How are you doing my friend? I hope all is well in Towanda-land. I hope all is well with you. It's been a pretty good one for me.
I don't know if I told you. Sarah got me a desk (free) and just today is when it really looks nice. About two weeks ago, Sarah and I made a chart in which we allocated chores of the house, daily, weekly, and monthly. Well, this week has been so good. We're not exactly perfect at our daily chores just yet, but we're getting there. But, you probably know, if the house is not looking good, the spirit kind of lacks, and when you keep things clean, the opposite happens. And the nice thing is that usually, when you perform one of your daily chores, it usually lasts for at least 2 to 3 days. And you are happy. Anyways, our house is starting to feel and look more like a home. Part of it is that you know, you move to a new place and it takes a while to get use to the new place and there is always the fact that you could move, but that isn't the case for now, at least for the time being. And I am happy.
I am happy because I am feeling very connected with the place we live in. It is a very nice complex, and we have even gotten to know the ones that are outside a lot. In fact, our friend Keto, came to our apartment yesterday. We had a good long chat with him. It was very good. And I think our house is inviting to others to think and feel and share what comes to them, no judgement. And honestly, that is what I want my house to be, a safe have to those in the area, and to all those that pass through. Keto felt free to express his emotions with us. He shared about his growing up life. How his dad was a large, tall man that worked for Jimmy Hoffa, who was a big Union guy. In fact, Jimmy Hoffa is Keto's godfather. He shared a lot about how much he knew about his dad even though he died when Keto was very young. In fact, he was murdered, but no one knew that, and his mother received a letter (on Sunday) in the mailbox saying not to perform an autopsy. He got emotional in telling us this story. I was happy our home was a safe space.
Another way our home was a safe space is on Wednesday, the Sister missionaries asked us if we could host the most recent "Golden" family at our house to watch the hour long Joseph Smith movie. We agreed and they came over. Well, I think I told you about this last week, this family is amazing. There is Javier, the dad, and Ana Roblero. Then they have three kids. One 19 year old boy named after his Dad Javier, and Ariadne, and a little 2ish-year-old girl named Jani. All of them came over and we had a merry time. We shared our chips with them, and the the sisters, after the movie, shared about what the family thought about the movie. Then Sarah and I shared as well. I felt prompted to ask the son and mom specific questions. What I didn't know, is that they would also get emotional. But I try to welcome emotion in our house. It hasn't always been easy for me. I tend to keep my emotions to myself. But I am trying to be more open, especially with my wife, about how I feel and about my needs in life. I am really excited to see them in white and contributing to the branch. And I'm happy that the missionaries trust us to have investigators in our home. In fact, I love our Sister Missionaries, a lot. They do a great job for our branch. Before I was released as Clerk, they would send me updates to the branch and other things of pertinent value. They even asked us for a ride to an activity where YSA were going to be in our ward.
My birthday was great! I loved it. It was just a normal all-around day. But I got calls and texts from the people that matter the most to me. Oh, and Facebook messages (which I still need to reply to). Briana called me in the morning, and I enjoyed just chatting away with her, and Sarah called me in the afternoon after she was done with work. I love you guys so much, you don't even know. Sarah Rebecca started work at the AMZL sector of Amazon, which is just another branch that works in the same building as where I work at Central Operations. She started Wednesday at 7AM, and it went through Friday of training. The best part is that I get to see her for lunch. And I also get to go to work with her, even though I usually start at 10AM since Mesa High is over. Well, that is when I got some of the calls. I also received a text from Mom and Dad that I really appreciated. It really made my day to hear from them all, and others that I love. They even got me a card signed by all the managers and some of the associates that work there. Vita presented it to me and they said, Happy Birthday, in Unison. It has also been cool to introduce Sarah to all or my friends and coworkers, and they were happy to meet her. So, I have also been spending my time learning all I can about music, searching sites like musictheory.net, and others. I have really liked it, the time in the morning. Her shifts are different than mine, but we're going to make it work. Sarah even mentioned taking the bus, which might work because they'll give us a discount or even free passes. We hope.
I spent the rest of my birthday helping a family in our branch, named the Camargo family. It's a long shot, but when I very first moved here, the brother was the man that taught the Sunday School lesson that attracted me to branch (among other reasons). Their family is going through some hard times and have had to move out of their house and in with a very nice member of the church in the area. They have one teenage son, and really really want to live in the area, and in the Stake (as the brother was recently called to the High Council) but it is still unsure for them. Anyways, we went to do the tail end of the moving the appliances to their storage. Well, for some reason the code was not working. But we piggy backed off another person coming out. Well, after putting everything in the storage to capacity, we attempted to try to get out, but we were stuck in the storage. I looked at the picture that the hermana had been getting the code from, and I inferred that the ending of the code was not complete, and I was right, they were missing a four. However, we still needed to call Public Storage to get out, and the storage was being rented by her sister-in-law, so we had to get her on another phone to talk to the Public Storage representative and after he got the last four digits of her Drivers License, we got out. Crazy!
Sarah and I got to enjoy being at home on Saturday. We went to the temple and did Sealings once again for names that Aunt Kristen gave us. It was really good for us. It's always great kneeling across the Altar from someone that you love and is your wife. I enjoyed it a lot. We watched an episode of Bones from the last season, and another from The Middle, that we are borrowing from the library. Unfortunately, our pool is closed because of the locks and Jacuzzi. It's really crazy, because if Sarah had waited til this week to do the surprise party for me, she wouldn't have been allowed to use the pool area. Yep.
I am very excited because tomorrow we will have 8 children in our home for a movie night FHE from 2 different families. 5 Perez kids, and 3 Garza kids. Actually 4 different families, because there are 2 sets of cousins among them. Elenna, Romeo, Ariel, Nayeli and Zulema from the Perez family, and Maria, and two others that I will learn tomorrow. We are going to watch Ralph Breaks the Internet with a a free code for my birthday from Redbox. And we will be celebrating Zulema Perez's birthday which is the 23 of June, and she will be turning 8. It's going to be fun.
And lastly, we had both Anna Martinez and Valeria Lozoya last week for FHE. It was really good too. We ended with Studio C, but also had a spirit filled lesson about teaching. Sarah and I had discussed the topic at Red Robin where I got a free burger for my birthday.
All in all, great week. Love you bud, very much.
Love,
John
