Christmas Edition

Hey Michael,

I’m sorry to hear you have been sick and on quarantine. That must be really hard to be stuck in your apartment every day. Thank goodness for the fire escape and the rats to entertain you! Did you say only until Saturday? Is that because of the New CDC guidelines if you are asymptomatic? I don’t even know what the guidelines are anymore because of Omicron. Do you have to test negative again to be done with quarantine? Honestly, I’m THIS close to writing your mission president an email about the big maskless meetings and parties he’s hosting. It’s amazing your entire mission wasn’t sick with Covid for Christmas. You’d think you were in Utah or something. I saw an article earlier in the week that the Provo MTC is having a covid outbreak. I think they said 91 of 588 missionaries tested positive. That must be such a pain to manage in a congregate living situation. Dana texted me a few days ago and said EVERYONE in NY has Covid. She’s angry because NY is paying doctors and nurses double pay and overtime to cover for the nursing shortage, but medical residents (like Tanner) do not qualify for the extra pay, but are being asked to take extra shifts. Places all over the country are taking extra measures to put mask and testing mandates in place. Meanwhile in Utah, mask mandates for schools are illegal, and everyone is pretending Covid doesn’t exist. It’s crazy. I went to church today and was there was only one other person in my whole class learning a mask…under his nose. And they want everyone to come to a huge special stake conference at the regional center next week.  No thank you. People are insane.

It sounds like you are making some good progress with the people you are teaching and having good experiences with them. I hope now that school is starting back up, your contacts will get back on their routines and start responding to you again. Your letter was fun to read this week. I love your subway stories.

I realized that I forgot to send you a letter last week because we talked so much on Christmas. So today my updates might be a little longer because I’m covering two weeks of events. So this is what’s been happening here:

1. I felt like I was on a dead run from Thanksgiving to Christmas. There is always soooo much to do in the month of December. Dad was crazy busy trying to close a big deal at work. Luckily they gave him Christmas off. But he did work most of the day on Christmas Eve, and wasn’t able to come along with us to visit Great Nana. Nana changed her plans this year to host a party earlier in the day instead of later on Christmas Eve. But I was feeling nervous about Covid, and a bunch of your Dad’s siblings weren’t going to make it, so I decided to take the kids over around lunch time to visit for a little bit instead of staying for the party. Your amazing Nana had stockings prepared for all of the great/grandkids, but I think this may be the last year she does it. She is slowing down a bit. Did I tell you that I had a tooth implant done a couple of months ago and it was the most traumatic dental experience of my life? Well.  Great Nana just had her from 3 teeth pulled and prepped for implants, and she’s acting like it was no big deal. She is tough as nails. We also did not go over to her house for dinner on Christmas, but your grandma did. Then later that night they found out that cousin Aubree has tested positive for Covid after eating there. Sigh. Luckily neither grandma nor Nana seemed to get sick from Aubree. 

2. Ok. More covid drama. Ryan and Kelsey and Alison and Zach’s families were planning to travel out here for Christmas. But then my mom found out that Kelsey is refusing to get vaccinated. And then Omicron spiked. And then Nana uninvited Ryan’s family. And then Nana changed her mind and re-invited them. I got lucky and got hooked up with a guy who was giving away free boxes of Covid tests that the school district never used. So I gave a box to my mom and told her she could have everyone test every day if that would help her feel better about the situation. Honestly, it made me feel much more comfortable about the entire week.

3. Ok. More sickness drama. I have become a full-blown germaphobe. Sigh. On Christmas morning we opened presents and talked to you and then went to have breakfast at Grandma Rawson’s house. It was awesome as usual, and everyone there agreed to take a covid test which was so nice—especially because Grandpa and Robby had both been sick, and Robby had even lost his taste, but had gotten negative rapid tests. But Matt’s family and Kelli’s family both showed up with colds, and there’s no way to separate the kids from playing face to face. Later that night we went to Andrew’s house and Gianinna was fighting a stomach bug. Later Grandpa Bramhall got a cold, Finn was walking around with goop in his eyes and a weird red rash on his face, and Alison/Zach came down with sore throats this morning. So. I’ve been washing my hands and spraying literally everything with Lysol. In fact, I sprayed the keyboard with Lysol and Dad says the keyboard is sticking now. Seems fine to me. 

4. Christmas was lovely and it was awesome to talk to you. I’m glad you had such a good day. It just wasn’t the same without you here.I tried to go to that google drive I shared with you to stream some music to the piano, but couldn’t figure it out. So hopefully it's working for you? Christmas morning started out rough. Dad and I were up late, of course. We let Tate sleep downstairs with Jett for the first time. I was worried he might wake up early and come upstairs, so I covered the stairwell with wrapping paper and left a note saying do not come up before 8 am. Well, 8:00 hit and Ethan just burst through the paper and ran upstairs. I was ticked off and made them all go back down. Humph. They know the rules! No peeking until I say go! The boys all got some things they were excited about. We decided to get a Disney Plus subscription, and we are excited to have some fun new things to watch. Dad took back the shoes he got and got some he liked better. Your Dad and uncle Matt also got a 20-in-1 gift from grandma full of treats and small things. Your dad apparently opened the box so fast that he sprayed gifts across the room! Now Matt can no longer claim Krysta is the only one who gets multiple presents in one box! The cousins also did a little gift exchange where they pass the gifts left to right. It was fun. Ethan got this squishy ball. I told him to be careful not to pop it. He later tried to throw it into the house, but it hit the door and exploed. It looked like marshmallow goo allover the place. 

