Dance Performance

Savannah had another dance performance in June.  She only has 2 performances per year, and she had to miss the fall of 2022 due to soccer season.  So she was excited to be able to perform again.  Her hip hop team did a Pump up the Jam / Girls Just Want to Have Fun combo dance.  They were dressed 80's style.  She did a great job!  The hardest part about performances is the make-up.  She was required to wear fake eyelashes, which almost seemed like child abuse trying to get those on.  We figured it out, but she still didn't like wearing them.  One of her rehearsals was during our youth camp week, so a friend of mine actually had to do Savannah's hair and make-up once while Savannah was staying with them. 

I couldn't record the actual performance but got a video during rehearsals.

Fathers Day

We had omelettes and bacon for breakfast, lasagna for dinner, and Twix cheesecake bars for dessert.    Weston created a dinosaur for Alex, a Bonumpaterutrumsaurus, which means "good father shoveling lizard". 

Owen gave a talk at church and did a great job on that.  He talked about 3 guidelines on what a father should be: an example to follow, a leader and provider in the family, and someone who lifts others burdens.  I love this story he shared for an example of lifting others burdens.

"I am reminded of a personal story that I have had in my life. A couple years ago I had the opportunity to go on a backpacking trip with my 2 older brothers and my dad. We went to Hurricane Deck, 20 miles round trip in 2 days, 2200 feet of elevation gain, and rain and hail. At this time I am around 11 and this is my only my second backpacking trip ever, with my first being a 2 mile round trip with about 0 elevation gain. Now my dad has only heard me talk bad things about this trip but what he doesn’t know is that I had a really impactful experience on fathers. This moment has taught me that my dad could have just taken us on a shorter trail but he didn’t.  He could have carried me the rest of the way because I couldn’t go any farther, but he didn’t. All he did was take enough of my load so that I could make it the rest of the way. He did what he could do so that I could make it to the end of the trip.  He helped and supported me the whole way. This is what all fathers do and what our Heavenly Father does. Our Heavenly Father gives us our trials, our 20 mile backpacking trip with 2200 feet of elevation gain with rain and hail and lifts our burdens just enough so that we can make it through. And he is always there to be that support we need. My dad never left my side and I know that our Heavenly Father will never leave our side."  

End of School

Well, it's almost time for school to start again... but here's the end of last school year.  Owen had a couple of concerts, one in May and another in June.  Owen sang another solo in the spring concert.  He sang Knee Deep by Zach Brown Band.  A few of his friends joined in for a little choreography.  The choir also sang at the 8th grade promotion. It was sad to see him say good-bye to friends who would be going to different high schools the next year.  His choir teacher also was not returning, so she wrote a song about the things they had taught her and sang it at the last concert. 

Owen had fun at his 8th grade party.  He won a fish, named him Mike, and then gave him to Savannah to take care of.  It actually lasted quite a while.  His friends' fishes died within about a week, but this fish lasted all summer.  

Weston also had a promotion ceremony, graduating from elementary school on to 7th grade.  He had to say a favorite thing about school, which had to do with kickball of course.  He had to learn a couple of songs as well for the ceremony, which was hilarious listening to him practice.  He had a hard time getting the beat - we'll see how that goes for band next year... We loved his happy dance at the end of the ceremony.  Funny kid!

Jared didn't graduate this year, but there was an end-of-year seminary breakfast.  He finished his 3rd year of seminary. Kat and Julie were his teachers, and they were amazing.  They shared a little bit about each of the students.  They said that Jared "talks prophetically" and shared something that Jared said: "It's easy to have faith when things are going well, but it's more important to have faith when things are not going well because that's when you need it the most.  Even though there is uncertainty, you can have faith that everything will be okay."

I organized gifts for the 4 teachers (flowers, chocolates, and gift cards collected from families) - two individual teachers and one couple who taught the younger class. I also made 2 pans of overnight French toast for the breakfast. 

It was sad to watch Weston and Savannah walk off to their last day of school - their last day walking to school together.  (Savannah had a pajama day on the last day.)  Weston called me mid-morning.  I missed the call, but the message was to bring a kickball.  I didn't know what he wanted it for, but assumed maybe they were going to play kickball one last time.  However, he came home with a signed kickball.  Apparently, he wanted all his classmates to sign the ball.  That was a fitting keepsake for elementary school since he loved playing kickball.

