8/20/23

Brent & Lily & I have all had a bit of a cough keeping us up at night all week, but there's still been a lot of good! I moved my organizing efforts to my drawers/closet and cleaned out bags of old clothes, watched Anne in her very hot and sweaty first tennis match, took the girls shopping to DI, had violin lessons in Logan, picked plums, and made zucchini bread. Because my energy was lower, I ended up getting a lot of paperwork/computer stuff taken care of, like checking retirement, updating bills, and filing all of Anne's shot reimbursments (worth over $6000--just in time to order carpet that I wasn't sure we could still afford!). I spent a lot of time with LaVonna this week--she was feeling SO weak, not able to really eat, and I asked her Monday if I could take her into the hospital! She had a blood transfusion and fluids Tues, and when she was still so drained on Thursday, she finally let me take her in, where they admitted her for 2 nights. I never mind being in hospitals--I'm SO intrigued by everyone that has the dedication to go into medicine, and I LOVE bodies and science! They've put her on hospice now-- besides giving her platelets and more fluids, there's just not a lot more they can do. It's pretty sobering facing death with someone like that, even if she does feel ready and has had time to prepare herself a little. Every time she says, "I know, they told me I'm terminal" I want to say, "We're ALL terminal!" Sometimes life is so weird. And while she's facing leaving this life, Nick and Laurie's sweet Baby Heidi just began!! She came EARLY--hours before her scheduled delivery on Monday, and is SO BEAUTIFUL!!! Besides major life changes, we had a stake conference with major boundary changes this week. Our ward didn't change a ton, but it feels huge losing families that we love!--including Joan as my counselor--which is heart-breaking, even though it has also been SO hard balancing things with her as a friend/in a calling. There were a lot of messages of building community and belonging, which is SUCH a yearning I have, and of changes Christ brings to our lives--helping us all to be "new creatures" (2 Cor 5:17), even though the natural man in us tends to resists change. I thought of how valuable missions are for teaching how to get SO good at change! And while we're in change mode, we are up to our LAST week of summer before changing to early school schedules! Glad you had a great zone conference, and hope the rest of your week has gone well--Love you so much! Love, Mom