Charles is still in Appiadu in Ghana Africa serving as a zone leader in his mission. He's always got people to teach about Jesus Christ which is wonderful. He loves the kids, and the animals, and eating, as per usual.
Jane is still on the cheer team, although she can't tumble or stunt because of ongoing concussion issues. Her first concussion was in November 2024 when she was a flyer and got dropped on her head. Since then she's had multiple smaller 'hits' which have brought back concussion symptoms...they've never fully gone away, but they get better when she's resting more, like over the summer when we had a month off of cheer and no school (reading is hard too and can bring on headaches). A couple of months ago she decided she wouldn't try out again for next years team. I think this is a wise decision. It's been hard sitting on the sidelines for practices and performances. You don't feel like you're a part of the team, and it feels like time wasted, especially when it's been going on for so long. We're hoping she'll experience a full recovery soon. Until then she'll continue to rest, bike, eat high protein meals, drink lots of water and electrolytes, take her pills (several supplements like fish oil, creatine, magnesium and one prescribed med for dysautonomia aka Potts which is a disorder of the nervous system) and continue to do her eye/vision exercises each day. We've also become quite familiar with some of the team of specialists at TOSH therapy/rehabilitation.
I am teaching the Old Testament this year in gospel doctrine! I'm excited for the learning I know will come as I dive deep into the text and various resources available. January we learned about the creation in Genesis and also in the Books of Moses and Abraham.
It made me think of the puzzle our family started working on after Christmas. In the beginning it was chaos and disorder. Matter unorganized.
But over a period of days and weeks, with continual effort and a lot of patience, we got more organized and the pieces started to come together. And of course, we used our big picture to help us keep the end goal in mind. The kids didn't really care to help until it was much further along.
After the creation we learned about Adam and Eve and their transgression and the Fall. I learned that there's a difference between a sin and a transgression. Dallin H Oaks taught that a sin is something that's morally wrong, a law you've broken, whereas a transgression is something that's prohibited, but often times temporary. I also realized that there were in fact 2 main trees in the garden of eden...I feel like that should've been more obvious to me before, but I just focused on the tree of knowledge of good and evil and kinda forgot about the tree of life that would bring immortality to them if they'd eaten it right after they ate the forbidden fruit...I think that was satan's hope all along, that they would eat of one right after the other, but of course God didn't let that happen. He blocked the tree of life with a cherubim and a flaming sword and sent Adam and Eve out of the garden so that couldn't happen, but we needed first to have a probationary period, for a time to repent and we needed christ to offer his atoning sacrifice in order to make all of this possible. I'm glad God's in charge and taking care of things.
Here we get some corresponding scriptures in the Book of Mormon where some plain and precious truths were left out.
Jane watches Saige on Saturdays, which helps her pay for her cheer fees...we have her pay for a portion and then we cover the rest. Once she's done paying off her fees, Nora is looking forward to watching Saige. We sure love this girl and her sweet and fun energy.
Elisabeth and Tayson are all settled in a basement apartment in Pocatello Idaho. She needed some important documents and luckily her new grandparents-in-law were coming down to our area to pick up a new chair so we met up at Gardner Village and transferred the documents. And then Scott and I stayed for lunch at Archibald's. We love their fried green tomatoes and I love their white chocolate bread pudding dessert.
The following week Elisabeth and Tayson came out to celebrate Dad's 45th birthday with us! I'm grateful they're close enough that we can still get together with them often. We went to Comedy Sports in Provo, although they have a new name now, I just can't remember what it is. We had stuffed pasta shells for dinner with salad and garlic bread and Brookie's for dessert (half brownie, half cookie).
Scott started putting in a new closet for Annabelle! We did the same thing for our closet last year and I love how well it uses the space. He designs it on the Ikea website and we live less than 10 minutes away from Ikea so we order it online and then pick it up in the store and he puts it all together. I love that he's handy like that.
I'm still working on writing my dad's story. I think I'll make it historical fiction since I'll be filling in some gaps. It's a lot of work. It takes a lot of time. And a lot of discipline and patience which I'm not always good at. Needless to say I've been working on this for a couple of years and I've still got a long ways to go. That's okay. I'll get there one day. It makes me laugh at the ballerina feet pictured. It's true. But good thing I love writing...that's the difference. If you can fall in love with the process, it doesn't matter how long it takes. Just keep at it.