As a family, we went out for lunch on the last day of school. 

This last picture is just a few random things for the first week of June.  Bike riding, flowers in bloom, teacher gifts, and graduation leis.  We had 5 graduating seniors in our church congregation this year.  We did a little celebration to honor them, and we were all supposed to bring some kind of lei for them.  We decided to do candy leis. 

Missionary Update

I'm getting behind on Nathan's mission - time to update the last few months. He's been in Quito from April to the present, although he moved areas within Quito. He started with Elder Kowallis in Bellavista area and then got transferred to Calderon area.  Elder Lyman was his companion there until his mission was done, and then Nathan got to train Elder Ramirez from Peru.  They've had a few baptisms - Olger, Jairo, and to be part of a baptism for 9 people from their zone on the same day.  He's been currently serving the past 6 weeks as a "finder missionary".  His role, along with 3 other elders, is to find people for other missionaries to teach.  They're out contacting, knocking on doors, and teaching an introductory lesson.  They then pass those people who want to continue learning to other missionaries.  It's a pretty hard role, as they don't get to finish teaching anyone.  They also don't have visits or meals with the ward members, so they've been cooking their own food or eating out.  They've done lots of walking and come across many dogs.  They have to use their umbrellas to ward off the unfriendly dogs.  For an idea of the walking, one day he and his companion walked an hour, only to find a gated community where they couldn't get in, so they had to turn around and walk the hour back.  

They got their phone pick-pocketed one day.  There was some rioting in the streets when the to-be-impeached president dissolved the government.  One of the other companionships was robbed at knife point in the middle of the day while eating lunch in a restaurant.  Nathan claims he's in one of the safer parts of the mission though. 

He's meeting tons of people and the language is coming along well.  While meeting someone in the street, the person mentioned they were on their way to church.  Nathan and his companion asked if they could join and attended another church service and got introduced to the bishop / pastor of the church. 

He's learning a lot while out there, about personal revelation, self-reliance, his own weaknesses, serving others, and the Savior and God's plan for us.  Here are a couple of the things he wrote about:

"I loved that this week we had the opportunity to remember the Savior and his resurrection. When we read about his life, we see just how important his resurrection was for us. Through him we all will be resurrected and gain a perfect body. Then through his atonement and gospel he taught, we will be saved from sin. To missionaries, the gospel is super important. We strive to live every principle so that we can help others change their life and live the same principles. Both the investigator and the missionary learn how we can be like Jesus Christ together. It has been a great blessing to see people strive to be more like Christ and make great changes in their life."

"We did a lot of finding this week. We went up to parts that are outside of the city and so we knocked a lot of doors and dealt with a lot of dogs. We started teaching a family that is super prepared. Apparently they had been attending church in the past, but the missionaries stopped being in contact with them. The wife expressed how she was waiting for another opportunity to meet with us. We ended up knocking their door and talking to the husband! The wife also mentioned to us that her husband didn't mention to her we were coming and so she didn't know we were coming but she felt someone important was coming over. She had this anxious feeling. She told us that when we entered the house she was completely calm. Her story strengthened my testimony about the spirit we have as missionaries."  

"I just want to share that if we want to start to do the Lord's will in our lives, prayer is the best way to start. Prayer is a way we can come unto to Christ. Recently I have been praying for that change of heart and it's already been an amazing journey so far. I have felt my heart change. I have seen greater control over my thoughts and actions. And I have seen the power of the spirit as I work. It's accepting God's plan for you and accepting that your thoughts, ideas or beliefs could be wrong. Honestly, I have felt such a great change already and I know that we can become instruments in the Lord's hands as we act on this desire."

First picture: No one showed up for their class! 

It was fun to talk to Nathan when Jared was in Scotland - from 3 different continents. Nathan got to talk to Jared's seminary class one morning as well (I joined in of course). 

Scotland

Jared was able to go on his Scotland trip.  Since Alex was already there, Jared had to fly over on his own.  Jared has been on several flights with us, but this was his first time on his own.  I didn't even take him to the airport.  I dropped him off where he took a bus to LAX.  It was a little weird sending him off.  He flew to London, where he had a 7-hour layover, and then on to Inverness.  We tried to prep him for what to do in London and what to do with his phone when he got there.  We told him to put it on airplane mode so he wouldn't get charged for calls or messages from anyone.  But then we wanted him to connect to the Wi-Fi at the airport so we could check in with him on WhatsApp.  Well we didn't hear from him at all - he did what we said but then couldn't connect to the internet.  He made it to meet Alex in Inverness though.  (We joked about his possible adventures in London during those 7 hours... guess we'll never know... he actually just sat there bored.)  

