Missionary Parents

My parents are now in Oregon. They had a week long training at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, UT.  We have received a few emails and they have had some amazing stories to tell already. I wanted to have them here so we would never forget.
This is from August 9:
We are now suppose to be trained!!!! Guess we are since we have been taught again that it is the spirit that does all the work and our job is to be in tune, and listen and open our mouths.   We had some really good experiences there. Linda will have to write, because she was much more excited than I (go figure).   She even sang in the MTC choir  Tuesday night at the devotional. We have had to teach two investigators , and they were very good with their challenges. Linda was convince that one was really a nonmember. He was a retired policeman and had seen over 40 of his fellow police officer killed in the line of duty . He was not sure that there was a loving Father when He lets things like that happen and many of the killers go unpunished.   Thanks to my great companion who has taught those principles much more than me, she was able to answer his questions very well and he told our instructor that we were really good(we know who was really good, mom saved me for sure).  But the one on Thursday was much tougher and we could not get her to agree on much of anything.  If we answered one question, she went to another just as fast.  She was well trained in giving us a hard time.   So I guess some you win and some you lose(or it may take a little longer)
   We had 5 couples in our district with someone by the name of Kimble being the district leader. It was a tough assignment, all I had to do was call on someone to give the prayers.  They were all very well trained in the gospel and will do so much good..     They have some great stories. love, Dad

Hi Dear Children!
 We have made it for a week, and what a wonderful 5 days we had at the MTC! Steve gave you a great overview but we had so many great experiences that it is hard to get them all in one note…But I'll send a couple highlights.
 We stayed at the Marriott Hotel in Provo, and as I stood at the check-in counter (the church paid our bill), I struck up a conversation with the Elder standing beside me. He said he is going to Buena Vista,  VA to SVU on a CES mission. I told him he would love it, and he said he had served
in WV when he was a young man. I asked him casually where he had served and he said in Fairmont and Morgantown. I then asked him when, and he said it was in 1968. By then, I realized who he was, and said,  "Elder Jenkins, my name, (as I pointed to my name tag), is Linda GOLDEN Kimble!  He started to cry and said, " I remember you! You were our Golden contact!" He had been in Morgantown two months, and he, along with his companion, taught me the first discussions that I had at Towers dorm. He remembered that and that Sister Kaye Wallace had called them to tell them about my phone call about wanting to find a ride to the church. They had come right over to Towers and that was when I took my best friend down to meet them with me…Anyway, every time I saw Elder Jenkins and his wife this week, he got really teary eyed. He is a professor at Snow College and is a stake patriarch and former stake president.  It was like such a tender mercy to run into him beginning his mission at the same time we were.  I told him of my 6 children, 24 grandchildren, etc. and he was just so excited that he called his daughter who had been abandoned by her husband, recently, leaving her with 5 kids, and had begged them not to go on a mission. After telling her our story she said she thought the Lord must have wanted them to go….Lots of other miracles like this, but I 'll have to write later.  Much love, MOM

Here is another picture of my parents with Elder and Sister Jenkins.

