July 20, 2020

Hi my beautiful boy! I am so grateful for you and just so grateful that we can look in your eyes and talk for a little bit today. I look forward to Mondays like crazy. We are deep in the middle of the family reunions and it's such a blast. When we drove up to Brian Head which is the highest incorporated city in Utah and the highest point in Iron County and the stars were unspeakably gorgeous and it was silent and the pine tree smell like heaven I just thought how much you would love it. Grandma and Grandpa rented a well it was a VRBO a 22000 square foot house the basement of it and it had a pool and everything was so crazy fun and now we're in Cedar City for a couple of days at two cabins right next to each other and they are just in the top top top of the mountain. Last night we drove up to Brian Head point which is literally the top of the mountain and you can just see mountaintops all around you and watch the sunset. Tonight we're going to go up and see the stars. There's a comet We had an interesting week. Tuesday night I got a very mean text from a family who had found a piece of broken glass in 9 yards of compost that are friends Russ had delivered in the dump truck. I really had nothing to do with it except I set it up. Anyway they wrote and they were Furious because they had put their compost under their children's playground area. So I immediately got in the car they finally gave permission for me to sort through all of the compost and pick out any broken glass. So I did three hours that night and I got home completely covered in Black in sorting compost inch by inch I still had about 12 hours to go. Your grandpa was at our house and ask what I had been doing and I said I didn't want to tell him. The next morning when I came out to leave at 6 a.m. for 9 hours of sorting compost, he was sitting in a chair by the driveway not knowing which car I would drive. I'm crying just trying to tell you this. And he came in the hot sun and this little yard in Lehi and sorted compost with me inch by inch by inch for 5 and 1/2 hours. We came home and I picked up Spencer and Annie and we came back for three more hours together and finished all of it. We did find some little pieces of broken glass so there must have been one glass bottle stuck somewhere in and it went through the chipper. Some people in our extended family are pretty mad that I gave them a full refund for $300 and 21 hours of man labor starting a compost vet when I meet my maker I want to be guilty on the side of Mercy if anything. If that man thinks that he should not pay and have his compost sorted then I'm going to let him dealt with that and I want to be like the Savior Jesus Christ and handle everything right. It did give me a lot of thinking time. Sometimes I like to just do a simple task for long periods of time where I can let my mind go and think things over dig up the things that are deep in there that I'm sorting out and look them over and have the time to think about it. We left for the family reunions on Friday and we we'll be coming home next Wednesday. It is just magical. McKay and Lydia went to her family reunions California. I finally found out about the Seminary teaching program. They're doing five week blocks one of them starts on August 2nd and one of them on September 18th and I'll only have 5 weeks to prove myself to see if I can go on to be a student teacher. I'm really praying and fasting about whether I should start on the 2nd or the 18th. I kind of want to read the whole book of Mormon first and fast my brains out and go on a mountain and give myself to God before I start the class :-) That scripture about living after the manner of happiness has been on my mind so much. We really do. It's not that our lives or the lives of my siblings and parents are without trouble they certainly are not, but there is a deep abiding Joy because of the Savior Jesus Christ and the gospel and standards but also the meaning that it drenches over everything. To be able to live in a way that we believe that struggle has purpose, deep meaningful purpose where we are becoming god-like and you believe that daily irritations are custom-designed or our invitation to practice becoming more like a savior just give even the difficult days such meaning and purpose. I really love that I'm very grateful for it. Today is Grandpa Jello birthday. He's one of the best people I've ever known in my life. He has gotten to the point of complete unselfishness 24/7 365 every single second of every single day he just helps and loves answers and consecrate and dedicate and it's never out of bitterness and it's never out of Duty it is out of joy and desire. Like we were talking about last week is the conversion of wants to which I just love. Why are we so grateful to be able to have him. Dad has actually been out helping the John build his shed. I think he's doing a little bit better. In conclusion, the submission of one’s will is really the only uniquely personal thing we have to place on God’s altar. The many other things we “give,” brothers and sisters, are actually the things He has already given or loaned to us. However, when you and I finally submit ourselves, by letting our individual wills be swallowed up in God’s will, then we are really giving something to Him! It is the only possession which is truly ours to give! Consecration thus constitutes the only unconditional surrender which is also a total victory! May we deeply desire that victory, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. Inbox