With All Our Love

Dear Tanner,

Even though we will be speaking with you on Tuesday, I thought I would write this letter as if it was a normal week. That way, when the day is long, and the work hard, you'll still have something to reread.

It was wonderful hearing about your zone Christmas celebration. I'm grateful you were so uplifted, and so involved. Your musical abilities have always needed to be shared more. Thank you for all the party details! I wrote Sis. Tavares to thank her, and this is what she said in reply: "Thank you for sharing Elder Schenewark's feelings. He is a great missionary. Since we arrived, he has shown great maturity and a great spirit. We are delighted to have him with us. Sending Elder Schenewark's love, and wishing you a Merry Christmas. With love, Sister Tavares."

Your CTM companion had this to say about his changes last week: "So, as you know (or maybe you forgot) today is transfer day...I will stay here in APUCARANA!! Elder W. will leave and be a zone leader in Maringa with his trainer."

Speaking of companions, yours wrote me a lovely letter. You should have a copy of it in your email. What a wonderful treasure for me. I wrote his mother a letter, so she could share it with him, as she doesn't have an address for him yet. "Elder Bennett, Thank you so much for your service to my son. I can't tell you how relieved I was to find out he would begin with an American companion. Then, when I figured out what kind of missionary you were, my heart was happy. Your understanding of how a missionary should work, and behave are exactly what I hoped my son would become. I'm grateful for your example to him, your willingness to share with and teach him all he needed to do to be successful in a foreign land, speaking a foreign language. Someday we will meet, and it will be like greeting one of my own sons. Keep up the good work, and know somebody else is cheering for you on the sidelines of life. Love, Sis. Schenewark."  I'm sure your new companion probably doesn't have his letters posted on line, but just in case, let me know. Hopefully, you'll share some details about him with us on Tuesday.

Have you heard about the CT shooting? Such a tragedy! Mental health issues are what needs to be addressed, not taking away our 2nd amendment rights. I digress. One victims was LDS, and had just moved there from Ogden. Her father was teaching her to speak Portuguese. It was interesting when the very next day the schools your brothers go to made immediate changes. Upper level gym doors are locked, blinds all down, teacher's classroom doors shut and locked while in class... Until they sit down and analyze their security procedures, they wanted to ensure extra precautions were taken.

This week has been a blur, but there were a few moments I can recall to share. Monday morning two missionaries came for seminary breakfast, as one is going home. For FHE activity Dad got out his computer and moderated a game of baseball Jeopardy, something he created for his baseball class this past semester. Hunter came out on top, with his partner Sawyer. It was a hit. He'll have to think of some more questions, so it can be played again.

Tuesday morning two different missionaries came for seminary breakfast, as one was being transferred. The Cub scouts went on their yearly trailer ride to carol through the village of Proctorville. I rode in the back of a pick-up truck with Sawyer and Miller, and led the procession. We ended up at Gino's for pizza and popcorn salesmanship awards.

Wednesday is the day Grampy came home from the hospital - yeah! That was a long week. He was so ready to go, and his lungs are great. He'll be working on the c-diff for a while, but he's so happy to be in his cozy house.

Thursday was the last day of seminary and school. Yeah! I am ready for a break. I love seminary, and the students, but burning the candle at both ends gets old really fast. I need a little more sleep! It will also be nice to not have to cook so much for a while.

Hunter's popularity at school is reaching a peak. He's already well-known as he drives the largest vehicle in the school parking lot, and even has the monster truck drivers jealous. When he rolls up in his 12 passenger van, and can still look down on them in their trucks, the local population starts to notice. This week he wanted to bring in cinnamon rolls for his teachers and a few friends, so Thursday morning I made a double batch before seminary, and he brought in about twenty. He said that while he was walking in the hallways, kids at the high school were literally chasing him down the hall. Very funny! His student council adviser had them wrap Christmas presents for the teachers, as a new service project, and he also wanted rolls for this gathering. I think only four teachers brought presents in to wrap, but there were about sixty packages to do.

Friday six missionaries came for dinner. Sis. Hess gave us a pork loin for Christmas, so we shared the best with the best. They were super excited. We also had your birthday cake, chocolate cake with butter cream frosting sprinkled with crushed peppermint candy canes. Did I mention that in between the layers of cake was some hot fudge sauce? Yummy. Yum.

Saturday we had a two hour choir practice and three basketball games. Your three younger brothers are all undefeated. Cooper doesn't let anyone score, Miller always shows up with the ball, and Sawyer dominated the boards. Coach Alt and Buchanan are at Miller's games, as Buchanan's son Brody is on his team. It's fun to hear them cheer for Miller. Alt even stayed and scored Sawyer's game for fun, and cheered him on as well. I think he calls him "Tall." After sitting on some form of bench for five hours, your father and I went out to finish some stocking stuffer shopping. Actually, that was just an excuse. We were having a date night.

That brings us to today. What a day! I spent two hours straight playing the piano for choir practice, sacrament meeting and program. More bench time. We left after sacrament meeting. Naughty. Everyone was sick, and came! and I just did not want it. So I took the kids and left. Poor Dad had to stay all by himself. There's talk of this being an early flu season, but we'll see.

Porter has been helping Jeremiah take care of his dogs while they were away for the weekend. He and Hunter were headed there tonight to do the dogs and swear they saw a ghost. They  had to drive through a small patch of fog, that was no where else to be found. As they were driving through it, it turned blue, and made a weird hiss. They were so spooked by the time they arrived home! Can't make this kind of stuff up!

We plan on having our skype on as soon as we wake up. We'll be listening for your phone call! We're all sooo excited! We're thinking about drawing names to see who gets to go first, and giving the boys some private time with Tanner.

We love you. We'll SEE you in one day! Talk to you sooooooon !!!!!

Love, Mom and Dad



Dear Tanner,

How has your week been? Even though we had snow Oct 31, it is only just starting to feel like winter. With the temperature 50 degrees and sunny, it feels like Christmas is coming early. Everyone at school is always asking questions about what you are doing and how you are doing. For people who know no change, and do not leave, it is very exciting to even remotely know, or know of someone living in Brazil. I got your letter about influence. Thank you! It is interesting what you write about sometimes, and always appreciated and thought about. I took the ACT two weeks ago, and boy, it was a lot harder than I thought. Hopefully I got somewhere close to your first time score. One person from our school, a senior, got kicked out. After we took a break, she went back in and finished a previous, already finished section of the test. After she was gone, the conductor of the test spoke to us for a couple of minutes, urging us to follow the rules and finish strong.

Thursday I went Christmas shopping for National Honor Society. I got to help two children shop this year.

I was Christmas shopping at Wal-Mart with Porter and Dad, when they started looking through CD's. I decided to buy an Elvis Presley CD. Well, I liked it so much, I got to thinking and realized I have all this great music around me (records), but no way to listen to it. I talked to Mom and Dad, and they said if I get another tape player for the upstairs boys, I can get their record player. So, Dad found one at work, and now I have a record player. I enjoy listening to the new music. We are super excited to talk to you on Tuesday!

Love, Hunter.