Men at Home

"Are you home?", JL Greenwood asked when he called us last Sunday.  JL, a good friend from our Fremont days, happened to be here in Idaho and came to visit us.  His wife, Janice, recently died and he is redefining his life without her.  How hard it must be to lose an eternal partner.  JL is a dear man and one we love having in our lives.  Our Sunday visit was sweet.  Here's JL with Layne.

Isaiah is into his third week with us.  He carefully paces himself to balance out his days between school work and yard work.  Oh yes, and naps.  I find him to be hard working, organized, helpful and generally fun to have around.  On Monday his older brother, Chase, came to visit for 5 days.  He and Chase did just about everything together during his visit.  They studied, worked out, gamed, worked and talked the days away.  Together.  Brothers in spirit and in fact.  Chase is into family, so we spent some sweet time with him as well.  We were sad to see him go on Saturday.

Here's Chase doing school work, or so he claims.  Perhaps there is a game or two sandwiched in between!

Brothers Isaiah and Chase.

Friday night my nephew, Brent Berrett, stopped by on his way to Oregon.  We talked until midnight. Having him to myself Friday night reminds me of how lovely it is to have one-on-one time, without interruptions.  Much good conversation resulted.  Brent is at least 20 pounds skinnier and he looks quite handsome.  Love that man.  He left Saturday morning.

Here's a skinnier Brent with me on Saturday morning.  Notice the abundance of beards with these men?  It seems to be the thing to do for lots of men these days.

So our week has been full of men.  I liked it!

We are about to get into our new Church assignment as Addiction Coordinators for the Church program here.  My limited exposure to what we are supposed to do has me less than excited.  I have an absolute passion, after working with pornography addiction, to concentrate on preventative measures ahead of treatment but our calling is strictly recovery.  Bummer.  There appears to be no organized approach to preventing addiction, which almost always begins in childhood.  I want so much to do something about that!  Perhaps a window of opportunity will open.  Perhaps it is not as grim as it now appears.  Meetings and assignments are cropping up.  I guess our Church calling vacation is about over.  The good news is that we are doing something that we haven't done before, and that is stimulating and challenging.  I'm happy to be an older woman with a Church purpose that is not a retread of something I have done so often before.  This is new ground.

So our "man week" is past and a new week



awaits.

Isaiah

I opened my phone a couple of days ago and found this happy image on the screen.  Isaiah's selfie is worth keeping, don't you think?  It makes me smile.  He is here with us for the month, working in our yard for mission money.  He graduates from high school this year and plans to go soon after that.  He is so easy to have around; he is pleasant, picks up after himself and is a self-starter.  I could keep him forever!  But he probably wouldn't go for that.

Layne and I are singing and singing some more these days.  My community group is practicing a fun collection of songs, which includes a duet by Layne and me.  We'll do, "Singing in the Rain" and add some moves to make it fun.  At least I hope it'll be fun.  I'm assigned by our leader to do the group's blog and to do the choreography so It is quite demanding at the moment.  I am sort of a "jack of all trades" so I'm not too confident about my abilities, especially in the music department.  Layne and I are singing with several others at Church today.  That scares me much more than the community singing.  I'll be glad when today is over.

I recently listened to one of President Benson's talks about the troubles that are coming in the future.  He makes it sound pretty alarming and scary.  I'm trying to balance that out with President Hinckley's frequent comments about the wonders of the future and the optimism we should have.  Hum.  I wonder if both can co-exist.  Perhaps we are in the best and worst of times, depending upon our place and personal condition in the world.

Our addiction calling is ramping up.  We continue to give talks about it and the meetings involved with our new assignment are picking up.  So I guess we need to gear up.  Layne is tired of addiction, but the Lord must want us here so we will give it our best shot.

Spring is in the air.  I worked with Isaiah in the yard on Saturday and it was pleasant and fun.  Nature is nurturing; I suppose I should spend more time in it.