Hello Handsome Boy!!

Wow!  A few days to go! How are you feeling? How are you doing?  Is your whole crew flying out with you? Did everyone get their visas?  So So exciting!  I'm SO excited to hear your voice Monday and see how you're feeling about everything! 

Your letters are HILARIOUS!  Thanks so much for taking the time.  It is the subject of a lot of conversation. We're all loving it! "hard time pressing forward in faith".  "almost translated".  "Cleaning ourselves in the toilet" "Fresh as new snow and realer then an old grandpa sitting on his porch" "We brought back plant life from the outside world."
"Well a girl says nothing is wrong, there is always something." Pure delight! I also love " We have such beautiful doctrine."
Were you able to perform at the devotional?


I hope you got our package yesterday. When I say "no plastic" on the oils, it means you can't put it in with your water in a plastic bottle for any amount of time or it will eat through the plastic, then you'll be eating the plastic and you'll get cancer. You may need to buy one glass cup that you can pour water in FROM YOUR FILTERED WATER BOTTLE and only wash WITH FILTERED WATER from which you can drink lemon water and oregano water, etc. 

Honeypants, please please please respect every precaution. I can't bear the thought of you becoming deathly ill on the other side of the world.  Please only drink from your water bottle and do everything else they tell you to do.  PLEASE.  I know you will.  PLEASE MAKE YOURSELF DRINK WATER TOO, EVEN IF YOU'RE NOT THIRSTY. Dehydration sickness is horror on wheels.  You can even be sent home for this. Just make yourself drink please please please. You're going to be a little sick adjusting to the elevation, so please don't add dehydration sickness on top of that.  PPPPLLLLLEEEEAAAAASSSSEEE!!!

Do you know about the POSTMART where you can send a box of everything you're leaving behind for free? Ask around. I sent a big box so you could use that one to send stuff home to us. 

You will get a package Friday with a small Christmas and Birthday package as well as a bug mattress cover.  Is that okay? Will you have room for those things after you send all the stuff you don't need to us in the box? 

IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU NEED FOR FIJI? IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU NEED FOR FIJI? IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU NEED FOR FIJI? IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU NEED FOR FIJI?   Tell us please and we can put it in Friday's package.

Joseph came home from the first day of indoor soccer practice at the bubble and told me his friends called him "swole". He said there's a difference between "swole" and cut.  They called him swole because they already know he's cut and they were trying to tell him he's getting bigger.  He spent lots of time last night designing a poster for the Art Show and Film Festival for Silver Rush. He's one the Junior Committee for student gov. 

We had a Friendsgiving Friday night. Oh my super crazy. All girls. Let's just say by the end I had pumpkin pie and gravy in my hair. They turned on lyric videos and sang and danced and played murder int he dark and screamed. We had about 20 candles lit for dinner. It was super fun. You were Annie's inspiration with "Friendsgiving". 

Seth made Macy and Cheradee swear on the River Styx that they each had paid for the same stuffed unicorn. He was trying to be a peacemaker at Grandma's. When they both did after fighting over whom it really belonged to he didn't know what to do.  The girls were sent home and he beat Grandma Jan in Parcheesi. 

We just finished the most incredible book. It fills my soul with indescribable inspiration.  George Washington Carver's mother was a slave, and she was kidnapped. As the kidnappers fled they ripped the baby from her arms and threw him on the side of the road.  A man who was hired to recover Mary did not find her, but found the baby. He was sick and half frozen.  Mr. Carver traded his finest race horse to pay for the baby.

That baby, George, was always small and sickly, so he didn't do farm work but stayed in the house and learned to do everything. He loved plants and created his own greenhouse in the forest where he never lost one plant. He would take people's sick plants there and bring them back to health. 

At ten years old his soul was so hungry for knowledge he left the home he had grown up in with his belongings on his back and moved to a new town where there was a school for black children. A beautiful Christian woman saw him sitting here and said "You look like you could use some breakfast!"  She took him in for years. She had no children of her own, and treated him as hers. He learned everything there was to learn at school and in just a few years knew more than the teacher. He learned everything he could at home and could cook, clean and wash with the best of them. 

As a young teen he moved again to another school that would allow black children. He moved into a wealthy white home and did all of the cooking. The lady of the house would show him how to do things once and he would cook and prepare everything perfectly. From there, he rented a space in town and opened his own laundromat. He did everything a young man could do, every dirty and difficult job, saving for college. He worked harder than I would have thought possible.  For years he worked and worked, then the day finally came. He walked so many miles and arrived at the college where he had placed all of his dreams.

The receptionist barely looked up as he told him they did NOT  accept black men, just native Americans. He was absolutely crushed. He was devestated.

He couldnt' go back to just doing laundry for life, he had to learn, but no one would allow him into school! He had read and read and read everything he could find, but he needed more.

It wasn't until he was 30 years old that he was admitted to college.  It was an art school and he did brilliantly, but eventually decided to pursue plants because that is where he felt he could do the most good.

He was incredible. He created an agriculture culture that thrived at the school and people came from everywhere to see his work.  HOWEVER,  he wanted to help his own poeple, just coming out of the Civil War, recently freed but helpless, poor and devestated.  He had to help them. He took a job at Tuskegee College in Alabama.  When he got there the agriculture department consisted of a shovel and six students. He literally grew the program to become the envy and example of all. 

He spent hours and hours and hours in God's Little Workshop, however, to solve the problem of cotton. All his people know how to do was grow cotton, but it was not a profitable nor edible crop for the small farmer, and so much cotton had been grown that the soils were poor and depleted. Everywhere he saw cotton fields, poor soil and starving people.

