Dear Loved Ones,
Another wintry week in Livingston! We had
ourselves a (hopefully once in a lifetime) big adventure in the snow this week,
we spent time with lots of people we love, and did lots of preparation for ALL
of the upcoming holidays.
Monday 11/12 was all about Wendy Tyner’s funeral. I did a
few chores in the morning (recovering from the weekend) and then I picked up
the girls from school so we could attend the funeral at 11am. Adeline and I
sand “In the Garden,” that sweet old hymn. Wendy had asked me to sing it a year
ago when she got her diagnosis. It was a privilege to do it and I was so dang
proud of myself for not crying (I had to stare at the back wall because faces
would do me in). Robyn and Jake both gave awesome talks with stories and testimonies
about their mother. President May from our stake presidency gave the closing
doctrinal message, which really touched many of our neighborhood friends who
attended. Wendy had planned out every detail of the service, so of course it
was 60 minutes long on the dot, and her whole family attended, all wearing
something in her favorite color (bright green). It was thoroughly uplifting. I’ve
come to truly enjoy celebrating a life well-lived, even though the emotions of
grief are hard. They are also beautiful and sacred. By the time the luncheon
was over, it was time to pick up the other kids from school, make dinner, and
have family night. We watched Elder Gong’s BYU devotional from October 2018 and it was really sweet.
Tuesday
11/13 (Happy Birthday Dad) I forced myself
to go shopping first thing in the morning after I sent the kids to school. I
had been putting it off since my AZ trip and it was just time (no eggs, milk,
produce…). I also did some preliminary Christmas shopping as well as rounding
out Addie’s birthday booty. It was draining as usual, but I was able to get
home and get the food put away and get gifts wrapped before I had to go pick up
kids—yippeeeee! At 5pm, I met Lisa Orback at the Shane Center to watch the
movie “Wildlife” starring Carey Mulligan and Jake Gyllenhall. It was filmed
here and it was fun to recognize almost every scene. The story line was sad;
hit a little too close to home cuz the year I was 14 was an awful lot like the
year the boy in the film experienced. Paul Dano did an awesome job using
shadows and silence to convey the tension of the storyline. But mostly it was
just beautiful to watch. Our town is spectacular.
Wednesday
11/14 I scurried around doing chores and
errands and made up a bunch of cookie dough to bake over the holidays. Heidi
took some of the cookies to her YW activity. I went to bed early with the
little boys. Thursday 11/15 was
another marathon day of just getting stuff done. This is a busy season in all
four of my church callings, so I spent some time working on my Music Chair
responsibilities and my public affairs responsibilities. I also FINALLY mailed
the two missionary boxes that have been on my desk for like 10 days (sorry
Maggie; we are so glad you were born, we celebrate post-Magvent, too;)).
Thursday was Heidi’s bff’s “Golden” 15th birthday, so they
celebrated here with a yummy Asian dinner and a huge Costco chocolate cake.
Heidi went the extra mile decorating and making good food to show her love and
appreciation for Sophie. I had to leave just as they were getting started
because I had stake meetings in Bozeman. Public Affairs meeting was pretty fun,
as we kicked off two big initiatives in our stake—improving JustServe and
celebrating Light the World 2018: Give As He Gave. We hope to be better
coordinated between those two huge initiatives by next year so we can plan
truly meaningful Days of Service in our units. Exciting stuff. Heading home, it
seemed so dark outside and I was totally freaked out by these huge bucks
running alongside my car—not running in front of me, but just beside me, like
we were racing. Weirdos!
On Friday
11/16, all the kids were out of school
except for Niles. Since the girls were home, Addie and I decided to run some
flowers and a card over to a cool lady we minister to who was celebrating her
birthday Friday. As we were
leaving town around 11:15, the morning rain began to get a little sleety. Part
of me wanted to turn back and get the Outback, but I thought we could beat the
snow since we were only driving about 5 miles. We were clearly wrong. We got to
the Wilton’s driveway & realized it was too slick, so Dravyn delivered his
mom’s flowers and message to their house on his motorbike and we tried to back out in our
tracks. Then we slid 2 wheels into a ditch. We tried every trick in the book.
Four snowy hours later, a tow truck pulled us sideways out of the ditch and
sent us on our merry way, muddy but unscathed. It was a happy disaster, we
ended up visiting with Michelle on the driveway when she came home and got
stuck, too, and Addie was great company! I love our (mis)adventures and her
encouraging attitude. We had a full tank of gas, jerky, water, and we
would watch Friday Night Lights on
Prime on our phones, so really, what’s the downside? Lol. That little outing
ended up being about a six hour trip, so we came home and we were in for the
night!
