70 pushups!

Below is a (rather lengthy) letter from me to Abe. For any of you curious about some of my responses, the letter I was responding to can be found by clicking --> here. 🙂

70 pushups. Not bad. Especially when I can do about eight. Ha!

I loved all the stories of people talking to or about you guys as the SWAT, FBI, and disciplined hunters with closets full of guns (that you can shoot at far range). Haha. Ohhh those are all so great. And it’s funny thinking about stereotypes we have of other cultures and people and to wonder how on earth Americans have become associated (at least in El Salvador) as gun-toting secret agents.

And I loved picturing you in a Walter Mitty soccer-playing scenario. Sometimes I wish someone was just following you around with a camera; quietly capturing daily moments of your existence there without you even knowing it and then sending them to me. Actually I wish I could be the one doing that — just taking pictures off to the side during the moments you paint for us in your emails: Miriam walking determinedly past a chatty neighbor because she had promised to be to church, the Zaldivar’s pulling porcupine quills from their dogs nose, or their little boy shouting he wanted to be baptized “tomorrow”, you eating lunch at Hna. Irma’s market, or gathered around a table at Hno. Morales’ home with friends from the Jucuapa ward, or you laughing with the drunks who have claimed you their best “Canadian-man” friend. Luckily you do a pretty great job of giving descriptions that create images for us. And your pictures always make me happy. But I think it would be my favorite thing ever to just trail along on the sly taking pictures of all your daily comings and goings.

I loved your repentance metaphor. It reminded me of what Elder Bednar said last conference after he told about things he’d learned from watching those Cheetahs. He told us: “... each of us should look for the lessons and warnings found in the simple events of everyday life. As we seek for a mind and heart open to receive heavenly direction by the power of the Holy Ghost, then some of the greatest instructions that we can receive and many of the most powerful warnings that can safeguard us will originate in our own ordinary experiences. Powerful parables are contained in both the scriptures and in our daily lives.“

I love seeing the lessons and parables you are discovering in the midst of your adventure in El Salvador. I love that God could teach you a powerful lesson — and one that would help others — from the simple experience of seeing a dog have porcupine quills removed. It makes me want to pay more attention to lessons in my daily routines. And it makes me love God for being so good and so willing to give us truth wherever we are open to seeing it.

And here’s another interesting thing. You probably won’t understand this fully until you have kids of your own. (Though you can likely feel it when you think of your younger siblings or even of people whose souls you have come to care about in your mission.) But in life, there is maybe nothing that makes me love someone more than when they are good to my kids. If someone goes out of their way to make one of you ten feel included or important or liked, I immediately just love that person. One small example: I told you that Jesse passed the sacrament for the first time last Sunday. He was the smallest kid up there and looked a bit unsure and nervous, and I kept seeing him glance around a bit anxiously to make sure he was always in the right spot, etc. Anyway, a few days later a little card came in the mail for Jesse from Elaine Carruth in the ward. (Do you remember her? Janet Nelson’s sister. They live in the house where you guys moved all the rocks ... and then moved them back. Hahah.) She just wanted to tell him what a great job he did passing the sacrament and what a great priesthood holder she knew he would be. It was a small thing, but it made me suddenly feel so much love for Elaine.

So the interesting thing — something I didn’t know would happen — is that my love for Heavenly Father and our Savior has grown SO MUCH with you on a mission. And it’s because you will share stories of answers to prayers or comfort they have sent you. Or you’ll share lessons they are teaching you. And it’s that same feeling I was describing in the above paragraph. Suddenly I am seeing so much more clearly that they are helping MY KID. And it makes me love them so much more! Just like my love swells for people HERE who are good to my kids.

