Text messages

8:21p
Good evening everyone,

I mowed the lawn tonight and then showered. WE have had 1.53 inches of rain this month. Thank you monsoons! We average 0.76 inches in August. Perhaps last months prayers and fasting did some good. Double the Saint George water for the month. Most of that came in two big storms and there was damage done. I guess the part about gentle rain wasn't said loudly enough.  : )

This next one is so funny/strange/timely/unusual. In a visit with Graylinn in June I shared the joy I have gotten from creating limericks for birthdays this year. That the creative process captures and intrigues and entertains me. She admitted loving to write even in High School. My brain was way to disorganized in HS. I was failing an English class because I never did my research paper one quarter and then I got sick and missed a bunch of school. I wrote out note cards and a rough draft but although I had said I could find enough material when my Mrs. Teacher talked with me one on one, I really couldn't.  It was on using rats in science experiments.  I guess no one cared about the rats in those days. ~'70 When I got back to school after my illness she asked if I had my research paper. I said no and she asked if I didn't have something, anything, any work at all I could turn in so I could avoid getting an "F". I said sure and brought her all my work. That was one C on my report card I was glad to see.

Grayelinn has gone through an evolution in our budding relationship this last year or two. She couldn't figure out how I could call her wonderful and say I loved her when I really didn't know her. As the year has progressed she has begun to understand it. She is my sister. She is HF's daughter. She survived our family. She survived a tortuous 1st marriage. She went and visited a son in a Wyoming Boys home, with all her children and husband in tow, to celebrate his early High School graduation and he didn't qualify to graduate. She pays her tithing. She serves her neighbors and homeless and spreads the gospel. She loves the temple and attends almost weekly. She remarried her current autistic husband, trying to forgive his sexual aberrations and expenses. She served as a student aide to Rick Palmer a decade before he became PVHS principal. She read like the wind as a teenager. She was part of the seminary council and presented sacrament meetings. She tripped off the cliff and into the deep end when our parents were excommunicated and her childhood world was destroyed just before she turned 18, as she tried to make it on her own in the ugly lonely real world.

Best of all: she loves to text and I love to vmail. And we both love to walk and hike.  I don't know how she can text and hike but that is another talent she has and I don't. So how have all my greetings of Hello Grayelinn, I love you and I think you are wonderful, and sharing of personal stories come back to haunt me? Like this. Here are  her text messages.

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I am going to record some text messages from Grayelinn

Inbox 60/63

August 3 12:22 PM

Happy Sunday !  Church was fun. We all fasted for Trike in his job hunt. Tyson bore testimony. My lesson went great about the prodigal which means wasteful son. I learned so much as I think more upon it. I never knew that prodigal meant wasteful. I always thought it meant we could are rebellious or wrong turned. The kids did play with costumes I brought and Lego pigs as props.

Inbox 53 out of the 63

August 4 4:43 PM

Hello Gern :-). Smiles at you :-). Thanks for liking our hymns. It's just fine if you don't catch all the words as they're not mine. They are hymns found in the LDS hymnal page number 127. Does the Journey Seem Long?. And page 149, As the Dews from Heaven Distilling. WE don't know how the tune goes but we like the words. Our wards never seem to sing them. So we made up our own melody. And the melody just came across just fine it sounds like. We don't have them memorized. And the words are still unfamiliar to us as I only came across 127 last Friday for the first time we had only sung it through once that day not polished, but a spur of the moment gift :-)

Inbox 51/63

August 5 7:36 PM hello Gern! I loved the story about Stream turning four and liking fruit flies all those little crawlies! Yes about our song – I love the words but my kids think the regular tunes are too slow and /or depressing. So I created snappier happier tunes. Maybe someday I will submit them and they will be alternate renditions of the same hymn like number 176 and 177. It's nice to have a choice. Sometimes you feel like singing “for Jesus died on Calvary” over and over triumphantly like a chorus. Other times more somber like a regular verse of hymn.

We got some fresh figs this week in Bountiful Baskets – four of them. It was wonderful to have the opportunity to share my children's first experience of such a unique fruit that was a staple for me growing up in Bloomington with two fig trees. I let them all try figs thinking they love pomegranates and those are kind of weird seedy St. George fruit

Not one of my 3 kids could finish the small quarter of fig that I cut for them. Tyson ran quickly away to the toilet shortly after his fig entered his mouth. And that was before I shared my story of how I had survived all summer long outside on figs and grapes and drinks from the hose so I never accidentally came across “the parents”. One time I was laying on the grass between the fig trees in what little shade I could find, resting from riding my horse and eating figs gazing up at the sky. One fig seemed a little seedier and crunchier and an almost ticklish movement kind of way. After about my third bite I looked at it… And found it crawling inside with ants. Ever since then I have to wash and quarter my figs with the knife to be certain they are filled with brown fig seeds and not little black crawling ants. I love you my brother.

