Martha and Jeremy

[written March 30th]

Hello Everyone. After a few weeks of housecleaning and recovery things are finally getting back to normal from our 6 week adventure in the west. The trip was so refreshing. It was wonderful seeing everyone. I'm glad Lyle was able to (finally) play with his cousins. It's fun for me to see my child play with brothers' and sisters' children.

We've basically spent the past few weeks slowly, very slowly, getting everyday life back to normal. Now that we're back in the routine of things, I miss the small fun things of our trip. I miss all the baby's around. It's weird to only hear one baby fuss. I miss seeing Lyle run excitedly around with the other little children. Oh well, it was sure fun but it's nice to be back too. At least the weather is warming up nicely.

Easter was a lot of fun celebrating with Lyle. We told him all day Saturday that the Easter Bunny was coming. Then in the evening we made Easter egg sugar cookies for the Easter Bunny. Lyle helped roll out the dough and then would take the egg shape and "pushing hard" into the dough. I think he helped cure me of ever wanting to eat cookie dough again. While Lyle was rolling out the dough I turned around--only for a moment-- to check on Hyrum. When I turned back around to be with Lyle, the kid had discarded the rolling pin and was in the process of stuffing a HUGE handful of dough into his tiny mouth. I didn't know if I should hurl or bust up laughing. Needless to say I didn't snitch anymore dough that night! We finished the cookies, ate a few and set the rest out for the Easter Bunny. After Lyle went to bed we hid the eggs and set out an Easter Basket, actually we set out two each for the kids because our neighbor Alice made a basket up for each child. The weather was very rainy outside so we couldn't do any outside festivities. Anyway, Lyle woke up in the morning chanting Easter Bunny, Easter Bunny. So we hurriedly ran down stairs to see if he came. Sure enough, Lyle's eagle eyes immediately spotted a hidden egg. It only got better from there. Lyle continued to find the eggs. Even though they all just had jelly beans in them each one was a new treasure. It was a blast. I can't wait until next year for both kids to search!

We're looking forward the spring weather and getting to see all the trees begin to blossom. Isn't it crazy that while all the trees are already fully leaved in the west, the trees here have only just begun getting buds! Anyway, spring is beautiful here. I'm looking forward to many nice walks outside. Enjoy April!

[written April 18th]

We're surviving here. All is well. Nothing too big is happening . . . dramatic but not to big. For the past several weeks Alice has been complaining about this spring that runs underneath our row homes, right in between hers and ours. Anyway, she said the contractors knew about the spring when they built the homes 63 years ago but did nothing about it. So she's been calling town hall and complaining for a while. Finally, about a week and a half ago, they told her they would send someone out. So she waited outside for them for three days. Finally after sweeping her porch for about the 75th time they came. Well they took one look in her basement at the water and then knocked on my door. It turns out we have a crack in our main pipe that runs from our bathroom to our basement to the city's main line. Because Alice's house is lower than ours, she ended up getting all the runoff water from our leak. Oops! So the city sent out a building inspector who told me it would cost thousands of dollars to replace and got me pretty upset. On top of that Jeremy had just begun his grueling two weeks of finals. I was in quite a panic by the time he came home. He sure took it better then I did. He calmly told me not to worry. I forgot he grew up in the Roto Rooter business. He knew exactly what the building inspector was talking about and said it would be a cinch to fix. The only problem was that it would have to wait until after finals. So he said in the meantime we would need to limit our water use in the bathroom and I would have to make sure Alice was not in too much of a frenzy. After all you know, we were afraid she would take it rather hard when the city told her the "spring" was not causing all the water leakage in her basement! So I took the kids over and we visited for a while. I told her our dilemma about Jeremy having no time and the in the meanwhile I would quit bathing the kids. Well she got upset at that notion and said to keep bathing the kids everyday. She said she didn't mind cleaning the water up everyday so our kids could take baths! Then she told me to wish Jeremy luck on his finals. What a sweet lady!

So Jeremy took his last final on Friday. Ahhh, relief. Today is his only school day off and he is currently at the hardware store with Lyle buying PCP pipe and whatever other fixtures you need to fix the pipes. Anyway I don't completely understand what he's doing.

