I hope they call me on a mission....

8/29/2019

I have been thinking about this for weeks now, that I should write my feelings of recent and upcoming events. As it is sometimes difficult for me to write without sounding extra dramatic, I will do my best. I just popped another Justin’s dark chocolate peanut butter cup in my mouth and laughed when the thought came that I should buy Cozette several bags of these for her journey to Brazil.

That’s right, Cozette is leaving for Brazil in four days. She is ready. She went through the temple last week to receive her endowments and yesterday we drove down with the intent of doing another session, but traffic had a different idea, so we did initiatories instead, then went up to the Celestial room. As I was sitting in there with her, I thought, Yes! This is what joy and rejoicing in your posterity feels like. That must be how I am feeling every day when I cry a little bit more than the day before as her departure date creeps closer: Joy. I am so proud, thankful, sad, already missing her, excited and nervous. Heavenly Father knows how I am feeling and reminds me that he loves me and that she is doing the right thing. I am like Hannah in the Old Testament, giving her child to God to serve Him. What a gift! It still is the hardest gift to give. I guess this is a little taste of what Heavenly Father must have felt, letting his son be sacrificed for all of us. Watching him suffer when He is so perfect. I know my child is not perfect, but she is pretty dang amazing. I know she will be obedient and she wants to give her all on her mission.

She asked Jeremy the other day when he was giving Father’s blessings, to bless her with the ability to put “both feet in the mission” and to not be home sick. She has so much faith and trust in a loving Father in Heaven. I know she is doing the Lord’s will and she will come back even stronger because of it. I am so grateful for this. I am so thankful she wants to share the gospel with people. Here at home, or when she is at work, she is not super outgoing, but I know she will learn and “become” more than what she is while serving the Lord.

To all the parents out there, sending children on missions, I know what you are going through. No body warned us about how hard this is, but even if they did, I don’t think it would’ve mattered. It is something that can only be experienced first-hand, and boy, am I feeling it. I am thankful for the opportunity to grow as well, to hopefully be better myself and to share the gospel here, while she is working to share the gospel in Brazil. I look forward to her letters each week and her phone calls and I hope I won’t cry every time. God be with you til we meet again.

Washington, DC

8/13/16-Saturday

I'm mostly just going to put a bunch of pictures for this one. Again, another blazing hot day. I got cranky towards the afternoon (but what else is new...) we ate ice cream, and walked and walked even with our Big Red Bus tour.  We saw much cool stuff and wished we had at least three more days there to see even more. I would've loved to see the American History Museum, the National Portrait Gallery and Ford's Theatre, but we passed them on the bus. It's hard to do tons when it's really hot like that. But we still saw so much and we loved going through Arlington and seeing the White House.

Some of our kids had never ridden a Metro. Jeremy and Wyatt almost didn't make it! We were trying to make sure everyone was super hydrated since we got so hot the day before that Wyatt drank a ton and of course had to pee right before the train got there. They were running up the stairs and jumped onto the train as the conductor was closing the doors! Thank you nice conductor for waiting that extra second. 

Lots of friends and loved ones who have served in the Navy. 

Navy Memorial Museum (thank you for letting us use your bathroom!)

West lawn of the capital building. It was told that Reagan wanted to be inaugurated on this side so he could face his beloved California. 

Spaceship 1 at the Air and Space Museum. My brother worked on Spaceship 2.

I think this is the National Archives where the Constitution is kept.

Washington Monument

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

I'm bringing sweaty back....

Marine Corp monument

Atalie's good friend that she dances with had her grandpa buried here in Arlington. 

It took all my strength to smile in this one. I was almost at my breaking point. Thank goodness we found a little ice cream stand right after this. 

Wyatt and his hero. He was so happy to see this in person. It satisfied his to  see this and drive by Ford's theatre. We'll have to do Gettysburg another time. 

Gettysburg address

Cute boys!

Beautiful DC!

These are about all the pictures we could muster since we were so HOT!!! Did I mention that it was hot?

