Easter break

Ash tells me all I post is Erik letters. Well, she's right. This has been a crazy year and I hope I'll find more time next school year.

So . . . this is for you Ash.

She spent the day with me watching Nate's tennis tournament. The day was beautiful with just the right amount of warmth for an afternoon snooze in the grass between matches.

Nate won all three of his matches with the 2nd being a nail biter, but he pulled it off in a tie breaker set to 10.


Alex has been practicing "NBA" three pointers in the backyard and also helping his dad sort coins.

He came home from church today with the cutest egg carton filled with Easter trinkets about Jesus' crucifixion. When he opened one egg to find three dimes, he immediately took them out to inspect.

I also discovered some photos on my phone that he and his cousin Ian must have taken unbeknownst to me.


Ash, Kiersten, and I celebrated with Makayla for her 12th birthday. I'm not sure she was terribly thrilled when the servers came to sing to her, but we sure love her. She gave us the perfect excuse to get together.


And the Jazz pulled off a win and live to play another game.

Wild Week

There has been nothing but craziness this week. It was not at all the normal missionary week. I'll go day by day for this email. Wednesday and Thursday were the craziest.

Monday: There is a new rule restricting us from using too many miles on P Days, so that meant that only a few missionaries could come to Rockledge last week, when usually the whole zone will come. We did play tennis and basketball still, so it wasn't too bad. Monday night we spent biking through the rain visiting people, so that was an adventure as always.

Tuesday: Tuesday was Zone Conference. I love Zone Conference. It was a long one, and we were gone until 5. We did get to have a member dinner and then a lesson with Lora, a recent convert.

Wednesday: Wednesday was quite a day. That morning I turned on a setting called Universal Switch on my phone, not knowing exactly what it was. What it did was make it so touching my screen didn't do anything, but instead I had to control my screen by using "switches" like blinking, nodding, etc. I hadn't set any of these switches up though, so basically I had no control of my phone. I couldn't get past the lock screen even because I couldn't type in my password because the screen didn't respond to my touches. After 3 hours of trying to fix it, the UBreakIFix guy fixed it for me.

Later that day we went to an investigator's house, but he wasn't home. He has A Ring door bell that he loves watching recordings on, so we always do funny things in front of it. Anyway, Elder Ward tried to ride his bike on his knees in front of his house. He crashed and banged up his knee, so our investigator probably got a hoot out of watching that.

Still on Wednesday, we were again biking, Elder Ward was looking at directions on his phone while biking and he noticed that he was heading toward a mailbox. He didn't want to hit it so he slammed on his brakes. The problem was that he had his phone in his right hand, so he only hit the brakes with his left hand. The left side controls the front tire, so while cruising down the road just his front tire came to a halt. This caused his bike to flip up into the air. He crashed and got kind of beat up, so we had to go back for the night. Not a good day. 

Thursday: Elder DeMoux in Merritt Island had a medical problem, so he needed to go to the Urgent Care. We had the car, though, so we had to drive out there to take him. They didn't have a spot open for 4 hours though, and we didn't have enough miles to go back to Rockledge and then come back, so we spent the day in Merritt Island helping them out. We got to teach some of their investigators. We got Elder DeMoux taken care of, and it actually was a pretty fun day, just not very productive for us because we were never in our area. 

Other than that, it was a good week. We taught Kim again. She was confused by the Book of Mormon, so she went to Google. She found out that Nephi saw Jesus. So she stopped reading. We told her that Nephi was not Jesus, and that we believe in the same Jesus she does, and that the Book of Mormon will teach her more about him. She is going to start reading again. 

We also had someone show up to church yesterday saying they were searching for a truth and felt like they should come to ours. We will be meeting them this week. That was a MIRACLE. 

We also just missed seeing a Falcon Heavy rocket launch. They launch just 15 miles from us. weren't sure if the exact time of the launch, but we heard a boom and went out in time to see the boosters come back down. I wish I could have seen the actual rocket though. Not very good luck this week overall. Hopefully next week we will get back into the regular rhythm of missionary work. 

18 months later . . .

My return to college classes has come to a cessation. I turned in my last paper and finished attending my last class this past week. Now I'm just waiting for grades to finalize. I feel like I can return to being a mom again. It's been a grueling 18 months but I now have 32 credits post-baccalaureate. There were days and weeks I felt like the enslaved Nephites in the Book or Mormon.They prayed for some relief and instead of deliverance, the Lord blessed them with stronger backs. I too felt so overwhelmed and in bondage to everything required of me. But, the Lord helped me keep moving forward with the important things. I found time I didn't have to complete what needed to be done. Many times my kids stepped up to clean and cook when I wasn't available.

I loved what President Nelson said in our last conference a week ago: "If you are not sure you even believe in God, start there. Understand that in the absence of experiences with God, one can doubt the existence of God. So, put yourself in a position to begin having experiences with Him." This past year's experiences undoubtedly has left me with a knowledge that God lives. When faced with insurmountable fears and uncertainty, he "strengthened my back" and opened up my Red Sea that was before me. I think God permits these life experiences so that we will remember his grace, his goodness, his love. It is in these extremities that we come to know him.

To celebrate I treated myself to a session at the Salt Lake temple and a late night of finishing a book, Return to Red Castle. A backpacking trip to Red Castle in the Uintas is in the works for this summer so I knew I needed to revisit this book that I had read as a teenager.

Well, it was definitely fluff and kept me up late finishing it. Despite being a cheesy escape novel, it was worth reading again as the hike into this lake called Red Castle was described in the book. I'm excited to visit this summer. I'm also discovering that rereading books I read in my youth leaves me with a much different taste than I had the first time I read them.