Charity....never faileth

What an amazing week I've had!  Two Sundays ago, my friend, Jen, taught the lesson in Relief Society. She did an amazing job that kept me and, I think, every other woman in that class thinking all week!  She talked about service and how when we serve others, we become united. She challenged us all to do service for others.  I thought for sure I could do something for someone!  I have a good friend whose husband is deployed and she is struggling with just all the crazy things that life brings when your husband is gone and she has a full time job and six kids, one of which is handicapped.  I kept trying to figure out how to help more but kept coming up blank. So I had a prompting to just write her a letter. Nothing big, just write. So I did and I told her how amazing she is, because she is one of those people who inspires me to be better. And I told her I'm here for her and understand a bit of what she is going through. She later came and gave me a sweet letter in return and told me how much it meant to her. I still didn't feel like I did much, but remember that doing service makes you feel more united?  Yeah, yes it does. For sure.
So my measly little "service" wasn't all the service I experienced this week though. Monday, while we were at the pool for Tink's swim practice, another friend said, "would it be ok if I bring you dinner tonight?  How about a half hour after we get home?"  Wow!  Great food that we all gobbled up!  I had been stressing out about getting everything organized and ready for the Super Saturday next month, so really feeding my family was at the back of my mind. We probably would have had cereal for dinner. The next day I was still stressing. Luckily, I got some info on Monday that helped and Tuesday, another friend texted and said she knew how stressed I was, so she was bringing me pizza for dinner!  Wednesday we had book club here and that was awesome.  I made scones!  Miss those!  Then Thursday we had some friends over for taco salad. Yum. It ended up just being an awesome week. Friday we went to the Air Force Academy family camp to spend the day with some extended family out there. We didn't camp and it started pouring in the late afternoon so we left earlier than planned, but had a great time. We set up the table displaying all the crafts for super Saturday on Saturday night and on Sunday, I felt such a weight lifted off my shoulders. And I don't think it was just because the crafts were ready, but also because I felt uplifted by The Lord and all my friends.
I've been listening to Sheri Dew's book, If Life Were Easy, It Wouldn't be so Hard.  I just listened to a chapter about charity and how charity is not an act or a feeling, but it is who a person is. It's all encompassing. When we pray for charity we are praying for our very nature to change. Charity is the pure love of Christ. As we become more like him, our very natures are changed. I have a long way to go, but oh what happiness it brings when you can feel that love all around you!

ER Visit

We had a late and crazy night last night.  Baby Girl took a little power nap around 6 pm last night.  She woke up and seemed a bit leththargic. When I picked her up, she was burning up and breathing fast. I took her temporal termperature and it was 101, so I ran and grabbed a different one to take it rectally and it was 104! I called her doctor and they said to head to the ER.  Thankfully, Tink is old enough to watch the kids so I could leave right away.  I filled out a form and they took us back to triage where her temp was 105.4 and her heart rate was like 270! (Normal for her should be between 120-140.) They gave her some Tylenol right away and she fell asleep as we moved back into a room.  Then they gave her some Motrin and we went back to do chest x-rays. I have never had to have an infant get chest x-rays done before.  They sit her on this bicycle type seat and I held her arms up over her head while they closed a clear capsule looking thing around her body. I had to hold her arms up the whole time they took the x-rays. She screamed the entire time, of course.  The technician was really nice and has grandkids of her own.  She played peekaboo with her when she was done and Baby Girl was happy once again.  When we arrived back in our room, they needed a urine sample, so had to do a catheter.  Then they put an IV in her to get some blood samples.  They said her urine was cloudy right away, so they figured it was probably a urinary tract infection.  Her fever broke soon after that and we both were able to get a little sleep off and on.  It took a while for the lab results to come back.  Her white blood cell count was 22,000, which he said is double the normal range.  So she's been fighting this UTI for a while.  Then we had to wait to hear from her pediatrician to see if she wanted her to be admitted to get antibiotics through the IV or just take them orally and send us home.  Luckily, we were able to just get one set of antibiotics in the IV and go home.  We finally left at 12:40 am, five hours after we arrived.  Boy was I tired! 

Around 8:45, I tried to call Tink and see how everyone was doing.  She wasn't answering her phone. I kept calling for a half hour and never got ahold of her. I tried to call some neighbors and friends who lived close by, but no one answered.  I finally ended up calling Dan, PC's brother.  He was so wonderful and drove out and stayed with them until  I got home.  I know Tink felt a lot better having an adult there. I did too! I didn't want her to have to be in charge all night. I am so lucky to have some family close by that can help out when we need it. 
On that same note, PC's brother, Steven, helped me out several times the past two weeks. We had flooding in our basement and he helped me move things and take carpet out. He even came back later and caulked the window where the water was coming in.  So blessed and grateful for great family!

This past week

Bucko got his Bear badge on Tuesday at pack meeting! 

My parents are going on a mission for our church.  We are so excited for them!  We are lucky enough to live on the way to Utah, where they will do their training at the Missionary Training Center in Provo.  They will be serving for a year and a half in the Portland, Oregon mission.  They arrived late on Tuesday night, after driving over 14 hours that day.  We only had Wednesday with them, but we had fun.  We went for a walk/run/bike ride in the morning. We tried to make it to the elementary school, but there was a gas leak and the smell was awful. The firefighters were already there handling the situation, but we didn't want to be exposed any more than necessary, so we turned around and headed home.  It was still about 3 miles total that we did.
That afternoon, we took them downtown to Fargo's Pizza.  It's made to look like a saloon in the 1800's.  The pizza was really good too.