Philly, PA

Since we got to our campsite so late, and left so early, the kids didn't even get to see where we camped. Jeremy and I quickly packed up in the morning of Friday, August 12. We were supposed to be at the Stake Center across from the new temple by 8:30 for our tour at 8:45am. Well, like any big city, there is always traffic and we got in to Philadelphia right around that time. But trying to find a place to park our RV was very difficult in the downtown area. Luckily, my parents found a nice gentleman who was volunteering and let us park in the volunteers parking lot. It was a but stressful driving around and navigating the one way streets and trying to figure out where we needed to go, but once we parked, we hoped out and walked a couple blocks to the temple site. It did not disappoint. It is interesting, thought, how when we are trying to do something spiritual, we are attacked by stress and other potential problems that could harm the situation. We didn't give in and had nice experience on our tour of the Philadelphia temple. The rooms were decorated so nicely and the artwork was amazing. In the baptistry, they had some murals depicting Joseph and Oliver getting baptized. Some of the vases and pots in the temple had ships and flags on them, reminiscent of the port it is. There are two huge staircases on either side of the temple that took us to all the rooms. The celestial room was so peaceful and I loved sitting in there with my family and looking at each of them and hoping and praying that they were feeling the sweet spirit that I felt there. The temple is where we are sealed together to become eternal families! That is such a comfort to me that as long as I keep my covenants, I can be with them forever.

I'm sure we had a picture with my parents, too, but I must not have a copy of it. It really was a highlight of our trip to walk through this temple with our family and see where the church started to where it is today. Truly a miracle. 

After the temple, we walked back to the RV's, changed, had a quick snack and headed out to walk around Philadelphia. We couldn't pass up the chance to explore a little history in the city of brotherly love. Mind you, it was a probably over 90 degrees at this point and very humid. We were roasting. I luckily had my camelback that I filled with water, but with 6 people drinking out of it, we ran out after the first hour, I think. 

As we walked toward the historic area, we came across a man that told us a funny story about squirrels in Philly and how Benjamin Franklin had one for a pet. After sitting in the shade, listening to his story, we kept walking and found the National Park where the Liberty Bell is. We went into the building that was nice and air conditioned and found another one of those guys to tell us more stories about the history of Philly when our country was being born. I feel like I still don't know much about our country's history, but it was fun to learn more and feel like I was in a really important place, even if it was for just a few hours. 

After the Liberty Bell and taking a picture in front of Liberty Hall and feeling the pain of how hot it gets there and thinking of our forefather sequestered in this hot, probably really smelly room, writing the Declaration of Independence, we worked up an appetite and found some authentic Philly lunch. Jeremy got a Philly Cheesesteak and I had pizza. Unfortunately, the restaurant was hotter inside then it was outside, so we didn't find a lot of refreshment, but we were able to be fed and then walk back about 2 miles, in the hot sun, to the RV. Poor Scotty was so miserable and I think all the kids and us, got pretty dehydrated that day. 

We got the AC cranking and started our drive toward Washington, DC. Wyatt still really wanted to go to Gettysburg, but we decided to just go to the RV park, go swimming, get some groceries and hopefully just relax and gear up for a long day in DC the next day. The RV park was awesome! They had a couple of swimming pools, splash pads for the kids, playground right by our RV, a place to watch the Olympics and eat ice cream. We were set! We had been missing watching the Olympics because we could never get our cable or Satellite to work right. 

Liberty Bell

Liberty Hall

Downtown area, not far from the temple

Philly cheesesteak, not a hoagie...

Cool bridge going in to New Jersey

New Jersey welcome sign. The kids were happy to get another state.

And Maryland!