Of course I know they are constantly helping all of my kids. And that they’ve been helping you your whole life. But there is a bit of a helpless feeling having a child so far away from where you can do much to soften their troubles — even if I didn’t know every problem or frustration you had or what specifically might be worrying you, I could ... I don’t know ... make you a good Sunday dinner, have you watch a fun late-night action movie with dad, tidy up the house for you to come home to, buy you some blue socks, just ... be a mom and make the backdrop to your life a little smoother. Now that I can’t do that, it makes God helping you stand out so much more starkly. I have become much more aware of all He is doing and how constantly aware He is of my own son. And seeing him do things for you makes me love him more than it ever has seeing him do things for me. I don’t know if that makes sense. But it’s a cool side of having you in a mission that I hadn’t anticipated.

Speaking of cool sides of you being on a mission. This one I did anticipate of course, but it is still so amazing to actually witness. It’s just the growth and spiritual wisdom and maturity and even just understanding of LIFE you are gaining. When you wrote last week about how people tend to confide their troubles to missionaries and how much you’ve begun to see just ... how hard life is for people and how many underlying struggles are occurring in other’s lives, and how much people just need kindness, it just amazed me to think of how many more years of living you might have had to pass through before gaining this compassionate realization. I mean I’m a good case in point. I feel like it has mostly been in the last decade or so that I have truly begun to understand the severity of trials those around me are experiencing. It’s been a slower process for me because my experience has been a bit more limited to watching the struggles of friends and family (though admittedly we have a pretty large family pool to learn from — with about every struggle of mankind divided up among them [addictions, disabilities, depression, divorce, abuse, pain from mistakes, etc.]). Still, I felt kind of in awe this week thinking of you getting to start learning this at such a crash-course-paced speed. How many 19 year olds have had their eyes so opened to the pain in the world and to how much their Savior wants them to be lifting and loving and helping? It's cool to think of how much more effectively God will be able to use you over the years ahead by you beginning to gain this compassion and understanding so young.

Well, that was a lot of thoughtful. How about a little light-hearted and ordinary!

Jesse went skiing with the Deacons this week. Probably only his third time ever skiing, but he seemed to have an OK time.

Hans got a sore throat last week. In an effort to stop the troublesome sensation, he began making a little, guttural, throat-clearing sort of sound ... over and over and over again. And he's continued to make it rather regularly. If you get on his case about it, he gets very defensive for a three-year-old. "No!" He'll shout, "I'm just throating!" I am not sure where he came up with that term. But dad seems to enjoy his "throating" about as much as he enjoyed your knuckle-cracking. Haha.

Starling is as dear and pleasant as a little girl can be, but she does lately primarily want me to be holding her. The only time she will play very contentedly is if I am gone from the home (and thus not an option at all) or if I sit on the floor with her and a pile of toys so that she can play with her toys while climbing back and forth over me and overall making sure I'm not thinking about going anywhere. It makes it tricky to get things done. However, doing an arm curl with a small human weight a good portion of each day is making my left arm pretttttty strong! I wouldn't go so far as to say I could beat you in an arm-wrestling match now (I mentioned my eight push-ups to your 70) but my left arm could certainly hold its ground a fair amount longer than my weak right arm. And it's all thanks to Starling.

Daisy took the AMC math test the other day. The big mystery of the day was: where is Alex Rich? I think he had big plans for success on the test but then didn't show up on test day. I don't know if it was illness or date confusion or what, but I told Daisy that the real tragedy in all of this is ... she will never know now if she might have beaten him. Ha! I do wish you were around to talk Calculus with her. I remember you telling her excitedly about all of these new things you were loving about it last year. And now she sometimes tries to tell me a few similar things ... but, of course, I don't really understand a word she is saying. It would be grand for the two of you to be able to happily talk away about Calculus wonders together.

The other night dad and I were discussing what movie to watch. I don't recall what he suggested, but it must have been one that wasn't up my alley because he said, "I just want to make you happy by you making me happy." Just the type of thing dad would say. I sure like that stinker dad of yours.

Speaking of. I came across this old picture the other day. It's dad holding you -- just moments after you were born. Crazy to think that we just (without having any money or real careers or knowing much of anything about being parents) brought you here. We weren't that much older than you are now really. Only four or five more years of living. Pretty amazing to think of all that has happened since that day.