Inbox 49/63 August 6 2:50 PM

I was probably age 11 but I lived in the yard as much as I could from age 5 to age 16 then I got a job.

Inbox 48/63

August 6 7:59 PM

Hello wonderful brother Gern, :-) I really liked the book you made for Stream. You are a wonderful grandparent. I envision a good grandparent as one who goes to that grandchild's house in their comfortable environment on special days. Rather than waiting and expecting the parents to bring the grandchild to your house and convenience. Good job taking it to her!

47/63 August 6 8:37 PM

Thank you for sending me voicemails. It is fun because when you refer back to something that he did last year, I usually can remember. It's so healthy to have this sibling relationship for me. Thank you so much

Inbox 44/63 August 8 6:27 PM

Hello my wonderful walking buddy Gern, I like the voicemails about the book of flying things and how you will change next time to add a gospel dimension and spiritual realm. If you do that, send it to me and I am sure I will find a way to work it into an upcoming primary lesson for my for turning five-year-olds. Some will start kindergarten soon – others will wait until next year. Also I enjoy your soapbox of the faith that Elijah and Elisha developed and the relationship they had with heavenly father. Wow! The Solomon stuff made me cry also when we read it ( the kids and I ) each morning. We studied the story out of the Old Testament for latter-day Saints families. I like the alternate translations in both the Bible and Joseph Smith Bible. Both have value when you consider the polar opposites of the Lord's plan. To reproduce and multiply but don't eat the fruit that gives the knowledge of how. The great and dreadful day of the Lord. In Lamentations how Israel's daughters have crashed wonderfully. Justice and mercy. David I feel is a perfect demonstration of balance of justice and mercy. Justice because he was lost to spirit prison when the first resurrection came about when all those righteous were resurrected at Jesus's resurrection. Mercy because in Isaiah and D&C we are taught about the quote sure mercies of David quote and that he will come forth at the second coming of Jesus and all the righteous who have died since will be called forth from their graves and rises to meet the Savior. I like to think that through the Savior's atoning sacrifice for all our sins, David's too, that somehow David is able to do some sort of good furthering missionary work and purpose in spirit prison?!  So I see how both points of view of translation are valuable – to the olden day prophets of the Bible, David was revered as a man after the Lord's own heart and still blessed his union with Bathsheba to bring forth the Messiah lines. However to modern-day prophet Joseph Smith how tragic! To lose one's chance at a resurrected glorified perfected body and a and ability to return to the Earth on the Lord's errand as his messenger. But being locked in spirit prison.

Hope you enjoyed the view from my soapbox! :-) I sure love you Gern!

41/63 August 8 7:11 PM

In answer to your question: I avoided the house because I didn't like being around our parents. Outside was too hot for them, unless they went out to weed or mow. I turned brown like a Navajo -home -placement –student from off the reservation.! I got mistaken a lot for Linda Sandman, Dana Maxwell's Navajo Indian placement sister. They were both my age. Dana and I both had horses. We both lived in Bloomington first ward boundaries. I still like outside. Yes I would read while laying out /tanning when I got older. When I was younger I would take a towel around my shoulders and be off for the day roaming the Tamarac brush in the dirt fields of Bloomington. The towel was my imaginary anything- I- pretended- it- was at the moment. Most often held out long ways by my arms as my “flying unicorn wing's“. I loved being a flying unicorn. If I wanted to be invisible to the occasional car driving by then I would just tuck my legs to the ground and fold my “wings"(towel) over me. I did this until I was 10 and got a horse. Then I traded my towel for a bridal and was off. Mom would get so mad at my dirty hairy pants from bareback riding all day on a sweaty horse, in and out of the Virgin River. I am so profoundly and most grateful for my horse Pixie. Mostly I read in bed at night. Late. Too late. But I wasn't a good sleeper. So I just read. And quickly hid my book way inside the zipper of my beanbag if I heard footsteps down the hall. I was one of those flashlight under the covers readers. I love you Gern. :-)

Inbox 39/63

August 9 8:42 PM

My parents were the type to punish me for reading “ too much" and would take my book so I couldn't read it – I hated that! Thus the great hiding spot of a beanbag zipper.

Inbox 38/63 August 9 8:43 PM

That is interesting your hottest day, and only one above 110, was in May this year.

