Our Missionaries

Missionary work.  I agree it is important to share the gospel with as many as will listen.  It is such a blessing and has changed the direction of my life, to my eternal good.  But I don't feel I'm very good at being a missionary myself.  We are on a mission now, but working with mostly members of the Church.  I've never quite gotten over my fear of sharing with non-members.  I sometimes worry that I will be held accountable for my cowardice.  But I celebrate that two of my grandchildren have joined the growing number of young missionaries taking the gospel all over the world.

Reed and Dorothy's Scott got his knee surgery finally done yesterday and it was successful.  His Utah doctor says he can re-enter the Missionary Training Center on Monday.  Hooray for that!  Audrey and Cliff's Allegra entered the MTC on Wednesday.  I wonder if they will meet up there.  So we have two active missionaries in the family now.  I can't help celebrating the sweet people that our family has produced so far.

Elder Scott Galbraith, soon to enter the MTC again and prepare
 for a mission in Thailand, hopefully with a healed knee.

Sister Allegra Adams-Hart, off to Wisconsin in a couple
of weeks as a missionary for the Church.

We've been home for almost a week now.  Home is always a sweet place to be.  Our Idaho weather has taken a turn towards almost warm with temperatures in the 40s now.  It's been warm enough to finally melt the snow and open up an opportunity to look for grandson Miles' lost Christmas helicopter.  The one we prayed to find.  Layne and I spent an hour to two looking but, again, we failed.  I guess it is lost forever.  Bummer.

We had a delightful time meeting with our Fremont gang for dinner last night.  It was at our house this time.  Layne found a new recipe he wanted me to prepare.  He was so sure it would be delicious that I overcame my reluctance to fix something untried for company.  It was a pork dish.  Sure enough, it was delicious.  Layne wanted to show them, once again, his current favorite movie, The Impossible.  We've seen it 6 times already.  But we watched it once again.  Our friends loved it, and it seemed to leave a lingering sweet feeling.  I say that because they all stayed until after midnight!  Unheard of for older folks like us.  But it was so great to be able to talk deeply and at length with these gal friends.  It turned out to be an unusually lovely evening.

After days of foggy inversion here, it is sunny today.  The sunlight streams through my kitchen windows as I write and it feels so cheerful.  Winter darkness doesn't bother me; I just keep my tree lights on and candles lit.  The fireplace warms our living room, my favorite winter place for reading.  I like winter.  But the sunlight is magical.

Seventy Two

January brings lots of family birthdays.  I am among them.  Once again I miss family but all my kids called me for my birthday and gave me some sweet conversations.  Except Ben.  He forgot me this year.  But I can see why; his Jessica also has a birthday this month and he put lots of thought into it.  Once he remembered, he called and apologized and was very sweet about it.  So I forgave him.

Layne bought me a ring I could not resist last November and called it my birthday present.  I was thrilled, especially when he told me he didn't mind if I wore it right away.  It's a lovely garnet and opal ring.  It ties his October and my January birthdays together, you see.  So he gave me flowers on my actual birthday.  And my friend Carol Wintersteen baked me carrot cookies.  I also received more than my share of goodies this year.  And, perhaps most special of all, Bob and Maryanne drove over from Salt Lake to spend the weekend last week with us.  It was wonderful to be able to spend a bit of time with them. So I felt celebrated.

Bob and Maryanne, shown below.

Maryanne and me.

Today was Allegra's missionary farewell.  Not wanting to miss it, we made yet another trip to California, arriving last Thursday.  Cliff made my favorite dinner, roasted chicken and mushrooms.  We spent Friday and Saturday babysitting Ben and Jessica's kids while they celebrated her birthday in Sonoma.  We had fun with those babes!  It is a wild ride for sure but the children are so loving and are willing to adjust to my way of doing things...at least temporarily while we are there.  Layne does the running around while I tend the home fires.  It works out well and I feel like we made a sweet connection with each of the kids.

Ben and Jessica's youngest, Victoria (Tia), wiping off the counter (and not crawling on it.)

Our BJ kids are "techie" to the max.  Here is Alexis playing with her ipod.  The kids spent most of their free time on the plentiful collection of tech gadgets that Ben loves to provide.

