1/30/22 Family Letter

 Hello luv!

I got cast as the drunk in the MDT musical. It's The Mystery of Edwin Drood, based on the novel Charles Dickens wrote as he died. Since he didn;t finish it, the audience gets to decide who the murderer was, who the secret investigator was and who the two lovers are. It's going to be interesting to say the least. I dropped out of early morning seminary for mental health reasons and am now taking it during the day. Because of that, I'll have to take health over the summer, but it's better this way. nayway, that about wraps it up for me. Love you!

hHrum 

Grades are fun. I found out that if I am on probation again I can't run for SBO again next year. I might do stage krew.  Finding an FSY Roommate has been fun. I tried my Friend MooMoo ( her name is Abby. She was the cow in into the woods. No luck. Then I tried sam. No luck. I kind of just wanted to go alone  but I had a feeling to see if my non-member friend wanted to go. I haven't heard back from her yet. I think I'm just going to go solo. I'm excited to meet new friends. Other than rehearsal that's pretty much it! I Love yOu so much Eve!!!

xoxoxoxoxoxo Mari Barlow

Sweet Eve,

Okay, so I'm cracking up at the picture of you and your companion eating a slushie when it's -9 degrees outside.  Are you numb to the cold now?  Oh Eve!

Today was Adrianne Matthew's homecoming.  She told us to plan for about 20 family members...so we did.  We had enough food for her 20 family members and the expected Ward members.  BUT, the parking lot was full and so was the chapel.  Our house was completely FULL of her aunts, uncles, cousins, friends from school, and her mission friends.  Food for about 50 people and over 100 came.  They were taking up every inch of space, even going up the stairs and into the hallway upstairs.  We were praying for a "loaves and fishes" miracle, but we ran out of food. Even so, people seemed really happy to be visiting with each other and the food was not important.  We found out later that she had so many family members come because they were all in town for her cousin's wedding this weekend.  I'm happy for her support, but SHEESH! It was embarrassing to run out of food.  I was especially sad for our ward family members because so many of them brought food to help out...yet they didn't get to eat any of it.  I plan on writing each of them a thank-you note and making them some bread or cinnamon rolls.  I know they understood. It was fun to see some of your friends there too (Kartchner, Isabelle, Emily, Meghan McCabe) So many people were asking about you.

We watched a fireside about FSY.  Hyrum and Mari seem to be excited to go.  Hyrum said he wants to be an FSY counselor when he's old enough.  Hyrum will be rooming with Logan.  Mari will likely go on her own.  Sister Becky Craven of the General YW presidency was the speaker.  She gave a beautiful talk about how to recognize if you are feeling the Spirit.  Also, about how to bear a simple testimony of the Savior.  She told the youth that if they've ever felt prompted to mark a scripture, they have felt the Spirit.  If they've ever heard a prompting about something to make their day easier (grab your homework off the table) then they have felt the Spirit.

We don't have much happening this week.  I hope to be able to find people to help/serve.

Anyway, I love you so much!  I'm proud of you and I think you are really fun!

 Mom

Millie,

I have started to track your weather this week and am having a hard time keeping a straight face.  In the next few days you have a few negative degrees as your high.  I hope the gloves we sent you are sufficient.  I thought I had a cold experience in Canada.  I think you have finally found an area that has me beat.

We had Adrianne's open house today.  I knew we were in trouble when we pulled up to the church and the parking lot was very full.  Adrianne told us to plan on about 20 people for the first hour and then the Ward family after that.  Her family was more like 35 people (almost all of them giants) and then about another 50-60 friends. We had all open spots taken by bodies.  We had them sitting up the stairs, onto the landing outside the bedroom doors going almost all the way to our bedroom doors.  I was getting concerned with how much weight our stairs could take.  We smoked 2 pork shoulders and hoped it was enough.  It was not.  Some of the friends came back for several sandwiches.  jWhen the Ward family came we ran out of food.  Tiffany put the remaining rolls out with jam until I mentioned how the jam will likely end up on the carpet.  She felt bad that we ran out of food.  I didn't.  None of the Matthews brought food.  We had minor help from the Ward.  We did our best but we ran out.  It did not matter.  Adrianne felt loved.

We had our Mission Prep day where we brought in tenured RMs to talk with the kids.  It went well.  They both had 20 min to discuss their mission experience.  There were several great takeaways from the presentations.  20 min is not a long time to talk about the mission but they did a great job.  We will likely do it again.  This along with having the recent RMs take to the kids have been the best things we do.

We sign the kids up for FSY this week.  We hope we can get the right date and location we are hoping for.  It is a bit stressful hoping we get it done in time. Half the church is signing up for FSY at the same time.  

Good luck this week kid.  Stay warm and do your part and good things will happen.  

Love,

Dad

Moses 7:18-19