December

Hello All,


Thanksgiving is a wonderful month as we reflect on our many blessings. I have so many things for which to be thankful. Some of the things I’m thankful for are my family and friends, my membership in the Church, my home and so much more.

I was sure surprised by the snow storm we got in November and then 24 hours later it was like it had never happened. I laughed at my dog who couldn’t figure out where the grass was to relieve herself. We had to clear an area so she could find the grass. The storm this week though was crazy. I was at school when it hit and had to drive home in it. It took me almost twice as long as usual. The way it was falling and blowing so hard it seemed like I wasn’t moving except for those times when I was actually passing a structure of some kind. It was the weirdest feeling I’ve ever had when driving.

We spent Thanksgiving with the Elders. We had a great time eating and playing games. Since we have no family here and neither do they it worked out really well. We seem to adopt each new Elder as they come to the area and we are always sad to see them go. We are pretty sure Elder Peel will be transferred this next time (just before Christmas) and we’ll be especially sad to see him go because I’m best friends with one of his cousins. That really makes it seem more like family for some reason.

School is going well. I’m almost done! Next Wednesday is my last day, the 7th. I’m so glad to have this quarter over with. I have two assignments left, one is a final and the other is just a discussion question. The final has quite a bit of work involved in it because I’ll need 15 resources total for different parts of the final. This class has been a lot of work. I’ve learned a great deal in the class but I’m sure going to be glad to have less work to do.

Andrew seems to have finally found a job. I’m really happy about that as you can imagine. He finished his welding classes at KCC. He is going to attend orientation next Friday, the 9th. I assume he’ll start the following week. We don’t know what kind of schedule he’ll have, but any work will be good at this point. We keep hoping that he’ll get hired by Eaton, but until then he will be working at Teneco it looks like. We were really encouraged when they told him at his interview that he was a natural at welding and that he was the quickest they had ever seen.

Andrew and Megan are trying to get the decorations up outside. Now that we have a bunch of snow on the ground it’s a little more difficult, but they are managing. I’m still doing school work, so I’ve not helped with the outdoor decorations. We have done some of the inside, but the tree is still not up. I think I’m almost embarrassed to admit that because we usually have everything up the day after Thanksgiving. This year we just aren’t feeling it I guess. We are watching Christmas movies though and that’s been fun. We’ll get the tree up next week I suppose, maybe even Saturday.

Megan got strep throat just after Thanksgiving so she ended up missing the Christmas parade that she was supposed to march in. She was really disappointed, but I’m sure the others appreciated it because they didn’t get strep.

I have finally finished reading the Harry Potter series. I’m waiting for “Inheritance” and “Goliath” from two other series that I’ve been reading. Both are new releases and I have them on hold at the library. I’m hoping I’ll get them soon because it feels like I’ve been waiting forever. In the meantime while I wait I’m catching up on other reading. I have four Reader’s Digest issues waiting for me. I’ve read part of one, but I’ve got a ways to go obviously. I’m nearly caught back up with both the New Era and Ensign as well.

I started reading the Book of Mormon for my Virtue value project in Personal Progress. I’m on chapter 17 now in 1st Nephi. I love reading the Book of Mormon because I always get something new out of it. I find that amazing. As I read I’m making a few notes about each chapter and that’s helping me to understand it better. I’m also reading the October Ensign with Megan which is a special edition all about the Book of Mormon. What a wonderful coincidence!

Not much else has been going on this month. I’m looking forward to the rest of the Christmas season. I love this time of year to remember the birth of the Savior and what that means to us each day. I hope that you’ll have a wonderful season. I love you and think of you often.

November update

October was a very busy month for me. School was in full swing and I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to handle the load I had signed myself up for. Now that I’ve gotten through October though, I know I’m going to make it just fine. I have a lot of homework in one particular class. I can’t remember ever having this much homework for any class, EVER. It’s more work than my other three classes combined. Still, it’s my second favorite class. I just wish there wasn’t quite as much homework in there.  So far all my grades are excellent for the quarter, but that doesn’t mean they’ll stay that way. Still, I’m like ¾ of the way through and I’m feeling pretty good about them all. I hope I’m right and they stay high because I really want to excel in my program.

We had Branch Conference also and that was a real treat. President Witt spoke about how we communicate with one another and mentioned that we should not hint around at what we want to say, but rather to be very plain in the message we want to get across so that there will be no mistaking it. I thought this was excellent advice. We have been trying to make this a point with Megan, who is a real hinter. Even worse, she expects us to read her mind and not tell us anything to begin with at times. Needless to say, this can cause some issues. We are hoping that soon she’ll get the idea. She’ll be 14 in January and will be good for her to figure it out sooner than later at this point since she is going through the turbulence of adolescence. She’s smart, so we are hoping she’ll get it soon. I suppose that’s the dream of most parents. J

We had the opportunity to go to the temple the day before Branch Conference. It was an emotional trip for me. The name I took through had Irene as a first name. Irene is my maternal grandmother’s name. This is highly significant for me at this time because just a few days prior to this trip, I found out that she is not doing well and they didn’t expect her to last much longer. The feelings I had as I went through the endowment session were very powerful and I couldn’t stop crying. It made me so sad to think of her leaving. Now I have to say that I hadn’t seen my grandma for close to 10 years because she has Alzheimer’s and I felt it did more harm than good to visit her. She is also my last living grandparent. Regardless, I was highly emotional. I can’t remember ever crying that much in the temple or really in public either. It was a very special experience however because I felt her presence strongly. I honestly thought she had passed away while I was in there. She hadn’t though.