Inbox 34/63 August 12 5:44 PM

Hello wonderful Gern, thanks for the voice mails. I always like whatever you have to share that day. :-) Such great company – thank you! If you want to try giving your spicy sardines as a specific enjoyable gift I bet Sritner and Tyson would both enjoy them. We actually bought sardines today at the store before I heard your voice mail. Louisiana hot sauce sardines are Tyson’s favorite. Sritner always picks the mustard sauce sardines but both are interested in the spicy chili in the spicy olive oil but we didn't try them I love you.

Inbox 30/63

August 17 10:12 PM

Hello Gern! I love you and hope you're having a happy Sunday. Call me and leave me some voice mails about Sunday school and what songs you saying in elders quorum. I love your Sunday wrap up!

Inbox 29/63 August 17 10:16 PM

I taught my primary lesson about the good Samaritan today. Brought costumes for the priest, Levite, Samaritan, donkey, innkeeper, and bandages for the beaten guy. One problem – none of the four-year-olds would volunteer to be the guy who got beat up…. Really?! Nobody wanted to get beat up!? Trike was my helper teacher so he got to be the beat up man traveling the road.

Inbox 26/63 August 18 10:53 AM

yay! Yay! Yippee! Yeah! Yes! Hooray! Wahoo! New voicemails. :-) Thanks my brother

Inbox 23/63 August 19 9:20 AM

A first day of high school Cristelle won't soon forget! Bomb threat at Westlake high school here in Utah County! We are all safe and well. Police sent students home from the bus stop before Cristelle even made it to school. I guess it is on channel 5 news from what I've heard.

22/63 August 19 2:40 PM

Hello! Thank you for the voicemails! I am sorry you are not so talkative or walkative lately! I have been missing my voice mailbox getting filled up with unlimited amounts of wonderful stories. However, I am glad that your back has not been sore even though you haven't walked as much. My right lower back and hip and nearby socket joint of my groin area always aches and hurts and pops. Walking and yoga help. If I miss a day or three I can hardly move. But I especially cannot sleep. Lately I have been so sore it is hard to sleep even though I have been walking. I get grumpy when I don't sleep very much. And I have never been a nap taker. Hopefully that changes as I get older. Since naps add up to more hours of sleep. I am still in tired – sleep deprived mom stage of life. But I am in no rush to change it. I know it passes soon enough. I like the kids in my home and will be sad as they continue growing up. I love you and hope you have a good day. We got some rain here this morning. It was pretty

21/63 August 19 3:42 PM

Cristelle and I took her dog, Mary Jane, for a walk in the rain as we took Tyson to school on his first day of third grade. He rode his bike. I have one kid in college. One kid in high school ( who didn't end up having to go to to go with the bomb threat), one kid in middle school, and one kid in elementary. Kind of a good stage of life. Today's Sritner's birthday. He turns 12. Becomes a deacon and is ordained to the priesthood on Sunday, and plans to go to the temple on next Tuesday. He was planning to go today after school but our bishop said boys have to be ordained to the priesthood first. So we wait another week. He is a good kid – that Sritner boy of mine! I let my kids get their own pet for their birthday when they are 12. Sritner has been hoping for a guinea pig. With Trike being out of work since the end of July I didn't want to spend a lot of money. I scoured KSL ads and yard sale ads and finally found a guinea pig for $10. Some people wanted $200 for the guinea pig and supplies. A pet store would've run us about $150. We prayed with gratitude for God's blessing.

20/63 inbox August 20 8:20 AM

Good morning Gern. I love you and appreciate having you as my brother very much. It is so nice of you to call and talk to me. To care about me and want to get to know me. To be willing to build a relationship with me. Thank you very much. You are a brightness in my day. School is back in and with it begins my new routine of waking and rising early. It is difficult as I have never been a morning person. But we read scriptures now at 6:30 so Cristelle can leave for the bus at 6:50. Then Sritner is next at 7:3o for the middle school bus. Only Tyson and I are left to walk to school at 7:40 where he begins his day at 7:50. I usually prefer the later track which starts at 9:20. I had my boys on that track last year. However early track gets done at 2:00 and later track isn't out until 3:30. So we have a nice long afternoon.

19/63 August 20 12:51 PM

Nathan Cantrell doesn't have a phone anymore. He traded it away for a new tattoo in the spring time. I contact him by messaging on Facebook a few times a week. I will check for his address. He seems to move a lot.

