Elder Awesomeness….. How are your precious bones? We love you so much. Your letters are a feast of delectable humoruous delights and spiritual substance rich with the nutrient rich vitamin content of the pure gospel of Jesus Christ, and a little asian octopus and chocolate on the side, not asian chocolate, if you catch my treat. How we love and grovel! It is a joy to read the letters to the boys, and the stories become part of our lives. Thank you first for living the stories, then writing them down so we can enjoy them, too. For living in what may be mistakenly thought of as an insane asylum or a home for special children, to an innocent bystander, we are doing surprisingly well. One might look through the window and see Joseph, who never wears a shirt, sliding down the stairs on a surfboard, cross-eyed, or glance through the basement window to see large boys acting like 2 year olds beating each other up with swim noodles and yodeling, and our special girl with 8 costumes on and numchux, and a mother with big hair, disheveled epidermis, and a bleary-eyed hollering face, and you might just assume….. No, Kidding, we are so blessed. I really can’t believe how this summer has been one of such abundance, peace and the sweet presence of the Comforter even though we haven’t had a steady job since June. So, about that, Jeff is just days from the first day of business with his own company. We’ll open with an employment verification company that does drug checks, background checks, verifies resumes and a lot of other services. There are companies that do this, but none really here in Utah, and he will be reaching out to those looking for work and also those companies who aren’t big enough to have a full fledge human resource department with price cuts on such services, but still big enough to need the service. We are just nailing down a rental contract on some office space, and with a big prayer in our hearts we hope to open in about a week. Something else that is so incredibly exciting to me is that we are also just a breath away from having the non-profit fund-raising company established and ready for “business”. I don’t have words to describe the joy it brings me. This non-profit organization will raise money, mainly for Cause for Hope which provides micro-loans, education, business and missionary support for third world countries. They started in Honduras, and asked the stake president there to allow him to work with their returned missionaries and help them establish businesses. He of course was thrilled, but explained that there were only 6 in the whole stake. He further explained that though he had many worthy and anxious to go, they could not afford the one suit, travel and dental work required to get themselves on their missions. In our last meeting we heard that there have been something like 385 missionaries go from this area, now. This organization also works both ends of the perpetual education, preparing young people with reading, typing and other necessary skills to be successful in school and in business, and then helping them actually establish a business once they finish school. In these countries a little bit of money goes so far. If someone is able to have a bike with a basket, a sewing machine or a large tortilla grill, it can completely change their life. We hope to find a lot of people who’s hearts break for the underprivileged who will donate consistenly enabling us to perhaps open another entire city with Cause for Hope. “Opening a city” means that a full time staff and office open in that area, and those people STAY AROUND and help the businesses succeed, teach skills, and stay to see it all happen. They don’t just build an orphanage and leave, (not cutting those who do, heavens no), but they are there every step of the way. Their loan repayment rates are something like 98%. They are also providing “Businesses in a Box” (Jeff’s inspiration) with everything someone would need to open and run a small business. There are many many cities open and running now. The expense of a city is $60K a year. I remember being asked as a child “would you rather have a million friends or a million dollars?” I thought that through and said that I would rather have a million friends, because then I could ask each of them to give me a dollar, and I would have both. Did I dream as a child that that time would actually come? Of course I don’t have a million friends, but my friends and their friends and theirs and theirs probably do. I am so excited I can hardly sleep. When we first heard about Cause for Hope I could taste my hunger for a million dollars when we heard stories about Elder Wells sending missionaries home when he knew they would no longer get three meals a day, sending them home to a dirt hut with a bag of dry corn in the corner, and parents expecting them to provide for them. The average price of getting a young man on their mission is $80-$300. It would not take very many families to support a missionary a month, then a week, then a day. The organization began when the brother who runs it all gave himself and his wealth to the church, offering to do whatever they would have him do. They explained that it is not really appropriate for a bishop to collect on a micro-loan, and though the church has championed disaster relief, they can’t really provide micro-loans. We have started a separate fund-raising arm to be able to provide a more liberal spread of options for donations than is currently provided by Cause for Hope. My dreams are coming true and I am just so incredibly excited. I just cannot imagine what it would be like to not be