MY FAVORITE DAY OF THE WEEK! I wake up so so excited to hear from you my precious darling boy!  How are you? How is everything? How is your heart? How is your health?  How is every tiny part of your week? How is the weather?  How is the language coming?  when have you felt the spirit this week the most?  What have you learned?  I YEARN to know EVERYTHING!  

Sunday is such a beautiful day to look it all over and repent.  I have so much to repent of and work on, but ONE THING seems to top the list this morning.  

I so easily fall into a routine and take all of our glorious blessings for granted.  This exquisite, inexhaustible gospel is unspeakable precious.  What the Father has done, what the Savior has done, what the Holy Ghost has done, what they do now and the promises ahead that they know will be fulfilled is so drenched in glory, oozing with splendor, bathed in joy and wonder that there are no words to describe them.  

Sometimes I just take all of this and plod through a normal day. I open my mouth and tell my kids what chores they have to do before they play.  I throw THE PRESERVATION OF THEIR SENSE OF WONDER  aside and nag and work and DON'T TALK ABOUT THE GLORY OF IT ALL ENOUGH.

Rachel Carson, someone who reverenced earth said this; 

“A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full or wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantment of later year…the alienation from the sources of our strength.” 

― Rachel Carson

I wish to repent this morning of being a participant in that loss of sense of wonder for my children, not that they have lost it, but I don't feel I'm doing my part well to preserve it. 

The story, our story, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the story of the Father's perfect love for his children and the gift of His perfect son to save them is so wondrous,. IT IS ABSOLUTE JOY OR IT IS NOTHING! It must all be treated with awe, reverence, wonder and PASSION.  The gospel is too precious, too sacred, too wondrous and beautiful to be treated like a list of things we need to do.  It is like taking the most precious jewels in the world and using them to clean the toilet.   I too often skip the wonder, and let life become routine, mundane, even boring (heaven forbid!).  

Heaven forbid that my ungrateful outlook  makes my life more like this assessment of Henry Emerson Fosdick, an American Baptist and Presbyterian minister who said: 

"Some Christians carry their religion on their backs. It is a packet of beliefs and practices which they must bear. At times it grows heavy and they would willingly lay it down, but that would mean a break with old traditions, so they shoulder it again. But real Christians do not carry their religion, their religion carries them. It is not weight, it is wings. It lifts them up, it sees them over hard places. It makes the universe seem friendly, life purposeful, hope real, sacrifice worthwhile. It sets them free from fear, futility, discouragement, and sin — the great enslaver of men's souls. You can know a real Christian when you see him, by his bouyancy."

It is joy, it is ALL JOY!  It is not weight, it is wings!  

Some people accuse us of blind obedience, but I feel that the gospel helps our eyes to be completely open to the glory and blessings of God. The gospel heals more blindness than anything else. 

Of these sins I SINCERELY desire to repent this morning.  I want to rejoice in Christ, in sunrises, in feeling the sun on our backs and the wind in our hair, in the absolute joy of feeling someone's arms around you, in gardens and babies and books and blessings and belonging to each other. We live in a world of platypus's and waterfalls, stories of sacrifice and such beautiful love it is breathtaking.  I pray that Heavenly Father may through the wondrous gift of His perfect Son help me to repent and renew my sense of wonder for myself and my precious family.  I want to go on a personal quest that only ends with the grave TO TAKE NOTHING FOR GRANTED! TO NEVER SPEND ONE MORE MOMENT NOT CHERISHING AND PRESERVING OUR SENSE OF WONDER. 

We are to be GRATEFUL FOR EVERYTHING, even our troubles.  Here is another area in which this chicky baby needs some workin' on.  I am sincerely grateful for a lot of the things we have been through, and I do truly feel that these experiences are a gift.  I am really trying to learn to be grateful for my weaknesses as a parent.  I just really struggle there.  I just don't want to ever hurt my children in any way but the program isPARENTING: We hurt 'em, He heals 'em.    We all learn beautiful things in the process.  