Of course the real thing on my mind all week has been: WHERE ARE YOU!? The Durans posted a few pictures of transfer day on Facebook. We saw you sitting in a chapel with a bunch of other missionaries in one of the shots. Dad thought that if you were there at all, there was a good chance you were there to be transferred. If so, I'm excited for you to get to know a new place, but I also feel a little homesick at the thought of you leaving everything that has become familiar in Jucuapa and just ... anxious for you over everything and everyone being new again. I am eager to hear from you and hope you are doing all right. The good news is: whenever things are unknown with you again, we find ourselves praying much more intently over you!

In Come Follow Me this week I read about Nephi and his brothers, etc. finally finishing the boat and heading off into the sea. Nephi says, "... we did put forth into the sea and were driven forth before the wind towards the promised land."

It made me think of some similar verses in Ether 6 when the Jaredites climb into their barges and head off -- trusting themselves to the Lord:

“ And it came to pass that the Lord God caused that there should be a furious wind blow upon the face of the waters, towards the promised land; and thus they were tossed upon the waves of the sea before the wind. ...

“ And it came to pass that the wind did never cease to blow towards the promised land while they were upon the waters; and thus they were driven forth before the wind.

It seems clear that the wind isn't pleasant. It makes the sea stormy and tosses them about on the waves and makes everything feel unsettled. But without it, they wouldn’t move forward or ever progress in their journeys. That line in Ether is kind of cool (if not a little frightening): "... the wind did never cease to blow towards the promised land ..."

I get worried when I think of my kids having the wind blowing in their lives. Things seeming hard or turbulent or scary for them. But from those verses it seems pretty clear that we need it. We need adversity and the wind to be blowing pretty much our entire mortal journeys. But we can trust that what it is teaching us and where it is leading us is always towards the promised land. Towards everything important God has for us.

I love you so much. I hope you are happy and everything is great. But, if it isn't, I hope you can feel peace that there is purpose in God allowing those winds.

Love you so so much!

Mom

Here is just a little snapshot of an ordinary, messy after-dinner moment. 

Letter to Abe

As you know, it was Halloween this week. All the usual things. We watched Blackbeard's Ghost for Family Night. (There's a spiritual evening for you.) The ward trunk-or-treat was Tuesday which was about the same as it always is except the Deacons didn't do the whack-a-deacon for their game (too bad). Noah was there. It always seems so odd seeing any of your friends around now. Lonely somehow. I suppose I feel their lives must feel empty now that you are gone. Haha. I don't know what it is really. I guess it just feels strange seeing that any of your close friends are still here in these ordinary normal bits of life when you feel so far away from them! Anyway, the trunk-or-treat. No dancing skeletons this year (which was a relief to all our small kids). Also it was freezing. This week looks to be pretty nice again, but I think we broke all sorts of records for October cold last week. And Tuesday night -- with its fierce wind -- was probably the worst. I didn't even dare go outside with Starling while the kids did the trunk-or-treat.

What else? We carved pumpkins. Mette really wanted a rabbit. How does one carve a jack-o-lantern rabbit? I tried. And it ended up very clearly ... a cat. But, after some initial protesting, she accepted a cat pumpkin as a good alternative. I was remembering, as I carved, a year or two ago, when Mette put you in charge of carving her pumpkin and seemed to have no interest in even watching the process, but would occasionally holler instructions at you.

This year Daisy was a pirate (and a witch later). Goldie was, at one point, a softball player, and Little Miss Muffet on Halloween night. (I don't know if she meant to dress as Miss Muffet, but that's exactly what she looked like -- and what we all called her.) Penny wore a billion things -- though she kept despairing she had nothing. She was a fortune teller for the Harris party and a friend's party. An angel for school. And someone from Hogwarts on Halloween and at the trunk-or-treat. Jesse was a rock climber. (We borrowed a helmet from the Stuarts.) Anders wore your old hobo costume. (I still remember you making that -- tearing and cutting holes in things, asking me to wash it so the holes would look frayed, rubbing brown face paint on everything to make it look dirty.) Summer was Belle from Beauty and the Beast. Mette wore the old wolf costume. Hans was the frog. And Starling was an owl at the ward party ... and nothing on Halloween. (Though the jacket she was wearing earlier that day does have bunny ears. So that's something.)