5. A couple of days after Christmas we got an emergency alert for a “Snow Squall” warning people to stay inside and off the roads if possible. I looked out the window and it wasn’t even snowing.  Weird. And then I answered the door half and hour later and it looked like a blizzard. It was crazy windy. In fact that day before I looked out the window and watched all of the snow blow off the neighbor’s roof tops. Anyway, you would have loved it. I’ll see if I can send you a few pictures of what it looked like from above. Ryan and Kelsey had been driving for a super long time from California and they arrived to Salt Lake right in the middle of the snow squall. Poor Alison left CO the next morning and the freeway was closed. She had to drive the longer route, and she didn’t get here in time to go to the play with us. 

6. More emergency alerts—although not here. Colorado had a really destructive fire caused by wind taking down an electrical line. It burned hundreds of homes. My cousin Brad and his wife Lolly and their kids live in one of the neighorhoods that burned. Luckily their home was spared. Lolly was texting my sister Alison and said they had to evacuate through the greenbelt. They had to cut down a branch, knock down a fence, chase cows out of the way, and drive through a small brush fire to get their car through. So it sounds like they were evacuating through a space that wasn’t even a normal roadway. Really scary. Alison showed me a picture of the fire map, and there is a small cut out of the fire zone where their home was.

7. We played a million games over the past week. We played Settlers of Catan a few times. Ty keeps losing and then demands a rematch. Ha! Also, we got Quacks of Quindlinberg and its been so fun to play, despite the fact that people keep conveniently forgetting some of the rules. Ethan and Jett are quite the little gamers.

8. For Christmas Nana and Grandpa bought us all tickets to go see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the Hale Center Theater, and it was a great show. They had a new theater, with a circular, rotating floor, and really amazing props and the ability to make the car look like it was floating and flying. So fun. I think we should do things like that more often. My Grandma Bramhall used to take us to show when I was a kid. I remember going with her to see the Nutcracker and Christmas Carol around Christmas time.

9. After the play Dad’s deal finally closed and he was able to join us at the Rawson extended family party for a short time. Uncle Kirk made a Grinch piñata that was so cool, and the kids got and absurd amount of candy. Uncle Jim made extra divinity just for me. I love him so much!

10. Alison arrived with the kids that night. Zach flew in the next day, and he was really lucky his flight wasn’t delayed with the hundreds of other cancelled flights this week. We thought we were going to get a huge snow storm all day, but it petered out. They left this morning, and Tate cried and cried. He did not want his cousins to leave. 

11. We spent multiple nights just hanging out and playing games. We went to the church and played volleyball and pickle ball. The kids went sledding. Ty skied and skied. I'll send a couple of videos. We ate so much amazing food. Gianinna brought homemade tamales and posole and flan. You are so jealous, I promise. Alison made huge bowl of Christmas Crack Chex mix. We ate pretzel jello and cowboy caviar, and yummy fruit dip. Alison and Zach brought 12 bottles of soda and we did a taste test to try and guess the flavors. They were all nasty. It was so fun. And tonight we did the Tim tam slam. Did your companion enjoy the Tim tam slam or think you were crazy?!

12. Ethan was invited to do a workout with his friend Trey and a trainer. Apparently he has never been worked so hard in his life. Hopefully he gets to do it again.

13. I finally got your room all cleaned up—just in the nick of time for Alison and Zach to use the room.

14. Matthew and Maddy just bought a house in Bountiful up above the cemetery. We got to go check it out, and I think the sale will go through in a few weeks. I'm glad they will be living closer. 

15. I forgot to tell you about Gianinna’s amazing Christmas decorations. She had three large trees in the main room and a matching garland that went along the mantle and up the stairs. And then she had separate trees in the front room, loft, and each bedroom. Crazy! So much work!

16. Once Dad was finished with his work, he was able to focus on the car search. Unfortunately the trucks he went to look at didn’t meet his criteria. So he’s going to go out and look again tomorrow. But we had to return the rental yesterday, so it’s going to be a royal pain until we get everything settled.  

17. I got a new teaching assignment at church. I went from teaching the seniors to teaching the 8th graders. Oh my word. I wasn’t prepared. The kids were completely out of control and I could hardly get a word in edgewise. It was nuts. I’m going to have to figure out something different for next time, or we will have to split up the class. No way am I doing that all year. Nope. When I walked in they asked how long I was going to stick around. They went through 4 teachers last year I guess.

Ok. Well now I’ve written you a novel and it’s time for me to go to bed. But I will just leave you with a short thought from my lesson this week. We studied Moses 1 and Abraham 3, where we learn so much about the nature of God. We learn that he is Almighty and Endless, and the creator of numberless worlds. We are nothing in comparison. And yet. We are his children. And he knows us individually. And not only that, but is it God’s purpose— His WORK and his GLORY to help us return to him and gain exhalation. He is all powerful and all knowing and he can accomplish his work. We cannot gain salvation alone, but he can work with us—despite our imperfections. He wants us to partake of his goodness and glory, and He will help us. He told Moses that He has a work for him to do. God  has a unique work for each of us. As we think about starting a new year with the promise of new beginnings, we can ask God to show us what OUR work is, and what he wants us to work on and accomplish. You have a very specific purpose right now as a missionary, and God is willing and wanting to help you accomplish your goals, so lean on him and be obedient and humble. 

Love you Michael! Have a great week, and stay healthy!

Mom