We continue to live a slower lifestyle in our "Coronavirus world". With the rest of the world we have continued to emerge from isolation with necessary precautions. Part of us is enjoying the slowed down pace of life which has given us additional time for study of the gospel and focus on family and personal history efforts. However, our cautioned emergence has given us the opportunity to enjoy a few very meaningful moments with loved ones.
The highlight of the past two months was probably the privilege we had to enter into the Jordan River Temple for the sealing of our daughter KariLyn to her husband Michael on June 20, 2020. The situation was so different than originally planned, but it felt so good to be back in the House of the Lord. It made it even more special to know that we had the temple all to ourselves for that sacred moment.
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| Coming out of the temple after the temple sealing to a limited group of participants. |
The stay at home process that we were experiencing had some benefits. We went over a month without filling up our car with gas. During this time, we made many visits to the grocery store for supplies. Our earned gasoline discounts accumulated to $1.00 per gallon. With low gas prices and that extra discount, we were a able to fill up our car with gasoline for only $9.01. I hadn't seen those prices in almost 50 years!
Early in the month of May, some of the government guidelines on the Coronavirus pandemic began to be lightened. This gave us the courage to begin seeing some of our family members in person. The first of these experiences was Mothers Day. Although we enjoyed Zoom visits from many of our children, we were surprised to receive a social distance visit from Beckie and her family that morning. "Oma" was able to enjoy this from our doorway with our family, socially distanced more than 6 feet away.
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| Socially distant Mothers Day celebration |
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| Closer up photo of Beckie and her family |
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| Flowers in the lawn |
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| Oma, All Flowers remind us of you!! |
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| Debbie enjoying her Mothers Day presents in our living room |
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| My mother receiving a blue tooth speaker for her television so that she can hear the content better |
With courage we started celebrating May 20th birthdays for Aria (7 years old) and Katelyn (18 years old). While visiting we found out that Giovanna had her first baby, Sophia, on that same day. Clearly this is our most celebrated birthday of all the year. We also celebrated Paisley's 3rd birthday in the same visit with Aria since it would be coming up the following week.
Sister Birthdays for Aria and Paisley:
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| Celebrating on Aria's birthday, a week before Paisley's birthday, Ages 7 and 3 |
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| Aria turning 7 |
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| Paisley enjoying her birthday books |
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| Bringing presents to Katelyn on her birthday |
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| Katelyn with her birthday and graduation presents |
We watched Katelyn's graduation from Granger High School on-line the next night.
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| Our first grandchild high school graduation for us to attend |
The next day was the anniversary of the death of Debbie's mother and father. They died exactly five years apart. We thought it appropriate to visit their graves and the graves of our other relatives at the same time to avoid Memorial Day crowds. It went really well until we couldn't find my grandmother's grave. After quite a bit of searching, we finally found it.
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| Debbie and my mom at Debbie's parents graves |
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| Mymother near the grave of my father and his parents, grandparents and siblings |
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| Finally found the grave of my maternal grandmother |
Now, learning to get out of the house, we visited Jared's family during that weekend, went to dinner at Olive Garden, and enjoyed three more grandchildren birthdays in the next week and a half..
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| Visiting grandchildren in Hyrum |
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| Dinner at Olive Garden with full social distancing |
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| Jacob, turning 9, enjoying his favorite series of books |
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| Abbie turning 10, enjoying cooking books |
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Serenity turning 5
By now we were pretty comfortable getting out, at least for family. Then the protests and riots began and we weren't sure we wanted to be out. That same night we were able to see a nice firework display from our front porch, in honor of essential medical workers. That was a nice upbeat ending to a day full of violent protests in Salt Lake City.
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| Photo of fireworks from our front porch |
During the pandemic, Debbie started getting promptings to send letters to different individuals, friends, neighbors, or family members. One day she felt prompted to send an individual letter to each of her 46 grandchildren. She decided to talk about the importance of their name, described the origins of their name and reminded them that Heavenly Father knew their name. The photo below shows one of the piles of envelopes that she sent with these individualized letters.
During this restriction time, we have not been able to visit our daughter, Camila, in the care center where she resides. We were able to have a Zoom meeting with her, but she was mostly unresponsive to us. Then on Friday, June 5, we received an email from the care center, telling us that she had declined quite significantly in her health and was not eating or drinking much. With this information and feeling that her days were numbered, we were able to make special arrangements to visit her the following day. They would have her in a separate room close to the east entrance and we would come through there to visit her, without impacting the rest of the care center. We made that known to her children and siblings. On that Saturday we were overwhelmed by the number of people that arrived to see her one more time, a total of 28 individiuals. It was a wonderful outpouring of love, although much more than we or the administrators at the care center were expecting. All visitors were checked for temperatures and masks and they accommodated our numbers within that room.
