1/27 Letter #105

Hey Jacob!

This week was crazy busy! I look back at our calendar and I wonder how we did it all. It was nice to get a day off on Monday, but it didn't make the week any easier. I was able to pick up Sarah from the  airport on Monday evening. I did work on Monday up until the time her plane was suppose to land. Fortunately, her plane was delayed so I got there with time to spare to pick her up. I parked at a school about a half mile south of the airport, and waited. I unfortunately didn't get any footage of her arriving, because my camera didn't work, but I was so happy for her to be home. I truly did miss my wife and her presence in my life. It was a good weekend, but it wasn't easy being without her. I loved cuddling with her when she was home. Sarah is going to Utah this week for a conference with the new company she is working for, Juvva. Hopefully she comes home with extra ideas about what she can do to improve her business.

A significant thing that happened this week, is on Wednesday I had CPR training and billing as well. While that was less than fun, I was able to come to the rescue of my wife, who wasn't having a very good day. I walked around the school, looking for her. I finally found her. A couple weeks ago, Sarah was made one-on-one with a special needs student. It hasn't been an easy run for her. The student isn't mean, but he doesn't really work that well, and honestly, he just wants to be alone with himself. He suffers from having seizures and he can be pretty stubborn. Sarah needed some relief, so I went to relieve her. I found them outside of a classroom about ready to walk to Mr. Leaf's classroom. So, I walked with them and he kept on getting sidetracked with other stuff. One of the principals came out and he wanted to follow her. She escaped us while he was distracted by a golf cart. He sat in the golf cart and wouldn't move for a while. He is really into magic. So, I showed him one of the only magic tricks I know, which is to make the face on a dollar go from being right side up to being upside down. I tried to teach it to him, but he was getting a bit frustrated with it, which also hinders him from learning.

Finally, we got him to Mr. Leaf's classroom. We showed him some Star Wars videos (of course my favorite episode 2 scene where Obi Wan is being chased by Jango Fett and the seismic charges scene). He wasn't interested. Finally, we showed him Pottermore, because he loves Harry Potter. I had  him take the Sorting Hat challenge, and guess what, we have produced another Hufflepuff in the family, haha. However, he was less than excited for the revelation. So we did some other Pottermore tests. One was his patronus. He got a dog, and I got a hawk. And then we took the wand test. Needless to say, he was unhappy with all the results of each test.

Later that week, Sarah and I reunited at school and she was with him. He had made a whittled wand. For once, he seemed happy with everything. She had caught me with Gavin, who had a less than satisfactory week. Friday was his hay day. He and I went on like five or more walks that day, which wouldn't have been that bad. But each walk, he ran a stretch at full speed. But to top it all off, at the end of the day, after we put on his backpack, and after we were ready to bring him outside and did, and while I was watching others get out of the classroom, I noticed that he was looking antsy, and I was right with my prediction that he was going to make a run for it. And run he did. He ran at full speed towards the fence that he usually runs to. Once we reached the fence, I was able to turn him around with my words and funny thing, he beat everyone to the buses. However, he wasn't done running that afternoon. He took off once again down the hall, and I had to tell someone to watch the others while he ran at full speed towards the end of the hall. What a day Friday was. Normally I like walking with Gavin, but this was too much for me that day.

We changed up the day we went to the temple this week. The Hermanas misioneras invited Sarah and I to go to the temple to do baptisms with some recent converts and recently baptized members. We went with the Hermanas, Ellena Perez (12 year old girl), Valeria Lozoya (recently baptized member), and Anna Martinez (shy girl who's been five times), and the President Castaneda and his wife also came. Aunt Kristen had called us on Tuesday and asked me if Sarah and I wanted temple names, which we gladly accepted. Well, we got them all printed at the temple and in total, there were like 50 or so names needing different ordinances done. We were happy to receive the names needing baptisms because Gilbert only takes endowed members that have family names. That said, we should probably find our own names as well.

I was able to perform the baptisms for all of the girls. They were very busy, so they only allowed three names per person. Valeria had brought two names from her family, I think two grandmas. It was nice to drive to the temple. We had Anna and Ellena. We shared music that we liked from the church. Since Anna is a relatively new member, we taught her about faith using the song about faith in the Children's Songbook. We also sang the Wiseman and the Foolishman.

We took some pictures, etc. Fortunately, the sisters had scheduled an appointment, and we were helped almost right away, while others had to wait, probably like a couple of hours. I was able to be voice in confirmations and also helped President Castaneda be voice in some of the confirmations as well. It was nice to be at the temple with my wife and friends.

