With All My Love

Sent: Wednesday, September 5, 2012 8:52 AM
Subject: Howdy!

Dear Tanner,

I was contacted by Elder Cummings' mother. She attached two pictures she had received from her son in the mail. It was great to see your smiling face! And it looks good! She also mentioned that she and his grandmother had sent you two cinnamon rolls and cookies. How nice to read that she had gotten a thank you card. She was very grateful you included him in the singing group (have not gotten a copy yet - ask again if they're sending one). She also introduced me to an email group for missionaries in Central Brazil she has found helpful, and a facebook page where she's found pictures of her son. So we'll see. She in turn has shared her blog address for her son. We've enjoyed reading your companion's letters as well. He has raised the bar in terms of details and quantity shared. We've learned a lot from reading his letters ;-). You'll have to share a few highlights of your slumber party (I'm so assuming that was your idea), and your Princess Leia hair doos.

(Tanner's companion Elder Cummings)

We enjoyed reading about your exercise routine. We're all wondering what 1-4 animals that you've encountered were. Your pictures have arrived. Speaking of mail, hopefully ours has arrived? I mailed one everyday for a week, and then Dad said they're probably all collected in a weekly pouch, so it didn't matter that I was stretching them out. Your pictures arrived Friday evening after the boys left for their camp out. They didn't get home until 8 p.m. Saturday. Because you addressed the pictures to Miller I couldn't open them! I waited and waited for the gang to get back so I could see what you had sent. Talk about slow torture!

(Tanner's room with five others)

A few weeks ago in Family Home Evening Hunter gave the lesson, and reminded us of all that we needed to do to be prepared, spiritually and physically. He challenged us to work on our emergency preparedness, and did such a fine job we appointed him our family's emergency preparedness coordinator. We did agree to support him in a monthly goal and will make sure we have a gallon of water for every person for three days, you included, then two weeks. Water is not a bad thing for you to have stored when you're out on your own. Miller makes sure we're singing our "Tanner" song every week.

(Tanner's view from his bedroom window)

Monday Hunter was to play 18 holes of golf, because it was Labor Day, and was rained out half way through, so they only counted the first nine. He tied for first on his team with a 48, but would have really pulled ahead if the back nine had counted. He's off today for another round. Hopefully he doesn't take as long to get warmed up. Porter's still managing cross country. A lot of times he will do some running with them. He is enjoying your basketball shoes. He tried the boat shoes but those were quickly packed up and put away. He tried out for the quiz bowl last Friday, and will find out today whether or not he made the team. I have no doubt about him qualifying, I'm just wondering whether or not Mr. Hayes will relax the requirement of playing on J.V. before Varsity this year, as the Varsity team is so small. He wrote you a letter with the details.

(A peaceful courtyard he can study in)

The three amigos are still playing soccer, although there were no games because of the holiday weekend. Tuesdays are our hectic night with soccer, Cub Scouts, golf and Jarrod's classes. So yesterday I gave Jarrod the instructions of picking Hunter up from gold and Cooper up from soccer. I told him I would take Miller to scouts and pick up Sawyer from soccer. Well, soccer ended early, and scouts went late, so Sawyer, thinking I had forgotten him, or that he had waited a really long time, decided to walk from the soccer fields to the church. They're really only about four houses apart, and the road's not that busy, but my heart skipped a beat or two when he walked into Cub Scouts. Thankfully no scary incident occurred. As a parent you try and prepare them for every scenario so they'll have a plan in place, but apparently running late wasn't taught well enough. I was running late as this was the first week after recruitment week. Not only did all of my 11 scouts return, but I gained an additional 8! Twenty scouts with Sawyer! I so appreciate teachers that have more than this every day for sooo long! It will be a challenge to keep them busy in a productive kind of way.

(Tanner at the Campinas Temple!)

Thursday night was Grampy's prayer for the RNC. He did a beautiful job. Uncle Zach transcribed the prayer so you can read it in his letter. I thought about dumping it in the cloud account so you could access it there but Dad said you can search YouTube when you can, and find it just as easily. Sis. Cummings shared with me your CTM Mission President's wife email address, so I did send her an email with the link, hoping she'd let you see Grampy. My seminary class wanted to watch him pray, and suggested having an indexing party Thursday evening. Since it was a school night, I said no. Then someone suggested meeting Thursday for the prayer, and having seminary at night, so we all could sleep in on Friday. Sounded wonderful to me, so that's what we did. It wasn't easy having the lesson ready by dinner, as well as a clean house for visitors, but the one thing that made this all seem impossible was Ranger's accidental explosion in the house. I took a picture in case you wanted to compare versions, but let's just say it wasn't pretty or easy to clean out of light blue rugs. In addition to our 8, and 7 more students, we had 3 parents, 1 grandson, 2 missionaries, and 2 neighbors from next door. And you could have heard a pin drop when Grampy prayed. I teared up when he was walking out on stage, and cried when he was in the close up shot. It was good to see him. Even if we were 897 miles apart, it was almost like having him in the same room with you because you were watching him on t.v. and hearing his voice. Good times. And having had seminary Thursday evening, I've had a vacation as Monday was labor day. Four days off!

(Tanner with the Londrina Mission President's son, Elder Tavares)

In seminary we were talking about Matthew 5:14-16, and what it means to be a light to the world. I showed them your picture of the airplane view over the islands, at night, and how the lights were still visible, from 6-7 miles above earth. I also lit a candle, and turned off all the lights, so when they walked in that's all there was to see by. Light goes a long way in the dark. Imagine how bright we can be in this dark world if we were all working as hard as you, and as willing to let our light so shine? Breakfasts have been a hit. We talk frequently how they're getting fed physically as well as spiritually. Fried dough, cinnamon rolls, muffins, sausage egg mcmuffins, pancakes...it's good food and good times here in the morning.

We love you so much! Today is the best day of the week. We all look forward so much to hearing from you. With all our love,

Mom