October 27, 2024

From Dad - Spiritual Muscle

Dear Abby,


How I love you and miss you at the same time as I'm so proud of you and excited for the challenges and hardships you will have that will help you to grow and progress. This week-end we enjoyed the opportunity to attend Stake Conference with Elder Dushko visiting. You may remember him as his talk in the April General Conference caused us to look at each other in wonder and we agreed that his talk was an answer to the questions and prayer's we had been discussing that week before General Conference. He opened with this statement:

"My message is for those who worry about their testimony because they haven’t had overwhelming spiritual experiences. I pray that I can provide some peace and assurance."

He was amazing to listen to and to interact with. We were blessed to be able to have supper with him and other bishops and branch presidents between the leadership and adult sessions last night. He shared some fun stories from Church Headquarters and gave us some interesting stories about President Nelson, Hunter and Eyring. One thing that he said that stuck with me was when he described President Nelson's style of leadership. He talked about how his experience as a surgeon comes through as in a surgery you don't have time to extend out lengthy decisions. President Nelson is warm and kind and patient, but likes to make decisions once the discussion has been had and move forward. He is decisive.

We had a chance to stop by Josh and Madison's before the general Stake Conference session and pick up your stuff you'd left there. It was fun to visit and catch up for a few minutes. 


Mom had a chance to share our GC story with Elder Dushku and he thanked her for sharing it as they don't always get a chance to know whether and how their talk impacts others. I had a lot of important insights and inspiration from this week-end. One of them was the idea that if I want to grow spiritually I need to seek for spiritually challenging experiences to increase my spiritual muscle. The last time the boys were here, we had another chest press competition to see who could lift the most. Josh and I maxed out at the same weight as last time, but Sam, of course, jumped up and matched our weight even though we both weigh 60 lbs more than him. We discussed after that the process of increasing strength and it turns out you need to lift heavier and heavier weights vs. just more reps on the same weight to improve. I think it is the same way with spiritual muscle.


As we planned our week this week we saw that we had some time on Wednesday night and decided that we wanted to take Mia out for supper. We worry a little about her nutrition and food intake generally. We decided it was high time for the 18th birthday KEG date. We got to the Keg on the south side right when it opened at 4 pm and enjoyed a delicious dinner as Mia entertained us with her tales of college and YSA including some rants about immature boys which is pretty standard these days :) At the end of the dinner we noticed some friends were there as well and we invited them to sit and chat with us for 1/2 hour. It was Dennis and Cari Johnson. Dennis co-owns the company Josh works for, "Weis-Johnson". We knew and hung out with them when we were first married. So fun to see them and so grateful they are still together after all these years. It is becoming more and more rare. We managed to get Mia a free birthday dessert even though it was a few weeks after her birthday.


Mia came over this week-end and it's been fun to connect. I found a fun picture of her 10 years or so ago on my facebook feed.  She went to the Halloween dance last night with Emma and they dressed up as Curious George and the man in the big yellow hat.




Other than that it was a pretty standard week. Mom worked a lot, I played pickle ball and worked as well. We are still not sure what we think of being empty nesters. Once and a while Mom and I were able to sit down to eat together. This picture shows me turning to drinking to get through :)


Damon came and stayed overnight as he was working close by. We treated him to one of Mom's Orange and ginger booster shots and enjoyed visiting with him.


Saturday morning I had some time so I did some additions to the garage to help me organize all the wood piled up in the corner. It is coming along nicely and there is something immensely satisfying about putting things in good order around our home. I also re-purposed one of our old freezers as a root cellar for our potatoes. That was fun too.




Mom had an apple pie making day and invited any RS sisters to come over. A few did and they made 30 pies. Looking forward to winter Sunday apple pies. Your Mom is a natural at finding ways to minister to and help the Sisters in our ward.



We love you sister. Thanks for being you!! Look forward to talking to you tomorrow.

Dad

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