Nick and Becca

Nick is currently taking his second to last final exam in his pharmacy career! His last one is scheduled for next Wednesday. Yeah, I'm just a little excited. The next year will be pretty busy for him, but at least there won't be any major test stress, I guess for a little while at least until the board exam next year. As usual, between work and school Nick fills his extra time with projects around the house. Last night he finished off the back yard with a curtain of misters around the patio. It's too bad the weather has been so beautiful that we can't really use them! ? (Just kidding I love the mid-eighties no matter how useless a fancy mister set may be, besides, we'll be all ready when the nineties and up roll in.) Nick did have an unprojected project this month though. He wasn't counting on the main water line from the meter to the house to break. Apparently someone didn't seem to see a problem in planting a potentially large tree one foot from the main piping to the house. Luckily it didn't take too long to fix and we could turn the water back on after about 24 hours. I did learn how fast we could use our water supply though. . .

A short but big highlight this month was our visit from McKay and Keresa. Sorry mom, your room at our house may still be "Grandma's room" to Jonathan, but the bed is "Kay's and Kresa's." Everytime we go in there he reminds me that that is where Mckay and Keresa slept and then asks where they are and what they are doing. While here, McKay and Keresa took us for a hike in the Tucson Mountains. We saw saguaros in bloom, a big black bug, a few airplanes and a helicoptor. We drove separate cars to the mountains but kept in contact with some trustee walkie talkies. After they left Jonathan was still trying to contact McKay on the walkie talkies.

Jonathan is becoming such a big boy. Yesterday he washed himself with soap and washed and rinsed his hair with shampoo all by-himself in the tub. Then he brushed his own hair. He was very proud of his Mohawk. To top it off I let him use Daddy's toothbrush to brush his teeth. He is learning how to go pee-pee in "Emily's toilet" and has become friends with the kitchen timer. (When his friend Emily was done potty-training she gave Jonathan her toilet.) Jonathan enjoys running back and forth in our back yard lawn with his imaginary friend, but most off all he loves to play in the little area of dirt in the garden where nothing is planted. He is such a boy.

Estelle is such a girl! When she plays she loves to scream! She bats her eyelashes at anyone who stops to tell her she is pretty. People comment that she looks like a porclein doll. She cry's to Mom whenever she doesn't get her way and then to dad if she still doesn't get it. She is so much fun. She is growing and learning so fast. Her first tooth came in this week. Also, she can slide all around the wood floor until she runs into a wall or some immovable obstacle. Last week, while in the kitchen, I heard her whimpering in the living room. It took me a minute to find her when I tried to come to her rescue. At last I spotted her head just barely poking out from underneath the couch. She is a very curious child and loves to explore what ever is in her reach. Yesterday she dumped out Jonathan's lego bucket and played with the different pieces for about an hour. (They are the big toddler legos).

Elder Matthias

This is an update Matt wrote to put in a Moapa Valley missionary newsletter:

Hi! It was so awesome to read how all of you were doing last Christmas. It really helped to put me in the full perspective and context of how truly great and marvelous this missionary effort is worldwide. You know how in the scriptures how every prophet always goes back to talking about Moses crossing the Red Sea? It has been prophesied that one day, that that miracle will be replaced with the greater miracle of the marvelous work and a wonder of which we are engaged in. Reading all of your letters helped me to remember that.

I'm here dead center capital of Dominican Republic Santo Domingo. I just barely completed six months in the mission and I'm still here in my greenie area. I also just barely received my second companion after being with my Dad (trainer) for three transfers. The work is a challenge, the people are fun, the culture is different, the food is rice, and the weather is how you might expect it to be in the Caribbean: hot and humid year round! Plus I never knew how hard "Whitney" was to say, so every one here calls me "Winnie" (como winnie da pooh). But we've been blessed with a bit of success. I'm going to go ahead and paste in some cool experiences from emails to my mom, so here goes:

I think that I have just recently experienced my absolute worst day in the mission. Last Saturday was absolutely a bum. It started out with a morning appointment. We were pretty excited about this one too. First of all because we never get appointments in the morning, and second of all because this guy seemed pretty enthusiastic to learn more the last time we talked to. But, he wasn't there. Oh well, no big sweat, happens all the time.

