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