Fast forward a week and a half roughly and we made a trip to Arizona because we thought she was going to pass away and wanted to be there for the funeral.  We left on Wednesday the 19^th and came back the day before Halloween, so it was a week and a half. We drove straight through both ways essentially though we did stop for a few hours to get rest when neither Andrew nor I could continue driving. It was so hard to do that. I don’t ever want to try it again. The drive itself wasn’t so bad, but next time we’ll take 2 days and get a room somewhere along the way. While we were there we visited lots of family including Andrew’s grandparents, most of our siblings and of course his parents and my mom. We also visited our old ward on Sunday the 23^rd and had a little time to visit with a few of them. We enjoyed the visit very much. We of course went and visited my grandma despite my feelings. I almost wish we hadn’t. She didn’t even look like herself so it was hard to be around her. She didn’t know who we were and hardly knew what she was saying nor what we were talking about. It was so sad to be there I couldn’t stay for long. She is still alive, but I know she isn’t going to last much longer because she doesn’t eat or drink enough to sustain life long-term at this point. I feel saddened to think that I’ll be losing my last grandparent soon, but I know because of the Gospel that she’s really just moving on with the next step.  I’m so grateful we had the chance to go home. I told Andrew we need to try going back just for fun next time. I’m crossing my fingers on that one.

Now I’m trying to get caught back up with school. I got a little behind, though not much really because I was working ahead. I think I’m just about to the point where I’m really just working ahead again. I have one more assignment to do and then I’ll be at that point.

This month I have reflected again and again on the talk by Elder Cook given in General Conference. It meant so much to me at the time I heard it and still does so I’m going to share some parting thoughts with you. As you can probably tell from my letters I was under quite a bit of stress when Conference came around and that didn’t really let up in October at all. The beginning part of the talk is a little story and it was just what I needed to hear. I need to remember to look up in faith. I need to remember to not focus only on what is happening right now and most importantly I need to remember to have faith in my Heavenly Father in all things.

I was grateful for the promptings I received to study faith in greater detail as well because on the way back from our trip Megan was asking some difficult questions about where we are at in life right now and I was able to answer them for her because I had been prompted (and obeyed) to study faith.

I’m so grateful to my Heavenly Father for the guidance I receive from General Conference every time we hear it. I’m so grateful that He hears my pleas and prayers and answers them. I’m grateful for the growth my trials bring and most importantly I’m grateful for His infinite love for me that He cares enough just for me to pay attention to even the smallest detail of my life. I’m grateful for the Savior and His atonement on my behalf and testify that He knows and loves you too. Talk to Him in prayer and He will hear and answer you.

October update

This month has been an interesting one for me. September flew by in some ways and drug by in others. I was definitely feeling ready to go back to school by the time my classes began on the 26^th, but now I’m not so sure about that anymore. I’m very busy with 15 credits in 10 weeks. After I met all four classes for the first time I felt like I was drowning when I heard everything I would be doing. I’m feeling slightly better now, but still overwhelmed. I’m wondering what I was thinking when I enrolled in that many credits and then I remember-oh yeah, I want to graduate sooner than later. Right now if I take only 12 credits until I’m finished, not counting this term of course, I’ll finish in four years from this December. That means Megan will graduate high school about six months after I graduate college. I’m hoping that I can live with that because I’m not sure I’m going to go over 12 credits again.

Beginning on September 7^th I started working in a kindergarten classroom with Marta Onofrio in Battle Creek. She teaches at Franklin Elementary. I was very excited to be back in a kindergarten classroom. I haven’t been in one since Megan moved onto 1^st grade. The first day was a ½ day and I was glad. I can’t remember ever getting that worn out in so short a time. Part of the problem was that it was the first day and many of the kids had obviously never been away from home. I got through it though and it got much better from there. Now I’m enjoying being there more than I enjoy going to my school classes and wish I could spend all my time there. I truly love being in kindergarten and I’ve loved learning from Marta. She teaches very much like I would so that part is going amazing. I only needed 20 hours in the classroom, but I love it so much I’m going to keep going anyway.

On the 10^th I went to some training in Lansing. All of the Relief Society, Young Women and Primary presidencies from five stakes were invited. We were trained by Sister Mary N. Cook, the 1^st counselor in the YW General Presidency. We had a great dinner and then we hurried over to Holt, MI for a fireside with the YW. It was fun and I learned a lot. We also got to hear from Elder Seldon before breaking into groups. He was very entertaining and I learned much from him as well.

We recorded and then watched some of the September 11^th special programming. I couldn’t believe how much I felt like it was happening all over again as I watched some of the footage. I was surprised at how I could feel the same emotions sweeping over me again. It was a sad day and one that I will never forget.

I finally watched The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I didn’t enjoy it all that much. I found it too dark, and too violent. I much prefer Narnia. I guess Tolkien was the one who coached C.S. Lewis to do the Narnia series. I think he did a much better job. I know a lot of people like it, but it wasn’t my style. Of course, I prefer children’s movies, so that might tell you a lot.

 Now that school has begun for me I’m quite busy again. I’m glad in a way because I was really starting to lose my focus on things in general and now I’ve definitely got it back, but I’m also so busy again that now I wish I weren’t so much. It’s funny how things always seem to be different than what we want. 

