Author: Angela

I write so my family will always have letters from home.

One Step Enough For Me

Recently, a friend shared some of her gospel questions with me. I think people with questions are using their minds. I think people with questions should ask them and seek for answers, even if it takes their whole lives. I am not somebody who has a lot of big questions. This is just not how I face the world. I invest time in my testimony every day in the scriptures and prayer.  But my questions as I study the scriptures and pray are usually very small. “What does this sentence mean for me?” or, “How shall I structure my time today?”  and, “Will you be there with me?” And since I get ample direction from asking these simple questions, this has helped me trust to God the big questions. My spiritual gift isn’t grand knowledge and answers to troubling questions. It’s simple faith that God speaks to me and directs me in small things, and cumulative small things add up over time to sweeping faith and trust in God.

One step enough for me.

Scoutmaster’s Wife

Richard and Mark left for Scout Camp this morning at 6 am. I got up to wish them goodbye, and now I can’t seem to make myself happy or get going. The trade-off for missing Richard is that I know Mark will be ok with his dad around. I miss Mark already. He is my companion most of the time, and he pats me on the back while I shop for groceries and he likes to fix me little things for lunch.

Some days are bad days for me, just like anyone, even if I don’t vocalize it.

It takes a lot of family and leader effort to get a scout to a beautiful Eagle Court of Honor like we had last weekend.

Eagle Court of Honor

On Sunday evening at the Spencer cabin, we held Daniel’s Eagle Court of Honor during our family reunion. Thanks to Richard J. and Sarah, we have some great photos from the evening. We were surrounded by family, friends, and special guests, but we were also in a sacred setting. The cabin and mountains, with more than 100 years of family memories, added to the feelings of the evening. Daniel earned his Eagle a long time ago, but the court of honor felt intimidating to do, so we delayed. I’m so glad we decided to do it in this setting before he leaves on his mission.

No

I read a book recently about the power of Christian hospitality. Our homes, our time, and our stuff, is not our own, the author asserts. And we need to get over the idea that our homes need to be perfect to invite people into our lives. We need to move from entertaining to being hospitable. This is how we show a life of faith to others and have the greatest influence. Some of these thoughts will frame the way I will be more free with my time, my home, and my self, but I have only felt terrible this week when I have held myself to a standard I can’t live right now. I am better than I used to be about sensitivity to people and requests, and I have a greater tolerance for social demands now than even a year ago. However, in this coming month of a high adventure trip and scout camp back-to-back (alone); and during this month of final missionary preparations and errands (stretched); and during the last collection of minutes with our son Daniel living with us (sacred), people may be disappointed in my inability to do it all. I have said no, and I will continue to say no occasionally.

Paige in New York

This is Paige’s story to tell, not mine, but here are a few photos of her in New York. She is doing an internship with children’s book author, Brett Helquist, who illustrated the Lemony Snickett books, The Series of Unfortunate Events. She is living in Manhattan with two other BYU artists doing internships.

Shasta Lake

When we drove into this resort by the lake, we knew we had found a popular destination. This campground was packed with RVs, close together, but each site still managed to have trees. Families and friends took adjacent sites and gathered for dinner. There were basketball and volleyball games each night, and lots of laughter and play, late into the night. Children on bikes yelled, “Safety patrol!” as they policed the curvy dirt roads, reminding campers to follow the rules. Each building, from the laundry and bathrooms to the small ice cream and novelties shop, wore scraps of their original coats of paint, probably applied during the 1960’s. This felt like history, and with all of the gatherings around us, I think generations of families have been coming here for years. An especially large gathering was beside our campsite, and I noticed they prayed before eating dinner. This made me feel so at home.

The boys and Richard will probably say that this was their favorite part of the trip. We rented a boat, skis, and a tube and spent a lot of time on the lake. The weather was perfect. We were warm for the first time on the trip. We stopped for ice cream and shakes on the last night and shared ping pong paddles and a ball with a gang of little boys.

When we planned this trip, we wanted the lake experience to be like my memories of Clear Lake. While we didn’t stay at Clear Lake and rent an old cabin, this really did provide a similar feeling. I made sure to buy comic books ahead of time for the kids to read.

Best memories: Mark on the tube, Daniel and Timothy getting up on skis, Richard skiing, all the boys on the tube together, ice cream at the shop, tubing hair

Menu: roasted hot dogs, pigs in a blanket, deli sandwiches, grapes, oranges, pasta salad, baked beans, pop tarts instead when the free pancakes were actually not free.

Things we are so glad we brought: a toaster oven for cookies, biscuits, toast, and pigs in a blanket; plastic drawers for toiletries, sunblock, first aid, etc.; drying racks for towels; audio books; our own life jackets; extra blankets; twine; DUCT TAPE

 

Humboldt Redwoods

We took so many pictures in the redwoods, but with each capture, we grew to understand that the secrets of the forest cannot be taken. The photos are hardly representative of what we saw. I think the redwoods evoke a feeling apart from any other, so the day we took a walk through the trees was a true highlight of our trip.

Nice things: few tourists and nice families, Avenue of the Giants road, playing in the river

Surprise: Someone placed small toy figures in crevices of the bark of trees on the hike and Mark found five of them. This is something we want to do for others on a future nature hike.

RV Park: this was our nicest campground, but we kind of panicked when the bathrooms were closed for a long, long, long time. They had a nice gift shop and delivered ice to our site. There was a pond and living turtle and fish inside the gift shop. We were the only pop-up trailer in a park full of big RVs. There were many toy breed dogs traveling in RVs.

Menu: stew and biscuits, fresh chocolate chip cookies, lots of oranges, PBJ sandwiches, a restaurant called Peppers