Missionary Monday!

Yesterday it occurred to me that if I was any kind of good missionary-mom, then I would have been posting updates from my missionaries every Monday when they email me. Of course, I was in my last year of school and had all those hairy, time-consuming projects going on when Jason was first out. But that was still pretty lame of me.

I can repent, however, and start posting their news now.

Today, May 25, 2015, Elder Michael North says:

Hello everyone!
We had a lot of cancelled appointments so this week had a lot of down time. I don't usually feel too bad about cancelled appointments because they're out of our control but when I'm not working I don't feel like a missionary. Yesterday I had enough of it so when we were about to go home I stopped Elder Myrick and asked him to go to the home of a nearby investigator. We ended up having a really good lesson and we even got a new investigator from it because the guy's mom was there too and she got interested when we told her son that the Book of Mormon is a history of the Native Americans. She has Navajo heritage and she asked a lot of questions about the Book of Mormon and then invited us to have Navajo tacos with them next week.
That's all for now. I hope you're all doing well!
Love,
Michael

Elder North (left) and his companion, Elder Myrick

And here's the news from Elder Jason North:

Hi everyone!
It's been a good week. I've gotten to do some service, that was pretty nice. that doesn't happen very much. I got sunburned though (that also doesn't happen very much) so it was a trade off I guess.
I went on exchange to Salmon Arm last week, that was pretty cool.  We went to this crazy place called "The Log Barn," they have goats on this tall walkway thing and life size plastic dinosaurs everywhere. We only went to this place to trade companions, but it was fun.  We got there earlier than the other elders so we took some pictures (on Elder Richards' camera, =( I don't have them) and on my way to Salmon Arm we took a "shortcut" in which we had to go off our map, and then we got lost. But somehow, we still got there, and on time. God provides!
So that's the trivial stuff. We had our investigator Max get  his baptismal interview this week, he's a super cool kid. If you met him and his dad you wouldn't know they aren't members! So we're super excited for him. Sadly his dad can't be baptized until his common law wife agrees to be his actual wife. She's not really interested in learning the gospel, and I haven't met her or had a real lesson with Max and the family, so I don't know where she stands on the marriage thing.
I've been studying personal prayer and desire lately. I don't have really anything to say on the topics myself right now, but you all need to read this talk (or watch it). This is stuff everyone who wants to be happy needs to know.
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1996/10/according-to-the-desire-of-our-hearts.pl
I have to go now though. I love you guys!
Jason

Elder North

So those are the updates for this week. My boys seem to be happy and busy—it makes this mom happy to hear from them! Yay!  :-)

A New Adventure

Michael left for the Provo, Utah mission yesterday! It's been a pretty crazy time around here—let me tell you:

Around the end of February Michael got his mission papers finished and turned them in to his bishop. This has been a long, long time coming—Michael's been thinking about a mission, and changing his mind back and forth for a couple of years now. He's said before that he definitely is going on a mission, and I've gotten excited and told family and friends, only to have him stop working on it at all. So after a while, I just kept it to myself. Even this last time, when he was undoubtedly working on the medical/dental exams, and getting all the paperwork finished I tried to keep it all very hush-hush and low-key.

Anyway, he got his papers turned in sometime at the end of February/beginning of March. He had his interview with his bishop, and then with his stake president. But the stake president felt that Michael needed a little more preparation time; he thought they should wait a few months to turn the paperwork in. Then, out of the blue—a couple of weeks into March—the stake president had a change of heart; he said he felt inspired to put Michael's papers in right then. So we took to haunting the mailbox on Wednesdays. Ten days after the papers went in . . . nothing; the next week . . . nothing; the next week . . . nothing. 

But we weren't sitting around doing nothing while we waited. No, sometime in March I had started painting the entire house; then we broke and removed the upstairs toilet; since the toilet was out, we removed the badly chipped bathtub and the rotten floor too. On March 20 I drove to Ephraim (2 hours away) to bring Lindsey home for her spring break. (Yay!!) And on March 29 I drove her back. (Boo!) 

On April 2 Bruce and I drove back to Ephraim to buy a new van. (Yay!) And that night we got a call from our stake presidency asking to see Bruce, Michael and me that Saturday evening (April 4). Well, that had to be about Michael's mission call, but we were all puzzled as to why President Denison got it instead of Michael or even Michael's own bishop or stake president. Oh well.

On April 4, 2015 we found out that Michael had been called to serve in the Provo, Utah mission! How exciting! And we also found out that he would be entering the mission field on April 28—three weeks later. That was also exciting, but in a different way. We had four months to get everything Jason needed; only three weeks of preparation time for Michael was kind of a shock!

So it was a whirlwind of running around shopping, shopping, shopping, and planning a farewell/open-house for him—all while attempting to rebuild the bathroom at the same time. (Imagine planning a party in your home with a bathtub in the living room, a toilet on the back deck, and tools everywhere. I was a little stressed.) Oh. And my father-in-law got remarried on the 20th, So on Monday (the 20th) I was frosting a wedding cake, and on Thursday (the 23rd) I was frosting the bathroom wall (I've had a little more experience with cakes, but the wall was more forgiving). 

Truly, all the activity around here was dizzying.

Michael also went to the temple and received his endowment on April 25 (last Saturday)—that was awesome. 

At the Jordan River Temple, April 25, 2015
A great day

And yesterday, the 28th, was the Big Day. Actually, it was a pretty quiet day—at least at first. Bruce is in Vernal, and I'd sent the kids to school, so only Michael and I were home. Since he was set apart on Sunday (so Bruce could be there) I was Michael's mission companion for Monday and Tuesday. On those two days Michael (who usually sleeps in until 10:00, 11:00, or later) got up at 6:30 and went with me to take kids to school and get last-minute shopping done.

Yesterday morning we drove kids to school, then came home and had breakfast. I hemmed his white pants; he did laundry. I cooked lasagna (his favorite) for lunch. We remembered that we forgot to get his tetanus booster and ran to the clinic, but they were too busy to take him. Hopefully he can still get that taken care of. We had lunch and then packed his suitcases. It was a quiet day. (Quiet; pensive; slightly nauseous.) 

loading up the van

At 2:30 we picked the girls up from Entheos, got the boys from Paradigm, and we were on our way to Provo, Utah. Things livened up then. :-)

We got there an hour early (as I'd wanted to), so we took pictures. 

We were all laughing and teasing, and it was fun. 

Then we drove to the mission home, where we would drop Michael off. It was still playful and fun. We took him in, met Sister McCune (the mission mom) and a couple of other missionaries—Elder Johnson from Midvale (?), and Elder Banks who had just gotten in from Scotland. 

on the front porch of the mission home

At last it was time to say goodbye. More pictures, hugs all around, and then I started crying. Well, maybe just tearing up, kind of a lot. I wasn't weeping anyway. President McCune came out to meet us all, so the tears were short-lived. 

A final "goodbye," and "good luck," and "be good," and then we all stood by the van as Michael went back into the mission home. 

And Michael walks away from us, through the front door of the mission home. He had dinner and spent the night there. Today he's got some training, and then he's off to the work.

Wow. Just like that, my oldest boy is out on his own.

I was pretty melancholy all last evening. Even though we watched the latest X-Men movie. (Distracting, but not fantastic.) Moms are strange creatures: All this time I've been waiting and watching and wishing for Michael to make a move forward and do something with his life, and now that he's doing it I felt a little . . . bittersweet. A good-sad, because he is really doing something great.

But today I feel good. My son is on his own. He is serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. And he will be awesome!

Get Yours Today!

At last! At last! At long, long, last!

After 25 years of collecting, testing,

drawing, and editing

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Dear Friends and Family:

When Jason was preparing for his mission we did a bunch of bake sales, all summer long, as fundraisers. Now Michael is on his way out and my cookbook is the new fundraiser! To get this pricing I need to put in an order of 30 books by Friday, April 24. The cookbooks will be available about three weeks later (around May 15—what a fabulous (slightly late) Mother's Day gift! ;-))

Loralee's Cookbook is full of great recipes, cute pictures, and it's pretty fun reading, too! To order yours, post a comment here on my blog, or comment on facebook, or just give me a phone call and get a check to me before April 24.

Thanks!

Something Crazy

Last Thursday (April 9) was our stake temple night. Things have been a little wild around here lately—you know, demolition, construction, Michael got a mission call with only three weeks notice to get ready, Bruce's dad is re-marrying soon, we got a new van, Bruce still works in Vernal, and I had plans to drive out there with the boys on Friday the 10th... Just a few little things going on. Still, I did want to go to the temple on the 9th; I was planning on it.

But as the day was coming up I started to wonder if I really wanted to go by myself; I had to weigh that against how much I wanted to go anyway. And I had pretty much made up my mind to go. Then Melanie called me Thursday morning and asked if I was planning to go to the temple that night; she didn't want to go by herself either. So I said yes, I was going. I would definitely go with her that evening "unless something crazy happened."

That Thursday morning I had to drive Brandon and Ryan and the rest of their carpool to school, which I did with no incident. I came home, had breakfast, cleaned my bedroom—the usual stuff. Then, at 2:20 I went to pick everyone up and take them home. The van drove about twelve of the 12.3 miles to the school, and then the radio started cutting out. Oh well.  And then the turn signals quit working. And then I couldn't roll up the windows.  Weird.  I pulled into a parking space to wait for all the kids to come out and get in the van, but once they were there the van wouldn't start again. It didn't even make a sound like it wanted to start. Oh, man!

I called one of the carpool dads (Jason) to see if he could come get us, and then went into the school to tell them that my van might be parked there until Saturday (when Bruce would be home to look at it). But there was someone at the school with a battery-charger/jump-starter thing, and he came out to see if he could get the van started for us. It worked! Yay! I called Jason back and let him know that he didn't need to rescue us after all—with the provision that he'd be on call if the van died again.