Still no job for Andrew, though he continues to search. He was on the verge of being hired by a company but then they put a hiring freeze into effect. I was floored to say the least. He is about 2/3 of the way through his welding class. When he finishes he plans to get a job welding somewhere, maybe Teneco. He seems to have a talent for it as the various instructors keep asking him if he has done it previously and they are amazed when he tells them he hasn’t. I hope that’s a good sign for when he is ready to get a job after he’s done with the program.

That just about sums it all up for me. I did enjoy both the Relief Society broadcast and General Conference very much and I hope you had the opportunity to watch or listen to it. I’m looking forward to being able to download and listen to it. First though I have decided to listen again to the discussions BYU did awhile back about the “Lectures on Faith”. I will read the lectures hopefully before each of the discussions. I’m in need of some extra faith right now. I love that series, I have listened to it many times now and I can’t seem to get enough of it.

I better go, it’s late in the afternoon for me and I have yet to begin my mounds (I’m not kidding) of homework. One last thing, next Tuesday Andrew and I celebrate our 15^th wedding anniversary. I can’t believe that it has been that long. In some ways it seems much shorter. In other ways it seems so much longer. Many things have happened to us over the years, but I’m thankful to say our marriage has always been a happy and secure one. I love him deeper than ever before and I can say that every day. I’m so thankful to Heavenly Father for the wonderful husband that I have. I’m also thankful to all of those who helped him to become who he is. Parents, siblings, friends, neighbors, you’ve all made an impact on him and I love you for your part in it.

So much for this month, I shall write again soon. I would have written sooner, but I’ve been so overwhelmed with other things that I just didn’t get it done.

August update

This month has been a quieter one than June was. It was still busy however. We began the month with the 4^th of July parade downtown. Last year when we watched we thought it was a little odd to have so many people packed into such a tight area (I swear there are like 200 people around that fountain), but this year we were more prepared for what awaited us. We even saw people we knew in the parade. That was really nice because that’s one of the things we really miss from home, seeing people around town that we know. After the parade we stayed for the concert until it got weird (they were telling the Farmer in the Dell) and then we decided to leave. The weather was sure nice though. We would have liked to go swimming, but didn’t get the chance until the following week I think. That was soon enough because we were there for a couple hours and got really burned, except Megan who for whatever reason never burns. We tease her and tell her that means she can’t be our daughter, but we all know that’s not true. She’s DEFINITELY ours. So, surprise on us, you can be sunburned at 75 degrees when it’s cloudy. Nice. After we were mostly healed from our sunburns, we got ready for youth conference.

We left for youth conference on the 14^th and came home on the 16^th. We went to St. Joseph for those three days. We had lots of fun at the youth conference. The youth played games, went to workshops, had a testimony meeting, a four-hour dance, stayed up late partying (so-to-speak) and also spent several hours at the YMCA. I think everyone had a great time. We had speakers like the stake patriarch, the Stake Presidency, the stake Young Women’s presidency, Bro. Millett from BYU, and then a few more couples. The topics included dating, more dating, manners, patriarchal blessings importance in our lives, who we are, why we are important, and more dating. They also had a couple come and show us the basic steps for the fox trot. I have at least three left feet, so I didn’t do well there. It was odd to have Andrew at the conference, but to be staying at separate houses (everyone stayed at member homes in the area). Overall though, I had a really amazing time. At the end of the conference they announced that next year we are going to Nauvoo. I can’t wait for that! I hope that we’ll all get to go and do baptisms while we are there and see the pageant and other things that I didn’t get to do when we stopped there for several days on our journey to MI from AZ. It was just simply a fabulous place to be and I hope we’ll get to experience that again. I know the youth are all excited about it. I guess they went to Kirtland a few years ago-how cool!

This week is Scout Camp, Andrew just went up for the weekend and got home a few hours ago now. He had a good time from what I can tell. They had some general authorities come and speak to them, but he hasn’t told me what they said, he is still processing the notes he took I guess.

This month I got a ton of pictures on a thumb drive from my brother who had digitized my Dad’s slides. It was so fun to sit and look through all the pictures. I haven’t seen some in ages and others I’m not sure I ever saw. The really special ones were the ones taken of the kids when we were younger. There weren’t really a lot of them, but it was still neat to see. I guess now I have to figure out how to put them into a format I can use more often. We have so many pictures that I’d like to digitize and then turn my TV into a giant photo frame when we aren’t watching other things. That would be beyond cool, but I’ll probably settle for something much smaller when it comes right down to it.

This month the Beehives and Laurels got new class presidents. It will be exciting to see how they respond to their new callings. I’m very happy to see that they are serious about doing things. They all have plans for how they can help the girls in their classes, Mia Maids included.

Well, an update for you on Andrew’s job hunt. He was formally accepted into the training program at Prudential. He will start training on August 15^th I think it was. He will be training for about two months I guess and then he will graduate and start making sales, hopefully very quickly, and then will get paid. It’s looking like around the end of October before he starts getting paid. He is also going to work on learning to weld. This will be done at Kellogg Community College and then he will try to get a job at Teneco. We are hoping that this will allow for income while he gets things moving at Prudential. If he doesn’t get on there, at least he will have learned basic welding and that might come in very handy. They have a lot of different courses he can take and he can become a “master welder” supposedly from the program. I guess he’ll take those classes until he is unable to any longer or feels he has learned enough. Of course, then he is going to want the equipment for welding but that’s going to be waiting awhile. I’m excited that he will hopefully be able to make us a nice new bbq grill when it’s all said and done. We had a great one that fell apart and we’ve not liked any since then. His brother, Matthew, had given it to us for I think a wedding gift. Man I miss that little grill.

