Life Update via Missionary Letter

It's the season for double duty blogging, where I post life updates as taken from letters to our missionary! I've done that with both of our previous missionaries and here we are again.  It's a great way to minimize effort and instill a bit of silliness here on the blog, since I'm rarely not at least a little silly with my kids.   😄

Letter written on 9/19/22

************************************

Hey there Elder G!

How's life in the (503)? How's the weather?  Do you have everything you need?  Have you figured out the food sit-choo any better this week? I'm hoping that my recipes will inspire everyone in your apartment to throw away the hot dogs and eat only delicious nutritionally dense foods from now on! haha...a mom can dream, right?! PLEASE let me know if there are any specific recipes you want.

Okay, enough with the boring questions, here's the super exciting life update you've been waiting for all week

Dad: has been super stressed at work lately. He's been working long hours and comes home in a stressed state of mind. On the bright side, he got to go fishing with Grandpa Dave on Saturday. He said it was one of the best days of fishing he's had in many years, so I guess you could say it was a success.




Me: I am a nerd x1000 and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Not only did I volunteer to make yet another funeral program this past week (my third in the last 1-1/2 months), but I also made Kristina's paper program for her primary program. PLUS I reached out and volunteered to make our primary programs as well, despite the fact that I won't even be around for it. And to be totally honest, I've thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. My program (including a missionary page) is pretty epic (if I do say so myself), so maybe I can convince the Bishop that he wants a program all the time. <sigh> Probably not. 😂

{PS I received zero comments on how amazingly epic my programs were (yes, I know I'm being flowing with superlatives today), so I guess we won't be going back to paper programs anytime soon. Oh well, I enjoyed creating it very much, so c'est la vie. I continue forward with the most useless interest / skillset ever. I've determined that that's one of my gifts--skills that no one needs/wants. haha}





Spence: He's had some good days at work (lots of sales), but he's still thinking he'd like a new job. I have no idea how far along in that process he is. We like having him at home for now, though I imagine he'll get bored of our very sedate/ boring lives before too long.😆

Cami, Garrett, Lucie: Garrett flew to Austin for the weekend and they got to enjoy the weekend all together. I think Cami and Lucie thoroughly enjoyed their Garrett time. Sadly, now it'll be a while before they see each other again.




Emma: is jumping in head first down at BYU and is staying busy, busy, busy. She just visited a family from her mission last week (perks of serving a mission in Utah),


started working at Subway, went on a cool hike,

and got a busy new calling.

Ellie: is lamenting the AP Gov class she signed up for this year, though she is plugging away at it and working hard. She has recently decided that she's going to read a bunch of books by Christmas and wants to start biking, in addition to continuing working on her fudge business.

Kiwi: is still in heat and is wearing granny panties or ruffled skirts around to protect our floors and furniture.



Denali: is still an attention seeking diva, who loves to be in the middle of everything!

Rocky: is as obsessed with food as ever. And sleep. He does love his sleep.

BYU sports: As I'm sure you've heard, BYU got kicked by Oregon. Sadly, Oregon fans were pretty terrible (yelling F-bombs and religious insults), but weirdly no one is canceling their games against them (despite ample evidence that they have a whole bunch of religious bigots who attend their games). Never mind that there's not one shred of evidence that anything ever happened at the BYU game, South Carolina still refuses to play them. What a stupid double standard! It's okay to insult religions loudly and openly and nothing happens. But someone makes up a lie about one single person being racist and the whole world freaks out. Whatever. Can you tell I'm annoyed?

Fall time: The weather is starting to cool down just a touch and the leaves are just starting to turn, and I love it all! I've decided to make something pumpkiny at least once a week to celebrate. So far we've made pumpkin pancakes and pumpkin cookies.

Excitement this week: NYC--here we come!!!! I feel woefully unprepared about leaving in 2 days and am sad about missing the primary program, but I am quite excited to have a weekend away and see some shows.

The garden: has been producing like crazy and we are very much enjoying the fruits (and the veggies) of our labors!


And here are a few more random pictures, just because....

Grandma and Nana having a sweet moment on the way into a senior luncheon.




One of the drawings I got for the cover of the program. It made me smile. :)



Grandma took off for the week to head to California.

Spiritual thought: I came across my favorite scripture in my Book of Mormon reading this week:

And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it.

This scripture gives me so much comfort because it reminds me that my best chance for happiness in this life and the life to come is through Christ. When we build our lives on Christ, He helps us to be our best selves. Not that we won't struggle (because we know well that that's not true), but that we'll be blessed with an extra measure of strength to overcome the struggles and get back to that "blessed and happy state".

I love you like crazy and hope you're having an amazing week!
Love,
Mom

An HxP Trip to Malawi

 JUNE 2022:  
I don't know how we raised 3 kids into adulthood before hearing about HEFY {now known as Humanitarian XP} for the first time.  Adam is the one who came home talking about it after hearing about it from friend sometime in early 2020.   HEFY / HxP is basically a humanitarian experience for youth that has programs all around the world, where they do sustainable service projects in local communities and also do some sightseeing in that part of the world.  Both Adam and Ellie were instantly intrigued as soon as they heard about it.   

