Sunday Afternoon

August 26, 2007
Dear Elder Sean,

I'm here at home with Kristina who wasn't feeling good during church. So I took her home during the third hour. I'll start your letter while I'm waiting for everyone to come home. I went to Mitch's farewell talk today. I sat with Sis. McKell and Sis. Frame. Also there standing in proxy for their son was Sis. Flake and Sis. Anderson. So Mitch's talk was given to a group of beautiful moms and a handful of young women instead of the large group of college kids you had in the audience. His talk was on pride and we moms had to laugh because he talked about one time he felt prideful during his freshman year and it had to do with your group. He talked about the time when you guys sat in Sunday School and how someone wrote on the roll, "look at the footprints on the ceiling" and how you guys sat in the back and chuckled as each person looked up. He said it was funny at the time, but then later he felt it was an act of pride where by doing that he felt like he was acting like he was better everyone else in the room. When he talked about that, we moms looked at each other and had good laugh knowing exactly the group he was talking about. Actually we looked a little guilty as if he were talking about us.

Mitch is excited to get going. He doesn't leave until the 19th of Sept, same date as Nigel. Elder McKell is now out in the mission field in Brazil as of last week. His mom said they got an email the first day he was out and he just kept saying it was insane there. She's not sure what that means and is anxious to hear from him this week. Elder Flake is coming up on one year next month.

We are trying to make our plans for going to pick up Kirk. It's really hard picking places to stay at a place we are so unfamiliar with. Even the travel agents aren't much help. Should be interesting, but I'm really excited. Jan and Jeff will stay here with the girls for a few days and then G & G Thompson will come and take over the duty.

So how has your week been? Hope you're starting to regain your energy. Remember every winter you come down with something. I'm not sure if it's due to your tonsils or not. Kristina's teacher Mrs. Bunn went to Argentina for a few weeks about a month ago and she said practically everyone got sick with pneumonia, but they just plowed through. She thought it was a combination of a new country, new food, cold damp air and being thrown into winter. They're all home now and feeling better. Hope you are too. Are you able to get everything done during the day that you want or is it impeding your work? It's hard being so far away from you and I wish I could help you more. You're in my prayers for health and strength.

Have you gotten the second newsletter from your friends? The other moms said their sons really enjoy those. I hope it doesn't take too long to get to you. Speaking of mail--we got a letter for you from the Church mail operations center. They said that you had send 2 letters through the pouch but they do not have pouch delivery to the Australia mission or the Utica mission. They said they went ahead and mailed the letters to the missions for you, but for next time you should use the following addresses:
New York Utica Mission
PO Box 149
Whitesboro NY 13492-0149

Australia Sydney North Mission
PO Box 8304
Baulkham Hills NSW 2153
Australia

Hope that info helps you. I took a little break, had dinner with the family, had father's blessings, read the scriptures and now Leah and Nikki are getting ready for bed. They're not too happy about going to bed while the sun is still up. School day tomorrow-yeah! I might be able to catch up with some projects around the house now and I might even start quilting again.

We went to the big Idaho State Fair this past week. Thought about you as we passed the vitamix/caps area. Travis gave everyone free BSU t-shirts. Everyone's pretty excited for the season to get started this year. It will be interesting to see how they do. If they lose the first game, the excitement will take a nose dive.

I took the Bears to Cabela's for a tour. It was good. l learned a lot, but I'm not so sure the boys did. they said they had fun though. Their best part was when they handed us a huge bag full of tokens to use at the laser gun station. There was no way we could possibly use all the tokens they gave us unless we stayed there the entire day, which of course, Kyle Houssian wanted to.

Leah finally got all her 13 cavities filled this week. It took her 4 trips to the dentist. I think we've given Dr. Moss enough money now to let him add an entire wing onto his house. Speaking of teeth--Nikki lost one of her front top teeth last week and now she just has a loose one on top and it's kind of worked its way into the middle so it looks like she has one tooth in the middle of her mouth. It looks so strange that we are all trying to help her loosen it to get it out. We could really use your expert touch here.

All 3 girls will ride the bus together tomorrow. They go to Eagle Elementary first where Nikki gets off and goes into her First grade classroom with Mrs. Miller2. Yes, I said first grade. I'm still holding my breath though and think they'll ask me to put her back into kindergarten. I told her to try to behave like a big girl. She laughed, did a cartwheel and ran away. Then Leah and Kristina get on a shuttle that takes them to the new school Galileo where Leah will go into her 2nd grade classroom with her teacher Mr. Harrison or the teacher with 2 earrings as Leah puts it. I have a feeling Leah will flat out tell Mr. Harrison how it's not right for him to wear earrings. Kristina goes to a separate wing where only the 6th and 7th graders will be. She is so excited to use the chemistry room. She thinks the "shower" is the coolest. Alex is going to be riding with the Purnell brothers this year (that is if he can manage to wake himself up in time). The Purnells said they owe us since you took them to school for a year-so thank you Sean for that.

Alex had choir camp these past couple of days and said it was fun. He's not real happy that Sonous is going to be so large this year-52 kids. But Mr. Mc says he needs that many for some of the songs he's planning on. When they make a CD, I'll have to send it to you.

I hope your week was fruitful. Has it started warming up there yet? I was thinking about the collar attachments you were talking about. I think I may have something that would work for you. I have this double sided tape that works on fabric and I could just cut it into strips to use on pieces of white fabric that I cut into collar shapes. We'll see. Maybe they'll appear in a pkg one day. :)

Let us know when you get the pkg we send you. We're still a bit nervous about everything making it to you. I stuck a lot of things in there for you, music, etc and I'm anxious to hear if you like it and can use it.

How did Isabel's baptism go? How about las familia Melo? I hope you're enjoying some success with some families coming to church. That's one of the best signs of their commitment and honest intentions.

I better sign off. Dad wants to talk about antibiotics with you. fun fun We are well here and you are in every prayer, sometimes more than once (thanks to Nikki's prayers). Have a great week. Be humble, teachable and prayerful.

Love you much,
mom
xoxoxoxxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxo