Purple Everywhere

Purple Everywhere
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Friday, December 28, 2012

Nieces and Nephews

Christopher, my oldest biological nephew, is serving in the Tampa, Florida mission. His next youngest brother, Clark, is expecting his own mission call on either Wednesday, December 26th or Thursday, December 27, so we all head down to St. George to watch him open his call, participate in his ordination as an elder, and attend his endowment session on Saturday.

It's going to be fun spending a few days with extended family over New Years.

Clark's call didn't come on Wednesday (kind of expected with the Christmas holiday), so we hustle down to St. George on Thursday to ensure we're there by 7 pm for the opening. But it doesn't come. Drat! We'll have to try again on Friday and pray that it really comes.

Friday, Dale and I run a few errands and arrive back at the Farnsworths just around lunch time. My observant husband notices that the mailperson is parked in front of the mailbox stack, so I run into the house to see if Cliff or Tressie are home. Cliff is but he doesn't have the mail key.

"It's okay. The mailperson is there now. Maybe if you show them your driver's license to prove your address, she'll give you your mail."

A few moments later, Cliff triumphantly waves a large white envelope from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints bearing Clark's name. It's going to be a busy couple of hours for Clark.

At 6:45, he meets with his bishop at the house, in the basement by the pool table for his living ordinance temple recommend. (It's the quietest place in the building because there's so many extended family members and friends there.)

At 7:00, Clark opens his call to the Independence, Missouri--Spanish speaking mission. He reports to the MTC on March 6th. Not much time to get ready. Chris even got special permission to join by Skype so that he could participate.

At 7:45, Clark leaves his own party to meet with his Stake President for a living ordinance temple interview.

At 8:00, he's ordained at the Stake Center to the Melchezidik Priesthood, office of an Elder.

By 9:10 tomorrow morning, he needs to be at the St. George temple to receive his own endowments.

Whew! I'm exhausted, which might explain why I feel like torturing Bailey, my youngest niece and the one who can entertain me and make me laugh the most at not-quite-two-years-old.

So, when we're all sure that Bailey is paying attention, someone pulls my oxygen cord apart into two separate pieces and I immediately slump and slink down as if I've been unplugged and am now dead. Bailey is immediately concerned and makes motions to reconnect the cord and wake me up again. Ah, I can breathe again and magically come to life.

We replay the scene at various times over the weekend, but Bailey doesn't want anything more to do with it. If anyone picks up my cord and threatens to disconnect me, she waves her hands in front of her, saying "No, No, No" as she runs out of the room. It's good to know she cares about me so much.

Finally, after torturing her several times and joking that she's going to be traumatized for life, I hit upon something that might help her feel better about my oxygen cord. So, I arrange for my cord to be disconnected while I slump dead again and deliberately place the two parts of the oxygen cord at her eye level so that she'll "accidentally" discover it as another niece guides her over to me.

"Oh no, Bailey. What happened to Trisha? Can you plug her in again? Good job, she's plugged in."

And, once again, I'm magically healed and sitting up, and Bailey got to heal me. She feels much better about that than watching me slump over.

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