Later that night, we had a game night with Carlos and several friends at an apartment close to our house. Sarah had invited a girl named Ashley and her boyfriend, Michael, that she had come to be friends with on her plane ride to Boise last week. We also invited Heidi Greathouse. The friends of Carlos and Elizabeth were Enrique and Marina, who use to be a part of the branch. They were a nice couple, who lived on a second floor, in between some noisy neighbors. Enrique, however, had quite the mix of '90s music to show off. We played several rounds of Phase 10, just getting to know one another and having a good time. Some good chips and cheesecake was added. Although nobody noticed, I had beat the game up until that point, making it to Phase Five by the end of it. It was a fun time.

To let you know more about Sarah, a miracle happened on Thursday for her at Mesa High. She was told that this last week would be her last week with the kid that she has been one-on-one with. Another male aide named Angel is going to be assigned to him. I'm glad that happened, seeing as how Sarah was having a super hard time with the kid. I think it'll be better for the kid to have a male aide, and Sarah's friendships with her fellow teacher friends won't deteriorate. The change was caused by a meeting (probably IEP) they had on Wednesday.

Well, last thing. We were able to watch a girl name Jaime and her classmate (Kindergartener). One of the teachers asked us to watch their kids while they were in a meeting. Rather, Sarah watched them while I went to help a neighbor with giving her a blessing for her surgery coming up. Our neighbor is a good friend of Sarah's named Jackie. I went over to her house to perform the blessing. She's not a member, so I explained how blessings work. She got a call that lasted quite a while. Then she was ready. She also helped us later, by helping me jump Sarah's car, which was dead after leaving a light on the night before. Her car is doing better now.

Well, I hope you are doing well. I love you kiddo. I hope your week has been great. I'll give you the Australian Open update in another email.

Love,

John

Djokovic beat Nadal pretty soundly.

Today Final·Rod Laver Arena Final 1 N. Djokovic 6 6 6 2 R. Nadal 3 2 3

I don't really know too much more as I wasn't really interested since Djokovic won.

The big news for me though would be that Osaka be Kvitova in the Woman's final, which is significant because she won the last Open but under super not so fun circumstances. If you remember, she beat Serena in a controversial and rather sad match. However, she is reigning champ now, and under much better circumstances. She even came back to win in three sets. I think the stat said that this is the first woman to win back to back Opens since Serena started playing, and I am super happy for her. Hopefully she has a perfect year and gets the next two.

Yesterday

Final·Rod Laver Arena

Final

	4	N. Osaka	77	5	6
	8	P. Kvitová	62	7	4

Well, hopefully that's good news for you.

Love you,

John

1/20 Letter #104

Hi Jacob!

It's been a good week. On Thursday, our friend Heidi Greathouse asked for a blessing. I was at work, but Sarah got the message as well, and we told her we would go to her house after my work at around 8pm. I asked Carlos for help to come anoint. Heidi is a librarian for two large college libraries in the Area, and couldn't go to work because of a bad cold and not feeling up to the challenge of going to work sick. Carlos anointed and I gave the blessing. Before blessings (normally for Sarah), I like to take some time to close my eyes and ask what it is that Heavenly Father wants me to say, and to guide me by the spirit. I did that, twice, once with Sarah before we left the house, and another time with Carlos outside of Heidi's house. Tuscany Palms is a big apartment complex, so it is crazy how close we live by one another. She's doing much better now. I've been checking in on her since the blessing.

Sarah was invited by her friend, Sarah Mable Jensen, to go visit her in Boise Idaho this weekend. She left Friday night and will be returning on Monday at around 2pm. Funny thing, on our way to the airport, we decided to have date night that night. Well, we had gone to Phoenix, and to a Denny's in Phoenix, not realizing that the airport was not the Phoenix Airport (Sky Harbor). It was a small airport that is found in Gilbert, really close to Aunt Kerry and Uncle Jesse and Gracie. It is called the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, which is honestly the reason we were so confused, because the title doesn't even have "Gilbert" in it. Well, fortunately, we had left for date night several hours before the actual flight. So, after ordering to platters at Denny's and figuring all this out, we asked the waitress to bag it all up (as she was bringing it all to our table), left her a nice tip for doing so, and skid-addled our tails out of there. We were literally 45 minutes away from it and it was during rush hour traffic. Fortunately for us, we were able to use the carpool lane to our advantage and avoid most of the red spots on the map. The airport is small. Smaller even then Ontario or Long Beach. I dropped her off. Since it was sunset, we got to watch some pretty views.