We got the papers in the mail for Megan’s school to begin. She’s in 8^th grade this year. My word how the time has flown by.  I can’t believe that in just one year she will be in high school already! I don’t know if I’m ready for that or not. She is just growing up too fast. I think I’ve got her to the edge of knowing how to cook, one of her least favorite activities actually. Today she got upset with me about it actually when I told her she was going to make something. She is annoyed that we keep making the same things over and over again. I told her that’s because they are the easiest and it’s also because that’s what we eat, over and over again. Tomorrow she will be making something else, hopefully without the drama.

Our small chickens have begun to produce and I guess I shouldn’t call them small chickens anymore since they are full-sized. The trouble is that when they first begin to lay, they lay smaller eggs. We have over 5-dozen small eggs and some are even too small to be small (they are sized by weight). Andrew is going to make French Toast and that will use up a lot of them. Too bad I don’t like egg salad. I think we might give some to the missionaries when they come tomorrow night for dinner. They like the fresh eggs too and we don’t get many people who want to buy the smaller eggs.

With not too much going on I’ve been reading a bunch of books the last several weeks. I read Goose Girl, Enna Burning, River of Secrets, and Forest Born all by Shannon Hale, then I read Peter and the Starcatchers and Peter and the Shadow Thieves, now I’m waiting for the library to get the other two books in to finish that series. I also read Leviathan and Behemoth and am waiting for the last book in the Trilogy. Finally I’m starting Sense and Sensibility, Emma, and I can’t remember the last one. I have really had a lot of time to read for fun and I’m trying to make the most of it. Sadly, my house reflects that so today I spent the majority of the day putting it back in order and cleaning it all back up. Andrew is so patient about it; he didn’t even mention me neglecting my house cleaning. What a great guy! I’m sure he was glad to have it looking nice again when he got home though.

I guess that’s it for the month. Next month will be slow and I’m glad. September Megan will be starting school at the beginning of the month and I will be joining the end of that month. I hope to do well again in my studies and have recently been thinking I might add another class so that I can make up for not attending summer school.  We’ll see. I have to decide soon though or all the classes I want to take will be gone.

July update

Hello everyone,

It seems like it has been a year since I last wrote! So much has happened in such a short amount of time. Not much that’s newsworthy, but still so much. The month of June was a very fast one for me; I guess that’s part of why it’s taken me so long to get this out. I finished my school work for now. I won’t begin classes until the 24^th of September. I’m glad for the break. I am happy to report that I got straight A’s and am currently on the President’s list. Last quarter I was on the Dean’s list which didn’t mean much I guess, but then I didn’t even know I was on it until after I knew about being on the President’s list this term. I don’t care too much as long as it means that I’ll be able to get some scholarships-that would be so nice. I have just gotten a couple of books to read; I found out early that one of the courses I will take in January requires reading seven novels and the person who decides them has given me some of the titles. I’m glad for that because it means that I can read at a more leisurely pace if I want to. I’ve never heard of any of the books, so I hope they are good. 

Towards the end of the month was Relay for Life. There was a lot of business in preparing for that. The branch has their own team and I have served as team captain the last two years with Marta Young helping me. She is an amazing partner to work with and I’m not sure that I could do it without her. We plan on doing it again next year. We think we have it figured out now. Last year was somewhat a disaster because we didn’t get the chance to do any fund-raising before Relay and didn’t have any ideas of what to do at Relay so very little money was raised. This year we did a little fundraising before Relay, but for whatever reason we didn’t make much money at that attempt. We think we know why so we’ll try to correct that for next year. At Relay itself we sold elephant ears. This went EXTREMELY well. We made over $800 after costs. We also sold quite a few luminary bags. I’m really happy about the money we raised. I think the total came to over $900 when all was said and done. Andrew figured it out for me but I don’t remember the number he gave me. We had lots of help from the Branch this year and that made a big difference as well. Next year will be even more organized and hopefully it won’t take such a toll on my family and the Young’s. As it was Andrew spent from around 8am on Friday until 6pm on Saturday doing Relay with only about a 2-hour break in the middle of the early morning hours of Saturday. I would have been there too, but I had girl’s camp the next week and knew I couldn’t go into camp being exhausted. I’m so grateful to have such a wonderful husband. Megan (my daughter) wants to be a co-captain next year. She feels like she is already doing all this work for Relay and I guess she thinks there is some kind of glory in the being co-captain. I told her fine. I don’t think she realizes what she is saying though.

