Dear Elder,
Happy Birthday!!! Do you realize that in less than a day after you get this, you will officially be twenty one years old? Yay!!!! So...did you get the SD card. If you've gotten it already, it's a miracle. Also, please, please, please tell me if you got our Christmas package. It was not the one Grandpa and Grandma sent you, it was another one. I really need to know if you got it. Please, right now, before you read any further, send me an email telling me if you got the package or not. Do not read any further till you DO THAT!
Whew. Okay, back to my email. Thank you for your last letter. It was very informative, and I really enjoyed reading it. To keep me from having to ask the same questions in every letter, just remember one "who" and two "what's" Who did you teach last week? What else did you do? What are you studying? Ha ha. I hope that your week was good, Matt. I am glad that you are teaching Ellery, and I hope you keep me posted on how it is going. I'm glad that you are working up a storm! Are you still the Zone leader, or are you in a different zone now? As a Zone leader, how do you choose topics to teach about? I'm sure it has something to do with a still small voice, ha ha.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Mosiah 4. I like how your words about the scripture put into perspective our total dependence and utter reliance on the pure love of Jesus Christ. None of us deserve any blessing, any help, and certainly none of us did anything to deserve the atonement. We are all beggars, unable to earn any part of His suffering, and yet He gave it freely. No wonder King Benjamin also says that if we spend every minute of every day praising God, we would still be unprofitable servants. There is no way we can repay him! All we can do is to use the gift He freely gave to become like Him and, when we return to Him, to find that we know Him because we have become like Him.
It has been a good week, except for the middle where I had to stay home sick from work one day and go to the doctor and get antibiotics, but on the bright side, I was back to work the very next day, and during that one day at home, I got a lot of sleep and I read a lot. I finished reading North and South the day after. I think I told you that it's not a book about the Civil War, but about a young woman who moves from Northern England to Southern England and how she overcomes the prejudices she has of her new southern neighbors, and how her associates have to overcome their prejudices of her. You know, even though those who shout "prejudice" the loudest would flatly deny it, prejudice is rarely one-sided. Anyway, because of being sick and because of having a good book to read, I didn't get much done this week, ha ha.
I need to backtrack a little and tell you that Monday night we went over to the Taggs for a neighborhood get-together. It was really fun. We watched the video of the neighborhood's productions of "Scrooge" which you were too old to be in, Matt, but Miriam, Katrina, and Thomas were all in it. It was so cute! Miriam had an overbite because it was when the orthodontist had just finished over-correcting her under bite, Katrina had the fanciest costume in the play, and Thomas was supposed to pass out candy canes during one of the songs, but somehow never got around to it. I loved seeing all the kids of the neighborhood the way they used to be. I couldn't even recognize some of them. They also wanted to watch their production of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," but Thomas violently opposed the idea of everyone seeing him on stage in green tights as Grinch Jr. For whatever reason, we didn't end up watching it.
On Thursday, Katrina took luggage to school and she with the others of her drama group who were going headed off to the theater association's workshop thingy. She didn't bring a phone, and I didn't hear a thing until about 4 on Saturday. On Friday I was still taking it easy and Thomas was at Hayden's, so after work, Miriam and I watched a documentary about how horrible all the food we eat is. She likes to watch documentaries, and it was fun to watch it with her and try to separate truth from scare tactics. After watching it, we both vowed to go to the farmer's market every Saturday when spring comes along, ha ha. I think Thursday she and I also went out on an ice cream run. It was fun to spend time together. After watching the documentary, I drove in to the laundry where I had the great privilege of helping Dad seat a new toilet. After that we ate out and then...you guessed it. We came home, ate ice cream and watched a movie--a John Wayne movie, which we were too tired to finish, ha ha.
Saturday I cleaned and also worked hard on compiling stuff about you, Matt, for the ward history. I had started it earlier, and only had to add pictures and captions, but that took me a long, long time. I really felt impressed to do it, though, and I got it done. I also cleaned the house, and Dad and I went to Thomas's game. They didn't do so well. They were missing their "star player," and were playing tenth graders for the first time instead of ninth graders who have been easy for them to beat. Anyway, those two facts kind of freaked them out because they were playing no where near their abilities. If they had been, they would have given those guys a run for their money. After that, Dad, Miriam, Thomas and I went to the mall. Dad and I mall walked while Thomas and Miriam dinked around. Well, before that we went to the car wash, which ended up being good because we waited at least 15 minutes for our turn, and had fun talking together. After the mall, we got dinner at Wendy's and ate it together at home. Katrina got home around 9:00 and it was fun to hear her tell us all about her trip. I hope she writes about some of it to you, Matt.
Today I went to five hours of church, and now I am home writing to you. I went to lots of church because it is ward conference time again, so I join the other members of the stake young women presidency and visit wards for their ward conferences. We had two today. I taught part of the lesson given to the youth, and I got the best part to teach because I get to talk about an amazing article from the New York Times. I love the article and the whole lesson topic which about the importance of sharing family stories. Other parts of the lesson were on gospel-centered aspects of the subject, but it was nice to also bring in this article to find out what a major publication was saying about it.
Basically, Matt, kids who learn family stories are better equipped to handle the ups and downs of life. They are able to better deal with stress and to overcome trials. They also have a more positive outlook on their family's past. What this last point means to me is that, though their pasts may be no better than other people's pasts, they have a more positive memory of it. It's pretty cool, Matt. And what is also totally cool is that if you get on family search now, you can add family photos and stories, AND you can see the photos and stories of your ancestors that other people have added Later on we will be having family home evening. Miriam is giving the lesson, so I look forward to that. Tomorrow is a holiday, so we are all off work and school. How cool is that! We haven't decided what we are going to do. We'll probably talk about it during family home evening.
Okay, Matt, now it's Sunday night. We did a Mattlibs for you, but this time Dad wrote it and inserted the changes, so when you read it, don't blame me. Just kidding. He did a good job for a rookie. I hope you like it, Matt, and that you have the best of birthdays serving the Lord and our fellow man. I love you!
Love,
Mom
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