Life Lately

 

Hallee and Trinity have been hanging out a lot lately. One day Nicole spoiled them and bought them Swig, pizza and rented a movie for them. 

Keith spoiled us all for Valentine's Day.  Wyatt got treats and me and the girls got flowers. 

Wyatt had a blast watching the boys basketball team in the state playoffs. He took the train up to Ogden the first day with McKay and Chris and watched the game. This picture was in the Deseret News, you can see Wyatt in the back right corner. It was a really exciting game and Provo game from behind to win it. They stayed for the girls game later that night and I had to pick them up from the train station at midnight. We were all a little tired after that! On Friday and Saturday they had a Spirit Bus and he rode on that.  They won both games and took home the state championship. They had an impromptu party at the school to celebrate.  Wyatt had so much fun. 

Hallee moved on to the District Stem Fair.

They won medals and are moving onto state. 

It was a long day for Hallee, but hanging out with Trinity makes it fun. 

Caitlyn and I went to Provo City Center Temple. It was great to go back with her. The Orem temple was closed for cleaning so the City Center Temple was packed.  I've never been at the temple when it was so crowded. It was the 2 o'clock session on a Wednesday so I was not expecting it to be so crowded. 

Hallee had another performance. 

She sang in restaurant. She sang "Shallow."

She did great.  She sounded amazing and she is such a great performer. 

After Hallee's performance I headed to the Provo airport to go to Mesa. Matt and Lori bought a condo in Rocky Point and they had two weeks left on their rental so we knew it would be the perfect time to get dad out there. He has not wanted to travel because of his health problems, but felt ready to give it a try. We were very sad that Gary couldn't come, but the timing with the condos and tax season just didn't work out. While we were waiting in the airport dad pulled out this picture and said, "I don't go anywhere without this."  It was so sweet. 

The flight was smooth and we were greeted in Mesa with a beautiful sunset. We went to Freddy's that night for dinner with Matt, Lori, Cody and Elena.  We visited for a bit and then went to bed so we could get up early to leave for Rocky Point. 

Kiersten, Rebekah and Alisha threw Caitlyn and early surprise birthday party. 

Alisha reached out to me a while ago about surprising her at our house.  Doing it so early definitely surprised Caitlyn. 

They decorated the house so cute. They played games, took lots of pictures, ate food and made mocktails. 

It meant so much to Caitlyn. She had so much fun. I'm so grateful for good friends!

Wyatt had his first lacrosse game while I was gone. I was sad to miss it, but I was able to watch most of it online. Keith is working a crummy schedule right now. He works noon to 10 PM Wednesday-Saturday. Hopefully he won't  have to work this schedule for long.  He took Wednesday off that week so he could go to Wyatt's game.  Wyatt played great!

I got home on Thursday and Wyatt had his second game on Friday. He is playing right attack.  He played great again.  He has been working so hard and practicing so much and it shows. We had a few days of freezing cold. It was quite the contrast to come from the beach in Mexico to freezing at his game Friday night.  I don't know if I have ever been that cold!

On Saturday Hallee had a choir festival. It was at the same time as Wyatt's lacrosse game. Luckily they were both at Timpview so I brought Wyatt early for his game and I went and listened to Hallee's rehearsal. They ran through all of their songs so I got to hear all of them.  They sang with Provo High's choir and the band and orchestra played with them. I was very impressed, it sounded professional. 

I got a quick picture of Hallee and Trinity before they ran to change into their concert clothes. 

After I listened to Hallee I went outside to watch Wyatt.  Wyatt has recruited a lot of his friends to play lacrosse.  Here he is with Bennett, McKay, Eddie and Charlie. Wyatt talked them all into playing and they are having a great time. The lacrosse program is growing at Provo High and they had enough for a JV team this year. 

Wyatt was happy he was able to get number 19, Jonah's number. 

The coaches chose Wyatt to be the JV captain.  He was excited about that!  He has been working so hard for months and it's nice that the coaches recognized that. 

On Saturday they beat Timpview 2-1. Wyatt had an awesome assist. He was behind the net and saw an open guy in front of the net and did a really good, quick pass and his team mate scored. 

Wyatt was running down the field with the ball and he fell and quickly hopped up and kept running.  

I couldn't believe he held onto the ball during the fall. The defender was pretty surprised that he still had the ball too, he was looking for the ball on the ground so Wyatt was able to make a getaway. 

A few hours later they had a game against Clearfield and they beat them 3-2. 

Wyatt loved having a day full of lacrosse and I loved watching him!

I gave him a haircut when we got home from his game and he was really happy with it so I have to document it so I can try and duplicate it next time.  He was exhausted after his two games, but he ended up going to the BYU basketball game with a friend that night. I don't know how he keeps going with such little sleep and hours and hours of lacrosse a day. He is sure enjoying it though. 

