Recovered Photos?

Hey Michael,

I enjoyed your letter and phone call this week. It seems like you are working hard and really thriving. I enjoy seeing the pictures of the cool places you are visiting and the people you are serving with. I’m so glad your Chinese is coming along. Learning a second language is such a big accomplishment. Especially Chinese. I’m glad things are progressing with some of the people you are teaching, and hope things turns around for Tony. 

Gosh. It feels like another week of same old, same old. This is what’s happening here:

1. We finally got a good snow storm! I’m not actually a fan of snow, but I’m grateful for the water and so glad to have storms clean up the air.

2. Ethan applied to the robotics club and got one of the coveted spots! He’s excited.

3. Ty had a big wipeout trying a new ski trick. He came home super sore and limped around the house for a few days. Seems to be feeling better now.

4. The boys had their piano recital this week and they all did an excellent job.

5. Linda had each of the boys do a piece of artwork to go along with their music. They all were unique. Budding artists!

6. Tate is driving me absolutely insane. Insane.

7. My lemon tree is struggling. I have one large lemon growing and about five tiny ones. But all of the leaves are dropping. The dang plant is so finicky!

8. Dad and I went to the temple with the Warby’s last night and then had them over afterwards for games and ice cream. We played Azul and Dave did not like the way I told him to score the points. He was sure I was doing it wrong even after I read the rules.  Haha. Whatever. He still beat me. At least the ice cream was good!

9. The Utah legislative session is finally over. They put out a terrible piece of legislation in the very final hours with very little debate and no public input. They should be absolutely ashamed of themselves. But they have gerrymandered safe seats for themselves, and many are running unopposed, so nothing will change.

10. This week I spent some time transferring your photos to the computer from you old phone. I don’t want to get your hopes up, but it seems like some of the missing photos may have been recovered from when the computer crashed? It’s hard for me to tell because I don’t know exactly what you lost. Some of the photos seem older, but some of them are dated incorrectly. I think there are around 17,000 photos files and maybe 3,000 videos, which seems like a lot of files for the space of one year? They are taking forever to load. Our computer is on it’s last legs. We went in to the Apple store several months ago to buy a new computer, but they told us a new model would be coming out in the spring, so we decided to wait. They have a product announcement coming Tuesday, so hopefully the new computers will be available soon. I keep worrying this one is going to crash again. So as soon as all of your photos load I will try and back them up on an external drive. Ty is itching to use your old phone because his can no longer hold any battery life. 

I spent a lot of time preparing for my Sunday school lesson this week. I had high hopes that the class would be better behaved, but it was rough again today. We learned about the story of Jacob in Genesis. Despite the Come Follow Me manuals being completely lame, I have enjoyed learning the Sunday school lessons more in depth. I’m grateful there are a lot of podcasts I can go to that help me understand the lesson material better. These are a few of the things I thought about as I prepared the lesson this week: God works with imperfect people (and families). Jacob was a prophet. He was chosen by God. But he wasn’t perfect. He still had trials and flaws. He struggled with personal relationships and even with trusting God. Even after having multiple visions, Jacob still had doubts and put qualifications on his worship. He had to learn through experience to turn his will over to God, and that came in stages. At the end of our lesson, God commands Jacob to return home. He is afraid because Esau had vowed to kill him. But he 1-Obeys, 2-Prays with humility and gratitude, 3-prepares to do all he can to protect his family, 4-asks the Lord for protection. Ultimately Jacob’s name is changed from Jacob (supplanter/trickster) to Israel (wrestles with God/Let God Prevail). Jacob is holy, and has many visions and spiritual blessings, but it's not clear to me at this point if Jacob (Israel) has had a complete change of heart and conversion. Is he still wrestling with God, or has he decided to Let God Prevail? Perhaps both? Perhaps each of us will face a continual conversion process. Perhaps it will always be a tug between the natural man and giving our will over to God. In the Old Testament Jehovah is referred to as the “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” But each of these prophets had to individually covenant with God, and so do we. God kept his promises to Jacob. Jacob was blessed with riches and posterity, and God stayed with him and protected him. God will keep his promises to us as well. 

Today when I was taking Tate out of the car he said to me something about wishing you would come home soon. Then tonight your Dad looked around the room and said it just feels like someone is missing. We all miss having you home, but we are proud of you and happy that you have the opportunity to be out serving. Hope all is well.

Love you,

Mom

Ps. Please stay away from the rats!