At three o'clock, we went over to Anny's house (she's the really intelligent and very awesome investigator who's husband is not the least bit interested in the church) and we were pretty excited about how much she told us she'd read in the book of Mormon. However, she spent the next hour expressing doubts about everything she'd read and how she feels it contradicts what's in the Bible. Then she told us she still felt really good about everything we've taught her, but that she wouldn't be able to come to church for a few weeks (the last time she came was before Christmas). So even if she still does decide to get baptized, it won't be any time soon.

We left that appointment pretty disheartened and frustrated, but we were scheduled to meet some other Elders and one of their investigators at the chapel for the baptismal interview (Elder Mantz is district leader now so he performs the interviews for the other six elders in our district). We waited at the chapel for about 40 minutes cleaning and filling the baptismal font and everything like that, but the lady never showed up for the interview.(okay, the internet center where I'm typing this is a joke. they've made me switch computers three times now mid email and now this computer has a faulty keyboard that randomly pushes 'j' every once and a while and I'm tired of deleting them, so be aware of jthe random j!) We weren't too bad off though, we still had a good appointment with this young girl named Nikaury. A little background on her because I don't think I've told you about her before. She's only 17 but works at an internet center with a member lady in our ward. So she asked her about the missionaries and we showed up. She made greatj progress right away and loved everything we taught her (and even cried when we sang herj jjj "Grand eres tu" or "How jGreat thou art") But lately she's just been kind of slacking and acting strange around ujs. jWe've taught her grandma too who has tons of faith. They were both ready for baptismal datesj but Nikaury wouldn't sit down long enough for us to do it with her so we justj set it with her Grandma and told her to talk to Nikaury. Anyway back to worst day ever story: We had an appointment with Nikaury and Grandma to confirm baptismal dates with both of them for this next saturday coming up. jjjjjjjjjjjj However, Nikaury wasnj't there. So we waited kind of chatting with her grandma for about 30 minutjes. Meanwhile, one of Nikaury's cousins that lives there j(he's six years oldJ) started having a trantrum and throwing stuff at us from thej other room (like his basketball, stuffj he found in the street that he'd been chewing on and the soap dish out of the bathroom to be exact). jSo we decided to leave. On the way out we saw Nikaury in a Colmado (its like a little jfood store that they have all over the place) buying a one liter thing of soda and she jhad a couple of other bags with her and was in a great mood. Turns out she'd bought a big jcake and a bunch of other things like the soda for our jappoiintment so jwe could just sit down and enjoy the evening together. But not only did we jhave toj go right then, we couldn't even try anthjing that shej'd bought us because jwe had determined that we were fasting from Saturday to Sunday for the first sunday of the month, specifically for Nikaury too! So she jwas in kind of an embarrassed let down angry mood when we left which was disheartening again.

We left for our last really hopeful appointment jat the sister's house jof my first baptism. She and her husband are pretty interested and we'd planned to watch The Restoration movie at their house that night along with our baptism there too to give his testimony at the end. However, it being Saturday night, the housej was under seige by loud jbachata music and happy jgo lucky drunks. And then we soon realized that our investigator was one of them. He insisted on still watchjing the movie, but he was pretty drujnk and we couldn't even hear the TV with the blaring music. Plus random drunk couple kept on coming and going into their house freely. So we pulled out of there pretty quick.

We decided to check up on an investigator that used to be doing really well, but just hasn't been to jchurch forever so she can't get baptized. But she wasn't home. Fine. So we went home tired and depressed. I took a long cold showerj J(cold showers are the only kind they have herej) and I played hymns on my harmonica until I fell asleep. What a day.

But, if you've caught jon by the subject line of this email, wej were well rewarded for enduring our jjworst jday ever with our best day ever the next day in church! jNikaury and her grandma were there along with one other investigator of ours. After sacrament meeting, Nikaury jpulled us aside to talk to us. She jlooked really concerned. She jtold us, "I was fasting yesterday tooj from Friday up until I bought jthat cake for our appointment. I've been praying and thinking alot lately, and I've decided thatj I don't want to get baptized jthis Saturday." We startedj to tell herj that we understand if she needs more time or doesn't feel ready or something like that, but she justj cut ujs off and said, "I want to get baptized today!" WHAT!!