Transfers

 Jonah went into Paris this week for transfers to pick up his new companion. They were there for a few days so they had some time to sight see.

His new companion is Elder Drake, he is from Idaho Falls.  Jonah said they are hitting it off well. 

Jonah had to get a physical for his Visa so they stayed an extra day to get that taken care of.  Elder Pelaez was also in Paris for an extra day so the three of them went sight seeing together. 

They wen to the Arc De Trimophe. The Arc De Triomphe was commissioned by Napoleon in 1806 to honor French military victories, it is an iconic symbol of French nationalism featuring engraved names of generals and battles, with the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier beneath its vault. This is a picture Jonah took inside of it. 

This is the view from the top of the Arc De Triomphe. 

The Cathedral of Notre Dame looks pretty cool at night. 

This is Lafayette, a fancy mall in Paris.

Jonah said it has all the very fancy brands, like Armani and Prada. 

You can go on the roof of the mall and see a great view. 

Here is Jonah on the roof of Lafayette. 

He ended up being stuck in Paris for an extra day because the train tracks flooded. 

Jonah was excited to see Elder Pelaez at transfers.  They had fun sightseeing in Paris. 

This is the view at the top of  Arc De Triomphe.

Elder Loosli and Elder Pelaez at the Louvre.

This is Dodd Osmond, he lives in Saint Nazair. There isn't a church in Saint Nazair so the members have to drive an hour to come to church in Nantes. The four missionaries went to visit Dodd and help him do service.  They told Dodd he was just like them with his missionary work so he wore Jonah's tag for a minute. Dodd has a car so he drives everyone to church, Jonah said he is a great guy. 

They visited a member and she made them dinner and sent them home with a lot of left overs. 

They met with Francois and gave her a spiritual thought.

The first sleeping picture of the new companion. 

They took some pictures at church. The lady on the right is the one they did service for the day before and Jonah gave her a blessing.  Jonah said he has been asked to give a lot of blessings on his mission. He said one Sunday he gave five!

Elder Anderson, Elder Housley, Elder Loosli, Elder Drake. These are the four elders in the apartment this transfer.  Jonah said he really likes all of them.

Jonah loaded a video of him singing in the train station.  Elder Erikson played a Adele song and Jonah sang, it was pretty funny.  I love seeing videos like this, I know the mission can be so hard and Jonah is so good at making things fun and finding ways to laugh. He actually has a really good voice. 

Jonah loves Elder Housley. I'm glad they get another transfer together. 

Jonah told us about an experience he had a few days before transfers.  There was a family that had just moved from Tahiti and the father got in an accident on his moped, he ran into a pole going pretty fast so it was bad.  They are new converts to the church and the wife wanted the missionaries to come to the hospital to give her husband a blessing. He was in critical condition in ICU so the doctors didn't want to let the missionaries in, but they she kept persisting and they finally let them in. Jonah said it was pretty intense being in there because he was in such bad shape. His name is Joe Michel Mote Etillage. Jonah anointed him, he said Tahitian names are really long and it's hard to remember them all for the blessing. Anyway, they gave him a blessing and his wife was very grateful.  Jonah said his wife had incredible faith and believed that their blessing could heal him and even though he was in really bad shape she said she knew he was going to be okay because she had just received her patriarchal blessing and was told that they would be sealed in the temple. Jonah saw her at church the next week and she said he was doing better and she knew it was because of their blessing. We have added Joe to our prayers and it helps me feel closer to Jonah to pray for the people he cares about. 

Elder Causse came to visit the France Paris mission. The church news filmed it and he posted a video on his social media. 

It was so fun to see Jonah on that video. The missionaries were singing when he and his wife walked in. It was really cool.

Here is the whole France Paris Mission with Elder and Sister Causse.  In the video Elder Causse talked about how meaningful it was for him to visit this mission where years ago missionaries found his parents and taught them the gospel. He talked about how grateful he is to those missionaries who are sacrificing their lives to share the gospel in France. Jonah said it was amazing to listen to him speak. 

After their meeting with Elder Causse Jonah and Elder Drake missed their train because Jonah was accidently scanning his ticket from the week before and couldn't understand why it wasn't working. 

When they finally figured it out, they had missed their train so they had to wait for the next one. 

They went over to the Eiffel Tower while they waited for their train. 

Last week Cody was staying with us when Jonah called so they were able to talk for a bit.  It was fun to just listen to them talk.  Cody asked Jonah a lot of questions about the mission and I think it was nice for Jonah that he could relate to him and understand what he is going through.