Important Business or Just Busyness

This week was busy, as usual. We were pulled in lots of different directions, but at least some of them were worthwhile. In all of my busyness, I just need to make sure that I am doing important things that will help people and not just filling my life with more fluff. It is a good reminder.

In preparation for our Ward Conference this week, the Stake asked our ward council leaders to all go on visits to families and people in the ward. Natalie Skeen and I were assigned to be companions. We went to see the Leuga family. They have never been active, but they have an 8th grade daughter on our YW rolls, so I was curious to meet them. Natalie knew the family a little bit because she grew up in Pleasant Grove with the mom. Anyway, I was happy to go with Natalie because it was a natural way to start a conversation. We ended up staying for over an hour because she was so talkative. I don’t know if they will ever come to church, but it allowed me an opportunity to meet the young woman and invite her to come. It was a good visit, and they are good people.

Our other visit fell through because they were out of town, so I felt the impression to go visit Shelley Pollock because she has been sick lately. It didn’t work out to go that night, so Jonathon and I went and visited her a different night this week. I was really tired and not really wanting to go out, but Jonathon encouraged me to go. It ended up being a really great visit. Shelley really needed to talk and told us that our visit was an answer to prayers for her because she hadn’t been very connected to church or the Spirit lately. I was glad that we went. We stayed for over an hour at her house too. I guess some people just need a chance to talk and feel like someone cares about them.

We found out this week that two of our instructional assistants at school were quitting because of various issues. Friday was their last day. I was sad to lose them because they have been at Lakeview for a long time, knew all the kids, and knew how to do all the various jobs. It will be very hard to replace them. I have been so busy that I hadn’t really considered doing anything special for their last day, but on Thursday, I realized that we really needed to acknowledge how much they had done for the school. At the last minute, I threw together a party for them. All the other aides brought brunch food to share, and I bought decorations and tried to make it nice. We had a banner, balloons, gold plates and napkins, flowers, and picture collages for each of them. I was really stressed about trying to get everything done that night. I had the idea for the collages, but nothing was really working, and I couldn’t find any good pictures, so I abandoned it and went to bed. I was nearly out of time when Friday morning rolled around, but the idea just kept coming to me, so I sat down and threw together some collages really quickly and framed them. I barely got it done in time, but it was exactly what was needed to tie everything together. They were both very grateful and said that no one had ever done anything like that when they had left previous jobs. I wanted them to feel loved and important, and I think they did. 

The other days of the week were filled with basketball. Andrew’s game on Tuesday was a blowout. They played the best team in the league and lost by quite a lot. It was expected, but still not fun for them. Hyrum played on Saturday. His team had lost the previous two games, so they were anxious to get a win. They played much better this week. Although Hyrum didn’t score, he had several good shots and really hustled to get rebounds and made some good drives. The game came down to the last few seconds, and Hyrum’s team did just enough to win. They were pretty excited. Saturday night was the BYU vs Cincinnati basketball game. The boys all went and took Cole Vigue with them. BYU played a great game, and they won by a lot. They had fun at the game.

Today was our Chinese New Year’s dinner with the Hills. It is the year of the snake, so Grandma had snake decorations all over the tables. She even had a sour gummy snake on the rim of everyone’s glass. She is so good to make things fun. Dinner was yummy as usual. We had all the traditional favorites and sat on the floor around the big table. Sitting awkwardly is not always fun, but I guess it adds to the ambiance and festivities. We finished eating and had to run quickly afterward because Andrew had a Seminary fireside at 7pm.

The fireside was with Chase Roberts, the awesome BYU wide receiver who will likely go to the NFL if he can stay healthy. Andrew was super excited. He told us he gave a really nice talk about the youth theme for this year “Look unto Christ, doubt not, fear not. After the fireside, Chase took pictures with a bunch of the youth, and Andrew got one. He was pretty happy about that. While Andrew was at the fireside, we did a family Zoom call with Grandpa and Grandma Christensen. They only have 33 days left until they come home! They are working hard and doing everything they can with family history work in their last month. I miss them, but I am so grateful for the amazing example they have set for all of us.