In September we Barrus siblings got together at Julie and Boyd’s house in Joseph City, Arizona. We had an action packed few days together that was so much fun! My favorite part was greeting each person as they arrived for the reunion. Every time a new face would appear at the door my leapt in excitement. There was Bob! There was David! There was Jean! It came to me that these people, my siblings and their spouses, had become my best eternal friends. We had spent weekends, vacations, and holidays with each other. We had loved each others’ children and spouses and worked at getting along with each other, had occasion to forgive each other and have had to ask for forgiveness ourselves. It had culminated in a life-long friendship that will extend beyond death. I am ever grateful for those of my siblings who have taken the trouble to plan times to be together and have pushed me to make the effort to attend their well-planned activities. I am naturally lazy and don’t feel as much need to plan. Oh, how I have benefited from others’ desire to make family relationships strong! Thank you, thank you, thank you! You are, each individual, precious to me I thank you for being major contributors in my schooling.
As most of you already know, Erika has decided NOT to marry Thomas Keillor now or ever. She has been considering this option for five years and (I believe) has made a final decision. She is planning on returning to Provo to finish her education by January. She may take the opportunity to go sooner than that, in order to obtain employment. We feel good about Erika’s decision, but mostly we are just grateful that she seems more at peace than she has for a while. Bless them both for having the courage to NOT to something they didn’t feel right about! Yeah!
Elizabeth is doing better than ever on her mission. She now has a companion from China and Liz gets to conduct many Chinese tours every day. She says her biggest contribution is that she sings “Walk in the Light” and “Families Can Be Together Forever” to the groups. She also mentioned that there are hundreds of pictures of her in Asia by now. I wanted to send a little of her latest letter:
“I got to watch Sunday morning session when Elder Holland spoke. I looked towards him and I decided what I want to be when I grow up. I want to be Elder Holland. Yes. When he said be baptized or when he said those things...how could anyone get offended? He does it with such love and devotion you know he knows the true path! I am working on being Elder Holland. I will have the guts to do what I know is right without fearing man. Love man, not fear man. True story. Conference was amazing here on the square! I saw SO many miracles. For instance...there was a professor of BYU who has been interested in the church. His friend came into town and was curious to see if it was. This professor decided to drive down from BYU on Saturday because he told his friend, "You have to know." When we talked to them he said the only thing holding him back is coffee. He is a Chemistry professor with two other independant business. His wife also works and is being transfered to Texas...leaving the professor at BYU. However, the best part of the professors day is talking to his 2 year old son. YES!! He expressed his disire to watch conference but was sad he couldn't get in because he wasn't Mormon. I expressed he could. He lit up and said, "I'll be back tomorrow at 8:00 am!" I then promised I would find him a ticket. YEAH...uhh....yes. So my companion and I prayed long hard to find a ticket for him. In the morning I was prompted to ask my Mission President. His wife lit up and said she had only one extra. As she handed it to me I realized that my ticket and his were the same. He got to sit next to me and my companion for the whole session!! YES!!! It was wonderful! I will be calling him and teaching him. I wish you could have seen his face. It was worth everything!! Conference has been a miracle to me in my mission life and I am working really hard in pushing forward and just loving.”Liz is wonderful!
Ruth is still at the Rockin’ R Ranch in Antimony, Utah, but now she knows that job will end at the close of November. She hasn’t decided what she will do next, but she will figure it out. She did call after the first session of Conference, when the prophet announced the missionary age change, and say that she now wants to serve a mission. Good for her! I hope she does!
Susan, you would be so proud of me! We (Scott, me, Stacy, Rose, and Caroline) and Sterling’s family went appling in North Georgia at the end of September. We drove 2 ½ hours north to a gorgeous apple farm on 200 acres of rolling hills, and picked and ate our fill of dozens of varieties of apples. There were Ambrosia, Arkansas Black, Topaz, Binnie Sho Gun, Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, Red Delicious, Honey Crisp, Pink Lady, etc. We brought our lunch which included several dozen homemade molasses cookies in the cool mountain air. It was a picture-perfect fall day. I am so grateful that Sterling and his family want to spend time with us and are helping us create family memories with the youngest three Felsteds.
