First Stake Relief Society Presidency Meeting complete. Selfies taken. Roars of laughter. Perfect spiritual thought. Friendships formed. Assignments given. Tasks divided. Goals started. Ideas flowing. Thoughts shared. Counselors so appreciated. We are on our way to the best years of service ahead. More than just a presidency – dear dear friends already.
A few friends and I have been talking about hugs a lot lately. A good hug should be thirty seconds. Try it sometime. That is really a long long time but the therapy involved in it is incredible. We have been hugging a lot lately – the most comfortable seems to be about ten seconds or so. We have a ways to go. My friend Ruthanne sent this to me. “Hugs are actually so underrated, especially those hugs that are so tight you can literally feel the other person’s heartbeat and for a moment everything feels so calm and safe like nothing can hurt you.”
Give it to me all baby. We had a party here for Callahan. We had Mrs Crumb decorating away with her cookies. We had kids here all day long. We had toys. We had fun. We had food. We had balloons that floated through my entire house like bubbles and the girl’s posts on social media had the world rocking with comments. Party planner family!
There are two aspects of my life that I’m not too proud of. One is that I’m too fast and ditzy at the things I do resulting in errors and inconsistencies. The second is that I am not tech savvy and I don’t like people to teach me. Let me give a good example of how both of these sort of made my day disheveled, loopy and actually according to Kyla, hilariously funny. I did my Walmart pickup order last night and had tomatillos on my list. I have never bought them online before but I know they hardly weigh anything and are quite cheap. I only needed three so I figured if I put in a half of a pound I might get three to six. I’m not sure how my fingers did it but I ordered 2.08 pounds of beautiful green tomatillos that I may use over the next two years. The Walmart shopper that shopped for me probably thinks I eat an extravagant assortment of Mexican dips.
The boys were in the play room and the bounce house was in full jumping mode. We had just cleaned up the room altogether when this little book just produced itself. I asked Kyla if it was theirs. She said it wasn’t. Where on earth did I get this little book called Christmas Angels? I have cleaned that room many times and had never seen it. It was one of those moments where either you thought it was a sign you needed to take heed and read what it said or you realized you are a terrible house cleaner and this little gem had been hiding since its publication date of 2001.
Grammies have to step up to the plate when the grandkids are in town. The first stop was Moose’s Tooth for lunch. So good. I knew we would need some extra fun things to do so when we got home we went on a ride on the John Deere. Blaze liked it better than the six-wheeler. He said, “It is a lot slower pace, I like it better.” When we got in from the cool rainy day we had indoor smores. Sticky and yummy.
The house seemed empty, Rhea’s room was bare except she left me a bag of old clothes to give away and a bag of trash to throw away. Mike went back to Fairbanks for work. We were drained from all the emotions of these past few days but now was the time to plan and forge ahead. Kyla got all her cookie orders figured out and I promised the boys we would go on the six wheeler which we did.
Rhea was given a beautiful setting apart blessing by President Metcalf. We all gave advice and cried. Rhea cried. President Metcalf cried. It was a late late night taking our girl to the airport, Mexico City bound and it was the sweetest of goodbyes. Kyla posted: “13 years ago I said goodbye to Rhea as I left on my mission and now today I say goodbye to her as she leaves on hers. She is going to be an incredible missionary and boy am I going to miss her.”
A huge day for me. I have known for a week now but today I was called to be the Stake Relief Society President and my heart is full and shoulders heavy. I have two amazing counselors, Darla Wilson and Ruth Orien. We are going to have so many laughs and we certainly have a huge work to do. I spoke today about my ministering experience with Daisy Blankenship. Wanda came up to me after and said thank you for such a “wonderful tribute to Momma. She would have loved it.” Making Wanda happy was worth the world to me.
Rhea gave an emotional, very sweet talk tonight in the adult session of Stake Conference. She spoke about the preparations she has had in her life to serve a mission. She spoke about each of her siblings and how she has learned from them. She shared how excited she is to serve and to learn the Spanish language. Many people loved her talk and we were so proud of her. That’s my sweet pea.
Tara Truly 