Soj we spent the whole rest of church jscrambling around getting our baptismal clothes jand trying to find clothes for her too and getting spare underwear for her at a member girls house jacross from our jchapel and then getting ahold of our zone leaders (Elder Mantz cannot interview ourj own baptizmal candidates) and making sure jthe bishop was cool and willing and everything else that needed to get done. Lucky we'd spent some time the day before cleaning and filling the font for a baptism that didn't take place, becausej we ended up with a surprise baptism instead! It was an amazing experience. I wish I had time to try and describe how great we felt in contrast to how miserable we were the day before. jAnd Nikaury's grandma is still strongly scjheduledj for next Saturday to be baptized.

So things are good here and I wish you all you the best success and all the other blessings that come from serving the Lord!

Con Amor, Elder Winnie da Pooh

McKay's Reunion Update

In case anyone hasn't been paying attention to their email over the last little while, here are some reunion plans:

On August 4 we can arrive at 12:00 noon, as everyone gets there, check in at the General Store so they can register your vehicle. Our party is called McKay, or Whitney, it's a little unclear... We are reserved for Aug4, aug5, and we have to be cleaned up and check out by Aug 6 at 11:00 am. I told her enough tent spots to cover each family having one tent, plus an extra 1 tent for the whole group incase some of your kids want to have a cousin-party tent or something. You would take exit 191 off I-40, then go up route 66 for a couple miles to get there. Here is their website www.woodymountaincampground.com I put their address from the website into mapquest.com and got a pretty good map.

So I am thinking that maybe Martha and Mel and figure out together how to set up the Birthday Bird or something like that for the reunion. I am too young to even remember what he did or why all the kids liked him so much, but maybe that can be a chore for mart and mel. For becca and Chris, I know you guys have Ice Cream machines and recipes, so maybe you guys can hook up and decide together to bring your homemade ice-cream stuff and either plug them in at the general store and make the goods, or if they are hand crankable, bring them with the necessary tools so we can make ice-cream sometime. Keresa and Grandma can get together on some kind of creativity activity like decorating shirts, cutting out paper, stringing pine cones, etc. By no means is anyone limited to these, feel free to break the boundaries set here and help each other with these assignments. If Summer thinks doing the ice cream is retarded and would rather be with grandma making shirts-- do it. If Martha used to be scared of the birthday bird, go to the ice cream committee. Just talk among each other to get your things figured out.

Some Changes For meals:

On your own Thursday lunch (probably some of you wont even get there until dinner time anyway.) Thursday Dinner: mk keresa Friday breakfast: Chris and Summer Friday lunch: Nick and Becca --maybe something that could be mobilized in case we want to do a hike and eat while we congregate right before the hike or right after the hike before we get back in the car or something? Friday Dinner: Grandma and Grandpa Friday Dessert: Andy and Melanie Saturday late Breakfast: Jeremy and Martha- I know its cliche to have Martha make breakfast, but its the only way I can ensure she doesn't make beans... You may remember we thought of Melanie doing a lunch Saturday, but incase people would rather just eat a late breakfast and go instead of sit around waiting because they feel obligated to eat mel's meal too, we feel like this is a better change. I don't think Martha will mind the pressure of a brunch instead of a breakfast-- that is her specialty outside of beans...

For supplies-- is it possible for everyone to send me an inventory of what you are planning to bring as far as shareable hardware so I can make a list and redistribute it to everyone? an example would be 12" dutch oven, or propane stove, etc. I think this will help us all plan our meals and keep from everyone bringing supplies when we could all bring a little less and still have everything we need. Remember-- for things like ice, eggs, etc, we have a general store right in our campsite. They will likely have things if we forget them.

P.S. Don't forget your swimsuits and fishing poles!

We also recently posted some new pictures of Sydney if anyone feels like they want to see her : coe.nevada.edu/mwhitney/SYDNET Love, whitneys