With All Our Love

Tanner!

For once it seems like it has been more than a week since your last letter. I'm sitting down to write your letter, and I can't remember what I wrote last week, or what you wrote. Perhaps I'm tired. Maybe I'll take a chocolate break, and get back to you ;-) Actually, your brothers were off all last week, except for Friday. That was an unexpected blessing ;-) They had Monday off for Martin Luther King's Day, then bad weather prevailed the rest of the week. Friday began with a two hour delay, and it was HARD to get those boys out of the house! The weekend was full of wintery weather as well, but today we warmed thirty degrees, to a balmy 50, and the roads are clear. It's probably a good thing we're getting back into the swing of school, as I'm a little behind in seminary. We're over our allotted days off already, so we'll probably lose some of our spring vacation in March.

The boys spent a portion of their time off everyday at the Marshall recreation center. If the weather isn't conducive to having children travel to school, let's drive somewhere to play instead! And swim! Everyday they eagerly awaited the time when Dad would come home to transport them or meet them over at the rec center. Rock climbing was a popular first, with swimming as a close second. Basketball and racquetball were the runner-ups. Sometimes Breyer and I would sit at home LONG periods of time waiting for the boys to come back. Those two free weeks were perfect in their timing, as what else is there to do? Sawyer's basketball practices were all cancelled, as well as cub scouts and boy scouts. It was good to get out of the house and use some of that boy energy.

I went to a viewing this week, for two of the middle school teachers. Their mother passed away. Larry lived next door to their mother while growing up, and was the best man at her wedding, so I went with him and Sandy. It was fun waiting in line, watching him work the crowds. He knows everybody! He was secretly hoping I'd bring Breyer so he could show her off, but I wasn't interested in chasing her around there. We had a good time, and then a good cry, as we tried to comfort this brother and sister over the loss of their mother. Such a hard thing to go through. I'm glad I went.

Are you still traveling? Did you have a week to rest? Is this a transfer week? Although I guess transfers don't affect you any more!

I loved your impromptu chapel tours idea. If I understand correctly, one set of missionaries finds people to bring to the chapel, or send to the chapel, and you're there for the tour? Did you spend the rest of the week traveling and teaching the rest of the zones? Your cousin Greg was specifically told they could no longer do any knocking on doors. At all.

And how about those falls? I read on one website that as a result of its location near the border of Paraguay and Argentina, "the city of Foz do Iguaçu is prone to higher levels of drug and weapons trafficking than other areas of Brazil. Foz has a reputation for being one of Brazil’s more violent cities." Did you notice this while you were there, or not so much as you didn't get in the city as much?

I will say this, though, I need pictures. Going a week without any sign of your face is hard. Usually if you don't send one, someone else shares. But nothing at all this week! Be sure to send a lot!

I logged into BYU to check your ecclesiastical endorsement, looks like you already had begun the process...and had checked BYU Jerusalem Center? Hopefully that's for consideration while your brother is on his mission, not while he's coming out to be with you. He figures this is the last year for you and he to be together, so enjoy his sacrifice.

This year the Huntington Stake is holding a tri state youth conference, somewhere up north, July 24th-26th. Will you be home? Is that the week you come home? You're a hot commodity, and I'm already taking bookings for speaking/teaching engagements. They want you to do an hour long workshop on missionary work (rotated through three times), being a missionary, missionary experiences...Are you game? You'll have three brothers going ;-)

I don't want to get into a discussion of scientific experiments, but I do think there's some truth to a study done by Dr. Masaru Emoto, a researcher and alternative healer from Japan has given the world a good deal of evidence of the magic of positive thinking. The rice experiment is another famous Emoto demonstration of the power of negative thinking (and conversely, the power of positive thinking.) Dr Emoto placed portions of cooked rice into two containers. On one container he wrote “thank you” and on the other “you fool”. He then instructed school children to say the labels on the jars out loud everyday when they passed them by. After 30 days, the rice in the container with positive thoughts had barely changed, while the other was moldy and rotten. So don't be surprised when you come home to see two containers of rice - maybe we'll throw in a few beans to make you feel more at home - labeled "I love you!" and "You're nobody" - as we conduct our own Schenewark science experiment!

I read two quotes I loved this week and wanted to share with you. One was by Elder Marcos A. Aidukaitis, who spoke in a seminar for New MTC Presidents and Visitors' Center directors on strengthening faith to hasten the work of salvation and said, “The missionaries that will be coming to you don’t have a perfect knowledge of their capability to bring people unto Christ,” he said. “They don’t have a perfect knowledge that this is indeed a time of hastening the work. But they should believe with all of their power, that this is indeed a time of hastening, that Christ wants this hastening to occur, that if they believe it and God is pleased with their work, miracles will happen because of the power of God. And the work will hasten.”

The other quote, about a "spiritual blueprint" of the Church of Jesus Christ was the subject of remarks by Elder Tad R. Callister of the Presidency of the Seventy on Sunday, Jan. 12, as he addressed this year’s first Church Educational System devotional. Drawing an analogy from the construction blueprint for a house, Elder Callister said, “In a similar way Christ built a home to best accommodate the spiritual needs of His children. It was called His church. If one desired to discover Christ’s Church today he would want to match the spiritual blueprint found in the New Testament against every Christian church in the world until he discovered a church that matched the blueprint – organization for organization, teaching for teaching, ordinance for ordinance, fruit for fruit, and revelation for revelation. In so doing he might find some churches that had some similarities — a teaching or two that overlapped, an ordinance that is the same, some offices that bear common names, but he will only find one church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that matches the blueprint in every material respect. If one were to match the blueprint of Christ’s original Church against every church in the world today, he would find that point for point – organization for organization, teaching for teaching, ordinance for ordinance, fruit for fruit, and revelation for revelation, it will only match one — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Moreover, If one rejects this Church after studying the blueprint, then it will likely ruin him for any other church because he knows too much."

Today Dad and I went over to an investigator's house with the sister missionaries and talked with and taught him about the priesthood. It was a sweet lesson. We all got a chance to talk about how the priesthood has blessed their lives. I spoke about how grateful I was that my six boys could receive the priesthood, and watch them grow and learn in this responsibility, and the different callings your grandfather has had and the impact it has had in my life. Dad spoke about how he didn't realize when he was ordained as much as he realizes now what a great responsibility he was given, and how it has blessed his life. This man has been meeting with the missionaries for over two months, and use to have concerns about different doctrines, like the trinity, but now understands that the doctrines don't matter as much as finishing his reading of the Book of Mormon, and praying to receive his own witness that it's true. The doctrines will all fall into place if he believes the Book of Mormon. I almost leaped off of the couch!

That's a wrap up of the week, and I just realized I don't have ONE picture! What a bad mom! Hopefully there were a few good ones in your email this week to make up for the ones missing tonight. I've stayed in my pjs a few days this week, just for fun, and haven't had a pocket for my camera! Whatever the reason, I'll try to do better this week.

Love,

Mom and Dad