I guess I did jinx us when I said last week that we’ve all
been healthy because Frank has not been feeling very well this week…he’s
congested and his voice dropped a couple of octaves like it does when he’s
sick. He hasn’t been really miserable or in bed sick, though. He’s been able to
manage his symptoms with medicine and he went to work as usual all week and his
voice is actually better now than it was. Meanwhile, I started getting a
headache and slight sore throat on Wednesday. It magically went away yesterday
during the day but the scratchy throat returned last night and today I am
trying to ignore the fact that my head hurts, my nose is starting to run, and
my head still aches. I’m not doing a very good job, though. Hopefully it won’t
turn into anything really bad and I’ll feel better soon.
The weather has been bi-polar this week. Saturday, Sunday
and Monday were super cold (highs in the 20s) and sometimes windy too. Tuesday
was not quite as cold (high in the 30s) but we got freezing rain that night and
we had another 2 hour delay on Wednesday morning. It was warmer on Wednesday,
though, and we got regular rain too and the temperatures went up into the low
50s. On Thursday, spring appeared to arrive and the high for the day was 66
degrees! I thought it was wonderful and Frank thought it was disgusting! Never
fear, though, today the high is 55 (still pretty pleasant) but tonight it is
supposed to drop back down into the 30s and we are supposed to get snow
overnight and into the day tomorrow. Happy Birthday to Frank!! One bad thing
about the weather flip flopping, though, is that Frank’s knee hurts more when the
weather changes and so that means his knee has been hurting fairly constantly
this week.
Last Saturday I did mostly Cub Scout stuff—helping Seth do
some of the things he needed to do as well as planning. I had just made some
comment about being glad I didn’t have to go anywhere since it was miserably
cold when the Sister missionaries called and wanted to know if they could get a
ride back home from an investigator’s house. So of course I went and got them
since I didn’t want them to have to walk a long ways in the cold.
Sunday was really good. I just re-read a Conference talk
about true worship this week and I feel like that has been happening to me more
lately. All the talks and lessons have been so good lately, and I’ve really
felt the spirit while at church. We just started the lessons from the Teachings
of Gordon B. Hinckley book, and I was reminded how much I love President
Hinckley!! He had a way of explaining gospel principles that just makes so much
sense to me and is so profound. I can just hear his voice while I read his
words. I’m really excited to study his teachings this year. Also, I have a new
favorite scripture from this week’s Sunday School lesson: D&C 45:3-5. We
read that scripture in class and for a few minutes, I could really imagine the
Savior doing that for me—pleading my cause, being my advocate. It’s a hard
moment to describe, but it was sweet. Also, read D&C 34:1-6. You will love it!
We have church at 11:00 now and I like it because I have
that extra hour or two in the morning before church that I can read the
scriptures and the lessons for the day. It’s really nice. On Sunday evening I
had to go out in the cold again because we had a meeting to start planning the
stake’s Cub Scout Day Camp for this summer. It was only a small group who
showed up, but we decided on what dates for the day camp and the place and the
theme, so we got a lot accomplished. We’re going to have a Pioneer theme this
year and I think it’s going to be awesome!
Monday was really busy because I took Jared to the dentist
and to the eye doctor. He has two cavities so he has to go back in a few weeks
to get those filled. At the eye doctor, we ordered new glasses for him and he
has a new prescription for contact lenses too. We need to order those soon.
That morning he got up early to go do some service—helped set up tables and
chairs for a free medical clinic that a local charity called The Mission of
Mercy was having at a local church (not one of ours). Our ward and another ward
were supposed to provide volunteers, but the other ward skipped out on us so
when it was time to go back that afternoon to take everything down, I went to
help too. (Frank said he would just have to go help, but I told him no way!!) We
had to be there right after I picked up Seth from school so he came too and he
helped wipe down some of the tables. When we got there, we discovered that
there were still a lot of people waiting to be seen so we had to kind of work
around things and take down tables and chairs as they finished with them. We
still got done in about an hour. I noticed that the guy from Mission of Mercy
who was in charge of getting things taken down spoke Spanish to a lady who was
there so I told him Jared was going to be learning Spanish soon and it turns
out that this guy actually lived in McAllen Texas for a few years! That was
kind of cool. It was good to do that service because I found myself reflecting
on how blessed we are to have good health insurance and financial security. So
many of those people waiting to be seen had kind of a defeated look about them.