Well, we loaded up the kids and headed for home. Since I had to drop the carpool kids off at their homes, I had now about 17.5 miles to drive.  But the van was acting extremely wimpy, and none of the gauges or lights were working, and I was pretty worried. So we're driving along and coming up to a traffic light, and I'm saying, "Green! Stay green!" or, "Turn green now!" as we approached each one, because I could feel the van hesitating, and losing power by the second, and I was pretty sure that if it stopped it wouldn't want to go again. Sure enough, each time we stopped I had to press the pedal to the floor to get it to creep up to speed. And let me tell you, driving a car that you fear will die on you at any minute is a pretty horrible feeling.

Well, we got our first girl dropped off all right, but the van was getting weaker and weaker. We made it to about half a mile away from the next kids' house and then it went. Dead. So I called their mom (Jenne) and asked her to come jump-start the van. And there we were, on a major road, parked in the middle of the right-hand lane. I couldn't even turn on my hazard lights because the battery was totally dead. I did get out and open up the hood, and had the kids get out and stand around on the sidewalk so maybe other drivers would see that we had a problem. Still, people were driving by and honking and yelling at me (because they were toads. I mean, really! Did they think I just parked my van there because I thought it would be neat?). And after my nerve-wracking drive, their kind, helpful, friendly attitudes were not very soothing.

Jenne came and gave us a jump-start and took her kids home, and my van barely limped home, on it's very last, dying breath. I had Brandon ask the neighbor to help him get the battery out of the old van and put it into the new van while I went into the house to get ready to go to the temple with Melanie. This carpool trip that should have taken about 1 1/2 hours total, took me a tense 2 1/2 hours to complete. I was super stressed out, and bawled in the shower for a while, but I was getting ready to go to the temple.

old van

new van

It wasn't until later that I remembered telling Melanie that I'd go with her that night—unless something crazy happened. Hm. I think it happened. But I still went. 

EPILOGUE:  I was glad I made it to the temple. It was nice to be with Melanie, and talk out our stresses on the drive there. And it was really nice to be in the temple—especially after the craziness.

Everyone I talked to—the teacher who got the van started in the parking lot, the neighbor who helped change the battery, Bruce, and the guy at Auto Zone—said we'd probably need to change the alternator. >sigh< How were supposed to afford that?  Then Bruce reminded me that we had a spare van to get an alternator from. (No, I didn't think of this myself, even though I had thought to use the battery from the old van just the other day.) So he planned to at least start the Alternator Switcheroo Job before he headed out to Vernal today, but wasn't sure whether he could finish it before he had to leave—which would leave me without a car for a couple of weeks. But then our good friend, Ken Johnson (who is also our bishop), called and offered to come over and help Bruce. I can not tell you how great it felt to have someone care, and come to help us. And they got it done pretty quickly. Yay!

So I am glad to have a working vehicle again. And I am glad that I made it to the temple. And I am so very glad for good friends. Despite a lot of craziness in my life these days, tonight I am glad.

Demolition!

It all started out innocently enough. I was going to paint the living room and the kitchen. And the next thing you know we were patching giant cracks in the walls, cutting and installing missing moulding pieces, moving furniture . . . It is definitely out of hand!

How many things are wrong in this picture?

Brandon needs to earn his Family Life merit badge, and one thing he has to do is organize a family project. So I suggested he organize the painting of the living room.

Brandon tapes.

Brandon paints while Kaylie removes the curtain rod.

Kaylie paints.

All the kids paint.

Bruce paints.

I paint. 
(You have no idea how brave of me it was to stand on the highest step of the step-ladder, with the ladder right on the edge of the stairway. I was working on a second coat.)

And I still couldn't reach to the top;
I had to have Bruce finish it later.

Ryan helps me tape and paint the kitchen.

Luna wasn't very excited—no, she was excited, but not very happy about the scroll-saw. (Which is not the best tool to use to cut mouldings, but it's what I had.)

Right in the middle of The Big Painting Project, we had The Toilet Trouble that I talked about in my last post. And since we had to remove the bathtub so that we could fix a humongous hole in the floor, I decided we should get started on that while the toilet was out. So, out came the tub-surround walls, and out came the bathtub...

You are thinking, "That is not a humongous hole!"
That's because you are not seeing it from the basement.

Ryan works on cutting away caulk.

Scott and Ryan carry out the wall/surround pieces.
(Out to the back deck, to join the toilet.)

lovely

Well, I got the overflow drain, and the spigot, and the shower-mixer handle off; I got the surround walls down, but I couldn't disconnect the drain in the bottom of the tub. Gregory came over and did that for me. Now I'm pretty tough, and my friends call me brave for doing things like taking out the toilet, but I didn't think I could actually take the bathtub out by myself. Or even with my boys' help. I saved that job for Bruce.

Bruce had to tear out the actual walls—and the moulding from the door—to get the bathtub out.

Luna, the camouflage cat, was very, very interested.

Bruce and Brandon carry the bathtub outside.
Do you like the blurry action-shot?

Peek-a-boo, Lindsey!

And Rachel is showing us what the bathroom looks like now.

Once the bathtub was removed, I got back to painting. The painting is almost finished—just some doors and trims to do. And the bathroom. But before I can paint the bathroom we have to tear out the rotten floor, replace it, put in a new bathtub, tile the floor, and tile the walls around the tub. And then, maybe one day, my house will be all put back together again. Maybe.