able to feed your children. I MUST do everything I POSSIBLY can to help. Okay, so now the special children. They are so fun. I enjoy them so much (except when I want to bite them, which happens sometimes). It is all going way too fast. Coy is most of the day at South Hills then doing math with Grandpa and some Electronic High School classes at home. He’s still reluctantly practicing the piano, faithfully reading the comics every day and putting away about a book a week. He had some fun experiences this summer attending his first EFY and education week, both with friends. He is fun to be around, and always has some funny story to tell us. I don’t know what I would do without his constant willingness to tend and help out. He is a good, kind, wonderful young man. Mooks is so crazy. He kind of slept the second half of the summer after the Joseph play was over. He was one of 5 in the school to dress up for old person day with high pants, suspenders, gray hair and a bowtie, yes and white socks. He is a BYU freak, and he just turned 13. We went bowling at BYU for his b-day. He is always joking, easing the tension and making things fun. He is a treasure. Spencer is so darling. He is quiet and good. I have to be careful that he doesn’t get set in pushed into the background by more demanding children. He never asks anything, just keeps going. He’s happy if he can play basketball at Tommy’s with Tanner and Parker. He’s a good student and he’s just always doing the right thing, sweet, fun. We are going to try to sign him up for Open Court basketball league today with his buds from school who play basketball every day. Still loves to draw and is reading more, longer, harder books. That’s exciting. It is so fun to see him flying down the road on his waveboard being pulled by the dog. Joseph is as crazy as ever. It is so good to have some one on one time with him. He is home-schooling this year. He is always in 5th gear, tops of trees, being the boys stunt dummy. The only time he’s safe is when he’s asleep. It is fun to have a closer look at how his brain bangs around in his head. He is so funny. He LOVES math, and wants to do all math every day. He skipped to fourth grade math and still can’t get enough. It is more of a chore to get through the other stuff. He was looking kind of bored with it all, so we made up a big rewards chart and he had all kinds of wonderful ideas of things he would like to have and do J. He is a fun little guy. Annie Mcfanny is a girl to the marrow. Her laugh can light up our whole house. She gets the giggles and the rest of us just melt. She is funny and so full of questions. She came in yesterday and said “I can’t find my shoes” and just fell in a heap all the way to the floor, nose in the carpet and sighed and moaned. She is doing backhandsprings in gymnastics, and I think she loves school. It is hard to tell through the tears when her hair doesn’t turn out right. Seth is the most “catered to” baby on the planet. He is so yummy. He has 7 people following him around offering a full array of sugar, entertainment and other enticements. Very little impresses him J. He loves the kitties, he loves to dance (legs far apart, arms straight to the side, step sideways around in a circle.) He has learned to jump on the tramp, it is SO CUTE! He’s learned some songs, he has really started to talk a lot more. His favorite word is “no”. He has to feel hair to go to sleep, only he PULLS the hair. He pulls HARD, and it HURTS, and he does it in the middle of the night and it drives me straight for a field of daisies with a little white jacket with very long sleeves. So, Mom had this brilliant idea to wear a WIG! I did it last night and the BOUGHT IT! It was so awesome. He was pulling and twisting and my own little hairs were tucked safely and happily beneath a huge matted blonde fake mess. I just think we better tell the kids…. As for me, I’m still quick to pride right up. I got up and exercised after a lapse in my personal fitness, I got up at 5 ONE DAY, and I already found myself thinking “well, I don’t know what is wrong with the rest of you tomatoheads, I am exercising and you are not.” It didn’t take me 20 minutes to jump to the top of the pride cycle. I love Heavenly Father so much, and I am so thankful that he listens to my constant thoughts, apologies, dreams, questions, concerns, gratitudes and pleas for help. I am so thankful for the Savior. I don’t even bring 5 loaves and 2 fishes to the bargain, it’s more like a half can a tuna and a broken ritz, but somehow the miracle of the atonement is for all of us. It is so glorious and I am so grateful. I am trying to “break” myself like a horse into total and complete obedience. I am so rebellious and selfish so often, but I want so much to be perfectly obedient and dependable for the Lord. Like Pres. Monson’s mantra, “If the Lord wants an errand done I want him to be able to say “Tom, go do this” and I do it. This is my hunger, I want to do it right, do it well, have the words, smarts and capacities prepared to do his work. I pray to be chastened, molded and carved into something or someone that the Lord can use for his purposes. I need to learn so many things, but I am grateful for the chance to feel the sun on my face, to hear my daughter giggle and see my baby dance, to see Joseph love math and Spencer trying to think of 5 different things to tell me about school every day, to send Mook to middle with his cool BYU clothes, to share comics with Coy and life with Jeff, to be able to walk, pick, bottle, breathe, live. Just to live is a miracle and I am so grateful for the chance. I love you!