Letters from Home – Page 141 – A blog by Angela Ross

Easter Weekend

My new neighbor heard that we were musical so she gave us her tickets to Handel’s Messiah since she couldn’t go. This was a powerful experience. The music felt like heaven reaching out to me.

At the family Easter gathering on Saturday, my dad took the children on an Easter walk around the property. He set up simple objects and food for the children to handle and eat as he talked about the last week of the Savior’s life. He selected scriptures to be read at each stop. The small children were reverent and aware. I followed along and was touched by my dad’s testimony of Christ and his efforts to share it with his grandchildren. He has no pattern to follow in these acts from his own family experience, so one of my Easter lessons this year was how the gospel of Jesus Christ enhances the family dynamic and blesses generations.

Paige came home for a day. It was our eighth year attending the General Women’s meeting of the Church together and we took the traditional picture. We were called to action by our leaders, and that is a good thing.

Easter is changing for our family. Instead of the highlight being eggs and the traditional Easter scriptures in eggs, it was the Sunday meal. I don’t usually cook much on Sunday, but I prepared an Easter feast and enjoyed how the family lingered at the table for a change. Daniel filled the house with Easter music all day; Paige filled the house with art, photographing her work for her portfolio. Mark helped fill eggs with candy for his siblings. It was a good day.

Truths about the Savior I experienced this Easter week include feelings of gratitude for his grace lifting me and accepting me when I knew I could have done better. As I listened to Messiah music, I followed the Libretto, or text. The words were familiar even if the full musical score wasn’t. I realized how many of these scriptures about Christ are fundamental to me, their words framing my testimony. They are the lens by which I view many things, and a beloved guide for how to respond to challenges and try to help others. I feel my flaws in high relief, but Easter weekend reminded me that I can’t and will not fix them alone. Our precious Savior is the solution to everything.

Group project

Continue reading Group project

When the boys are away

When the boys and Richard go skiing, I take the day to buy groceries, clean, and watch BBC dramas. Last weekend I sewed a doll face and hair. The weekend before that I went to IFA to see the chicks and bunnies.

Mark was with me on the IFA trip and we giggled together as we followed the cheep-cheep-cheeping sounds to find the chicks.

This weekend the boys will ski again. I have plans to decorate fancy sugar cookies and watch the annual Easter egg hunt in my parents’ garden at Spring Lake.

Temple Celebration

My parents have served for many months on the Provo City Center Temple open house committee. They are so excited about the new temple near their home. My dad worked on the missionary committee and he and my mom helped direct visitors that walked through the temple. Did you hear that over 800,000 people toured this temple? There were many nights spent at planning meetings to make this run smoothly.

They took Paige and Daniel to the cultural celebration in the Marriott Center on the night before the dedication. Paige walked a few steps from her dorm and met them there.

My mom is an ordinance worker and organist for the new temple. She played for patrons for the first time yesterday. This is such an exciting time.

Skiers

Richard uses an app to keep track of his speed, distances, and trails up and down the mountain. I look at the stats through my eyelashes and try not to think too hard about it.

Richard and the boys have been skiing many times this season. These are some photos they took with our neighbor Shane on a couple of days at Solitude. I need some photos of Mark because he goes skiing just as often as the rest of the boys.

Magnifying time

This is sand, magnified something like 300 times. Days and minutes can seem pretty uniform if we aren’t trying to magnify them. These past few years I have been working on how I use the minutes in my days. I don’t have the luxury of hours to spend on projects, but I have minutes and half hour segments here and there all day long. The big events of the day, such as teaching school, cooking, cleaning, and errands can make me feel too busy to try other things. But I think successful people are those who maximize the minutes between the big events. And by this I don’t mean that I try to pile on more activities. Sometimes the best use of my time is to take a quick nap. Sometimes I sit down and look out the window or make a phone call that I know will be short. I can sew a few seams for a quilt or read a few pages of my book about the New Testament. The goal is to never waste my time. I am enjoying how many different things I can do in a day. The minutes add up over time, and I find that I am making quilts, increasing my knowledge, keeping a family history, making music, reaching out to friends, and enjoying walks outside. Probably the best magnification of time is in my relationships. I can talk to the kids as I drive them. I can choose to put down a book and be available to talk. If I could choose whether I am successful in my relationships or in my hobbies, I would say relationships. Now, do my choices reflect that?