So, I've been home by myself for the last couple of days. I've been cleaning, making the house look nice. I also rented the movie Split from redbox, to prepare for a viewing of Glass, when it also comes out on DVD. It just got released in movie theaters, so I'll be waiting for a while. I don't know if you've seen it. It definitely was interesting. I thought to myself a couple of times that I hope Elizabeth Smart doesn't ever watch this movie, as it deals with the kidnapping of three girls. And to top it all of for Elizabeth Smart, they made a sequel. Very traumatizing, I would think for her.

On Friday, I uploaded my first vlogging video on YouTube. I'm happy with its reception. A lot of people told me they liked it. I got one like on it actually, and a little less than 50 views in two days. Oh, and one subscriber. You'll laugh, though. My subscriber is a 13 year old girl from the branch. She subscribed because I told her and her siblings that they'll probably be in future episodes, because I recorded them doing funny things at a small ward activity. Anyways, I really enjoyed making the vlog post. And I am practically done with episode two, and I'm working on episode 3. It's been a pretty fun past time. Another way for me to record the events of the week.

After I dropped off Sarah on Friday, and since I was in the area, I dropped in on the tios and Gracie, just to see how they were doing. It was nice to be with them. Melanie was super excited for me to be there. She wasn't barking, but she was running wildly. It was nice to just catch up in a non school setting. They said they've seen Fantastic Beasts 2 and really enjoyed it, which surprised me, because critics are not liking it. I actually read the screen play (I haven't actually seen the movie), and I liked it, but it felt like more of an episode than a movie, which makes sense, seeing as how it is the 2nd of 5 movies.

There was a small ward party on Friday that I went to, and they made good tacos. I got there right when it started. and the main people that needed to be there were there, but people trickled in little by little. We didn't even start eating until 40 or so minutes until I arrived there afterwards anyways. It was weird though, being without Sarah. Those people really love my wife, and when she is gone, everybody knows it. I sat next to Alex and Viridiana, and their baby Natalia, and Carlos and Elizabeth Santos sat across from us. Then I hung out with the Perez quiz, taping them, and giving them the my phone camera for them to use to tape themselves.

Today was good, but it also got a bit crazy. As I've told you, President Nelson and President Oaks and their respective wives are coming to Arizona Feb 10. Well, the stake has given a certain number out to teach ward and branch. We got 50. Well, they announced in Sunday School today after the meeting that I'm in charge of putting down the names of all who want to come. Well, a whole rush of people surrounded me right after the announcement. I put their names down in a google doc. But it was a bit overwhelming. In the end, 56 people signed up. So, we'll see what happens to those extra people. I don't even think we covered everyone that wants to go. Priority goes to the youth and their families first.We'll see. Sunday School was good, however.

Sarah and I made it to the temple this Wednesday, but circumstances did not allow for us to go inside once again. We did do a walk-about, which was nice. It's always nice to pray on temple grounds. Right before we did the walk-about, we went to the church building right next so that we could go to the bathroom. After we did go, we bumped into an 11 year old boy looking for 11 year old scouts. We searched the whole building but came out empty. We let him use our phone to call his mom. His name was Aiden and his mom's name was Sarah. Pretty interesting. He was an interesting kid.

Work was crazy this week at school. I had to leave early on Thursday so I could make Amazon. And on Friday, I was the only aide out of three that was there. Both Cheryl and Celia were gone. We had a two substitute aides that day, a lady named Tina and another named Ally. Gavin was out of sorts a lot on Friday, but mostly on Thursday. I had never heard him make a screeching sound like I did that day from him. We didn't really know what was the matter with him. And then he did dart out of the room at like 100 mph. I dodged everything in the classroom to dash after him. He was full out running. However, it was our normal route. I don't think he'll ever try to leave the school on his own, which is good. We called security, and they helped me get him back inside. He has been drinking a lot of water recently and going to the bathroom like 15 times a day because of it. So much so that he wet himself walking on two separate occasions this week. It was definitely another crazy week with Gavin.

OHHHHHHH, and the Spider-man Far From Home trailer came out and let me tell you, it looks great.

Briana, Sarah, and I had a Google Hangout session this Saturday in the morning. It was fun catching up with my sisters. I am hoping we make this a more often thing. We were just missing you. We were able to say hi to Cohen and talk about all the things happening in our life. It was a nice time.

I finished tithing settlement with President this past Tuesday at the Stake Clerk's request. I was feeling down because we had only gotten a small percentage of the members to participate in an actual tithing settlement. The Stake Clerk told me the procedure for the event. It took us three hours to go over all the members. Granted, president had a couple of appointments in the mean time. But we were able to get it done before 9pm on Jan 15.

After temple, Sarah and I went to a Gelatto shop. My first time. It was good. It reminded me of Creamistry a bit.

Well, I hope you have a good MLKJ day. Love you, bud.

