November 9, 2020

Good morning my precious boy! We always get so excited when it’s Monday and we can talk to you! How are you doing? How is everything? So excited to hear all of your news. One of our great miracles of the week has to do with our missionary in Las Vegas. Our package didn’t get to him and we were so disappointed and heartbroken and we got up early on Monday morning and we were ready to drive down, Google maps says were only five hours away, and get the package from the Mission home and take it to our missionary, but they would not let us. They would not release her address, we even called our cousins who live in Vegas and they were going to door Dash you some food, and they wouldn’t tell us where you were, so everything didn’t work and we were feeling pretty sad and awful. Anyway can you imagine our joy to get a text and see you with a birthday cake and candle in front of you. That was not a random cake, heavenly father is aware of his precious missionaries and we are so grateful for his love and his compensatory blessings for parents who fall short. Happy birthday you wonderful boy. Which of the third so much to tell. This has been such an interesting and strange week. I am so proud of Rebecca‘s family and the love they showed to their father and husband during the funeral. They talked about how he was a great example of service and how he taught them to love to read and love the stars. Not only was the funeral very positive but boy said at home there have only been kind words spoken. I am interesting things are happening her brothers are getting their drivers licenses and their first phones. It’s going to be very different at their house. I’m just so proud of her family for being so loving and kind and looking at the positive in everything. It was interesting to put together a life story of her father. He didn’t get the gospel until I was 35 years old, and previous to that he was raised in Portugal where a man could murder his wife were not obeying him up until two years ago. He was also a sergeant in the Air Force. Sergeants are always the ones that everyone makes fun of because they’re the ones that scream in the faces of their subordinates. Anyway it’s just so interestingqueen Rebecca‘s lives have changed dramatically now that she is reunited with her family and not only reunited but they’ve been there almost all day every single day spending time with them. Boy feels like he fits in really really well and here’s to a brand new chapter in their lives! They did the funeral by zoom because of conditions so I was able to watch with grandma Jan. In other news I think Annie and Sam are getting closer. You probably know more than I do she is probably more prone to talk to you than me, but I’m actually really impressed with him and really grateful that he is treated her so respectfully and treated her like a queen and I don’t know what is right or wrong but I know they both want to be good and they like each other and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. It’s natural and beautiful. He has certainly spent the time to get to know her and treat her with so much respect and interest. They are very good friends. They laugh a lot. When he is over here they do what the family is doing and I love that. It’s so interesting to be a parent I just want my children to be treated like gold and to experience the best of chivalry and humanity and Christ like love and great examples and decorum and deference and self-control and putting off the natural man and all of those things but also coupled with great wonderful joy and abandon and the precious wonder of life and love. I Seth got a call on Saturday that he was in within 6 feet of someone at school who had the virus so he is quarantined and less he gets a test and goes back to school, but he’s kind of thinking he’ll just homeschool for two weeks :-). Annie is finishing her quarantine as well so everyone’s around home today and it’s really fun. Dad has had kind of a rough go. He has having some pretty serious hip problems and can hardly walk and he went to physical therapy and they just ripped him apart so he’s been in a lot of pain this week. He’s trying to be brave but it’s really not that fun. Riding the wave of the election has been emotionally expensive. It’s very difficult and I don’t know what will happen but I feel so discouraged that someone who votes to kill babies could maybe be the president of our country. Last night the governor put out a mandate an emergency declaration and everything basically is canceled for two weeks and we are not holding any activities were supposed to stay as a family because our numbers are so so high in Utah. They feel like what is spreading it is home gatherings where you get together with just one or two families so we’ve been asked not to do that at all for the next two weeks. We had a tiny bit of a fun miracle. Our missionaries serving here came over for a quick message with our family on Friday night. Parker just happened to walk in two minutes before they got here we invited him to stay he did and then he stayed for another hour or two talking about fun memories like when he fell out of the tree and grabbed onto the Hamic in Spencer saved his life with the poly out of the treehouse, and all kinds of crazy things they did growing up. It was really fun but he hasn’t been at our house in a long long time and I don’t think it was chance that he walked in one minute before the missionaries came. He was part of their message and discussion and they asked us to just think about somebody that could use a positive message or some uplift or some love from Jesus Christ in their lives. They’re going to follow up with us next Friday. I had such an amazing experience last night. Seth came to me with tears wondering how he could tell what the spirit felt like, how he could tell if it was his voice or the voice of the spirit, what answers to prayers feel like, he just didn’t know if he was getting his prayers answered. It was so sweet he was so deeply