War

Hey Michael,

It sounds like you have fun day planned exploring MIT and Harvard. Boston is such a neat city to be able to explore. How lucky you are! Hopefully you are having a good time learning how to use your new camera. Looks like it's still very cold. Hopefully your boots and coat and gloves are keeping you warm. Glad to hear things are going well with Alex. 

I wish I could say we had exciting things happening at home, but we are just stuck in a never-ending winter, and nothing more exciting than doctor’s visits and organization projects. Sigh.

1. Tate saw one of his cousins using the toilet standing up, and now I can’t get him to sit anymore. So of course there is pee all over the toilet and floor. I came home the other day and pulled into the driveway and found him peeing on the front flower beds. I honked at him and gave him a good scare!

2. Did I tell you Tate got a haircut? I finally gave up on the long hair and let Dad cut it short again. People keep telling me he looks like you. It’s true. And so does Ethan. Every time I see him its like a time machine back to when you were 11.  

3. This week the city came to our neighborhood to mark the ground for fiber lines. Even though we weren’t able to get fiber passed on the ballot, a private company saw the interest and is now laying fiber lines throughout the city. So all the hard work on that campaign is going to pay off. 

4. The boys had Federation on Saturday, and all received Superior ratings for their music. Recital this week.

5. Ty has been skiing a lot. I think he said he’s been up 40 times already this season? He’s got a new coach that he’s really excited about and seems to be making a lot of progress. He skied in his first competition on Saturday. Seems like he had sort of a mixed experience? He made an edit of some skiing clips that I will try and send to you. 

6. Last night we had dinner at Grandma & Grandpa Rawson’s house. It was your Grandma’s 70th birthday and Krysta made your Grandma a book of letters from all of her family and friends. It was such a nice gift and I know grandma is going to love reading through it.

7. Great Nana came to dinner too. She seems to be doing really well. When we visited her right before you left on your mission she had just had dental implants started on her front teeth. They are all complete now and she says it’s wonderful to have teeth that don’t come out!

8. Your Dad went to help Maddy move into her new apartment on Saturday. She will be living near IKEA close to where she works with her friend Bronte. 

9. Ethan got to pass the sacrament for he first time on Sunday. He was very excited. 

10. The biggest story this week is of course the war in Ukraine. It feels like the entire world is reeling and just holding it’s breath to see what happens next. Every night around 11 the news coverage of morning in Ukraine begins, and I just want to glue myself to the tv. The president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has become an overnight hero as he has stayed in his country to fight and lead despite the danger. Russia has sent hundreds of mercenaries to Kyiv with the mission to assassinate President Zelensky. The whole situation is so heartbreaking, and sort of unimaginable. Kyiv is a huge, modern city. Hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing the country as refugees, but men over 18 must stay and defend their country. Just imagine. These are people with no military training—teachers, bankers, clerks—standing up to fight in the streets with Molotov cocktails, while their families huddle underground in the subway or flee to other countries. Kyiv has 4x the population of Boston. They are destroying bridges that lead to population centers. Russia is bringing heavy artillery and tanks, dropping bombs and shooting missiles.  The world is responding with sanctions against Russia, crippling their economy. European countries are sending weapons and supplies to Ukraine. There is speculation that Putin thought the invasion of Ukraine would be easy and there wouldn’t be much resistance within Ukraine or from neighboring countries. The Russian army has suffered enormous loss of life already, and Russian citizens are being arrested for their opposition to the war. It seems this makes the situation all the more dangerous because Putin must be even more desperate to show his power, and it’s likely that he will continue to devastate these cities with as much fire power as he can muster. Of course the threat of Nuclear war is real and is a deterrent to other countries joining the fight. At this point there are no good outcomes, and the next 24 hours could be absolutely devastating. 

In Relief Society this week we discussed the talk "One Percent Better” by Elder Michael A Dunn. We talked about the idea of aggregate marginal gains—basically the way very small changes add up and build over time. When we want to make changes or improvements it's tempting to make big goals and try to make drastic changes right away. It’s also likely that those big changes won’t stick and become habit. But if we can make very small improvements are more likely to be successful, and over time they become significant. I tend to go in phases with working on my goals, but this lesson has my thinking of ways to start small and be more consistent with he things I wasn’t to work on.

I hope you have a wonderful week!

Love you,

Mom