Renee and her daughter Becky to visit with his Aunt Alice and Uncle Earl.  He brought along a recording device and asked her all sorts of questions and got lots of family history which is good since Grandma and Aunt Eleanor are gone now.

 I talked to Cassandra on the phone when I got home and wished her a happy birthday.  She and Emerson were traveling to the big city for a hot date.  They had Lily along and were dropping her off at my sister Sarah's house to be baby sat.  They babysit Lily all the time, and I am so jealous!  Cassandra liked the DVD we got her for her birthday.  Lily got a present, too, and Cassandra is going to send us a video of her opening it.  We can't wait.

After talking to Cassandra, I visited with the kids and napped and then went in to do laundry and to bring Jessica and Henry packing boxes.  I stayed and helped them clean and pack a bit.  They just finished finals yesterday are going to work at a family camp ground this summer.  Henry will be a maintenance guy, and Jessica will be working with the little kids again like she did last year.  Apparently the little kids' favorite activity was to set off mousetraps in a wading pool with long sticks, so she spent all last summer setting mouse traps.  I hear she's quite and expert, ha ha.  My sister, Elizabeth called me about boxes.  She was already there working away.  She is amazing.

After that, Dad picked me up at the laundry and we went out to eat at El Azteca which is as close as we come to good Mexican food around here.  They've changed locations--by Fat Cats--and I was glad to see lots of people eating there.  It was nice to eat with Dad and here all about his visit with Aunt Alice.  While we were away, Thomas mowed the back yard and then went to Jayden's house to hang out, Katrina mowed the front yard and had 5 friends over to watch Les Mis.  Preston's family gave Miriam the DVD for Easter, so I said they could watch it if she skipped 2 parts.  Miriam cleaned her room, studied for her test, and went on an ice cream run for Katrina and guests.  Later, Jon came home and took Katrina out for ice cream and then picked up Thomas at Jayden's.  He got a sunburn in Fillmore somehow.  I'll have to ask him about that today.

Besides having family scriptures and prayer, that's about all we did yesterday.  Today I have a camp meeting.  Besides that and church, I just hope we have some good quality family time and get to read a  conference talk.  I also hope to go back to bed before church, ha ha.  We are on the 1:00 schedule.

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