The last week of June was girl’s camp. We left on Monday at 7:30am and got back around 9:30pm on Thursday. Again, there was a lot of busy work involved in getting ready for this. I actually had to do laundry after Relay so that I could wear clothes to camp. I had the privilege of working with Denise Whitt and Sydney Coulson; both are wonderful women in the stake. I had such a great time getting to know them. On Monday I woke up with pink eye and so I spent three of the four days wearing some old glasses. That was really hard for me because I couldn’t judge depth AT ALL the first day. I finally got used to it by Wednesday and then on Thursday I had to readjust to my contacts, though that only took a few hours. I got no restful sleep while there, which is just part of the way it goes and thankfully I knew that going in so I didn’t expect it. I think I got about 5 hours each night, but I woke up quite often to turn and move around and wonder where I was and all of that. I was helping with the first year girls. They were sweet, but several of them got homesick and then no matter what we did they weren’t feeling well and kept asking to see the nurse. It got really annoying towards the end, but such is life I guess. We did some cute crafts with the girls as well. They got to go kayaking or canoeing (I’m not sure because I was busy elsewhere) and they went on a hike all together around the camp and had a very spiritual experience as they talked about laying their burdens of sin at the Savior’s feet. We also had a testimony meeting, listened to Brother Drought from the CES (Church Education System) for our area and several other things to build their testimonies. Overall I think camp was a huge success and I can’t wait to go back again next year. I hope that I’m able to and will be healthier when it comes around. I sure got tired of wearing tennis shoes (I hate wearing shoes altogether and felt like my feet were suffocating in there), so I was glad to get back home to bare feet and flip flops. I do miss the silliness of camp though. There is nothing like girl’s camp that I have ever found and I’m so grateful I had the chance to go.

We had a quiet 4^th of July. We watched some shows on Netflix about the creation of the country and those who helped to form it. We went down to the parade which is always funny to watch as we hope that nobody gets seriously injured going around the fountain circle. There are just so many people, wagons, bikes, and pets on the street that I find myself cringing several times at near-misses. We ending up getting a Little Caesar’s pizza because they were only $4 and ate that for lunch and dinner. Not the best, but it was little work so we enjoyed it anyway.

The past few days I have been just enjoying not having to be everywhere and doing everything and as a result have gotten very little done. Today I think I’m back on track. Andrew will be starting a basic welding class on the 18^th I believe to learn basic welding after which he plans to get a job welding. There are lots of them here and has been told by someone who occasionally attends church at our branch that he would hire Andrew if he learned that basic skill. It doesn’t look like the other offer that he was pursuing is going to work out after all. The program is one where you work at your own pace, so if he works at it really hard he can get through the basics in just 2-3 weeks. I hope so. We are past 7 months of unemployment and I don’t think I can take it anymore. I’m so thankful for the Lord sustaining us during that time, we have been incredibly blessed, but I am ready to stand on my own two feet (so-to-speak) again.

May update

May was quite a long month for me, especially the last week. I’m sorry I didn’t get this out sooner, but I just didn’t have the time. I will try to keep my story somewhat abbreviated. I hope that you are doing well and that your family is also.

First though I will tell you that our new Branch Presidency was organized on the 29^th of May. Our new Branch President is Brad Peterson. The first counselor is Morris Evans, he served as the branch president when we were first organized as a branch, so you might remember him. The second counselor is Mike Fittro. I think that they will do an amazing job as we continue to move forward.

On the 6^th we had a branch party with a BBQ and games. It was lots of fun. Probably the best attended event we have had since I moved here a year and a half ago. Mother’s Day was fairly quiet. I got to pick activities for my family on Saturday and I chose to watch some documentaries that I’ve been wanting to see but we haven’t made time to do so. It was a lot of fun.

On the 14^th and 15^th we had Stake Conference. I enjoyed that very much. I ended up listening to a big chunk of the Priesthood Leadership session and really enjoyed that as well. Our new Stake Presidency is quite an amazing set of brethren. I could tell that the mantle of leadership had been passed onto them. The Sunday was session was broadcast from Salt Lake City and was amazing. I got to listen to some of it twice because Andrew and a brother from the stake spent a few hours afterwards trying to fix a bunch of little problems with the sound system in the building.

On the 21^st I got to find out that I’ll be working with the first year girls and found out what level leaders and youth leaders I will be working with as well. That was lots of fun. We planned snacks, fun games, ideas for decorating and such. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but I really was so excited to finally know who I would be working with!

The 22^nd was my birthday and it was pretty good. I got to take a nap and I love when that happens, so I was pretty happy. I also got some nice gifts for which I was grateful.

Memorial Day was pretty good at the beginning of it, but when I went home as you know the storm came. We spent about an hour in the basement and then finally came up. We lost electricity and it was off four days. That’s a long time to also not have running water. We spent much of Monday trying to prepare for the days ahead and were so grateful to have several coolers already here. We got a couple more coolers and we made it through pretty well. We did lose some food, but most of it was fine. The food that we did lose we could mostly give to the chickens as it was still good enough for them to eat, but not considered safe for human consumption. Mostly it was eggs that were lost. We tried to have the elders over for dinner on Tuesday and made foil dinners, but then there was that brief rain storm and we ended up at Pizza Hut instead of cooking the dinners outside like we had planned. It worked out, but it was quite interesting. I was grateful for the rain though because we had run out of water for flushing toilets and that made it possible for our containers to be replenished enough to make it through. We finally got power back on Thursday around 3pm or so. I spent a lot of time at the library that week trying to do my homework since I had a major research paper and a major project due on June 6^th. It was nice to be able to go there and use the internet and their power. I also enjoyed using the restrooms there where I didn’t have to refill the tank after flushing. Running water is so nice to have. J So on Thursday we spent the evening cleaning the house and putting things back into the freezers and refrigerators (we have two refrigerator/freezers and one large freezer). It was nice to have everything almost normal again. Our large freezer scared us when it didn’t come on. We found out it was the outlet, not the freezer. Andrew replaced the outlet, but it’s still not working. So for now was have it plugged into an extension cord. It works short-term but he’s got to figure out why that outlet isn’t working anymore.  On either Thursday or Friday Andrew found a mouse nest in our car’s engine. All the baby mice were dead. Mom and Dad were nowhere to be found. He tried to clean it all out, but didn’t succeed until Saturday when he spent probably 6 hours cleaning it out. He found close to 10 bodies I believe. It spelled absolutely awful from the time he discovered them until he finished cleaning it out on Saturday. I had to laugh because they had created their nest with the napkins we had in the car and Andrew found the earbud of my headset that had literally been chewed off. Sadly it was a nice headset that I had to get rid of about 6 weeks ago now. That wasn’t a happy time. I still haven’t found a replacement. Grrr.