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| A photo of some fo the siblings and visitor to see Cmila |
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| Camila with her four children |
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| Camila with her sisters |
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| Camila with Ben, her closest brother |
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| Debbie and I with our daughter Camila |
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| We made funeral arrangements for Camila, in anticipation of her passing. We love this photo from the lobby at the mortuary. It reflects the beauty of passing from a limited mortal body to glory in the presence of the Savior. We anticipate this type of joy for Camila, when her time on this earth is over. |
Now, a few weeks later, Camila is actually doing a little better. However, we know that her days on this earth are numbered. We are grateful that we had this opportunity to be with her at this time.
More grandchildren activities and birthdays:
Even with restrictions some of our grandchildren are able to participate in sports teams. We were able to watch Naliyah and her girls football team and Ariana with her baseball team. Finally, we were able to go back up to Hyrum to celebrate Ellie's 7th birthday. We celebrated Edward's 9th birthday long distance, as he lives in Pennsylvania. We were able to celebrate Dawson's 6th birthday with his family at the zoo.
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| Naliyah, after a small hand injury in her football game. |
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| Arianna at bat |
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| Arianna hitting the ball and running to first |
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| Grandma and Ariana |
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| Our grandson, Tommy, at Ariana's game |
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| Braden, finally receiving the 1st birthday present for our great granddaughter a few months late after the visit at the care center |
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| Ellie turning 7 and receiving Amelia Bedelia books |
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| At the Zoo with Dawson and his family with social distancing and masks |
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| Grandpa and Grandma and the elephant |
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| Six feet between family mobs on the Zoo train. We got the end of the train! |
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| Dawson and his friend, Tyler, with his Birthday books |
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| Ashton, Dawson and Tyler enjoying the birthday books |
The big event of this past month was the temple sealing of Michael and KariLyn Shelton in the Jordan River Temple. They had been married in February but did not yet have clearance to be sealed in the temple. In May, their clearance finally came. Since the temples are now open only in phase 1 (Live sealing only), they were able to schedule their sealing. They were limited to 15 guests, so mostly only siblings, parents, grandparents were invited. It was different than originally planned, but it was very special in a unique way. We had the privilege to be back in the temple after more than 3 months without being able to attend. All attention was given to the bride and groom and photos were able to be taken outside of the temple for our small group. We wore masks to enter into the temple, but were allowed to take the masks off in the sealing room, since we were all in a related family. We are so happy for Kari and her husband, Michael.
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| Michael Shelton and our daughter, KariLyn |
In spite of the limited activities noted above, our daily routines are still based on being at home most of the time. We have found this time to be an amazing opportunity to really focus our study efforts on the Book of Mormon. This includes reading, studying, answering the questions in the Come Follow Me curriculum, watching many YouTube presentations and Podcasts and participating in on-line study groups. After spending hours individually, we finish each evening sharing what we have learned and studying additional resources together. Never have we learned so much! Each week is a new adventure as we understand the Book of Mormon in ways we had never imagined. We know that some day our lives will be busier again, but we are so thankful for this time to immerse ourselves in the study of the Book of Mormon.
This time has also given me the opportunity to work on my Life Story. I have now written over a hundred pages and am nearly finished covering my time in Brazil, the first 43 years of my life. As I have read and reread mission letters, journal entries and newsletters, my heart has been full of wonderful memories and significant spiritual experiences. I have looked at my life from a different perspective and seen the Lord in the details. I have also identified many mistakes that I have made, but have seen the patience of the Lord in helping me grow in spite of my errors. This experience has deepened my love for my Savior and His gospel.
My plan is to put these highlighted experiences and stories of my life in a format that will be enjoyable to read, informative in a general life sketch, but most importantly, an illustration of the Lord's hand in my life. I feel his guiding hand as I organize and write. I am confident that the finished result will be according to His will.
As we mentioned before, we ended up cancelling our Family History trip to Europe this spring. During this time, we continue to find additional family history resources. We have also contacted some of the people in Germany who have committed to send us some of the information for which we were searching. There are nominal costs, but it is much less expensive than what we would have spent on the trip. It's not the same, but it will still bless us in our research efforts until at a later date when we are able to once again visit Europe.
With savings from staying home, Debbie agreed to upgrade my 7 year old computer with a new Mac computer for Father's Day. With increased storage and functionality, our family history work can move forward even more effectively.
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| New Computer for Father's Day |
We still strive to minister to our neighbors in a different, but meaningful way. We feel blessed by the flexibility of the ministering guidelines in our Church, which allows us to focus our efforts on serving individuals within unique circumstances. My mother has also been a great example of this as noted in the following photos.
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| Taking walks with a sister that she ministers to, strengthening this important relationship to a dear sister who is becoming a special friend |
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| Visiting with a dear friend in the neighborhood in our community rock garden park |
We are grateful for all of the blessings that come from our Heavenly Father. Just last week, Debbie said that she needed to get out of the house. For our date night, we took a drive on the Alpine Loop in Utah County. It is always good to take time with nature, to remember the greatness and goodness of God. When we look at His creations, there is no doubt as to his existence! We love him!
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| On a bridge over a mountain stream |
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| With Mount Timpanogas behind us |
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