He got up at three or four in the morning and went walking in the woods to spend time with God. He spent his days when he wasn't teaching in God's Little Workshop where he said God taught him. He experimented with the peanut  and sweet potato plants. He painstakingly, patiently, faithfully created over 300 usable products from peanuts, and over 200 from the sweet potato.  The peanut plant fixes nitrogen and restores the nutrients in the soil.  His research and life's work changed the fate of the South and the Black people forever.  He was brilliant, faithful, largely self taught, passinonate and hard working beyond description.

At one time in his life he was offered a six figure income and beyond. The United States Government was one of those offering him this, BACK THEN, equivalent to millions. 

EVERY DECISION BEFORE HIM WAS MADE ON THIS QUESTION "WHAT CAN I DO FOR THE MAN FARTHEST DOWN?"

He would receive questions with checks, he got to the point where he was getting 100-200 letters a day with so much m. He would always return the letters with the answer and return all of the money. He never kept more than his original income. 

What can I do for the man farthest down? What can I do for the man farthest down? 

I am so humbled by the example of George Washington Carver. 

Awesome Mckay is wondering what he can do for the man farthest down in China. There was a 47 car pile up the other day because the pollution was so bad that people could not see.  He is considering making his life's great work  cleaning the air in China. 

Another son of mine is placing his hand in the hand of God and flying to the other side of the world to see if he can't find someone, anyone, with whom He can share the incomprehensible love of God.  He's willing to suffer sickness, bed bugs, heat to the bones, 12 inch centipedes, be away from his family and work all day every single day to see what he can do for the man farthest down, the man wrestling with the deepest questions and fighting his natural man. The man longing for meaning in life and help in his relationships, help to conquer himself.  I love you Spencer Roger. Thank you for consecrating yourself to help the man farthest down. 

THURSDAY WAS AIRPORT DAY FOR NICK!  He walked right by Annie and Joseph. He didn't recognize them at all. We looked at pictures of Annie on the way home two years ago and she was a puny little squirt.

Nick looks GREAT! He was just glowing!  Also, HE TALKS NOW!  It was so so fun. There is nothing like AIRPORT DAY!  One of the best days in a mama's life. 

We had Coy, Haven and Mckay for the afternoon.  It's so fun just to be together.  Mckay did math and we played Bananagrams.

We had a sweet day on Saturday. Gentry was baptized.  She was so excited. She was skipping around jumping up and down. Mitchell baptized her.  So sweet.  I'll send you pictures.  Mckay and Coy and Haven saw Nick for the first time in way over two years.  After the baptism we had the after party at our church.

MITCHELL IS ENGAGED!  The girl is darling and fun.  I'm so excited for them. They will be married April 20th! 

Last night we had dinner and games with our sweet Krista. I can't BELIEVE how faithful that girl is. She was so darling. She said "sometimes when I see people smoking I think 'Oh, please don't smoke, you are hurting yourself'.  She turned to Grandpa Jello and said "Am I going to Satan for that? I'm not trying to judge, I just don't want to hurt himself." She is so so sweet and darling, so funny.  She told us all about her temple trip. She has been to 79 temples and done a session in all of them. She and Heavenly Father travel all over this country. 

Nick's homecoming was incredible. I actually recorded it for you.  You'll get that in your email.  I hope you'll have time to listen somehow. He talked about Grandpa Raspberry. It was very tender.  So sweet. He really testified that there were things he learned in El Salvador he couldn't have learned in any other way.   Grandma Raspberry said when she closed her eyes for the closing prayer she saw Grandpa's face and he was crying. He said "He's such a good boy".

Last Thursday brother Scott gave the devotional at seminary.  It was pure Christlike love for a moment. He told a story about his son Tim. He asked Tim to not go out one night. It was stormy, roads were ice covered. Tim went out anyway. Scott got a call at 12:30 a.m.  "Dad, I'm okay, but the car....".  When he arrived he could tell the entire axel was completely on it's side. The car was totaled. There was Tim. He had messed up. He felt awful. He had disobeyed.  His hands were in his pockets and his head was dropped. He tried to say "I'm sorry, Dad...."   Scott, His Dad, ran to him and wrapped his arms around him. He said that's the best hug he has ever had from Tim in his entire life.

And there it is, the love of Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father.  "Father, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I disobeyed, I messed up, ..."   And he doesn't scream at us, he wraps us in his arms. In fact, He sends his precious Son to save us.  As my son once said, "We have such beautiful doctrine".  We are the recipients of such beautiful love. 

I bore my testimony on Sunday.  I talked about sitting around the kitchen table while Cheradee asked the neighborhood kids, "Where do you want to go on your mission?"  Eli Sorensen said "I want to go to that place, what is it? Gefsemane!"

I talked about how grateful I am that someone did receive that mission call. He was called to Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Gethsemane, Calvary and Golgatha's Hill.  Because he accepted His mission call, we can overcome sin and death! It is the greatest act of love ever known!   I talked about Elder Renlund's talk in last conference and the man in Africa  who's preisthood blessings were restored. The man was three hours early for his interview with Elder Renlund. Elder Renlund testified to him that the baptism date on his records would be THE ORIGINAL DATE. So would the ordination date. The Savior would wash his sin clean and FORGET IT EVER HAPPENED. 

I love the Savior and my Heavenly Father. I am so in awe of their unending love. We are broken, selfish, and we struggle with the most basic concepts like just being nice, but I Stand All Amazed at the love He offers us.  We stand in the midnight snow with a broken axel trying to somehow say "I'm sorry", and he wraps us in His arms and forgives us.

We have such beautiful doctrine. We have such a beautiful God.

""Think of the purest, most all-consuming love you can imagine, then multiply that love by an infinite amount. That is the measure of God's love for you." 

I love you precious boy, with ALL MY HEART!  I'll write again tomorrow.