With All Our Love

*******Please share Mother's Day phone call instructions!*********

Dear Tanner,

We are reading in the Book of Ether about the brother of Jared. Such a great book! The scriptures record him being given instructions by the Lord to prepare his people for their long journey. And the Savior asks, "Therefore what will ye that I should prepare for you that ye may have light?" This question really made me think - about patterns, about journeys, and preparing. What if we were asked this same question, before we came to earth, in our BIG journey? What if the Savior wanted to know from us what He could prepare for us so we could have "light?" And I think our answer would be, a book. A book so full of light and knowledge we would know all we had forgotten. We would be able to recognize His eternal plan, and know what we needed to do to return back from his big journey to His presence. Very grateful for the Book of Mormon. Love that book!

What else do I love? Your dad. He has shingles. We're actually relieved he figured out on his own what was going on as for a few days he was in so much pain we were trying to figure out what it was - kidney? back? liver? Hopefully it is just a mild case. He only has a small patch of blisters. He stayed home from church today as the older population would be susceptible while he's contagious. (He thought the albino M&M was worthy of a picture ;-)

Miller also had his kindergarten end-of-the-year play, "Go Fish!" He did NOT want to go! When asked why, he said because he was the tallest, and everybody always looked at him. He's funny! But he did go, he wore his required jeans as part of his costume, and was a really cute shark. Those pictures will be sent sometime this week. Breyer absolutely loved it!

Dad went to the weekly Optimist meeting this week, where they always ask about you, and was approached by one of the members whose company does business with a Brazilian enterprise. They pay a third party company for their assistance in translating the Portuguese documents, and he was wondering if you'd be interested in doing this for them when you came home? I'm wondering if you could even do it from BYU, if they're electronic documents? Anyway, you can catch up with him when you get home.

Sawyer was invited to play in a summer league basketball team, when he is available, so he played Friday evening. He's such a good player, great rebounder, and fantastic on defense. And he plays with all his heart. Reminds me of his big brother ;-) (Breyer and I cooking together today ;-)

What else? We enjoyed a few baseball games this week. Miller's coach had this to say about the game: "Eastham Black moves to 7-0 after another thrilling 9-7 win over Red. Miller Schenewark and Noah Marcum each went 3 for 3!" He does love Miller! Sawyer's team is getting better and better, and almost won the first game, and handily won yesterday's match. He did a great job pitching!

Saturday was a gorgeous spring day - the whole week has been rainy, cloudy, cold. The sun shone periodically, and the wind wasn't so cold. I did have to hide in the dug out sometimes because of the wind or lack of sun, but I wasn't cold cold. I got up early and went to the church that hosts the cub scout pack, and helped them with their mulching/weeding service project. The pack master and myself were the only ones to respond to his request for service, so he took a "selfie." It was fun until I wrenched my back, in a small way ;-) 

 I then went to the church for a girls camp meeting. They've asked me to go this year as a level two leader - fun! Your father keeps telling me he is SO not looking forward to that week in June ;-) After Sawyer's game we all went to a wedding shower, a little late, but as the boys were so quick to observe, "The food is SO worth going!" Mr. Alt is marrying Mrs. Spurlock's daughter. It was a beautiful shower, LOTS of people there, and Breyer was the hit. When we walked in (late), Mrs. Spurlock stopped her microphoned description of the present her daughter had just opened (it was a large shower), and yelled, "Hello Breyer!" Upon which your sister yelled right back, "Hello!" The whole room loved her.

I think that's a wrap-up. I heard about this piece of news...PROVO — The LDS Church released preliminary plans Monday for the expansion of its flagship Missionary Training Center in Provo. Eventually those plans call for a new drive where families will drop off missionaries. Construction on new, six-story buildings is scheduled to begin in the summer of 2015 and take two years. The release does not say how many buildings are planned, but the rendering shows four new buildings in place of BYU's laundry and auxiliary maintenance facilities, which are being demolished. A massive surge in the 18 months since the church lowered the age requirement has boosted the number of missionaries from 58,000 to 85,039. Once the expansion is complete, the MTC will be able to accommodate 4,500 missionaries at a time, enough for all the missionary training activity expected in Provo.

We love you! Your package should arrive sometime this week. Enjoy!

Love,

Mom and Dad