Our week has been WEIRD and wonderful.  Mckelle came home from her mission this week because she got a concussion and she is really struggling.  She will hopefully be back in 3 weeks if she is better.  Kids are all in school and really doing fabulously. One night this week we were just all sitting at the kitchen table doing homework together. There is something beautiful about that.  We also bottled 19 quarts of peaches this week at that kitchen table while watching the Twilight Zone. That was a good family moment.  Another good family moment was everyone working super hard to get the apartment ready for our new tenants who moved in yesterday. We all worked together cleaning, shining, fixing, scrubbing, defrosting, climbing in and cleaning out windowsills, vacuuming, painting, it was awesome.  Coy spent the morning with us and it was so fun.  He is such a fun fascinating person. He was talking at that deep space and there's the perfect amount of dark matter that balance has all the gravity in the universe perfectly organized by your heavenly father.Yesterday Coy Mckay Joseph Jake and Seth all went to Norths to play games.  Annie had two super fun friend parties Friday and Saturday nights. she let Seth hang out with them, too and that was awesome.  She is so on fire to just love and help middle school kids wherever she can. It's awesome.  Seth did "president handwriting" for 4 straight hours one night.  Joseph actually stayed home last night...LOVED IT!  Mckay spent the week in Washington and got home Friday night, moved to Provo last night.  Joseph got his patriarchal blessing in the mail like three days after he got it.  I had a heavenly day on Friday bottling 40 quarts of tomatoes and peaches with Grandma Jan all day. I love her to pieces.  We got all kinds of glorious food from the free bread pick up this week-ridiculous!  We are so very blessed.  Grandma and Grandpa Jello got to go to Colorado for Uncle Matt was here picking up the old truck and taking it to Texas. He left this morning.  Today is baby Ailee's blessing day and Derek's Priesthood ordination day.  

Grandma and Grandpa Jello are such amazing people.  We picked up a beautiful new hutch and dining set from Aunt Julie and Uncle Mark's friends. We tried it for a few days and most of the family was not in love with it.  We found out they are quite sentimental about our big old farm table. Anyway, we thought maybe we'd sell it, so I put it on facebook and GRANDMA AND GRANDPA JELLO BOUGHT IT FOR GRANDMA JAN. it was ridiculous! I told them there was no way in heaven I was taking their money for something we got for free but they would not hear of it. That money has been such an incredible blessing this week because I've been able to stay home and clean and prepare seminary and pick bottle fruit and  get lots of things cleaned and organized and feel so so much better and more prepared as I start teaching semimary, just breathe between youth conference, Korean camp, summer, California, school starting.  I am so grateful for a little breather. THEN THEY BOUGHT US NEW CHAIRS TO GO WITH OUR AWESOME FARM TABLE. They are so Christlike.  Grandpa Jello singlehandedly fixed everything in the apartment from the flood. He put in new sheetrock, sealed the water pipe, taped the sheetrock and painted, rehung the doors, fixed walls, .  (I felt so lonely for you when I was taping the walls off to paint them:)).  He is such a loving person.  i wish I could be like him for even one day. 

Dad's been pretty rough this week, in tons of pain.  His sweet boys  

I'm still trying to figure out the career path ahead and exactly how to get there.  I want to TEACH THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST IN ALL OF IT'S WONDER! I WANT TO BE YOU!   But what I REALLY want is to be a good wife and a good mother, a mother that doesn't take things for granted, that holds her children's sense of wonder in her hands and treats it better than any treasure in the world. 

Is there ANYTHING  I can do for you in any way possible at all?  What specific things would you like your mother to pray for/about in your behalf? 

I love you Spencer Roger.  

Love your Mama

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back. 
May the sun shine warm upon your face; 
the rains fall soft upon your fields 
and until we meet again, 
may God hold you in the palm of His hand.