I looked up El Salvador's Day of the Dead and saw it was this weekend. Anything interesting happen there? Maybe it was hard to separate that from all the crazy Jucuapa celebrations that were happening down there recently? It sounded like maybe it is something similar to how we honor our ancestors on Memorial Day. I imagine I'll ask you about it on the phone today if we get to talk.

Also last week Amazon sent a toy catalog in the mail. I am not even slightly exaggerating when I tell you that the little girls spent probably three hours total going through it over the first two days of its arrival. They used sharpies to mark letters on every item according to who in the family they thought it would be best for. They even wrote ABE on a number of things. (Because just "A" was already for Anders. I was impressed. I didn't know they knew how to write your name.)

Oh, and we changed the clocks back this weekend. I'm guessing you guys didn't? So we are no longer on the same time, rather, its an hour earlier here (which, sadly, means even less chance your siblings will get to be home when you get to call).

We watched Babe last night. I thought we'd watched it so often that all the kids were already familiar with it. But it must have been awhile because even Penny didn't really remember it. I love that show. It's just great. I think it might be one of my favorite movies. Which seems kind of funny. But that farmer is just so likable. And the wife is so great. I think I will make everyone watch it again as soon as you get home.

A few other random things:

--I'm being released as YW secretary and just got called to teach Sunday School. I'll team teach with Jana Hurst. We are going to finish up teaching the class that Goldie is in. But they are rearranging things at the new year and will probably have us teaching the oldest class. I actually am looking forward to this calling more than I have to almost any! It may be that I won't end up liking it that much. But I've mostly only taught very little kids (other than a spell of teaching RS years ago and the few times I actually taught in my YW callings). I really like teaching. And I am super excited to teach teenagers.

--Also, I don't know if you recall the little suit Anders had back when he was a toddler, but it fits Hans now. He looks pretty great in it. It's funny how kids mix words in their head because when we put it on him he says he's wearing a suit...case. Haha. It's cute.

--One of Jesse's best pals this year is a kid named Alec. Remember how, whenever you would tell us anything that sounded a bit far-fetched growing up, we would always tease, "Was it Keaneau who told you that?" That's basically what we say to Jesse now. Nearly every day he tells me something new that "Alec says". I need to start recording more of them because they are usually pretty great. Yesterday he told me, "Alec says if you get frost bite, your fingers turn black (that's probably true) and then if you stick them in water ... they immediately fall off."

--Dad signed Anders up for basketball. He decided he needed a hobby of some sort. I wish you were here to go out and practice with him. He "shoots" holding the ball behind his head with both hands and has very little dribbling practice so I'm a bit nervous about having him ready to play come January!

--The boys still like watching Dwight in Shining Armor. It hasn't improved any. But at least Clodwig is present in most episodes. Also, we keep giving Studio C with the new cast "one more chance" ... but we keep being fully disappointed. Too bad. I like a good laugh. But we will just need to compile a list of all the funniest old ones and have a viewing party when you return.

Anyway, every time anyone asks us how you are doing, they follow it with a comment about enjoying your letters. They have been very fun for us (and for everyone else who sees them) to read. All I ask, AS YOUR MOTHER, is more pictures of you with people you know down there! I don't know. People in your ward. Investigators. That guy who likes to play the guitar in melodies unrelated to the hymns you are singing. And maybe to have you occasionally give me a brief character sketch of a few of the people. I really just want to feel more aware of all the things that make up your life right now! I love every single thing you send that tells me about life in El Salvador, funny things, living conditions, weather, scenery, people! I can't get enough! As I am always trying to imagine you in this new reality ... without it seeming wholly unreal to me!

