Dear Family,
This letter is either very late or really early, depending on which month it gets applied to. : ) Sorry the Keller’s haven’t written consistently lately. We are having the hardest time keeping the 3 of us healthy. Seems like we get over one virus only to be knocked down by another one. A couple weeks ago Jared threw up on a Monday night. We kept him home from school for a day and then he seemed fine. Until the following Sat when he threw up again. Ryan just finished a round of antibiotics for a sinus infection and is still feeling sickly. He had pleurisy once shortly after we got married and he says it feels like he has that again. :/ We’re going to Tammy’s next week for Thanksgiving and hopefully we’ll all be healthy by then!
Other than that things here seem like they’re going pretty well. Ryan has a new calling in the primary teaching the 7 year olds and he really likes it. I guess the primary kids are a refreshing change from the high priests (Ryan was a counselor in the high priest leadership). I haven’t seen him this excited about a calling in a long time. He looks forward to planning and giving his lessons and even brought his guitar to sing to the kids last week.
Jared and I (Sherry) got a taste of missionary work last month. The ward mission leader asked me if Jared and I would go with the missionaries to a lady’s house in the ward. The missionaries are teaching her 9 year old son (I guess you don’t say “taking the discussions” anymore) and they thought it might help him if there was a boy close to his age there. I think they mostly wanted Jared and he’s young enough I got thrown in on the deal. I wasn’t too thrilled about the idea at first because this is kind of a strange family. The mom’s a member, seems nice, but not overly involved with her kids. Or maybe just too busy (she works and is going to school to be a nurse). The dad is Muslim and I’m not sure how involved he is. Anyway…. I felt like this was something HF wanted us to do so I asked Jared and he said, “ok, but only if dad comes too.” So the missionaries got the whole family.
One of the elders was from France and the other one was from Switzerland (German speaking!) so that part was fun and exciting. Jared knows the boy they’re teaching because they’re in scouts together. When we first got there Jared was so eager! He was ready to answer all the missionary’s questions and even told Joseph’s mom “we belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.” He didn’t know she was already a member. :0) Then she told him she was a member and the lessons were for Joseph who must have major ADHD because he was just talking nonsense nonstop and ignoring his mom and everybody, which made Jared laugh. He tried so hard not to but once he started to giggle it was pretty much downhill from there. Joseph kept getting up and going to get something or other and coming back and his mom would yell at him to sit back down while she was busy on her phone. (I don’t get why moms like that really expect their kids to behave or to do well. I just don’t get it.) Meanwhile her other 2 daughters sat perfectly still and reverent by her side.
It was pretty funny and not the spiritual glimpse of missionary work I thought it’d be for Jared. But maybe it was a more realistic look. Afterwards I invited them to meet at our house if they wanted to see if there would be fewer distractions for Joseph. I’d like to say they took us up on our offer and that we’ve been busy missionaries ever since. But that was the last time we saw them.
Third grade has proving to be a challenging year for Jared. There is a boy in his class who’s rude and something of a bully. This boy likes to play “hurty games” and games involving boy and girl body parts (grrrr) like “where’s my joe? who took my joe?” Joe being his penis. Or if a boy sits at the girls’ table at lunch or plays with the girls this boy will say their “boy parts are turning into girl parts. Jared has come home upset so many times and we’ve had so many discussions with his teacher, the vice principal, and Jared. The teacher seems to be on it and the vice principal even sits in on the class a lot, but this boy is relentless. He looks for chances when the teachers aren’t around to pull some prank which bothers Jared whether the boy’s mean to him or someone else. We’re trying to teach Jared good avoidance techniques, but Jared isn’t eager to avoid the boy. He feels morally compelled to stand up for what’s right, even if all this kid is doing is breaking a class rule by taking more than one chocolate milk at lunch.
This year we’ve also noticed a sudden increase in Jared’s awareness that some things might be embarrassing. In his class they honor a star student every week and Jared gave us strict guidelines at the beginning of the year. “Mom,” he said, “at some point this year I’m going to be the star student and you’re going to have to write a letter about you. Whatever you do, DO NOT put anything embarrassing in it.” I asked what would be embarrassing and he said, “saying things like ‘I love you’ or ‘I’m proud of you’.
Well guess what. He’s the star student this week! And we had to write a letter about him last night. He was very nervous about it this morning, but I told him everything dad and I had written in it and he was really relieved. Whew!
That’s about it for now. Jared needs the computer to do Raz Kids (a reading program online). Hope everyone had a nice Halloween and is going to have a great Thanksgiving. We’re going to Boise this year to spend it with Tammy’s family. Jared’s disappointed because we always “go to Grandma’s” (Ryan’s parents), but I know he’ll love it once when we’re there. Love you all!
Love,
Sherry, Ryan, and Jared
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