concerned about it. We had a great great talk about times that he has been prompted to visit grandma Jan, one recently where she needed help with the canning some thing with Steck and he showed up just in time and had a feeling to go up there to help her. We talked about DNC nine, Galatians 522 and 23, my peace I leave with you not as the world give us give into you, and I told him the story about how Grandpa Jello prayed about Mary Grandma Jello and got nothing and the Lord wanted him to do more homework, we talked about and D in C9 how it says to study things out in your own mind and if we got an instant answer to every prayer we wouldn’t do a lot of studying and a lot of searching in a lot of working on it. It is the sweetest thing he is fasting today so that he can feel the spirit. He just wants to know and understand and he wants assurance that God is actually speaking with him. He’s he started three journals last night, one of spiritual questions and answers, one of spiritual experiences that he’s had, and a journal in general where he will try to remember experiences he’s had with the spirit that day. He’s had such a spiritual week he came to me a couple of days ago and said also with tears in his eyes that he had started doing 30 minute prayers and what an amazing experience that had been. He’s coming into the age that Joseph Smith was and they want to know what is real. I am fasting with him today and praying that the Lord can use a simple instrument as myself to do whatever part of this work that he wants me to do to help him know that God is real and loves him and wheel and has answered his prayers. We are battening down the hatches for winter, we went from warm weather to snow, we built the cat house and clean the yard and then the winds and snow came. It was so fun to be all tucked in playing smash up and listening to Christmas music. Coy and Becca spent Saturday and Sunday with us. Spenny and Lizzie are so funny. They’re together so much. She’ll come down here and stay a couple of days and then he’ll go up to Ogden and stay a couple of days. Finally yesterday I said Spenny and he just smiled. He is turning into a little furniture man and filling our house with all kinds of crazy furniture. He’s had some good sales this week, but our garage is full of interesting things. Saturday night he picked up a round white couch it’s like a half a circle very very expensive from a lawyer in Draper. He’s getting kind of obsessed and I don’t know whether to laugh or try to temper him. I think he just wants to get set up for his future. He told me when I asked him what he was so desperately trying to earn money for that he feels like he’s gonna have a great business idea and he needs a bunch of capital ready when it hits so he’s ready to go. I think Annie has really enjoyed quarantine. She’s a little more of an introvert than us so may suppose just because she’s a Christiansen. I think you were like that a little bit to remember when you wanted to go to the mountains for three days by yourself? She likes to spend time in her room writing in her journal reading scriptures thinking about things getting caught up. Sometimes our chewing bothers her sometimes she doesn’t wanna be around all of us and she just want some time alone. She such a beautiful girl and I think she likes a boy. What are we going to do? Grandma Jan is an angel. We finished about 500 bottles of canning and she did so much of it by herself. She just can’t stand to see anything waste. On Wednesday night or Thursday night we had Seth‘s final football banquet. It was so awesome. I think some of my siblings are disgusted with us that we let him play tackle football at such a young age, but it has been so incredibly positive. With his dad being so sick we need to kind of hire out some of those experiences, and he has just done great. He was on the field almost all the time. He got the speed demon award because they said he’s the fastest kid on the team. We might send him to an athletic trainer, I just feel like I have to make those things kind of a priority to compensate for what dad can’t do right now. I don’t mean that to be rude, but it’s just the situation, dad can’t throw the football with him in the backyard so so there’s a training center in Riverton and he can go unlimited times for $50 a month and they work with him and help him just become a total all-around athlete. I think that might be super positive for him over the winter since because of Covid they’re not doing junior jazz or anything. Anyway he really loved football he really loved the friendship of football and I’m hoping we can find some other things to fill that void in his life. He’s a little low on friends right now but I think everybody’s feeling that way because we have to stay in our homes so much. I am praying about that today too. Yesterday and he got a stack of treats and wrote letters to lots and lots of young women in the ward and Seth and Annie drove around and delivered all the love notes. That never ceases to bring in the spirit right? I’m just trying to pray and think while I’m writing to you and realizing that some thank you notes to heavenly father and Jesus and grandma‘s and other people might be a great activity for today to help Seth feel and identify that he is feeling the spirit. If you have any ideas for me please let me know. He wants to know how he knows, he wants to know that what he’s feeling is the spirit and that God is talking to him. He was saying yesterday that other people talk about a burning in his present and he doesn’t know if he’s ever felt that. He is so sweet. Our talk last night was two hours long and there were lots and lots of tears. I hope you get your birthday package today and know how much we love you. I’m so sorry I didn’t get there by last week but please know we thought of you prayed for you and your end to be with you even to the point we were willing to drive to Vegas just to drop something at your door. I love you so much Joseph Ross you bring your mama so much joy.