Also, I had a good laugh over "who is the elect spouse for you" business. You know what dad would say to that I suppose? "So, Abe, which of the girls in the ward did you say?" Ha! I also loved that your drunkard friend was convinced you were Mexican. Hahah. I'm sure that was a first -- and probably a last -- for you. Lastly, it makes me so happy hearing you talk about the Book of Mormon. Even before your letter you said something about it on the phone and it just seemed so ... calm and happy and matter-of-fact. Just it being something that makes you so happy and that you enjoy studying so much. It just makes me happy to have you loving the word of God so much that your spirit feels content and happier just filling your days with it. And I'm so glad for God to have sent you away from home with this gift accompanying you to help you feel uplifted.

I'll attach some pictures now. Mostly Halloween ones. And a picture Mette drew for you. It's you by a table with a big plate of grapes, and also a butterfly. I'll probably attach them in more than one email.

I love you! (And so help me ... if someone doesn't get the packages we've sent from the mission office TO you soon then I might have to march down there and do it myself! [I technically could, you know, dad and I finally got our passports finished up. I haven't had one since I went to Israel twenty plus years ago! And we probably won't be able to actually go anywhere any time soon. But I could come to El Salvador if I had to hand deliver those blasted packages. Ha!])

Love you!

Mom

Letters to Abe

I had envisioned my letters to Abe being the perfect way to also keep my blog updated on family happenings around here. (Kind of like the "journal letters" my dad used to write to our family.) And while it is true that I am spending most of my writing moments these days in writing to Abe, and while it is also true that I keep him updated on practically everything around here, . . . a lot of my letter space is taken up simply commenting on things he has said or mentioning this or that person we bumped into that asked about him.

In any case, not all of it would make clear sense here so how much I use my letters as a blog/journal update will likely morph. It may become just bits and pieces, it may be that I'll just start adding them here without concern for the details making sense, or it may be I will find that this isn't really a place for me to keep them at all.

But, for now, a few small snippets taken from various letters that give a small glimpse into . . . what? I don't know . . . his being gone around our house maybe.

Excerpts from letters to Abe:

I’ve heard some moms say they were so sad once their son was gone that they couldn’t even go in their room. But I just open the door and stand there looking in at your room for a minute about every time I pass it (usually after coming out from putting Hansie to bed in his room). I’m not sure what I’m looking for. Or even what I’m thinking. Nothing exactly I suppose. I just stand there and look. Noticing your posters and how clean you left it and just feeling kind of strange.

But speaking of your room. Everyone has been protective of your space. I asked dad if we should get rid of that chair in there and he seemed to think I’d lost my mind. Haha. Also, we plan on setting up Starling’s crib in there until you get back, so I suggested we box up your big shelf stuff and put her crib against that wall. Daisy was aghast and said we should just put Starling’s crib in the middle of your room and leave everything as it is. I think we’ve determined we will just shut your closet doors and put her crib against your closet.

Anyway, it’s interesting to me to think of the contrast in our letters right now. Your job being to fill us in on all the the new and wild and unknown. And my job to update you on all the small and ordinary and familiar. (Although I suppose there’s always the chance that something big or new will happen around here. I guess we will see what two years brings. Hopefully no new broken femurs.) But! I like keeping you updated and a part of all of regular life around here. It makes me feel like I’m keeping you connected to us no matter how far away or how different life might get for you.

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We haven’t set Starling’s crib up next to your closet yet, but I set her little bed thing on top of your bed to give her a nap yesterday. It was the first time I’d put her in your room, so as I slowly cracked the door open when I went to check on her later, I suddenly slipped back in time and, for a second, I truly half expected you to leap up out of bed in a blurry, panicked confusion of, “What? Who? I’m up! I’m up! I’m ready!” just like you used to every time I opened that door when you were asleep — no matter how unalarmingly I tried to wake you.