Love,

John

1/13 Letter #102

Hi Jacob!

What a great Sabbath day I have had! It was busy, but oh so fulfilling. And two hour church didn't seem as strange this week as it did last week, to me. I'm grateful for a day of rest, even if I do have to get up at 6am to be ready for 7am meetings. The biggest news is that we finally heard about the coming of the Prophet to the Cardinal's stadium in Phoenix February 10th. The stake got an allotment of 850 tickets to divide amongst the 10 wards in the stake. Our branch is getting 50 of those tickets. Hopefully they get distributed to those that will most benefit from such an event. They are leaning heavily on youth getting to go, and recent converts, and the families of them. The missionary pairs get two tickets per companionship and two more just for investigators. How lucky are they! We got the tickets today and the distribution will happen January 27th. I was pretty good about explaining the rules in Branch Council this morning. So that made me happy. We hope beyond hope that we get to go. We shall see, though.

Life is good, though. We set aside time after I got home from doing tithing to eat twice-baked potatoes and do our weekly study of Come, Follow Me. That said, after going back to work, reading the scriptures has gotten harder to do during the week, but we are working on it. We're definitely not perfect. Also, we weren't able to work out like we wanted to last week. We have plans to do so this week, though.

Our date night was super, super amazing. Our idea that we didn't do from last week came to our minds again to do this week. We decided to hike "A" mountain, or the Hayden Mountains that is just across the street from my work in Tempe. We did it close to sunset, so the views were spectacular. It was just the right amount of cloudy and colorful as one could imagine. It's called "A" Mountain because it is the mountain that overlooks the ASU football stadium, although, I don't think it is possible to watch the games that are played from on top, unfortunately. It wasn't very hard. Some huffing and puffing, and slowly but surely made us make it to the top. They even have some steep stairs near the top. It overlooks the valley and at night it is just spectacular views.

We decided to hit a night on the town of downtown Tempe afterwards, which is also right across the street from where I work. We went to a Mexican restaurant where we had a nice waitress that told us to come back anytime. Then we just walked down the streets, looking at the shops. We found a shop full of circus items, and other stuff, and a place to practice. So of course I picked up the juggling balls. Then the owner asked me if I wanted to try the balls that catch on fire (of course, not really on fire at the time). I said sure. They're a bit bigger than normal balls, but I'm sure you would like this place.

There was a place that sold handcrafted bags, the ones you see from peru and other latin american countries and a bunch of odds and ends. Then we heard some Karaoke. We heard them singing and joined in the background singing of American Pie. There was also a candy shop that we went to. No, they didn't have Sublime. It was quite the night. I had forgotten our leftover food in the store that had circus items, unfortunately.

Elder and Sister Renlund's devotional was great. We invited a single member whom we met in the Laundry a couple of weeks back. Her name is Heidi Greathouse. We talked about stuff and enjoyed each other's company right before the devotional started. I don't know if you were watching, but there was a moment where sister Renlund mentioned whether or not you would seek advice about beginning to play tennis from a website or from Roger Federer. Both Sarah and I went crazy.

Not to mention. Australian Open begins tomorrow, or rather early morning Monday morning. Roger is facing D. Istomin in the round of 128 at 2:15 am Arizona time. We shall see how much I watch. The whole time thing is going to be an issue. We shall see. Mom probably told you that BYU played Santa Clara I think, and won (finally). I haven't been keeping up. Just so much to get done.

This week was the first week back from break. Monday, for me, was pretty refreshing. I looked at all the idiosyncrasies of the students with lightness and humor. Such as, "Oh, yeah, he or she does this thing. I totally forgot." The rest of the days were not as good as the first though. I gave my blue watch to our friend who Sarah and I change, who always asks for it. I gave it to him because Sarah's dad gave me a watch while we visited him, so I didn't need it anymore. Our Friend, was very happy to receive it and was telling his friends about it.

We were able to do a walk-about the temple this last Wednesday. We enjoyed each other's company as we walked together around the temple grounds, talking of things we could improve and make better in our lives. We did enter people's names into the temple. And we prayed on the grounds.

Definitely a good week for me. Sarah just got put one-on-one with a student this last Tuesday, so we'll see how that goes, if it goes at all.

Yep, life is good. We are very happy right now. We have so many blessings. We know it is because God loves us, and because we are doing our best to live a righteous life, always facing towards the North Star.

Thanks for all you do, man. To answer your question about mocos. It lasts, and to me, that is all that matters, because other hair gels don't the whole day. Of course, I joke around with Sarah that it feels like I have a hat on, so that's cool.

I love you, brother!

Take care, and have a great P-day!

Love,

John