Sister Carole Stephens said, “Your choices reflect your priorities.” How true. And I have more work to do on that.

The Thank You Book

When we receive thank you notes and birthday cards I place them in a photo album. When I am having a bad day or wonder what I am doing with my life, I read through the notes. This fat book restores my hope and reminds me to keep trying. Every kindness matters, whether it is acknowledged or not. I am thankful for every friendship these notes represent.

Timothy the Naturalist

Timothy the Naturalist 2005, 2007

Timothy’s personality and interests really emerged when he was two-years-old and we moved to Arizona. For one month we lived in corporate housing, which was a tiny apartment with a pool. Every day the kids and I would escape the narrow rooms and spend time at the pool. Daniel and Paige learned to swim there. Timothy played in the water, but didn’t spend much time there. He was more interested in the landscaping and the potted orange flowers. The older kids would stay in the pool and Timothy would get wet, climb out, and begin exploring in his orange life vest.

He fingered the leaves and petals, studying them. The pots of flowers were tall, so the blossoms were at his eye level. Little words came from his mouth as he tended one pot after another around the pool and drew his hands along the long leaves of the palm plants.

I nicknamed him, “My little naturalist.”

When he was four-years-old I took the kids on a field trip to a nature preserve in Sierra Vista where they could see desert animals. The curator/owner hosted an insect and reptile show which included a Gila monster, tarantulas, rattlesnakes, and other desert creatures. Timothy sat entranced, taking his turn with the tarantula and showing great interest in each animal. The finale of the little show was a 6-foot python, heavy and fat. The guide allowed older children to hold the python, saying that she couldn’t allow younger children to do it because it was so heavy.

Timothy knew he was smaller than the other children, but he remained hopeful that he could hold the snake. He stood behind Paige and Daniel in line. When the curator looked down into Timothy’s hopeful face which included two very blue eyes, some freckles, and round, flushed cheeks, she shrugged and smiled. She must have recognized a fellow naturalist, because she draped the python behind his neck. The snake’s tail curled beneath one of his arms and its head was poised near his shoulder. I don’t know how he could stand under the weight, but he did, cheeks sticking out with his wide smile. Later, the woman gave him a large poster of Gila Monsters and he insisted on putting it on his wall. Only a true naturalist would enjoy looking at a Gila Monster poster above his bed for 5 years.

Daniel’s Innovative Technology projects

Daniel’s friends applied for a school district innovation grant and received around $8,000 to create a class where they can meet and design. They call the class “The Maker Collective.” Obviously, they didn’t consult their mothers for the name.

They are designing with Arduinos and Raspberry Pis. No, I do not know what I am writing about.

They have designed buzzers for Jeopardy game, have an additional $10,000 grant to build a robot for a hospital, and many other projects. They have failed in some things and ruined some equipment, but Daniel is working hard at their fundraising efforts. Lately, he is writing a tutorial for people to use their fundraising product.

I don’t get to see what our kids do in school very often, so I thought I’d share. Photos are from the district Facebook page.

Three February Favorites

Richard and I tried the Vid Angel app this month to watch some movies. It’s a streaming service that will edit your movies. You buy the movie, choose the filters you want, such as profanity and vulgarity, and the edited movie streams to your device. Then you sell the movie back for $1 less than you paid for it. They have a pretty good selection of new and older movies and we love not hearing the bad language in the films. We aren’t big TV watchers, but this month we binged a little on movies on the weekends.

One of my favorites was Bridge of Spies. We heard that the Russian spy in the movie won the Oscar for best supporting actor. He really was amazing, and who doesn’t love Tom Hanks?

My friend and counselor in the Relief Society handed me this book and said I must read it. It was delightful. Not my usual genre, but very fun and it made me want to have pen pals who like to talk about books.

Bridge of Spies, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and Vid Angel are my favorites of the month.