The youngest kids in a large family do have some advantages (more expensive vacations, more time with parents) over the oldest ones, but they really miss out on a lot of growing-family memories. In an effort to create more family memories in the few remaining years we have with ANY kids, the girls and I kidnapped Scott for an outing this past Monday afternoon. We packed a dinner and drove south to take a horse trail ride. We were disappointed to find that after a long car ride we had arrived too late to take the last trail ride. We didn’t want to waste this opportunity to create a memory! What to do? Where to go? Scott had, sometime earlier, installed an application on the GPS which will list places of interest wherever you happen to be. We looked at those options and found that it was probably too late in the day to do justice to (1) seeing Kadee the Cow, (2) taking in John Brown’s Fish Grave, (3) attending The Lunchbox Museum, or (4) visiting The Muffler Man. We opted to have our dinner at FDR State Park and take a hike. The leaves were accommodatingly red and gold and the pungent smells of fall made the hike an event and the effect was that we had made a happy family memory.
We had received a notice from our homeowner’s association that the green mildew haze on the siding of the house had to be removed. Scott has made a couple of trips to Belgium in the past month and was simply unavailable to help me clean it off. Never deterred by the impossible, I simply filled a bucket with suds, grabbed my white Mr. Clean eraser, and set up a ladder. Never mind that it happened to be raining at the time! I have no time to wait for the weather! I have a wonderful brush that screws on to the hose with which I rinsed the scrubbed siding. In a couple of hours I had washed the ground level of the house in good time and only had one serious near-death experience with the ladder. I was positively soaked to the skin and looked like something the cat drug in. I duly noted that my next door neighbor, Bob, passed by me and merely waved. He has become used to my odds ways and rarely ventures any questions. I figured that was enough for one day and that I could clean the second story the next day. The next day I grabbed a much taller ladder (did I mention I am terribly afraid of heights?) and used it to climb up to the roof of the second story and placed my brush-on-a-hose where I could reach it after I climbed onto said roof through my bedroom window. I am fairly unsteady on the ground and was a bit worried about how I would fare on a slanted surface, holding a scrubber in one hand, and a brush/hose in the other. I could see this going poorly. No problem! I took a rope and tied it to my bedpost, took it out the window, and then back to the bedpost. I then crawled out the window and put the loop of the rope around my waist. Brilliant! I scrubbed and rinsed away until my vinyl siding was practically glowing! I only had to take the rope off to reach the really hard-to-reach places (!?). My other neighbors, the 14 year old boys I have been homeschooing for four years, went for a run while I was on the roof. They must also know me well because they merely smiled and waved as they ran past. Nothing unusual to see at the Felsteds! Just Mrs. Felsted on her roof with a rope tied around her middle scrubbing her house. I have good neighbors!
Stacy is the latest Felsted child to attempt to be athletic. Bless her little heart! She was part of the inaugural Konos Academy Cross Country Team. She decided to join on a lark and I supported her by buying her new sneakers. The entire team consisted of one senior boy, the boy twins from my culdesac, one other freshman boy, an 8th grader with Asbergers’ disorder, and Stacy. I have admired the way Stacy remains unfazed by her negative coach’s yelling. Stacy merely put in her best effort and considers her coach’s attitude ‘his problem.’ A wise solution. The best part of her cross country experience has been helping with the Asberger’s boy. Stacy has been good to spend a little time talking to him, running with him, and encouraging him. Every single other person was finished with the race and this boy was nowhere to be seen. Stacy’s entire team ran back through the course and found this boy and rallied him to finish the race. His mother was actually in tears and said that that experience was worth the entire season. The reason I let Stacy participate in cross country is because I thought it was only going to cost $50. Well, it actually ended up costing $300. I am not sure it was worth $300, but Stacy had a good experience.
Everyone is moving along and doing just fine. I am doing better than I deserve. I sure love reading how each of you are doing and I especially love reading any grandchildren/cousin additions to the family letter. I wish my children would contribute more regularly, but that is their choice! Just go ahead and break your mother’s heart! We love you and are grateful that you have made room in your large hearts, for us!
Love you, love you, love you!
Scott and Chris
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