Zac blessed the sacrament this week for the first time. I would like to say that was the reason I was a blubbering mess today. A woman gave a talk on how trials can increase our faith in Jesus Christ. She shared about different trials in her life that if she prayed enough and showed enough faith she was able to overcome them. However she gained a new insight into having faith in the Savior and that is in accepting His will and timing in our lives – even if the results are not what we wanted or prayed so earnestly for. She shared how she personally knew this as her newly married oldest son was diagnosed with a very treatable cancer. He endured 26 rounds of Chemo, had his leg amputated and later passed away from the cancer. Her faith and seeing the blessings in trials is stronger from the experience not weaker or bitter because as they were able to accept His will for their son. Also she has a greater understanding, a new appreciation and stronger testimony of the atonement. Her family learned from this experience that having faith in Savior was not necessarily knowing that He would heal her son, but that He could heal him. They had to believe that He could, and then whether it happened was up to Him and once they did they experience a greater peace and comfort. Losing her son is still hard but how his story has touched other people’s lives and continues to do so is huge a blessing. One thing she said that hit my heart is that we can’t compare trials. No one trial is greater than another. Trials allow us to see what we are made of and whether we shrink from it or allow our individual will to be His will. As I would look over to Zac during the meeting, I know we need to allow him to make choices even if it isn’t our will. That it won’t be easy, that more suffering may come and that Zac will be stretched, we will be stretched but lessons will be learned through this experience.
Monday brought about the rest of our August departing missionaries. I prepared pulled pork sandwiches and my typical side dishes along with baked beans, fruit salsa and cinnamon chips. The day went pretty seamless. I even had Zac take me around to do some last minute back to school errands. Now the next day was NOT! Although it began pretty on par with a breakfast of Kolaches and yogurt parfaits and plenty of time to get to the airport which we did in a timely manner. We said our sweet goodbyes to our missionaries that is always so hard. We love each of them so much. We picked up our Provo MTC arriving missionaries without a hitch a little after noon but as they were grabbing their luggage Aaron received a call from the mission office stating our 8 Mexico MTC missionaries had missed their flight because of a gate change. Luckily they were able to catch a flight that just happened to have 8 seats available that would arrive at 4:30pm. All standard transfer plans at that point were changed and we had improvised from that point going forward. ;) We brought the missionaries we had to the mission home to interview them and take pictures. Jessie even got in on the interviews with questions she likes to ask them. They are pretty insightful for a 9 year old. Aaron and the AP’s then headed back to the airport to pick up our other missionaries. I then had the missionaries with me role play the Restoration with each other and with me, Sister Morton and Sister Burke. New for us. J We then had dinner and did interviews and pictures for the other missionaries. It was definitely a longer evening for the missionaries and us but we got it done. Happy day!! J Zac was super helpful for me today. He had to get him and Bode to an orthodontist appointment today. Bode was fitted for invisalign to straighten his teeth. He will have to be diligent in wearing and not losing them ;) otherwise they will put the regular braces on him. The invislagn will be ready to pick up in about 3 weeks.
I headed to the mission office early Wednesday morning for transfers. I like to go to say hi and observe how the new companionship’s are interacting and lift and encourage where needed. I later go inside to share with the new missionaries the importance of Adjusting to Missionary life and again observe to see how they are feeling. I didn’t stay long for lunch since I had appointments for the boys for their physicals. They weren’t excited about going although they have a great doctor who specialized in sports medicine and were cleared to play sports at their schools. Football and basketball here we come. Allie headed to Hawaii this afternoon with Megan and Curtis for her trip to Hawaii. She is there until Sunday night and will take a red eye flight home so she can get back to start school at UVU. She is filling her summer with incredible experiences down to the last minute.
Zac had his second to last driving time Thursday. He really liked his instructor today. He felt like he was more beneficial in helping him become a better driver. We are getting so close to having his license! Yeah! The kids also had teeth cleaning appointments today. We are getting as many of the appointments out of the way so the kids don’t miss any school. We learned our lesson last year. Allie enjoyed the day at the beach and going to the Queen's Bath. She is loving her time in Hawaii.
Jessie has been working on opening a spa at our house to earn money. She and her friend Natalie have transformed Allie’s room into four stations. One for manicures, one for pedicures, one for back massages and another for facials. She is so funny about being an entrepreneur. I keep persuading her to think of another way to make money but she is determined that a spa is the way to go. J As she finished up giving treatments to Natalie’s siblings, the boys and I got ready to go to the temple with Aaron for the new convert temple trip. Jessie than went to Natalie’s for a late night and we headed to the temple for a great evening and to witness some amazing stories of change. We then enjoyed dinner at Torchy’s/ Pei Wei. Allie went on an all day catamaran tour today, a first for her. She thought it was an amazing adventure.
I thought I would do my sprint triathlon again today since I enjoyed it so much last week. The boys joined me at the pool. I did end up swimming almost a mile this time. That was fun! As a family we tried out the Star Cinema Movie Grill today. This was our first time going to a movie grill theater. We saw Kubo and the two strings, an interesting little Japanese story. The food was surprisingly good so overall an enjoyable experience. We then headed over to Sugar Land Town Center for the final of Sugarland Star. We watched a couple of performances but the boys lost interest quickly so we called it a night. It was a fun day with the family. Allie also had a fun day. She did another first by taking a helicopter tour over the island of Kauai. It was spectacular and was so happy she got to experience it.