The other fun story from last week as a result of the mice was that on Saturday when we went to the temple in “Detroit” which is really in Bloomfield Hills we went without air conditioning. It was 95 F and we had something like 80% humidity that day, so needless to say we were sweating pretty badly on the drive over and back. It’s about an hour and 45 minutes one way to get to the temple. That wasn’t the best travel I have done since getting here. I was more than glad to come inside the house when we got home. We ate some ice cream and I took a cool shower to get cooled back down. Andrew went outside and got really sweaty cleaning up the rest of the mouse mess. He finally succeeded, but his shirt was wet clear-through due to the temperatures. He’s such a trooper. Sunday morning the car smelled decent again. There is some residual from all the Febreeze, the Clorox solution and the air freshener that’s still hanging in there, but at least it’s not so stinky that we have to drive around with the windows down!

Much of May saw me doing more and more school work as I worked to complete major projects and papers. I had two large group projects that culminated in addition to my individual project and my research paper. For one of my group projects I had to rewrite a chapter of a grammar book. I probably could have finished it much sooner if I had been working on it myself. I hate group work like that. Oh well. The other group project, for a different class was to plan, script, rehearse and perform a dramatic representation of a poem with four elementary students. That was actually a very enjoyable group project. I love group work like that. My research paper was supposed to be about a theory, practice, or whatever that helps to teach grammar. That was hard to find something to write about, but once I did the paper went easy enough. I wish I’d had more time between finding something to write about and the due date however because I didn’t do as well on the paper as I had hoped. The other big project I had was to select 10 children’s books and write lessons based on those books. Each book needed five lessons, language development, science, math, creative expression and one other that I don’t remember the category for. That was a lot of work. I’ve been working on it for a long time, but my goodness it was a lot of work. Monday the 6^th I finished those two classes. On May 12^th I started a third class though and am finishing that up later this month. Whew! I feel like I can hardly breathe after just writing all of that down. No wonder I’ve felt so busy.

Of course the month was full of Young Women’s activities and Church and meetings for Church and Relay for Life things and getting ready for Girl’s Camp to an extent a well. Sometimes I wonder if I have a hole in my head when it comes to realizing just what I’m in for when I say “yes” to something. I keep telling myself I will scale back, but then I never seem to do it. The one good thing about not having power was that I seemed to be less busy, although it really created a lot of problems for me because I wasn’t able to do so many things that I needed to. Oh well. Live and learn.

I don’t remember the exact day, but Andrew started interviewing to work with Prudential at some point during May. He went to quite a few interviews and discovered that his licenses could all be transferred and/or reinstated that he held previously. He never would have considered working for Prudential if the opportunity had presented itself sooner, but for whatever reason this felt right at this point and he is actually training to work there. He is not officially hired until his background check comes back clean, but we know that will happen because he has never done anything. We were against the idea initially because we used to work for Primerica which is really against whole-life policies, and for good reason. However, this office for Prudential, or rather this region has a different way of doing business. As a company they have virtually quit selling whole-life and so that was the first major block cleared. Andrew won’t sell that type of insurance. It’s not good for people. He will actually be working more with businesses than with individuals, though there will be plenty of those as well. Already we are seeing blessings of him going down this road. A friend of ours, Rhonda, the same one who suggested we move here actually, just opened a new business downtown and is really excited to have Andrew take care of the finances for the business. She has already invited him to do seminars there once he is officially able to do so. While Andrew is training, which is about 10-12 weeks supposedly he will not be paid because if he doesn’t get paid he has the potential to make more money after training with bonuses and such. He will be working here in Marshall with another Prudential representative, who is the high counselor for our branch. This makes it easy for us to potentially have just one car until he is making some decent income. I hope all of that made sense. We are so excited that he is finally going to be working again. He has been without for six months. The Lord has really taken care of us during that time, but it will be nice to stand on our own again.

I’m so thankful that things are going to change focus for the summer. It will still be busy, but at least it will be something else. J I am hoping to be able to really focus on my weight-loss and I really am looking forward to a break from school. We have youth conference, girls camp, scout camp, Relay for Life, the farmer’s market and of course mutual each week and church and church meetings each Sunday, but I’m  hoping that amidst all of that I can carve out some time to do some fun activities with my family that are more meaningful.