 Rayne had us girls (me, Allegra, Audrey and Dorothy) over for dinner on Saturday night at her new apartment.  It was great fun.  Today was the farewell, and Allegra did an amazing job speaking about the value of happiness.  She has a flair for speaking, I think.  We left for the airport and home right after her talk and missed the family bash this afternoon.  But we are home in time to attend our pornography addiction meeting tonight.

Sister Allegra Adams-Hart leaves for the MTC later this week.  Then on to Wisconsin.

Traveling always seems like such a pain at the front side, but feels so good at the back side.  I'm happy to be home, but loved our time with California family.

Alive in 2015

Audrey, Cliff and family were here until after New Years.  Granddaughters Rayne and Allegra spent New Year's Eve with us while the rest went to Rexburg to spend some more time with grandson Chase and his wife Morgan.  We three girls were the only ones who welcomed in the New Year.  Layne went to bed.  We watched girl movies until midnight.  We wished each other a Happy, then went to bed too.  It was low key but nice.  And so here it is 2015.  I remember thinking, long ago in the last century, that the change of century was too far away to think about.  And here we are, 15 years into it.  And I am still here!

Allegra opened her missionary letter:  she is going to Wisconsin the end of this month!

Rayne, Allegra and I spent a day shopping for a missionary wardrobe for Allegra.  Rayne served as her personal shopper.  She is up on the latest look, thanks to her job at Norstrom's.  In short order she picked out 8 skirts and then 8 tops and they are interchangeable.  I was in awe.  Allegra was thrilled and looked cuter than I've ever seen her in her new duds.  You have to understand that, while Rayne is very into looking good (and she does!), Allegra is very not into how she looks.  Not that she isn't pretty, she just doesn't seem to care.  With a little attention and interest she could be quite the knockout.  Perhaps that will come to her yet.

Here are three generations of family men:  Isaiah, Layne, Cliff and Chase.

We've also got three generations of women:  me, Morgan (wife of Chase), Rayne, Audrey, and Allegra.

Morgan and Chase, looking a bit goofy.

Audrey, Cliff and Isaiah returned to our house and took everyone home with them except Allegra, who stayed with us for a few more days to work for us and earn a little missionary money.  She was very willing to take on whatever task I gave her and spent quite  bit of time trying to organize my family history.  She is quite good at that.  We spent our evenings on Poirot marathons.  It was such fun.

Allegra in front of the Boise Temple, where she got her endowments.  We made two visits here and another in the Oakland Temple.

Last Thursday it all ended in a flight back to California, where we stayed with Audrey and Cliff in order to see our grandson Zachary baptized.   I was blessed to again be able to speak at a grandchild's baptism.  I'm grateful for the chances I've been given to do that.  Layne said it was the best I have done so far.  I was so happy to hear him say that since I've been feeling out of touch with the Spirit lately.  I'm still a little mad at the Lord for not answering our prayers to find Miles' helicopter.  But I'm calming down.  A little.  He helped me with the baptismal talk so I guess I should be content to let Him do things His way instead of mine.

Zachary (Ben and Jessica's son), who was baptized Saturday, January 10th.

I may have forgotten to mention that our grandson Scott, who has been in the MTC preparing to go to Thailand, re-injured his knee playing basketball and has to have corrective surgery.  So he is now back home to get that done.  Once the surgery is complete, he will return to the MTC and, hopefully, Thailand.  He was so happy there and well prepared for his mission.  It is disappointing to have this glitch but his spirits are good and he feels that the Lord is blessing him and things will work out OK.  I think so too.  He is such a fine boy; I can't help feeling that there is a blessing in this.  We had a great visit with him on Friday, when we all went to the temple together.

We flew home Saturday evening.  On a confirmed flight.  It is such a joy to wait for a flight that we are sure to make instead of waiting as a standby.  And so, in one magical Saturday, we drove to Palo Alto and attended a baptism, watched grandson Will play basketball, enjoyed a family lunch, a flight back to Boise and a relaxing bond over the dining room table with chocolate milk and cookies.  What an amazing time to be alive.