It must be hard to rely on free medical clinics for your health care needs!
On Tuesday I did some online shopping for Frank’s birthday and
for Jared’s mission stuff, and got ready for that evening’s den meeting. It
looked for a while like we might not have den meeting since freezing rain was
in the forecast and the school system cancelled all their activities after 5:00
pm, but since it looked like the freezing rain wasn’t coming in until later in
the evening we did have den meeting and there were no problems with the weather.
The rain started to come down just as we were leaving the church so we got home
before the roads were bad. For den meeting we didn’t do any building—we’ll
start that next week. I gave them time to work on the designs for their
Pinewood Derby cars and we talked about the materials they were going to use
for their cars and for their other project, which will be a shelf / shadow box. One of the counselors in the bishopric has a lot of scrap wood he is letting us use and he even offered
to cut the pieces for us ahead of time, so that is going to help a lot! We also
watched a video on how to make the boxes, just to give them an idea of what
they will be doing.
Jared had an appointment to get a flu shot on Wednesday
morning. I thought he was going to get a meningitis booster as well, but when
we got there they checked his records and said he had already had that done a
few years ago so he only had to get one shot. He wasn’t disappointed about
that! After taking Seth to school (that was the morning he had a 2 hour delay)
Jared and I went to Wal-Mart to get a bunch of things on his list for his
mission. We also had the regular grocery shopping to do and the place was
crowded with long lines, so it took a long time to get all of that done. We
went to the Super WalMart on the other side of Frederick because the WalMart
near us is closing in a few weeks and a lot of things are out of stock. The new
Super Wal-Mart that will replace it doesn’t open until the 25th (the
day after the current store closes). Anyway, it took us longer to get
everything we needed because I don’t know my way around that Wal-Mart nearly so
well. I’ll be glad when the new one opens and I’ve learned my way around it! We
stopped at Costco after that to grab a couple of things and by the time we got
home and put everything away it was almost time to go pick up Seth. I wasn’t
feeling very well by then either so I spent the evening relaxing.
As I mentioned before, I felt a lot better on Thursday and
that was a good thing because we had planned to go to the temple that day. I
had a lot to do besides the temple trip, but I want Jared to be able to go as
often as possible before he leaves and of course it’s important for me to go,
too! As usual, the traffic was bad and we got to the temple shortly after 10:00
so had to wait nearly an hour for the next session. However, Jared needed to
get some more garments and we wanted to get him some temple clothes too so we
were able to do all that before the session started so that worked out well.
After the session, we sat in the Celestial Room for probably 30 minutes talking
about various things we noticed / learned and I also ended up explaining more
about sealings to Jared so we went up to the 6th floor so he could
see the sealing rooms too. By the time we changed and left the temple, I was
shocked to discover that it was nearly 2:00!! How did that happen?? We still
needed to go to the LDS bookstore to get some books Jared needs for his mission
(they were out of 2 of the ones he needed, though, which was frustrating) and
we were starving by then too so we stopped to get some lunch. We ended up
picking Seth up on our way back home, and then stopping at the grocery store
since I needed to get a few groceries too. We didn’t get home until about 4:15
so that was a long day! It was funny, though—after I got home I managed to get
all the other things done I needed to do except for folding the laundry, which
I did this morning. It seems like when I take the time to go to the temple,
everything else gets done somehow! I really enjoyed being in the temple, too. I
always love being there, but being there with one of my boys makes it that
much better. I also noticed that once I got there, I wasn’t so worried about
all the other things I needed to do that day. I suddenly lost all desire to
rush and I just wanted to take my time and enjoy the feeling of being there. It
was wonderful!
On Thursday evening there was a RS meeting and I almost
didn’t go but I did and I’m glad I went. It always uplifts and strengthens me
to spend time with other women of faith. For this meeting, we met together with another ward and they had invited people from a couple of local service
organizations to come tell us about their organizations and what service
opportunities they have available for volunteers. It was actually really
interesting and I found out about one place here in Frederick that offers
financial help like free tax preparation and budget coaching. I am really
interested in finding out more about volunteering there. It’s too late this
year for me to sign up to help with tax preparation because I have to take a
fairly extensive training course to do that, but I could sign up to be a budget
coach. I’m going to look into that, I think. I know most people would think I
am crazy to want to do something like that but for some inexplicable reason, I
just really enjoy financial stuff and I know that your finances can have a big
impact on all aspects of your life. If you don’t know how to manage them
wisely, you can really make yourself miserable! So I get excited about the idea
of helping people get in control of their finances. It’s something that
can be life changing.
