food, crochet, merriment
“The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment.
The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature.”~Ezra Taft Benson
Do you see this adorable boy holding this ominous eagle? DO you?! Well, guess what? This cute thing is coming home pretty darn soon. The boy, that is…not the eagle. Which makes me very happy indeed. Because he has–in fact–been gone an incredibly long time.
And if you happen to see me walking down the street, let me just tell you a couple of things that you DO NOT get to say to me.
# 1– “Has it been two years ALREADY? It feels like a couple of months.” No, it has actually been more like 200 years.
#2– “Well THAT went by fast, didn’t it?” Blasphemy. No, it did not.
#3– “It can’t POSSIBLY be time for him to come home yet!” OHHH, YES it can!
So, you’ve been warned.
In fact, we are in the process of scrubbing the two years worth of dust off of some very important relics that will be very happy to have him back too.
I mean, besides his mother, of course.
Oh, hurry up calendar and give me my boy!
:}
Students from the Olympus High School graduating class of 2012 opening their calls to serve as missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Young men serve for a period of 2 years and young women serve for 18 months. LDS missionaries do not choose where they will serve, the assignments are given by leaders of the LDS church.
:}
We are in the middle of gathering things for what will probably be the last package we send to that far away boy of mine. I wish I could think of more things to send him that aren’t just fun food. But when a momma worries that her son may not be getting enough protein or vitamins–I tend to fill the cart up with beef jerkey and pepperoni sticks and fruit leather and anything else that jumps in. This was only about half of what we ended up sending to him. I’m getting really good at jamming tons of stuff into a flat rate priority box, let me tell you. I’m just not always good at remembering to take a picture before I closed it. It was a work of art–trust me.
Let me ask you this…
Do you think he’ll know who it’s from? heh, heh.
~*****~
Last night, Halloween evening–while we were watching “Charlie Brown’s The Great Pumpkin,” the phone rang in the kitchen. Nate, my son-in-law answered it, then gave the phone to me saying, “It’s somebody who knows Rhen.” You know him as The Bald Kid.
I said, “Hello?” and the voice on the other end said, “Hello? Is this Launi Anderson? This is Cheryl Esplin, from the General Primary Presidency.”
Insert big, huge gasp here.
For those of you not of my faith, I’ll tell you–this is a big deal. Big, like if you were of the Catholic faith, there would be the Pope, then whoever is in charge of the ladies organization, and then whoever is in charge of the children’s organization–well, it would be one of them…calling me.
I sputtered something like, “Hello, ahhhh…” and she very kindly said, “I just returned from Siberia where I spent several days getting to know your son. I have to tell you that he is a wonderful young man and you should be very proud of him. He translated for me while I was there and he is simply amazing, I really enjoyed spending time with him.”
I said something goofy like, “Oh, Rhen–I just LOVE him.”
She said, “I think you should. In fact, he made me promise that I would call you and tell you that he loves you so much and that you have always been his inspiration.”
What a cute boy to say something like that.
I asked if he was well and safe and if he was getting enough food. She laughed and said that they feed the missionaries very well in this mission. She told me that he was so kind and helpful to her that she wanted to be sure to do what he had asked her to…and call me, to give me that very special message.
Feeling like a pretty lucky momma of an awfully sweet guy today.
Stay well and safe, my boy–and know that such a big piece of this momma’s heart is with you.