That's often what it's like missing you here though. We miss you in very big ways of course -- feeling a hole in our family, praying and worrying if you are happy and well, etc. But we most often miss you in a million small and unexpected ways -- like when someone opens the front door and for a minute our brains forget you're gone and we think it's you, or like the other night when dad suggested watching Paul Blart: Mall Cop (hahaha) and none of us displayed proper interest and he was sure you would have been on board, or when Anders pulled some of those Jimmy Dean sausage biscuit things out of the freezer yesterday and then grumbled, "Oh great. Who will show me how to make these now?" (And also, if we’re honest, pretty much every time we are trying to lift things or load things. Dad had to make Daisy come with him to get a bunch of dirt for that hole where the basketball standard was. And he had to have Penny help him hang the kayaks in the garage after the priest’s river activity last week. I’m sure it’s building character in all of them. But heaven knows how we’ll manage to get ready for the camping trip dad has planned for August without you here :).)

ANYWAY, all that “missing you” business might give you some slight idea of how anxiously we wait for Saturday's letters and pictures (and a thousand thousand bravos to you for passing your camera off and getting yourself in pics with the people and things you are around like I wanted you to). We were pretty relieved and happy after your first letter . . . that lasted for a day or two . . . and then we began to feel slightly uncomfortable again, and then, by Thursday we were counting down the hours 'til Saturday when we would hear something from you again!

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So the other day, when we'd all made birthday signs for Summer, Daisy was complaining that she didn't have kind of a go-to style for drawing people. And then we said something like, "Yah. Like Abe's stick people. I hope he doesn't lose his marvelous stick-people drawing skills on his mission. We are going to have to tell him to keep those up." And then, lo and behold, your stick people are featured in an email a few days later! I hope they will continue to occasionally show up in emails through out your mission. :)

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This morning before dad left for work, one of the kids said the morning prayer. They prayed for you. But afterwards dad was telling us how he seemed to vaguely remember that when he was little if they forgot to pray for a sibling on a mission then grandma Harris made them re do the prayer. Haha. Maybe we will start that too. But for now you don’t have to worry about that happening! You are on our minds always. I read a scripture today from Mormon to his son Moroni that pretty much summed things up for our thoughts and prayers for you.

Moroni 8:3 I am mindful of you always in my prayers, continually praying unto God the Father in the name of his Holy Child, Jesus, that he, through his infinite goodness and grace, will keep you through the endurance of faith on his name to the end.

I know God hears my prayers for you.

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I was writing in that little five-year journal I have on Saturday and noticed that on that same day, a year ago, you were just returning from King’s Peak. It’s interesting having that journal because every evening when I write in it, I can see exactly what was going on on the same day a year ago or two years ago. It seems extra . . . I don’t know the word exactly . . . but the entries with you in them just jump out at me a lot more because it’s so strange to think that two years ago just last week, you were picking up your new bike rack and, on your own for the first time, driving you and Noah up over the pass for practice. Or that it was almost exactly a year ago that you played pickle ball in the blazing afternoon heat with friends and later went to watch some Jimmer Fridette basketball game at one of their houses. And all that time we hadn’t the slightest clue that you would be in the MTC — preparing to go to El Salvador — on that very day in another two years or another year. I imagine it will get even more strange for me as school starts and I read through things over this coming year — things like you going to dances or being at a track meet etc. and to think what a crazy difference a year can make! And it will be just as fascinating NEXT year — when you are an old pro at mission life — to read about dropping you off at the MTC, etc. It’s always so crazy to me that God sees what’s in store for us, but we just have to watch it unfold never knowing how many big things might come into our life in just one year’s time.

Anyway, moving on. Summer and Mette had the tape measure out last night. They kept pulling it out as far as they could and pointing it upwards in an effort to guess how tall you’d be when you get home. If their predictions are correct, it looks like you’ll grow about two feet on your mission.

