How wonderful it was to get your last email! I love reading about the people that you are teaching and what is happening in their lives. I am so sorry that Jose's uncle died, and I hope that you will be able to talk to everyone that you want to this week, including all of the smiling families you encounter while you are walking in the street.
I think that is wonderful that you were able to apply what you learned in D&C 58 to your life and that doing so blessed you so much. I hope that you have lots of success contacting the people that the members at the activity referred you to.
The clay pots that you described sound really neat. It will be so fun to see them! The best thing, though, was reading that you really love me. I love you, too Matt. Thank you so much for being my boy. My love for you wouldn't change no matter what, but the good things that you do in your life bring me a lot of happiness, and there isn't a nicer thing you could do for me than to be such a faithful missionary.
We have had a very nice week this week. It was the last week of the term, so I spent a lot of time at work helping students to finish up their assignments and get the turned in. We have had a lot of substitutes lately because my one co-worker is still out after being in a car accident, and my other co-worker took some time off to be with her daughter who had a baby this week. They will both, hopefully, be back to work tomorrow. Their being gone didn't increase my workload or anything, but I miss having them around.
Neither Katrina nor I can remember what we did on Monday night, but I do remember getting to talk to Lily on the phone Monday after work while I did my grocery shopping. Cassandra was making pizza, and Lily was pretty excited about that. She had fun telling me all about stuff, and I had tons of fun listening. I think we had chicken soup for dinner that night. It's weird that I can't remember what we did that evening.
Tuesday Thomas's track team was doing a fundraiser at the school. It was a hypnotist, and Thomas wanted to go, so that is what we did for family home evening. It was kind of a boring thing to watch, but I think the students on stage were having fun. Anyway, we did our duty and supported the track team.
Wednesday night, Thomas did most of his eagle scout project. He had 10 kids and 9 adults all over at the church working hard to clean and repair PE equipment for Hayden's mom who is the PE teacher at the elementary school. We cut, filled, and sewed beanbags, scrubbed stuff, and tried to repair the big parachute, but we didn't finish that yet. Sister Spotten I are going to work on that some more this week. Thomas worked hard going door to door and calling on the phone getting people to help out, and everyone really came through.
Thursday was the last day of school for the term and for the week, so Dad and I took advantage of the long weekend to book a 2 night get-away. We left Thursday after Dad taught night school and didn't get back home again till 4:30 in the afternoon on Saturday. We had lots of fun together. We didn't really have any plans of what we wanted to do. It was just fun to spend time together doing whatever we felt like at the moment. Let's see... we ended up touring the state capitol, going to a museum, visiting a family history center, watching the new Muppet movie, eating lots of good food, and kicking back and taking it easy. The state capitol is so cool. If I had realized how beautiful it was, I would have visited it much sooner, ha ha. It was a very fun weekend.
While we were gone, Thomas had a track meet. He participated in a co-ed relay, and he handed off the baton to Abby, but she wasn't running fast enough and he almost ran her over. Luckily there was no on in the lane next to them, so he dodged her, and for some reason they weren't disqualified for that, so that's good. Thomas has been doing a lot of reading lately which is good since he has a hard time falling asleep at night. First he read "The Other Side of Heaven," and now he is reading Brandon Sanderson books which he really seems to enjoy. In fact, everyone seems to enjoy Brandon Sanderson's books, so I think that when I finish reading Les Miserables, I am going to read one of his. I'm at the part in Les Miserables where Jean Valjean has emerged from the sewers of Paris, bearing Marius on his shoulders and is again accosted by Javert. I'm glad I'm reading it again because I'd forgotten how detailed and gripping the story is, having only watched the play these last few years. I'm reading the unabridged version, Matt, but I have to admit that I skip some of the parts where Hugo goes off on tangents, ha ha.
Saturday after that, Dad went off into the boonies and had a ton of fun. Katrina, Thomas,and I made and ate dinner together and had fun talking. After that, we decorated for Easter, and the kids got a surprise. Matt, do you remember the mini bear village that we'd bring out at Easter time when you were little? Well, I found one on Ebay and bought it. I put the little pieces in medium and small plastic Easter eggs. A couple of weeks ago I began growing wheat grass, and it is now tall and green, so yesterday when we decorated, I put the plastic eggs in the grass. After all the decorating was done, I told the kids that they hadn't inspected the decorations good enough, so they started examining things and found the little bears, cars, swings, houses, etc, in the eggs. They were pretty excited, especially Katrina. Now we have a little bear village in the living room for Easter.
Jon just came by for a minute and I showed him the village. He remembered it, and thought it was cool that I found one on Ebay since we'd lost all the bears from the original village and I had gotten rid of it.
Katrina gave a talk in church today, and did a wonderful job. She chose for her topic "Individual Worth,' and shared with us Doctrine and Covenants chapter 18 verse 10 which says, "Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God." She asked the question, why, when we are so weak and fallible, and God is so great and perfect, are we of worth to him. She reminded us of Christ's words in Moses 1:39 which says "Behold this is my work and my glory to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." and again asked why are we worth so much to God and His son that they make it their entire work and glory to bring about our eternal happiness. She said that she thinks the answer is love and quoted John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son." It was a wonderful talk, Matt, and I am so grateful to know that we are God's children and that He is our father and loves us individually and infinitely, enough to give us His son to atone for our sins and bring to pass our immortality and eternal life.
After church, we had family home evening, because Dad has a meeting Monday, and Katrina and I might have a meeting on Tuesday. Katrina gave a lesson on the atonement of the Savior, and it was wonderful. She read some of the talk that Bruce R. Mckonkie gave about the Savior, and she asked dad and me if we remember when he gave the talk and she gave us the opportunity to share our feelings about it, which we really appreciated. It was wonderful to spend some time talking and rejoicing in Christ. We also had a bit of a family meeting afterward where we discussed the calendar for the next couple of weeks. It looks like we may celebrate Easter early in order to include the whole family.
In about an hour and a half, we are going to Skype with my Aunt Ida who takes care of Great Grandma. She is going to have Grandma on Skype, and it will be good for the kids to get to see her since who knows how long she will be around. She's not always very lucid, so we'll see if she'll even get that we are Skyping. Whether she does or not, it will be good to see her.
After that, I have about three hours of meetings and while I am gone, Dad and the kids are going on a drive. It was so wonderful yesterday when it was seven o clock at night and still light outside. Yay, spring is here! Popcorn is starting to pop on the apricot tree, and Dad and I saw a couple of robins while we were walking together this weekend. Katrina said she saw some weeks ago, but the point is that after a long winter, spring is here. We wanted to have family home evening outside today, but Katrina said it was too cold.
Welp, that's just about it, Matt. I hope that we get to hear from you tomorrow. Have a wonderful prep day and a wonderful week sharing the gospel!
Love,
Mom
PS I attached a picture of flibbers for you, Now do you remember them? :)
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