Still Alive

I know it has been a really long time since I last posted. I'm sorry! I would say that I will try to be better, but let's be honest, I don't see anything changing. Many of you who read this keep track of us in other ways, but for those of you who don't, I will try to give you a "Christmas letter" overview of what has been going on in our lives over the past several months so this post will be a little long. First, somebody had a birthday!
Our little girl turned 8!!

She was spoiled as always and celebrated several times. This picture was taken right before her friend birthday party. She had a lot of good friends come, and she had so much fun with them!

 Most of you know, this means she was baptized!

That day was so special for her! It was scheduled in the morning, and we woke up to snow! Of course, I wasn't happy about it since we had a lot of family traveling for it. Lucky for me, my daughter saw it differently. She was so excited that the world was all white just like her! She said it made the day even more special for her. I am so grateful to all of our wonderful family and friends that came and supported us that day.

Liz has also started taking piano lessons this year.  She is doing so great!  She had to stop her lessons for a little while (more on that in a minute), and start with a new teacher, but she loves it.  Here is a video from her school talent show, and yes she always sings while she is practicing. Sorry the video is poor quality, it was from my phone.

Brad is still working for the same company, and recently got a promotion at work, which required another move for us. We moved back to Cedar City the week after Liz was baptized! Bountiful is a very nice place with a lot of wonderful people, but I never really felt at home there. Brad is doing great at work, and enjoys his new job. Liz is also doing well here. She had a new experience of riding the bus to school. Although, she doesn't really like it because it is too crowded for her (I wonder where she gets that from.) She LOVES her third grade teacher, and has been doing great!
As for me, I was very glad that we were still in Bountiful for Liz's baptism because more of our families were able to attend, but I am so glad to be back in Cedar. I decided that since Liz was in school, and I wasn't working part time, it would be a great time for me to finish my education. So I started back in January. It has been a little bit of an adjustment, but so far I'm glad I am doing it. I am very lucky to have a supportive husband and daughter or I don't think school would be going as well. They have been great to help out around the house.

Memories of September 11th

When the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were destroyed, I was serving a full-time mission in California for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I remember it was a Tuesday. My companion and I went to District Meeting like every Tuesday, but the meeting didn't start on time. When the district leaders finally walked in, they told us they had just talked with the mission president, President Knudson. He told them that an airplane crashed into the World Trade Center earlier that morning and terrorists were involved. As missionaries, we weren't allowed to watch television, but throughout the day we still caught glimpses of the story.

While standing in Ed and Erica Dumin’s living room in Fairfield, California, Elder Barnes and I saw the Twin Towers collapse, as the weakened structures could no longer support their own weight. It seemed that every news station replayed the scene of a hijacked airplane filled with passengers diving into the side of one of the towers over and over throughout the entire day. As we knocked on doors, a man answered one door and shouted at us to go away. We asked for a drink of water and he slammed the door in our faces. A few moments later, his wife reopened the door and handed us each a glass, apologizing for her husband and saying, “We don’t treat people that way.” Though I soon forgot her face, I will always remember her kindness.

I saw a lot of hatred caused by the attack, which hatred seemed to last for the rest of the time I served in California. It was mainly directed towards anyone of Middle Eastern descent, since the terrorists involved in the hijackings were Islamic. People refused to buy ice cream from ice cream trucks because the drivers were Muslim. I even met a man who said he was going to buy a gun, climb to the top of the tree in his front yard, and shoot any Islamic people who came within a block of his house. For a while, I thought things were going to get like they were after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, with Islamic people being rounded up and placed into camps just like the Japanese Americans were.

As it got closer to the time for me to come home from my mission, a lot of missionaries began worrying that the United States would begin drafting people for the armed forces. The scriptures gave me a lot of peace and I realized that it didn’t matter if I was drafted and sent to Afghanistan because the Lord would protect me. If I died then as long as I was right with the Lord it didn’t matter.