Friday, March 12, 2010

Will and Mama Louise's trip to Utah




One week ago today Will and I visited Benjamin in Brigham City, Utah, He is within two months of being released. He told us that his being moved back to prison from Ogden last summer automatically dropped him from the program for rehabilitation training. He said he would need to reapply and that it could take six months to a year to get approved so that they would pay tutition for barber school for him. Sigh! So he now plans to come home to Bremerton with us right after Nathan’s graduation from Law School in May. Here he will settle whatever needs taking care of with possible past law infractions and apply for rehabilitation support and get on with education for a vocation as soon as possible. He praised Jernon and her family for their visits and letters and is excited that they are considering a move to Bremerton.
I visited with Jernon and David and their sons Steven and Kaden and daughter Dorian on Saturday. David has an interview next Monday in our corner of Washington in Shelton for a county administrative position. He will scout out any other job possibilities in the area also. If he gets hired they will gear up toward a move into the house just north of the one where my sister and I grew up and where Sis and Cliff now live. 628 Washington Ave. needs to be finished but major remodeling was completed a while ago. Steven is in his high school musical presentation Thursday and Friday evenings. Saturday the whole family including Grace will drive up. We are especially eager for Grace and Dorian to get to know our granddaughters Adryann and BrynneƩ.
After visiting Jernon’s I found Jan and Wayne Bales’ home which is within fifteen miles northeast of Sis and Cliff’s condominium in Salt Lake City. I do a lot of praying as I navigate by google maps or mapquest directions, which sometimes lack accuracy at least according to my interpretations. I found them and enjoyed my visit immensely. I shocked them a bit when they asked about Daddy B.J. and I said he was delivering the funeral sermon for Kristin Atkins Johnson as we spoke. I had forgotten that Kris assisted Jan and Wayne in caring for her father Tom Funk during his final months. Kris stayed with him nights so Jan and Wayne could get some rest. They loved her and had no idea she had passed away. We had known Kris and her family about a dozen years since I was assigned as her visiting teacher. We were at her youngest daughter’s baptism. Kris worked with Daddy B.J. as an office helper and he paid for her to take the test for an insurance license numerous times till she finally passed. Kris invited me to be her escort when she went to the temple for the first time. But, her mom contacted me ahead of time and surprised Kris by meeting us at the temple to escort her. Kris had type I diabetes since early childhood and had suffered greatly this past year. It truly was merciful for her to pass. Jan and Wayne told me about the passing of their daughter-in-law Joel’s wife at the end of December from cancer. Does it seem to you that as we get older we either talk more about death or at least are more aware of it?
Will's and my trip was two-fold in purpose: to celebrate Travis’s 12th birthday with him on the 4th and for Will to confer the Aaronic priesthood on him and ordain him to the office of Deacon on Sunday the 7th. Since Travis was staying home from school celebrating his birthday and Allyssa was home sick with a cold on Thursday, Mindie offered Ashton the chance to stay home too. Will took Travis away quite a while on a father-son date. During that time Ashton and Allyssa and I played four board games. Later I helped Allyssa make a batch of spritz butter cookies. Mindie bought two ice cream cakes and Will went to the China Wok restaurant and bought plenty of Chinese food for the birthday supper. Jordan is awaiting the start of a new job at a restaurant where the waiters deliver orders on roller-blades. He is working out weekdays with his mother at the gym and playing a lot of Internet computer games. Justin arrived home from school. Then Kevin joined the celebration after work. Because Tiffany’s baby is due in less than two weeks she decided her family would stay home away from Allyssa’s germs. I visited in Tiff and Chris’ home one evening and then Tiffany brought the children over to play on Saturday afternoon.
On the way down we took Ruth's four kitchen barstools and her nine volume set of The Work and the Glory series. I left them at Tim’s sister’s house. Ruth will be able to pick them up from there. We also took a baby afghan to Tiffany and dropped off one for Jorgen and Amy Goodman, who are also expecting.
Travis and Justin were given the responsibility of picking up fast offerings right after church. Their ward is so small geographically that they easily fulfilled their assignment on foot and since they started with apartments surrounding their own parking lot I was able to watch from Mindie’s doorway.
Will and I visited with the family the rest of the day Sunday and then headed home to Bremerton on Monday morning. We were privileged to stay in Sis and Cliff’s condo so I washed up our sheets and remade the beds and vacuumed and swept – not that that was needed – while Will dropped off copies of the book he recently put together to two publishers. We listened to Orson Scott Card’s “Ender’s Shadow” driving down and his “Empire” on the return trip. Will agreed that the books passed time well and he enjoyed the stories too.
The most interesting thing to happen since our return is that Dr. David Gent removed a piece of mechanical pencil lead about 8 mm long from the bottom of Daddy B.J.’s foot. None of us can imagine how that happened!

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