Last night I didn’t sleep very well so I got up pretty late
today and as I mentioned I’m not feeling great so I’ve been trying to take it
easy as much as possible. I’ve been trying to get through my list of things to
do for the day but I haven’t made much progress yet besides getting the laundry
folded and writing to Tanner. Oh, and I re-read a great Conference talk today about being a righteous
judge. Amazing! I’m really not sure where today has gone, though! I did leave
early to pick up Seth from school—besides the fact that he gets out an hour
earlier on Fridays, his class (and all of the other Upper Elementary classes
and the Middle School class) had a music concert today a half hour before
dismissal which he really wanted me to come to, so I went to that too. It was
pretty good, actually. Each class played a song that they had composed
themselves, using several instruments. I was kind of impressed!
Frank has had a busy week doing maintenance and other tasks
for clients. He also had another appointment with the foot doctor (yesterday)
but his foot is doing much better and he doesn’t have to go back unless he has
more problems. He got some new special shoes with inserts last week that have
been helping with his feet, too. He went to the orthopedic doctor on Wednesday
evening and that doctor can’t figure out what is going on with his back, so he
is scheduled for an MRI on his back this coming Wednesday. Hopefully they’ll
know more after that. It will be nice if they can find something that is
treatable (and hopefully easily treatable!) so that he can start feeling a lot
better. In the meantime, the doctor prescribed three different medications for him to take which help with the back somewhat but also make him feel dizzy and nauseous, so that is not much fun.
Jared is working on mission preparations. With all the
shopping we did this week, we are almost through his entire list of things to
buy but we still have lots of things to do like get his driving record and copy
his immunization records and so forth. We also got an email from his mission
this week with a pretty long list of things he / we need to do as well as a
whole lot of information about his mission. The attachment they sent us is
pages and pages long and includes a large booklet on bike safety that he has to
read because he’s going to be tested on it when he gets there! It turns out
that about 5 years ago, 2 missionaries in his mission were killed when they
were hit by a car while riding their bikes. It really wasn’t their fault (the car was passing another car and pulled into their lane and hit them head-on), but
still—you can tell they are pretty anxious about bike safety in his mission.
The booklet lists several possible accident scenarios (they even have names like "The Crosswalk Slam" and "The Red Light of Death") and how you can avoid
them. I’m not sure how I am supposed to feel about that! I mean, it’s good that
they are helping the missionaries be so aware of bike safety and ways that they
can protect themselves, but I never knew there were so many ways to get hit by
a car while riding a bike! Wow, I feel so confident that my son is going to be out there on the roads on a bicycle after reading all of that! (Not to mention I have another son out there on a bicycle right now!) We did learn
some other things about his mission like a) more bikes get stolen in his
mission than any other (oh joy!), b) everyone in the mission (including
Sisters) rides their bike all day on Saturdays, and c) EVERY missionary in the
mission learns Spanish, and they all have to be prepared to teach all the
discussions in either Spanish or English. It is the only “bi-lingual” mission
in the whole church. It said that at any given time, 75% of the missionaries in
the mission are assigned to Spanish speaking areas, while 25% are assigned to
English speaking areas. So Jared will probably teach in both languages at
different times during his mission, depending on what area he is assigned to. I
think that is pretty cool!!
Jared is also working again. He contacted his old job to let
them know he is back in town and they put him on the schedule starting today.
As a matter of fact, that is where he is now—at work. He has been trying to
figure out how to apply to work for the school system also because his high school theater teacher has some work
he needs done that Jared could do and get paid for it, but he has to be a school system employee first. He has been trying to find that application to fill out but he
keeps getting the run around—first they told him it was available online (but
he couldn’t find it), then they told him he could pick up a paper copy at the
office, but when he tried to do that they told him it is only available
online. Never mind that someone from the same office told him an hour earlier
that it was only available on paper at their office and he could come pick it
up there. Hopefully he’ll figure it out soon. It would be nice for him to earn
some money before he goes.
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