Saturday I woke up ambitious to get my turkey thawed and make a
massive batch of gluten free Chex Mix. I got that all done and cleaned the
kitchen then headed to Mystic Coffee at 10am to get tea and learn to play
canasta with Addie and our ministering sister, Adair. At noon, we had to wrap
up our canasta game without even finishing a round, but we had a great visit. We
headed home and picked up the whole family to head over to Bozeman and meet up
with Sam and Will, who had driven up from Utah to pick up a truck and drive it
home. So we met them at Whistle Pig Korean and had some tummy-warming Bulgogi
Bibimpap bowls. Gavin (Sam’s 7yo son) came, too, so my boys were THRILLED, even
for just an hour together. We were tempted to kidnap them for Thanksgiving, but
we let them go so they wouldn’t have to slide all the way home on icy roads. We
headed back to Livingston to catch the 4:30 movies. Rich and the big kids went
to the new Fantastic Beasts movie and I took the little guys to The Grinch. We
came home and had chicken noodle soup and cheese toast, and I went over to
Robyn’s house to practice singing harmonies with her for a musical number at
our Primary Training meeting after church today. I got home around 8pm and
pretty much went straight to bed, asleep by 9:30. I woke up at 6:30 am and saw
the sunrise from my bathtub Sunday
morning (11/18)—it was glorious. I was singing, “Welcome, welcome, Sabbath
morning! Now we rest from every care; welcome, welcome is thy dawning, Holy
Sabbath day of prayer.” Today was the Primary Program at church, and the kids
did not disappoint—entertaining little talks and beautiful little voices
singing, and lots of visitors. Our training meeting was very sweet, our leaders
were so thoughtful and made us a lovely lunch and just gave us instructions for
implementing the new curriculum in January and which classes we would be
teaching. I get to move up with my 7/8yo to senior primary 9/10, which means my
awesome niece Lexi will be in my class, along with the kids I have now (who are
the best, just sayin). I really truly love ministering to brilliant little
humans. They are my favorite. And they were Jesus’ favorite, too.
I had a cool thought this afternoon as we talked about the
inspired new home-based church and they trust God has placed in all of us to
follow the Spirit to teach our children AND our classes what they need most. I
thought back to how my generation has been so carefully prepared “For such a
time as this.” I vividly recall a night in the MTC when a bunch of friends came
to the dorm room I shared with my two companions. We had microwaved popcorn and
we all took turns catching up on each other’s lives. You see, we had all been
friends at BYU the previous year and not one of us had ever mentioned serving a
mission, and yet somehow the Spirit had called us, and there we were in
October, heading out all over the world to teach the gospel. I think we were
more surprised at ourselves than anyone, since it was 1992 and the first wave
of sister missionaries was just swelling…we were the forerunners and felt a
little bit disoriented, but excited at our prospects. As the conversation got
more serious, we all discovered that at the heart of our choice was the
prompting from the Spirit to go and serve and learn the gospel inside out
SO WE COULD TEACH OUR CHILDREN MORE POWERFULLY. Every single one of us
got that message. And every single one of us did that. And here we are at a
time where God and the times we live in DEMAND that we use the doctrine AND the
skills we learned (remember HOFRS? Help others feel and recognize the Spirit?)
to bring our children and grandchildren closer to Christ, because without building
upon The Rock and recognizing and acting upon promptings of the Holy Spirit, “it
will not be possible to survive spiritually” our coming days. This is pretty
much the most exciting period of my life because I can see all the things I
have learned and experienced coming together. I can see “The Whys” I couldn’t
see before. And all of it—the good and the bad, the joyful and the
heartbreaking—makes me feel so grateful! I mean, it is no coincidence that the
very first Women’s session of conference was held right after my 8th
birthday, and the prophet’s WIFE gave his talk for him (Camilla and Spencer
Kimball). She made such an indelible impression on me, and President Kimball’s
call for strong, fearless “sister scriptorians” to lead in the last days has
followed me the rest of my life. And I love being able to minister to my
sisters here and honestly tell them, there is NOTHING you can tell me that will
shock me because I can guarantee something as bad or worse has happened in my family,
and yet we surivived. And yet we still love each other… you cannot make me stop
loving you and you cannot make the Savior stop loving you or void his atoning
sacrifice. THESE ARE WONDERFUL THINGS TO KNOW! They come at great cost, but
they are so worth it. The cleansing AND the enabling power of the atonement are
real. I am grateful to live in a time when the prophet hears and obeys the Lord’s
commands to strip his church of all the cultural fluff and to “talk of and
rejoice in and preach of and prophesy of Christ that our children may know to
what source they may look” not just for remission of their sins, but for
strength and for comfort and for revelation to see the way forward in the
darkness before us.
I’d better wrap this up before I start singing hosannas ;) We
sure do love and miss you all. My heart is full of Thanksgiving and a desire to
gather ALL my loved ones around a table and share in my favorite holiday. You
will for sure be with us in Spirit! Have a wonderful week and a blessed
holiday!
Love, Jamie and Rich and Family
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| I didn't write much about he California fires, but 10 days ago a fire tore through the mountains east of Chico, CA and destroyed the town of Paradise. My mission brother Loren Lighthall is the principal of Paradise High School, and lived in this pretty house with his family of 9 (their oldest daughter is in the MTC). |
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| This is what's left of their house after the 11/8 fire. Both church buildings in town burned down, as well as much of the School and 90% of town. It's horrific. If you get the chance to do SOMETHING to help these fire victims, DO IT! They have NOTHING LEFT! |
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| Ammon eating gingerbread on 11/14 |
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| Niles made a gingerbread pilgrim 11/14 |
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| 22 POUNDS OF TURKEY, YO! |
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| Triple batch of gluten free Chex Mix! |
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| Ministering in a ditch 11/16 |
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| Jerky and streaming Friday Night Lights #survivalskillz |
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| Friday we watched The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, the Coen Brothers most recent production on Netflix. It is a thoroughly Coenian anthology of crazy Old West tales. Buster was my favorite though. |
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| Sam, Me, and Willy...and James and Niles 11/17 in Bozeman |
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| James, Niles, Gavin, and Ammon 11/17 Cousins RULE! |