On to Pennsylvania

From our campsite near Seneca Lake in New York, we left around noon and drove about four hours to see the new Priesthood Restoration Site in what was called Harmony, Pennsylvania. Everything is so green and gorgeous and the drive was pretty uneventful. We got to the site, it's only one year old, had a quick snack and headed in to the Visitor's Center. It is also a church building as well for local members. The sisters that greeted us were so fun and loving. They really made our experience there wonderful. Of course it had started raining as we were running into the Visitor's center and while we were watching the prequel to the movie we saw at the Peter Whitmer Farm, we could here grumbles of thunder outside.
The movie was a wonderful introduction to the events that went on in this beautiful place. Most importantly, this is where Joseph and Oliver received the Aaronic Priesthood from John the Baptist and were able to baptize each other in the Susquehanna river which ran through Joseph and Emma's property. I find it very interesting the way that Jesus organized his church here on earth. He didn't just hand it all over to Joseph at once. He gave it to him gradually as he asked questions and as he translated the Book of Mormon. When he and Oliver were translating, they realized they had not been baptized yet and realized they needed the proper authority to do so. So they asked Heavenly Father and John the Baptist appeared to them in a nearby grove of trees. I love how the Lord works and watches out for us. Joseph and Emma had also lost their first baby in Harmony and it is also when Martin Harris lost the 116 pages which caused Joseph to loose the ability to translate for a time. It was a sad time for Joseph and Emma.
But through these hard times, Joseph was humbled and learned and still knew that what he was doing was the Lord's work. So many miracles.
When the movie was over, we went outside to see the restored home of Emma's parents and then the home she and Joseph lived in nearby. Since it was still raining, we enjoyed using the umbrellas that we brought and some were provided by the Visitor's Center as well. Some of us used our Maid of the Mist ponchos as well.

          

This was one of my favorite sites to visit. I'm not sure if it was the rain, the short distance traveled, the Sister missionaries, the spirit, what happened here or what, but the Spirit was very strong here. At one point on our tour, in Joseph and Emma's summer kitchen, the sisters had us sit down and gave us the chance to bear testimony. Well one of the sisters, Sister Eckman, I believe, she had been chatting with Scotty and asked him to share his testimony. He said yes! It was so simple and sweet, he just shared how he felt the Spirit in the Sacred Grove. I'm so grateful to have been able to take our family to these sacred sites and share them with my parents and with Jeremy's parents. It was so nourishing to our family unity and to our spiritual growth.

After our tour, the sisters went back up to the Visitor's Center and we walked down to the old cemetery where Emma's parents are buried and where their sweet baby is buried. Right by there is the statue that has been there since the 60's, denoting the restoration there.

In oder to see the river, we had to get in the RV's and drive across the railroad tracks where they have a little parking area and some signs talking about the river and Joseph and Oliver getting baptized. The river was used for commerce, so in order for them to get some privacy, they most likely went later in the day. We walked down there while our dinner was cooking and enjoyed seeing the beautiful river and the rain. As we were pulling out and I was driving ( we needed to drive about 2 more hours to our camp spot to be close to Philadelphia the next morning), it started pouring! Thunder and lightning! I had to slow way down at some spots just because it was coming down so hard we couldn't see. We didn't ever get tired of the rain though. It was great.

At one gas station, I went in to get some candy because I wanted something to munch while I was driving and when I cam back out, it was just dumping. I almost waited until it stopped, but had a feeling it wasn't going to let up soon, so I just ran for it and got soaked!

The kids slept as much as they could and we pulled in to our site around 11pm, plugged in and went to bed. We had to get up around 6am to leave by 7am to be at the temple by 8:45am.

Kirtland

After leaving my sweet sister in law in Detroit (she and I ran that morning), we drove down to meet my in-laws in Kirtland. We also had a surprise visit from my Aunt and Uncle who live about an hour away. They drove up with their daughter Amy and her son to tour Kirtland with us. I loved the video we watched about Ann Whitney and her perspective on the church and how she came to know it was true. These faithful saints never cease to amaze me with how much they gave up to follow the prophet. I'm so thankful for their diligence.

Parting is such sweet sorrow!

   

We drove about three hours and met Jeremy's parents in Kirtland at the Visitor's Center.  The sisters were great that took us on our tour. We then went and toured the Kirtland Temple. There was definitely a difference in spirit at these two places and I'm grateful my kids could feel the differences.

  

  

My favorite part about Kirtland was the Newel K. Whitney store and also the John Johnson farm which was about 45 mins away. We had the place to ourselves right before they closed and we got  a nice tour of it and felt the spirit very strongly there. Especially in the room where Joseph received the vision regarding heaven and where we go when we die (Section 76 of the Doctrine and Covenants).

I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God. He gave up all of his own will to do what Heavenly Father needed him to do. I'm so thankful for that example.

Jeremy sneaked a picture in the temple of me leading the music and my mom playing the piano.
We were singing "The Spirit of God."