I’m in your room a lot these days — putting Starling to bed, etc. I always really like being in there. I was looking around at it the other morning as I got her out of her crib — just noticing all your posters, etc. and thinking how peaceful it feels in your room. I was thinking it was because it is so CLEAN now (what with you having boxed so much up and cleaned your dressers, etc.) but then I realized it was more than that. There’s just a good feeling in that room. It’s as if all your years of reading scriptures out loud over the phone with grandpa in there and studying them on your own and praying have somehow allowed just a goodness and light to soak into the walls themselves. 

Letters to Abe

I won't copy and paste all my letters here as some might not be things I want to share, but it occurs to me that updating Abe on the goings on around here might become more my journal and method of writing than anything else for the next two years. So I will likely put a fair amount of my letters on my blog. (Or maybe I won't. What do I know? I'm only two days into this!)

Still, coming home from that painful drop off at the MTC (Missionary Training Center), knowing we could sit right down and send a message to him (even if we haven't been able to yet here from him in return) was comforting somehow.

First Letter:

Well, it’s 3:49 pm on day one. We dropped you off less than three hours ago and we are all home now.

We wonder and keep trying to imagine what on earth you are doing and what exactly happened after you walked away from our van! 

You looked confident and happy and ready as you left us — following that Elder who probably only said his own goodbyes a few weeks ago but who we assumed was a seasoned veteran who now knew everything. It might have helped any sadness that you might have been prone to that you had to spend your last minutes encouraging and trying to cheer up your little siblings. You did a good job at that. Still, all the kids were crying as we drove away. Jesse and Anders most of all. Both of them kept sadly commiserating that they would NEVER be happy again for even a minute until you came home. Two years of zero joy. Haha. Even Hans, eager not to be left out, wailed, “Im so sad!”. A thoughtful friend of mine (who lives not too far from Provo) sent us a gift card to a fancy ice cream place not far from the MTC — telling us we could drown our sorrows (after leaving you) in ice cream. Anders sobbed as he licked his ice cream for awhile, but eventually the ice cream did seem to restore their will to live and was a good distraction.

Now we are home. Jesse immediately discovered your awesome little treasure hunt to the army guys and was thrilled. He pinned the letter on his cork board and I’m sure it will still be there when you get home. At this second, they have carried down all your stuff from the bathroom cabinet and are taking turns choosing things. Hans keeps folding up that blue “roomarang” thing (that he’s calling a “fan”) and then saying, “blow on it” and then letting it unfold like he’s doing a little magic trick. It’s kind of cute. All of that was some nice brothering right there. I’m excited for them to get to read your emails and see your pics and hear your stories and  just feel like they are connected to this wild adventure. It will make them feel important somehow. And I think having a brother on a mission will be a cool thing for THEM to experience. 

The days leading up to you leaving were hard for me (as I kept thinking of every moment with you as a “last”). And driving into the MTC grounds made me cry. I kept wishing I could go back and hug you for just a few more seconds after you left, but between comforting kids and it finally just BEING here, I felt better than I thought. Then we got home and I had a small cry again. BUT! I do feel just a sense of excitement in me ever since your setting apart blessing last night. Like my spirit already knows some of what is ahead for you somehow — and is excited about everything it will mean for you and for others. Things that I probably won’t fully know in this life. 

I don’t know if this is true. Certainly you will have some homesickness. And maybe it will be bad. But I just had this little hopeful feeling as we were driving to the MTC that maybe you would be allowed to feel it not too terribly . . . so that you could uplift and encourage and cheer up others who are down. I hope that might be true! But if not . . . well . . . I’m afraid I told the Lord that I wanted you to experience every single thing you need to that will seal you his disciple and build you a more impenetrable fortress. And I know that means He won’t spare you some pretty rough stuff. But! I have prayed and prayed that no matter what comes, you will always feel hope and comfort as you wade through it. 

I love you so so much, Abe. I plan on fasting for any single thing you need help with, so let me know if there are any specific requests. 

Here are pics of the kids going through your stuff. :)

Love,

Mom