November 23, 2020

Joseph Ross the bus my angel boy! How are you? How is every tiny thing in your life? We always look forward to the days where we get to hear from you! I was able to spend three hours on Saturday with Elder UchtDorf. It was exquisite. He has such a fiery sweet tender testimony. I loved what he said about missionary work. They had a big section about missionary work and the basic message was it’s just love! Just love people and because the gospel is the answer to everything it’s going to naturally come up and just love them have them over to dinner look in their eyes see how they’re doing and it was just so awesome. He they showed a video about an elders corm president doing him a ministering interview. His interviewee was asked what he was doing for his ministering family and he said nothing. And the others corm president invited him to just pray for them. And they did that he started to do that and miracle started to happen. It was awesome. I responded to that story by texting my ministering sister and asking her the names and ages of everyone in her family and one thing that she would like us to pray for for each child and I got the sweetest letter back and it’s really wonderful just to mention their names in prayer. I certainly mention your name in prayer. Another thing that elder pooped off said was when he was little he was playing in the bombed out ruins of Germany they would literally just play on the rubble and he said even in that difficult situation there was just this wonderful joy of knowing that God was real and knowing that he loved him and it was wonderful just to be alive. He talked about really focusing on the power of gratitude and crazy times like this. Let me take you on a little tour around the house and through the family. Right now the family room is chock-full of giant bean bags because the babies keep coming over and we are playing a game called superflop. We run from the play room run all the way through the kitchen and then we check the babies onto the beanbags which are on top of the human dog bed and on the floor in the corner and so they’re really high and then they roll off and they do little tricks and flips and it’s super funny and everybody does super flops and life is so fun. Today is Levi‘s second birthday. We’re looking forward to a party for him today. The babies light up our lives so much and there’s so much fun. They like to play super flop they like to play blocks, they like to play in the bounce house which we’ve set up in the basement so we’re trying to be the funnest house and we also like to play hide and seek. It’s so fun. Next stop on our tour is the kitchen where Annie is painting her pomegranates she has spent hours she’s in painting one and it’s proving to be one of the hardest classes she has. She is so funny and so beautiful and she’s just giggling and screaming and moaning as she’s trying to create highlights and dimension in her pomegranates. Seth was attending the first three classes today with no shirt on and I was sure that any moment he would get called out that he knew exactly where that line was in hurried and put a shirt on right before his part of the footloose dance and his dance class. He’s a punk. He got the sides of his haircut and not the top and the top is super long and I think we spent the entire day yesterday talking about that boys hair. He is so fun he’s doing so great spiritually there’s such an energy there. He’s keeping his three journals that I told you about and just working really hard to feel and understand the spirit. If you wanna talk to him about it his specific question is how do I know if it’s my voice or the voice of the spirit. He’s a sweet sweet boy. Another interesting thing that’s come up this week as Camie has moved in with Grandma Jan. She got out of prison a few months ago and has been in a halfway house. It was so sweet of both queen Becca and Mookie and Lydia to make it a point to go and visit her. We played smash up with her on Friday night. She can’t be around anyone who is younger than 18 right now without signing a waiver so the kids haven’t really been there but it looks like she is onward and upward and we’re hoping for a brand new life in a brand new start and brand new priorities for her. I hope she’ll be open to the missionaries I think she was excommunicated when she went to prison, and I hope that we can start fresh. Our church is so wonderful. She has the bishop coming over tomorrow night and up an appointment with the DI on Wednesday where she can work and get trained for a new career and they will help her get back on her feet again regardless of her past. It’s so Christlike a beautiful and I just love it. Now we will go to Spencer who spent his days bellowing running across the house kissing Annie on the head doing crazy squats and having musical Tourette’s while he does his homework and that’s all mixed in with taking off every so often in the truck and bringing home all kinds of interesting fun furniture which it’s so fun and funny and we just love to be around him he’s so delightful. I am a little setback with dad, we’re trying to avoid a hip replacement surgery but it looks like that might be the next step for him. He’s been in so much pain with his hip he can’t walk and I guess he’s always had hip problems but they’ve just never been this evident and now it’s gotten way way worse and he might need a full hip replacement. I had a really pretty wonderful experience last week. I just kind of laid on my burdens at the feet of the Savior and said he can’t do it. I just said I’m really struggling with the weight of calling and worry about each child and dad‘s health and finances in school and wanting to be better and not being a great neighbor and missionary the way I want to and a number of you know just wanting to be better basically and fully acknowledging how small and insignificant my contribution seem to be on a daily basis. Anyway I fasted and laid it all out and I got the strongest most beautiful answer. How many father said start each day with me we’ll plan a day together and then you will just be picking up miracles. I think I told you that last week but I just wanted to report how much peace and joy I’m feeling. The interesting thing is I’m still only getting five things done a day but i’m trying so hard to be deeply in tune with him and I’m just trying to not give place for the enemy of my soul anymore. I’m just going forward with faith with a brightness of hope and the love that I do feel forgotten all man and hoping that that love will guide my actions and that he can take my tiny contributions and then I can do the work he needs me to do even though I feel so inapt and so inadequate and so small against all of his needs. However he is teaching me that that love that joy that faith that pressing forward of the brightness of Hope all of those things are lessons in enough themselves in and being OK with life and circumstance and being willing to submit to all things that the father see if it to inflict upon his children and just having joy is such a great an important piece and I feel so much joy if I can stay in that place and not get fearful and not get discouraged. Surely we worship of God he was all powerful and it their reality is our inadequacies don’t matter it is our faith that sustains us and his incredible power. I had a huge training last week with all of the young women leaders in the stake, and I worked so hard and I fasted multiple times and studied so hard and just went crazy trying to get ready and trying to be the instrument that I needed so his message could get through to all these wonderful young women leaders at this difficult time in and that he could minister to them with what they needed to hear. Anyway it was cool because I said in prayer I don’t have a story please help me find a story and immediately thought Helen Keller came to mind so I looked up some quotes from her about the very moment when she realized what Ansell of and was doing spelling water into her hand and anyway I kind of compare that to we are miracle workers spelling water living water into the hands of these young women over and over and over and over and over again we don’t know when they’re going to get it when those moments of recognition are going to wash over them but we just keep spelling and keep loving and keep trying. It was awesome. That analogy was really powerful and worked really really well. And it was pure inspiration. I don’t know if you get through these long letters but I just want so much for you to know how much we love you and I feel connected and feel like you have an idea of what’s going on around here. Emmy Slichta is here every day we are homeschooling her :-). It’s so fun it just makes it fun days with Emmy and Spencer and Annie and Sethie. I know they want to be at school and with all their friends but it’s kind of a precious time right now. These promises of Let God Prevail are AMAZING!!