Maybe this is why reading the scriptures over and over again is so valuable. With each read, I discover new insights simply because life is different with each reading.

My celebrating continued the next day as I cleaned out my pantry, fridge, and freezer. I cranked the music loud and went to town. I have projects to finish that I had to abandon for awhile. I have books to read and another half marathon to retrain for. Life is finally beginning to feel normal again. Whatever normal is. It seems like we have this certain story that we like to tell about our life and how it's going to be. But really, does anyone ever live the story they started out to write? There's always twist in the plot that you never seem to see coming. But it always gets solved one way or another. It's the plot twists that makes a good life story, isn't it?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Some funnies

*Alex was in the car with Tyler and me. He was playing some sort of word game on his Kindle when he piped up from the backseat, "Mom, do you know any 4-letter words that start with S?"

Hmmm . . . I sure do :)

*I had a student call me Alexa the other day. It's a title I'm not sure I've mastered yet.

*I also left a note on the board for my students to write me a post-it with something they learned that day (they had a sub). 

Rockledge, another new area

APRIL 1 -- ROCKLEDGE ROCKS!
Doctrine and Covenants 33:3 For behold, the field is white already to harvest; and it is the eleventh hour, and the last time that I shall call laborers into my vineyard.

Missionary work is getting more urgent. It is the eleventh hour. We don't have time to sit and wait, we need to be actively sharing the gospel with those around us. 

First off I'll give a little info about Rockledge and Elder Ward, my new companion. Rockledge is a huge ward on the east coast just north of Palm Bay. The ward here is amazing, the work is on fire here, and we have a great apartment which makes living here really nice. We have a great district here and Elder Squires, my trainer, is in my zone again so I'm super excited. Elder Ward has been out about 19 months and he is super fun. He is a great missionary and we have a lot of the same interests. It is going to be a  transfer.

We had some crazy weather this week. On Wednesday we had 6 Elders from our district in our apartment for breakfast, and we were just heading out to district meeting when a crazy storm hit. It started raining, then pouring, then hailing, then it started hailing golf balls. It lasted about 20 minutes off and on. I put a video of it in the Google drive. People were getting dents in their cars and holes in their pool screens and stuff. People here say they've never seen hail that bad before.

Other then that I've just been getting to know our investigators and the ward here. We have one investigator named John who's homeless. He is amazing and will probably be baptized soon. He just got a job and is working on getting back into a home. Sad story though, he was biking the other day over a bridge right when the crazy storm hit. He didn't have any shelter, so he had to endure the hail for a few minutes. He's ok though.

Another really cool guy we teach is Alan. He has had a lot of problems in the past and has some mental illnesses that are very hard for him to deal with. He reads the Book of Mormon with us every night and knows it is true. There are some things holding them back from baptism, but he will get there eventually. He is the greatest guy ever. 

Next week I'll have more info, but for now I'm getting to know the investigators and seeing how I can help each of them. I know the Book of Mormon is true. I know Jesus Christ is our Savior. I know that general conference is going to be fantastic. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

APRIL 8 -- GENERAL CONFERENCE WAS SUPERB
This week was a good week for 3 reasons. We started playing tennis for exercise time, so I'm super happy about that. We started teaching Kim and she is super solid. The last reason is General Conference. There were so many good talks.

Every morning we have time devoted to exercise, and we have started playing tennis every morning. We went last Monday and Elder Ward loved it, and I carry around 2 racquets with me, so we decided to walk to the courts every day. I have loved it so much and I have really missed tennis. Now I get to play all the time and I also find a college coach who wants to play me, so I'm super super excited.

As far as missionary work goes we had a good week. We got a list of members that need visits and we've been visiting those. We also started teaching Kim, a nice older lady. She recently broke her hip, so we have been doing service for her. This week we got to sit and have 2 lessons with her though. It went super well and she even watched Conference. She had heard some bad things about "Mormons" but we cleared that up fairly easily and she is also going to start reading the Book of Mormon. We are excited for her to start accepting the gospel.

The best about the week was General Conference. First of all because we got to have a sleep over Saturday after priesthood session, which was really fun. But more importantly there were some amazing talks. Some themes were the atonement, trusting in the Lord's timing, and sharing the gospel. I loved Elder Uchtdorf's talk about sharing the gospel. I hope it inspired the members here and all of you as much as it hyped me up. I also think it's amazing how you can just tell that President Nelson is the prophet. He has such power when he speaks. I was also super excited to hear that Tooele County is getting a temple.

I hope all of you got some personal revelation from Conference. I did for sure. This is an amazing time to be on the Earth preparing the world for the second coming of our Savior. 

We found these doing service this week. Pretty stylish huh?

Prom

Prom at the Utah State Capitol Building.

I thought trying to get a girl ready for prom was stressful. And it is . . . trying to find the one elusive, perfect dress. But with boys, it's a whole new stress. The tux part is easy.

The date and dinner part can give you sleepless nights. Nate asked his date rather early and then he spent two months trying to find a group that would have him.

He didn't want to be a part of any group, but a group where his date had friends she knew and would be comfortable. Everyone he talked to already had enough people in their group, so he ended up forming his own group with a foreign exchange student he knew from cross country.

At the last minute another kid joined them. And good thing because his mom supplied the most beautiful salad and dessert for their dinner.

Then is was off to promenade where they got to glide down the stairs looking like Prince Charming and Cinderella.

Later than night, Nate came home to find his ACT score in the mailbox. Unfortunately, no one was up to whoop and holler with him. He was hoping to beat his two older siblings' scores of 34.

He thinks if he had answered another question or two correctly on the English or science portion, he would have gotten a 36. He wants to try again for that perfect score. 


A score like that is going to get you mail like this.