18/63 August 20 2:09 PM

Do you know how to directly message him? That is what I usually do. He responds about every 3 to 5 days. We don't have a very good relationship. But we do tell one another that we love each other. We have nothing in common which makes me sad that we don't talk about our lives. So much of mine result revolves around Christ though, and that kind of speaking he doesn't like. I encourage him with work, Café Rio, and school and share a paragraph about one of my other kids here and there. He doesn't share back but does respond which I am thankful for. Right? Michael J leaves you even wishing for a response! I love you Gern. I am almost at Tyson's school. I noticed yesterday with my walking to the school and back twice, my rainstorm walk in the mud with Cristelle, and my half our evening walk to take Cristelle and Sritner, to young men's and young women's activity; I had logged over 20,000 steps and over 8 1/2 miles. Up from my summer daily goal of 12 to 15,000 steps and 5 to 6 miles. I doubt I will keep that up.

16/63 August 21 7:59 AM good morning. I hope you could rest and sleep last night. I am looking forward to the Ogden Temple open house on Monday. Sritner gets ordained to the erotic priesthood on Sunday. Inbox 5/63 August 21 8:01 AM then on Tuesday Sritner is hoping to go to the Bountiful Temple and do baptisms for his first time. That is where Trike and I were sealed and married. I have never been in the baptistery there so I am looking forward to it. 14/63 thank you for the voice mails. Hey – if you are still feeling creative will want to write a limerick for your nephew Sritner who just turned 12 on Tuesday that would be enjoyed by our family. Sritner's birthday got kind of overshadowed this year with the 19th being the first day of school none that bomb threat at the high school! I love you very much Gern and do think you were creative and enjoyably you'd make. :-) The sagebrush out here smells divine each morning as I walk home from taking Tyson to school. It has been raining nearly every night this week so the sages wet with the sun coming up and warming it all the smells are wonderful!

13/63 August 21 8:56 AM

last Sunday along with teaching my little primary class the good Samaritan story, I was also asked to go into Relief Society the last 10 min. and talk about parenting teenagers! Funny huh? But my ward is mainly young married who may have a kid or two but usually under the age of five. We're the Ward that had seven nurseries! Anyway, that makes Trike and I old parents! So I shared Moses chapter 1 verse 39 about God's work AND glory. With emphasis on the and – how I assume since they are linked, glory will follow the work automatically. I shared our family work projects such as coming home from church and folding all the laundry together that I wash on Fridays and Saturdays while we each share what we've liked about church that day and Cristelle is in charge of the music so I can keep an ear on what she is listening to and liking and redirect if needed. I shared how we talk a lot about how important a commodity time is – that everyone on earth has equal 24 hours in each day whether you are rich or poor young or old. How we consecrate our time shows the Lord where he is in our priorities. Also how we spend our time shapes our character and reminding my teens of that special gold mine commodity of time each day in life. Then I talked about how as a parent I then get to show by example and I told them about our daily morning devotional of Scripture and prayer but also adding in hymns and the memorization hunk (such as living Christ, family proclamation, articles of face faith), I bore testimony that as my kids got older I felt an urgency to increase our Scripture study time to include these two other things because hymns can touch the spirit and teach, spirit to spirit, in ways the Scriptures don't. And that we started with the memorizations because I wanted doctrine sunk down deep into my children. I shared how the biggest sap on my children's time is media or screen related and the commitment/contract we have in our family is to do these things first daily: * mental – reading or learning

* physical – exercise the body

* social or creative

* developing relationship with God

* family contribution job/project

before getting sucked into media/screen time.

11/63 August 22 8:04 AM

Good morning Gern! I am so glad it's Friday! Between all the exciting things this week and all the regular things I feel tired. I haven't been sleeping well with Michael being out of work this month. Then school each morning is so early! The bomb threat, a birthday, a new pet, those are all exciting things! Then the regulars, making dinner for a lady I visit teach who had a baby, missionary new member discussions for another ward member hosted in our home, a temple session, making bread for another lady I visit teach who is sick, making healthy meals, going to the library, making two birthday cake's,(one for us, one for young men's), making homemade peach ice cream… Probably more but I bet you are exhausted just reading all those items! I am happy for this stage of life and I enjoy it. I love you my brother Gern. I admire you and learn a lot from you. You are informative and interesting but also an excellent life example.