Megan gets of out school on the 9^th, in just a few days from now. She is very excited for that to happen. I’m going to be glad too because things are more relaxed time-wise when she is out of school. The bad part is that we tend to stay up too late at night. Maybe this year will be different. I sure hope so. As much of a night-owl as I am, I’ve discovered that I get less done that way. So I guess I’m finally beginning to see the wisdom in going to bed early and arising early. Took me long enough. J Well so much for the abbreviated version. I hope I didn’t bore you to death.

April update

Hi Jo,


I’m trying to think of what happened this month and can’t really think of much. That’s pretty sad. It seems like it has been an eventful month. I will just start mentioning the few things I do remember and hopefully more things will come to mind.

The month began with General Conference. I love to watch conference and listen to all the messages. I don’t usually have a favorite talk at the time of conference, and this time was no different. Perhaps after I have listened to them several times I will have a favorite. I love to bask in the simplicity of the Gospel. I thought it was interesting that both Andrew and I went into it hoping to get some inspiration about his job. He doesn’t have one still. The one we thought he was going to get he ended up not being offered. We are being blessed immeasurably by the Lord in the meantime, but we know that we need to have a job in order for things to keep working and we want to be self-sustaining. So as we watched conference I found it interesting to see that we both came away with something very different. He came away with the strong impression that he needed to help care for the poor and the needy. This is really odd to me since we could be considered the poor and the needy right now. I came away with knowing that the Lord would take care of us and that He knows our need. I don’t know what will happen, he continues to look for a job, but I know that we will be successful somehow because the Lord wants us to be just that. When we do all we can (and I feel we are) then He will bestow blessings on us that we need and desire in righteousness. I’m so thankful for the Lord’s mercy in our times of trial. I hope you had the opportunity to watch conference. If not, please take time to read it, listen to it or even watch the archived videos. You can access all three forms on the church’s website. If you get the Ensign, then it will be in the May Ensign as always. I like to listen to the MP3’s while doing other things, like getting ready for the day or working in the kitchen making dinner and such.

The second Sunday was our special Stake Conference where we received a new stake presidency. It was inspiring to hear the story of how these calls were made. Two men who barely knew each other and neither of which had ever been to Kalamazoo before flew in on Friday. On Saturday morning they began interviewing a list of about 30 men. Of those one was selected independently by the two conducting the interviews as to whom should serve as the new president of the stake. They both picked the same man. They called him back and extended the call. They gave him a list of 30 men to choose from for counselors and told him he had 30 minutes to make his decision. When he came back he had picked the two men that both of the interviewers had felt, again independent of the other, should be the counselors. The calls were then extended to those two brothers. Both the old and the new presidencies went out to dinner together on Saturday night. What an amazing process. Our new stake president is Mark Witt, the 1st counselor is Mark Montross (yes, our current branch president), and the 2nd counselor is David Decker. I was so surprised that they called Pres. Montross to the new presidency. I thought our branch was too small to take someone from. Obviously I was wrong.

As a result of Pres. Montross now being in the new stake presidency we will have a new branch president called. Due to many circumstances we will be having this done on May 29th, Memorial Day weekend. While I don’t know who will be called I look forward to seeing the change occur. It is a thrilling experience. It will be sad to see those who have served so diligently be released as it always is, but I know that the Lord will sustain the new leaders just as he did the old. If you are able to make it, I would love to see you there. If not, I will let you know who has been called afterwards. I will probably just send my letter a little late so that you can know as soon as possible who they are. I will send it out on Monday, but of course the mail won’t be delivered or picked up that day so it’ll probably be Wednesday before you get it.

On the 16th the youth had their temple trip to the Detroit temple. I hate getting up so early, but it’s worth it to be in the temple. We have such an amazing group of youth. I think it was a deeply spiritual experience for several of our YM and YW. I’m so grateful to serve with them. I had hoped to take a nap when I got home (I got up at 3:45am) but found out I had a meeting in Kalamazoo in only two hours. So I laid down for a while without sleeping and then got up and went to my meeting. I was glad I could go because it was a wonderful meeting and I needed to hear what was said. It was about girl’s camp and how to make it a good experience for the girls.

I have rededicated myself to the difficult task of losing weight. So far so good I guess. I have lost an average of 2 lbs. a week. I have a goal I would like to reach by girl’s camp so we’ll see what happens. I need to actually lose 3 lbs. a week to meet the goal. Still, anything is better than nothing. I feel very confident though and have already lost an inch around my waist.

I started classes again. They are an odd combination. My first class is learning how to teach grammar to children. The textbook is so boring that it’s difficult to even read without falling asleep so we are rewriting sections of it for the biggest part of the class. Not exactly easy or fun. My second class is much more enjoyable as it’s about children’s literature and drama. For about half of the class we will go to an elementary school and work with 1st and 2nd graders to do a dramatic poetry interpretation. My third class won’t begin until May 12th and it will be sociology. I don’t know how that will go, but it’s online.

We are trying to work on emergency preparedness a lot right now. We feel a sense of urgency about it. We also got the chickens outside finally. The room was so gross and dirty it took Andrew 8 hours to clean it. I was glad he did it and I didn’t have to because it smelled so awful in there I don’t think I could have done it without throwing up. I could hardly stand to walk by the door and would often gag in doing so. They are enjoying their home outside, except during the storms of course and I don’t really blame them. They do have a form of shelter, but not much right now. They are still too small to put with the big chickens so they don’t have access to the barn.