Adam went full speed ahead with planning and earning money for a trip to Guatemala for summer 2020.  You will not be surprised to find out that that trip (nor any other HEFY trip) happened that summer...

Then came 2021 with high hopes.   Ellie was old enough this time around, so she threw in her lots and ended up getting assigned to a trip in Ecuador; Adam got Thailand.   They were both very excited, but COVID was still very much a factor, so it remained touch and go about how things were going to go down. Ellie actually ended up getting to go to Ecuador and had an amazing time exploring the Galapagos Islands and helping to build a women's center.     She helped make and sell homemade facemasks to fund her trip.  

Adam's planned trip to Thailand, on the other hand, ended up being quite the roller coaster.  First he got switched to Colombia for COVID purposes.  Then the Colombia trip ended getting canceled for political unrest.  And that's how he ended up in the US Virgin Islands for his trip. 

 It wasn't as exotic as he'd hoped, but it did end up also being a great experience helping to paint an orphanage and do some playing on the beautiful beaches there.    Sadly he ended up dislocating his shoulder while playing, but he was okay (after a trip to the ER) and was able to still help with some of the work after his injury.   He sold cookies and got a job to help fund his trip. 

 

So, when 2022 rolled around, Ellie was excited to sign up to go on another trip.  This time she got assigned to the Southern African country of Malawi!  

Getting her ready proved to be a little stressful with the traveling we did in the weeks leading up to the trip (Spain and Hawaii) and with all that was going down with my Dad at the time, but, with the help of Heather, we were able to get things squared away eventually. The most stressful part was the visa.  For  whatever reason, her visa application didn't get approved immediately like most of the others' did.  It sounds like the HxP had to pull some strings to get it to go through, but thankfully it happened. 

The participants put away their phones for the entirety of the trip, so while they're gone, the only contact us parents have, is what the trip leader posts on the trip instagram page. That meant that while they're gone on their trips, I am absolutely glued to Instagram looking for any update I can find that mentions or shows a picture of Ellie...

Rather than reinventing the wheel, I thought it might be easiest to just post the screenshots from Instagram exactly as I saw them....

They worked and played hard....

And got to go on a safari {the second one of her life}...

When I asked Ellie what some of her favorite memories were, and here's what she said:

1.She absolutely loved the Malawian people --there were tons of kids all around the worksite and they helped them with the work, played with them during their breaks, and brought so much joy to their days,  There was a young girl of about 11 (named Inafi (?)) who, each morning upon their group's arrival to the worksite,  would run up calling for Ellie and give her a big hug and tell her how much she missed her.

2. She absolutely loved all the animals they saw on their 3-day safari experience.  They stayed in a safari camp, where there were monkeys everywhere.  They'd hover around the tables waiting for scraps to be dropped or thrown their way and then go through the dirty dishes after meals looking for any uneaten treasure.   One day, during mealtime a group of elephants walked nearby.  They went out to get a closer look and were taken off-guard when they came around a corner and were only a few yards from the elephant group.   The elephants seemed as surprised as Ellie and friends were and both started backing away at the same time.   One of her favorite memories was   a very sketchy hippo boat tour  they went on.  There were hundreds of hippos, swimming all around and even underneath the boat.  Her favorite memory was of seeing a hippo open its mouth wide and snap it shut quickly, like a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos.  Hahah. 

3.  Ellie also loved how cheap the souvenirs were and came home with a whole bunch.  :) 

4.  Ellie loved attending the LDS ward there and loved that they got to participate in it fully.  Ellie gave a talk one of the Sundays she was there and fellow trip members gave prayers, led the music, played the piano, taught lessons, etc.  It was a very cool experience for them to be a part of and she loved getting to know the people better.   

5.  She really enjoyed the cliff diving.  

6.  She loved the camaraderie they experienced on the bus drives. 

Some more notes from Ellie:  

 Each trip has two young adult and two parent leaders who come along as chaperones.  Ellie didn't really connect with the parent leaders, but the young adult leaders were amazing.   The female young adult leader actually had been a missionary in Virginia.  She never served in our ward, but we definitely remembered her from her serving in wards in our same building. 

Looking at her pictures, it was hard not to reminisce on our trip to Uganda in 2019/2020....Honestly, I wished many times over that  I could have gone with her...

Unfortunately, I didn't feel like I could commit with the uncertainty with my Dad's health and getting Adam ready for his mission....

I am a firm believer that these kind of experiences can be life- and perspective-changing...

...and I am very grateful that Ellie was able to have this kind of experience.    

If you (or your child) has an opportunity to go on a trip like this, I HIGHLY recommend it!  

***************************