Happy Halloween!

Dear Michael,

I hope you had a fantastic week. Did you check the mailroom? There should be a Halloween treat waiting for you. I hope you have something fun planned today. Glad to hear Eric made it to church! And I’m so glad to hear Tony Wang is back. Good luck with all of your teaching this week. Sorry to hear so many appointments fell through last week. I listened to an interesting program recently and one of the things they talked about was the Chinese government. The government expects Chinese nationals living throughout the world to be answerable to Chinese law at all times. If people do things like criticize the Chinese government they can be reported to authorities who may threaten their families back home. This is especially concerning for students studying abroad. How awful it must feel to have to worry about being spied and reported on. And how frustrating it must be for people wanting to be baptized, but are worried about the repercussions.

We are having a lovely fall---

1. The weather has definitely turned to fall, but we are enjoying a few last warm days.  Today the high temp will be 60 degrees, which is just perfect for Halloween. This morning I took Tate (and Dax & Zeke) to watch the Halloween parade at Endeavour. I love seeing all of the creativity in costumes!

2. Robby and Leishja came to visit for the weekend. We had a yummy dinner at Grandma’s house last night with soup and dinner in a pumpkin (always a favorite!). Leishja’s dad has not been feeling well for the last couple of weeks and went in to the doctor for some testing. On Friday he had an MRI and they now believe he has pancreatic cancer. This is a rare cancer and has a very low survival rate. They are not sure how advanced the cancer is yet, so they are in Salt Lake today for more screenings. This is really difficult news for their family. They are blessed to be able to live with her parents right now while they are building their house. The foundation was poured recently, and they are making progress with construction.

3. We are trying to get the yard cleaned up before it gets too cold outside. I planted some spring bulbs and harvested the grapes. The grapes have gone wild! They have gotten big enough that the support wires collapsed. It’s an absolute jungle. Eventually we are going to have to redesign that area of the yard and get things cleaned up. For now, we are enjoying delicious grapejuice!

4. Ethan had his last baseball game of the season, and they had a fun team party. I’m not sure if they will be practicing over the winter? This team is much more chill than his last team. It sounds like they will be changing the team name though. The Freeze wanted to charge a usage fee for the logo or something, so they have found a sponsor and will be changing uniforms. Stay tuned!

5. I got a cold a few weeks ago, and still have a lingering cough, but feeling much better now. I got knocked off my exercise routine, but did get back out on my bike for a quick ride. It was really beautiful on the trail with all of the fall leaves.

6. Farmington beat Weber on Friday night, so we will play American Fork this Friday. I’m ready for football season to wrap up. Not sure Blake is!

7. The youth put on a fun Halloween carnival for the Primary kids. It’s such a fun tradition. Way better than Trunk-er-treat.

8. Dad took Ethan and Ty golfing on Saturday morning. Blake didn’t want to go, and Jett stayed home sick. We just keep passing around new sicknesses. Had to cancel family pictures for the second week in a row, and Jett missed his first indoor soccer game.

9. Connext finally came to our house to install fiber lines! But then I had to send them away because we couldn’t figure out a way to get the wiring into our house without ugly cabled across the front of the house. So now we need to figure out that problem. But better internet is soon a possibility!

10. Ty, thy name is procrastination. Today is the last day of the term, and he is not caught up in his classes. And his BYU application is due tomorrow so he has a bunch of essays to write. Your dad and I have been nagging him for weeks to get these things done early, but no. Ty must leave it to the last minute. Hopefully it doesn’t ruin his Halloween trying to get everything completed. I foresee an all-nighter in his near future. 


Everyone asks about you and wants to know how your mission is going. I tell them you are absolutely loving it! Please know we miss you and pray for you. I’m so proud of you for being such a force for good in the world. 

Love you, Mom












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