I’m so excited that spring seems to have finally come. It happened overnight I think. On Sunday I remember looking outside wishing there were buds on the trees and not seeing any. Yesterday I saw a little green and today (Wednesday) there is so much green it’s unbelievable. I’m glad to see it though. The part I don’t like is my dog is getting all messy and I have to keep giving her baths. Oh well. It’s worth it to have spring.

Yesterday I heard the tornado sirens for a few minutes, but thankfully it ended within five minutes so I didn’t bother going downstairs.

Andrew had his birthday on the 12th. It was a nice quiet day. We had homemade Panda Express orange chicken. Just typing that makes me want to have it again. That is some yummy food.

Easter was on the 24th and that was also quiet. Megan is 13, so we don’t do much of the traditional fare. The day before we had gone to a baptism down at the church and we did hide and find eggs at Megan’s insistence. She hid them and we still haven’t found them all. She decided to hide them extra hard so we couldn’t find them easy, sadly she did it too hard and didn’t keep a record of where she put them. I suppose that’s pretty much what happens every year. I remember once I found an egg 10 months after Easter. At least they are empty plastic eggs so there is nothing going bad.

Last Friday our main computer crashed, so we are limping along while Andrew tries to get us up and going again. He is really good with that stuff. I will be glad when he is done because so much of what we both do is on the computer from school work to church and keeping in touch with family and friends back home.

This Saturday is the “Fiesta for a cure”.  Relay for Life is getting so close. I’m glad it will be over before girl’s camp, but I wish I had more than a day to recover before leaving for girl’s camp. That should be interesting.

Well I guess that’s about it. I knew it had been a busy month.

March update

The month of March is nearly over and once again I can’t believe how quickly the time has gone. I finished my Winter Quarter classes and am now over half-way done with my two-week break. I did well in my classes and am so glad for that. On April 4th I begin my new classes, all of which happen to be on Monday. This will make it very convenient for me as far as driving to Jackson, but I’m not looking forward to being on campus all day long. My first class starts at 9am and then my last class will end at 5:40pm. I will have breaks between classes, but that’s still a long time to be on campus. I am hoping that during my breaks I will get the majority of my homework done. That would make it very nice.


Andrew is out of work again. Last month I wasn’t sure when I wrote, but he was definitely given the boot. He wasn’t told for nearly three weeks after they had decided to let him go. He has interviewed for several places and we are hoping that one of them will call back very soon. We are especially hoping for one place in particular to call back. I will let you know next month I guess who he ends up working for. We are pretty sure another place wants him, but he is kind of holding out for a better offer at the place he really wants to work for.

This summer is already shaping up to be a busy one. I plan to attend classes full-time during the summer quarter, I plan to attend girl’s camp and we also have stake youth conference, which I would like to go to, but not sure if I will or not because of the other things I’m going to be doing. I am also the Relay for Life captain and we have Relay on June 24-25 so I will be busy with that as well.

We bought 40 baby chickens and have them in a “spare room” that we have used for playing in when smaller kids come over. We have quite a stink in the house now in that area because they are getting older and just like humans their waste stinks more when they get older. They are hungry little things (which isn’t a surprise) and we are hoping to move them outside sooner than later. I’d love to put them outside right now, but they need their feathers in first and they aren’t quite old enough yet. As soon as they are, we will be moving them outdoors where they are free to be stinky and then we have some major cleaning up to do in that room! My what a mess of ‘dust’ is all over in there. I know why we got them, but I don’t know what we were thinking when we did so! Hahaha

This weekend is General Conference. We will be watching most of the sessions here at home. We went down to the Church last time and the chairs are just too uncomfortable to spend that much time in. We do plan to go down on Sunday morning however because our Branch Presidency has asked us to do so. Andrew has to go down and start the recording, but then will come back home and be able to watch with us here online. We have the TV set up so that we can plug the laptop into it and watch it on our large screen. This makes it nice and comfortable.

They announced a few weeks ago that Pres. Anderson (the Stake President) has been called to serve as mission president for the Colorado, Colorado Springs mission. He is very excited. As a result of that calling though, he will be released at a special session of Stake Conference on April 10th. This means that we won’t have regular meetings for two weeks, which is like an eternity. I am rather disappointed at his release because I had just gotten to where I recognized the Stake Presidency members and now they will all be changing. I feel pretty comfortable saying that they aren’t going to be putting in someone that I know. The likelihood of that is so small I almost cringe. My only hope is that they will call a high counselor that I might recognize. Oh well.

I have been working on some sewing projects and wishing that I didn’t have to. They are not fun projects thus far. It’s mostly been repairing and resizing clothes. I am looking forward to being done with those so that I can move onto a quilt that I want to make and then a dress for Megan for Easter. Maybe if there’s enough I’ll make a shirt or skirt for me as well. I can’t remember how much fabric I bought now because it’s been nearly a year. She had wanted to learn to sew, but before we got very far she changed her mind and I’ve been too busy. I had hoped to get all the sewing done during my time off, but at this point I don’t think that’s going to happen. Too many other things have needed my attention, like usual.

Well, I guess that’s about all I have to really say this month. I have been trying to keep up on current events and I find it hard to believe so many things are going on and yet the people of the earth don’t return to God as they should. If we would all repent and make Him a part of our lives again then there wouldn’t be so much sadness in the world. I hope that you are keeping Him close to you as you go throughout your life, He is always there for you.