Sam's Mission To Zambia Blog: March 4, 2018

From Mom - It's Official:

Dear Sammy Sam,

Do you remember the Rector's dog, Bear? Well, he disappeared ... and since the Patricks found cougar tracks down at their place, the general consensus is that a cougar got Bear.

No trace.

As a result, they bought a new dog named Tank. Based on the name, you can imagine the size of the dog and Sheena explained she feels safe with a giant canine protecting their property. Tank is much nicer than Bear though, and we decided to see how Coco would do with him. Let's just say it's official ... all big dogs want to eat our little yapster. No bringing Coco on visits to the Rectors if we want her to live.

It's official ... Ben is too busy. The girls cry because he's gone all the time. He picked up a temporary fund-raising job (he's saving up for Whistler) of cleaning apartments at the Till's building in Calmar. We had to tell them we could only find about five hours per week to clean, but they're okay with that. Ben is learning the fine art of window cleaning, fridge detailing, baseboard dusting, toilet scrubbing and wall washing around all the other things he is doing. Outside of school. homework, choir, band, piano lessons, preparing for the Music Festival, youth night, home teaching, and . . . wait for it . . . D&D (thanks to you. Ha! Cody dies when Ben has no time to play with him ... and think about it, there needs to be some time for fun), he just has no other extra minutes for anything else. We are very, very, very grateful for Sundays when we dedicate it to worship and family time.

Josh is working with Peter Rector off and on constructing the giant chicken barn the Day's are putting up. It's not consistent work due to weather and Peter's other responsibilities but it's better than no work at all. He's going to Institute Choir and one Institute class, getting involved in the Single's Ward and preparing to go to BYU-I towards the end of April. I'm excited/dreading for him to leave. Dreading because we are just getting used to having him around again and we love it and him and I don't know if I can stand missing two sons at the same time. Excited because ... it's official ... girls love him. I would much rather have him break hearts far away from home with people we don't know. So I'm happy to have him go away and take college classes and take advantage of the opportunities of college life. And he can date to his heart's content without any mother anxiety.

Abby's responsibilities are ramping up. She's preparing for the Music Festival and spends a lot of time on the piano; the Stake asked her to be on a youth council where she can speak her mind from a youth perspective; and she's taking more of a leadership role in Young Women's. Yesterday, she was visiting over to the Rector's and apparently, Peter was giving her a hard time and it's become official ... she is getting a reputation for bold speaking. Apparently, she doesn't take much nonsense from anyone and everyone loves it. She's lost her shyness (if she ever had any). This past Wednesday, Dad and I attended the YW New Beginnings. Among other things, they sang the 2018 Youth Theme Song called Peace in Christ. It was stunning. Part of the stun was Abby singing boldly front and center, smiling at everyone with not a speck of fear. She's growing up.

Mia is continuing gymnastics, still organising swimming events with her friends, keeping the family going with board games and motivating our family life to be joyful. She keeps us hopping. It's official ... Mia came to our family to keep us having fun and prevent us from taking ourselves too seriously. She really is such a fun caboose to our family.

Stephanie is graduating from University in April. So we're dropping off Josh to start school in Rexburg and then going to Steph's grand finale in Provo. We're pretty excited about it. The current plan is for Tyler and Steph to spend the summer here and we cannot wait. Hopefully we can get some huge progress done on the treehouse. We have the idea of possibly turning it into an AirB&B to make some extra cash. With Wizard Lake being so close, it seems a feasible idea but the big hurdle will be getting the county on board. I officially have a long list of projects for Tyler to help me with since he's so good at being handy. ESPECIALLY since you've been gone. I miss your handy ways.

Dad and I are just the same as always. We actually had a chat this morning about answering the question ... "How can we continue to progress?" As long as we're alive we should be always improving and doing better. It's official and it's always been official ... I really love your Dad. He's just such a steady influence, rarely complaining, always working for our good. Life is good with him around. He's adjusting a little with being out of Young Men's though. I think he's been in there for over 20 years and it's kind of nice having him home on Wednesday nights for a change. Every now and then all the kids are gone we just kind of look at each other and wonder how to fill the time. We'll figure it out though. I'm looking forward to it.

We've been loving your emails. You are a good writer! I often get comments from people about how much they appreciate your emails. So you are strengthening others through your experiences. It sounds like Kylen is still stuck in Canada waiting for his Visa to go to France. Hopefully he will be able to head to his mission soon. I was thinking how grateful you were to finally get into your area where poor Kylen will be so grateful to get to his actual mission. Keep on going, my dear son. We are so proud of you. Face the difficult things and appreciate the tender mercies. Although we miss you terribly, we wouldn't have to be anywhere else. All that you experience will be for your life's learning and you are shaping your character every day.

We love, love, love you.

We pray for you everyday and we hope you can feel it.

We hope you will be safe, that you will be directed by the Spirit and feel the purpose for which you were called to Zambia.

Love you forever,

Mom

From Sam - Another Amazing Week:

This week has been amazing, though it's not easy. That's my favorite thing about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It's simple, but not easy. If it was easy we wouldn't learn. It's something I have to keep telling myself, Hard is good, If it's not hard I don't learn. Yesterday was really good. While I was showing one of the investigators we brought to church around, when we walked into the chapel, a different investigator from other missionaries was there and just happened to be friends with my investigator. It was just like Boom, instant friend. It was nice. After church, we had a baptism for a set of nine year old twins. It brought to my mind what I learned in the MTC. While on my mission, I'll be changing peoples eternities. It's pretty cool to think about.

My trainer hit his 1 year mark on mission a couple days ago. to celebrate, he did the Banana/Sprite Challenge. That was interesting to watch. I've been studying in the Book of Mormon and read Alma 26:22, Ammon in talking to his brothers about their success with the Lamenites and in this verse, he promises that if a person that does missionary work repents, exercises faith, does good works and prays continually without ceasing, They can know the mysteries of God and bring thousands to God. As I read that, I was thinking that's something I want to do; I want to bring thousands to the knowledge of God.

One of the members in church, Brother Noel, I think I told you all about him. He's blind and very funny. When ever he asks me a question, I answer "Let me think about it", I say this so I can give a good sincere answer. But when I say that, he scolds me and tells me to always have an answer on hand. It's true but it's still funny. I'm going to say to him 'Leka Niganizepo", which is Nianja for let me think about it. It's going to be hilariously awesome.

The Church is true. Stay Awesome Everyone!

Lots of the pictures are of the landscape and roads that are in my area.