Jared went to help Alex with his field work, so it wasn't much of a vacation.  They did have a little fun for a couple of days, hiking to the top of Ben Nevis and visiting a filming site from Andor (Cruachan Dam).  The trip wasn't without a little drama.  The clutch on their car burned out one night about 25 miles from their destination, so they had to wait for it to get towed (and eat peanut butter sandwiches again since all the restaurants were closed by the time they got in).  The trip was a nice break for both of them, despite working hard most of the time.  It's a beautiful place to work!

17 years

We celebrated Jared's birthday over a couple of days.  Alex left for Scotland a couple of days before Jared's birthday, so he missed dinner and cake celebrations.  We did his requested breakfast while Alex was still here (also since Jared had something else the morning of his birthday after seminary).  Presents aren't as exciting when you hit 17 - we had a hard time getting him to tell us anything he wanted.  We finally got out of him that he could use some free weights.  So that's what he got - two 25 lb weights.  It was pretty hard to wrap those things up... I managed to wrap them in a box on the floor in my room, but then it was really awkward to move it anywhere. So I had Owen haul them out the night before his birthday.  He also got a couple of books and the rest was cash.  One of the books was a running book called "How to Make Yourself Poop and 999 Other Tips all Runners Should Know." 😀 

Jared's dinner request was a little random - BBQ sandwiches, vegetable fried rice, and rolls. 

Here is the main story for Jared's birthday this year though.  He was supposed to fly to Scotland the day after his birthday.  About 2 weeks prior to the trip, he still didn't have his passport.  He applied for the passport in early February.  We were told the maximum time would be 10 weeks, without expediting, so we went with the normal option since that meant we had 4 extra weeks before his trip.  Anyway, after about 12 weeks since submission and 2 weeks before his trip, we didn't have the passport.  Alex spent the next 1-2 weeks trying to figure out how to get the passport.  He ended up waiting on hold on the phone for about 1.5 hours every day for a week, with no hope. We tried to expedite the process, but they couldn't offer any hope.  We tried everything we could think of - looking for a place we could walk in and get it that day (even in neighboring states) and even emailing our senator.  The only options for same-day appointments were Seattle (at 8:30am the morning of Jared's flight) and Honolulu.  Those weren't do-able options.  Really our only hope was prayer.  Four days before his flight we found out his passport was being printed.  Three days before it was being shipped from Tucson, AZ.  When the tracking came out, it was expected to arrive by 9:00pm on the day of his flight (3 hours AFTER his flight), so that wasn't going to work.  But we knew it could arrive before that expected time.  The day before his flight, on Jared's birthday, we saw that it had arrived at our local "distribution center" in the afternoon - no address or information on exactly where it was.  Jared and I headed over to our local post office to see if we could find it.  The first person we talked to said the distribution center was a large facility that thousands of pieces of mail go through there and we wouldn't be able to get it from there.  When I pressed about getting it sent from there to pick up at our local post office in the morning, they just said to step aside and "wait next to a door" where someone else would try to help us.  We stood for another 15 minutes without anyone trying to help.  Finally another postal worker saw us and asked if we had been helped.  We explained the situation again and he took our tracking number to see if he could find out where it was.  After about 10 minutes, he walked out holding the package.  It was already there at our post office!  I know this was another tender mercy of the Lord, in being able to get the passport in time for the trip.  So Jared got his passport on his birthday, which meant he would be able to take his 10-day trip to Scotland as well.  Memorable birthday for Jared!  

Volleyball

We did have one more sports season left for this school year.  Our local sports club added volleyball this year, so Owen was happy to try it out.  He's planning on trying out for the 9th grade team next year, so this was a good introduction to the sport.  They didn't have regular games - just practices and one tournament at the end of the season.  He got to play 8 games during the tournament.  He's pretty good at serving the ball; they had to really be ready for his serves.  He usually got 3-4 points in a row because they couldn't return his serves.  He likes setting the ball to his buddies to spike over.  He's fairly tall, so that helps.  He hopes to make the school team next year.  I'm much more excited about volleyball season than football season (he wants to try out for the football team too.)