That night, we had back to school night at the elementary school.  We had to take all their school supplies.  It was crazy!  Their teachers seem wonderful and all three kids were excited for the school year. Thursday morning, we had to say goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa and it was the first day of school for everyone except Tink.  She didn't have to start until Friday.

Such cute kids, huh?  They had a "Boo-hoo Breakfast" for the parents of kindergarteners on Thursday.  I did surprisingly well that day.  Friday morning, though, when everyone left and I said to Baby Girl, "It's just you and me," I broke down.  They just grow so fast and I do miss them.  Goofy had a blast and told me everything that happened at school when he came home.  I don't think he stopped talking for about a half an hour!  He has been so ready for school to start!

Baby Girl and I ran some errands on Friday.  We had to drive through Black Forrest and I was able to snap some pictures as I was driving.  You can see the rubble and the chimneys left of the houses burned down.  It is still so sad every time I drive through there.  And I always love seeing Smokey the Bear and his warning sign.  That night we had rain and a beautiful double rainbow.  I was taking care of Baby Girl and had Bucko snap a picture of it.  Gorgeous!

 



Busy Summer

With PC gone, I was worried about staying on a schedule and being busy enough to not sit around and miss him the whole month.  The kids did a great job with their summer must-do list.  I will definitely be keeping that around for next summer and a modified version during school.  The older two had swim lessons the last two weeks of July.  They learned a lot and had a good time. 

We dog sat for a friend one week. That kept the kids busy. They had to take care of her because they were the ones getting paid. Minnie kept that little dog the busiest!  It was a pug dog and her name is Lola.  They even now pretend that one of them is Lola and the rest have to take care of her and play with her.  Goofy was terrified of her at first, but started to come around.  A couple days into it, though, he was able to go get tested for allergies.  Found out he is allergic to dogs (and mold) so after that, he would run from Lola and yell, "I'm allergic! I'm allergic!"  I kept trying to explain to him that he could still be around Lola, but I think he liked the excuse.  Funny kid.

I love Baby Girl's expression in this one! Cracks me up!  It's like she's saying, "Yeah, glad that's not me."  Goofy did great for the back pricks, but for the ones in the arms, he had a much harder time.  As soon as he saw the needles, he said, "No, no. What are you doing?"  But he made it through, and now we know.

That day was especially busy.  As soon as we got home, we packed some sandwiches and drove over to the America the Beautiful park downtown to meet some friends. They have this huge artsy circle thing that "rains" and there is a splash pad thing all around it.  It was packed with kids, but they seemed to have a good time.  It was scorching hot that day though. 

That evening, we went with some friends to the free outdoor movie at a local shopping plaza.  They were showing the Disney movie Brave.  It is just in the parking lot, so we brought camp chairs.  They project the movie onto this huge inflatable screen.  Our friends brought some awesome homemade cinnamon bun popcorn.  They gave out samples of Happy Valley foods, so the kids snacked on those as well.  It was fun, but late by the time we arrived home. 

Another day, we went with some friends to do the tour of Patsy's Candies.  We ended up with 30 of us!  It was fun, but a little crazy.  The kids didn't want to wear the hair nets, but they all looked so cute!

 

One way to stay busy and help each other, is to hang out with friends in the same situation. We had friends over for dinner one Saturday whose dad/husband has been gone for much longer than ours.  They returned the favor, and we went over to their house on Monday for dinner and FHE. We played Cranium Family Fun and did Just Dance on the Wii.  Good times.  Then last Sunday, we had another good family, who also happens to be close neighbors, over for dinner as well.  The kids loved playing together, and I love talking with my friends!  Weekends are always the hardest when dads are gone, so it's nice to share it with others who understand.  We all have fun together as well! 

We have had friends come with us to the pool as well.  It always is more fun with friends along!