10/63 inbox August 22 at 8:15 AM

I think I will tell you about the ice cream we made. I bought the good stuff. Whole milk, heavy whipping cream, half-and-half, an inexpensive bar of dark chocolate (private selection brand Smith's). We picked peaches from our tree. We got real vanilla beans in bountiful baskets along with fresh lemons. I do try to make our ice cream with a little lower fat content than recommended so I make the syrupy base with 1% milk, sugar, and a bit of salt on the stove. This time being crunched for time, I didn't want to wait for the base to cool before adding most of the other stuff so I added in the fresh lemon zest and juice to the syrupy mixture. Bad idea! It instantly curdled the milk solids away from the liquids. So I stuck it in the blender to see if I could recombine it. I also added in the peaches and some whole milk and some frozen fresh cranberries (from Christmas time) to cool it all quickly. Surprisingly enough it all recombine so I added half of the portion of vanilla bean, four squares of dark chocolate, and half a teaspoon of cloves and blended that. I stuck that mixture in the fridge after adding the one cup heavy whipping cream;one cup half-and-half so that could all blend in for a bit and then froze it in the our ice cream maker. Surprisingly everyone loved it! Although Sritner are there wasn't certain what flavor it was! Maybe Orange Julius he said.

8/63 August 22 8:27 AM

Tyson is still too young to tell for sure but I think he likes reading poetry. I only have about two or three poetry books in our family library but I find Tyson reading them quite regularly. Over and over again. Kind of cute! :-)

7/63 August 22 8:40 AM

For the best entertainment I have seen in years look up Lindsay sterling. The stills shared her incredible talent on Sunday with us while we were folding close after church. Lindsay sterling is a violinist who writes her own staff plus she dances as she plays this incredibly creative music. One is about shadows, another is in this gorgeous ice sculpture place, and there are a couple of more.

Inbox 6/65 August 25 7:52 AM

Good morning Gern. I very much appreciate you leaving me voice mails thank you so much. They are such a blessing for me to help the time pass on my walks again. During the summer I had my kids I could coax out along with me on my walks for company and conversation – at least if my walks were not more than 45 min. But now that my kids are back in school I do the bulk of my walking alone again. I can't wait to hear about your Sabbath day and your meetings, the hymns you saying, the Sunday school lesson, the adventures in elders quorum. Yesterday I got to go to priesthood for a little bit – while Sritner was ordained :-) Trike's parents came to support. We bought Sritner a white shirt at Walmart late Saturday night. So Sritner was sporting the “just out of the packaging” look yesterday since we all slept in as late as possible and nobody ironed his shirt. In fact after the exhausting first week of school, we were all so tired yesterday morning that 8:30 found both Trike and I in the shower when his parents showed up knocking on the door.

5/65 August 25 7:55 AM

Luckily Tyson woke up to the doorbell and let them in! Today we're picking up my friend Heather, and taking her to the Ogden Temple open house. So my kids only have to go to school this morning, then we will pick them up and head out to the Temple. I was hoping Heather's mom would also join us but she declined. She is a Seventh-day Adventist. Heather was baptized LDS two years ago but isn't very active I'm sorry to say. She lives in Salt Lake and also I'm not in her ward.

Inbox for out of 65 August 25 8:49 AM

Thank you for liking the things that I shared with my relief Society about parenting :-) thank you for thinking Disney the efforts I put in consciously. I laughed about my and what we see would have to say but luckily for him it was released society so he wasn't invited in! Although I heard a rumor in the hall yesterday at church that the fifth Sunday bishopric message next week during combined third hour will be parenting children with the gospel in the home. Luckily I teach primary so I don't expect to be recruited to help teach. Usually they they leave that to the elder’s quorum president if the bishopric isn't teaching themselves. I cannot help but examine how ironic it is that I made such a concerted effort to teach my children the gospel daily from babyhood on yet Nathan still chose to live a different set of guidelines. I started reading him the book of Mormon daily when he was still nursing at my breast I remember making the decision to continue nursing past age one (clear till he was 22 months old) specifically because he would be still and quiet at night for me to read the Scriptures if he was being cuddled and breast-fed. Makes me shake my head and wonder what happened there?!? Thank you so much for being willing to converse and communicate and pen pal with the derelicts of society. Those at purgatory prison, Nathan my son, who is not at the moment, but has similar mind workings. I admire that you are willing and able to follow a disciple’s road and reach out to those who imprisoned.

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Welcome back to me, Adventure Bill.  OK, I am sure you can detect some reasons why I valued her text messages to want to record them/document them.  Now come the funny part in my opinion. Last Sunday they had a sister whose topic was journaling and family history. She encouraged the saints to record their text messages and include them in their journals. They can show how you relate to others and how they relate to you as well as the stories involved.  SHOCKER. Here I thought I was somewhat unique in saving complimentary text messages.  I guess not.

Do you remember this from back at the beginning?:"This next one is so funny/strange/timely/unusual." Well that whole thing was the next one. Especially the SHOCKER in the paragraph preceding this one.

So does Grayelinn have any hangups?  Yep. Don't we all? 9:22pm