Thanksgiving, Emery's Birthday and prayers for her speedy recovery

 

11/20/22 – Dear Family:

This week we will celebrate Emery’s Birthday and Thanksgiving.  Being with family is our "best thing".  I’m excited to be with family in Spokane this week. I remember as a girl having Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners with just our little family.  When we moved to Portland we sometimes had it with the Carl and Lucille Simmers family. As we 3 girls raised our families we almost always had Thanksgiving together; lots of adults, lots of kids, lots of food, lots of dishes, LOTS OF FUN!

I understand from Riley that Emery is still in the hospital and might be for a while yet. Our special thoughts and prayers go out to Jake, Kenlee, Emery and Addie this week because of Emery’s illness.  Life is delicate and can take a turn for the worse at any time.  I appreciate Kenlee keeping us all up to date.  I can’t help but remember the emotion and fear and prayers that I uttered when my little boys had health/surgery problems as little tykes.  I remember feeling that Nothing in the World mattered but my little boy. Everything else was meaningless.  I even remember picking a pink camellia off our bushes to take to the hospital for Brian, even though he was only 5 weeks old.  I remember not wanting to leave the hospital because I knew that Brad needed me even though he was only 6 weeks old.  I’m sure that all these emotions have filled Kenlee and Jake this week.  Faith in our Heavenly Father and that he loves us and supports us sometimes is all we have in our quiet moments when it is just you and your little girl.  "Heavenly Father bless Emery to get well very soon."

I’ve been think lately about why some people end up as adults being kind, considerate, generous, compassionate, polite and just generally a good person….and why some people end up as adults being selfish, cruel, and maybe even a criminal.  The only history I have to evaluate personally is my own. I don’t know the how a criminal or a selfish person was raised, but I can kind of guess.

Our father was raised on a farm.  Back then one of the reasons folks had kids was for the help they could offer to provide for the family.  The majority of the nation lived on farms in 1919.  They raised their own food, meat, eggs, milk, vegetables, and fruit. Selling eggs was how they bought flour, medicine, etc.  It took lots of work to do that.  In turn, our Dad insisted that his children would learn how to work.  Judy and I had the farm experience, me more than her, because I was older.  We all were taught to be respectful of our elders, not to talk back, to be obedient and to work hard.  Mom wasn’t raised on a farm, but by marrying a farm boy and living on farms, she learned quickly to work just as hard.  We didn’t have the latest anything.  We had one dress to wear for church and we had very few school clothes – girls couldn’t wear pants or jeans to school back then. If I didn’t wear out my clothes by the time I outgrew them, they were handed down to my sisters. Dad had been a barber in the Army so he cut our hair (unless mom beat him to it, because Dad would cut it too short.) Dad had unfortunate schooling experiences and might have been dyslexic, but mom reminded us regularly that she was the salutatorian of her high school, that she got straight A’s and we were expected to do the same. We were taught to be honest.  If we tried to lie, we only did it once.  If we weren’t busy working at something on the farm or in the house, we were told “Find something to do. Something needs to be done.” 

Dad and Mom have been gone a long time, but I wish I had thanked them for the way we were raised. 

Judy, Glennda and I decided that we had some kind of “performance” complex.  We thought we had to be productive all the time. We were also taught that “Anything worth doing is work doing well.”  So no haphazard sloppy work was accepted.  As a result we 3 three girls decided that we turned out really pretty good.  I’m grateful that my parents loved us, provided for us (even though we didn’t have much), fed us, clothed, us and taught us to be good productive members of society.  I need to also give credit to the fact that we were raised in the church.  Those weekly teachings about the Golden Rule, Jesus, being kind, serving others, contributing to the ward by taking callings – all were GOOD THINGS.

I feel sorry for those who were raised without love, rules, examples, teachings of work ethic, examples of honesty and faith. I think that those who are selfish, unkind, cruel have been cheated in life.  I do know that we are responsible for ourselves and that we can always change for the better.  I guess God will sort it all out.  I’ve often thought, that even though people want to DO THEIR OWN THING, that the way us Short kids were raised was a GOOD WAY.  Thank you Mom and Dad…

I will give extra hugs to my family this week.  I miss having family around like in the old days.  You are all the best.

 

FROM ELDER SCHNELL (Thanks Sheri for sending these along)

Time is flying like crazy, it feels like I just sent my Last email maybe two day ago. Things are moving along smoothly, I’m getting closer with my maker and I am excited to see where this path takes me over the next two years. My two companions and I are getting along just fine, I am not the biggest fan of my trainers idea: living the law of consecration, or rather, 'you pay for my bus tickets and I'll eat a little bit of all your food'. I'm kidding. Maybe. (Mission president, if you see this, that was a Joke.)

 

It’s a bit tricky to get used to sharing everything including food or money, right after being practically territorial over your belongings in college, plus the fact that we are very very poor. We all live on 66 bucks USD for 2 weeks, for all of our food, and bus tickets. we have to take a bus everywhere, I'm on one right now. From the north border to the South border of our area, along the coast, it's a 5 hour walk. We are not reimbursed for bus tickets. We took a bus to San Antonio, a neighboring city this morning to pull money out, because that is the nearest ATM and there wasn’t anything in our accounts, so where hoping tomorrow Will be different. We are required to travel to other Cities for meetings and it is draining our wallets because of the cost of travel. Other than that, all is well, it's a blessing to be here in this area, everyone says it's unlike anywhere they’ve ever served, just about everyone is willing to listen. And in regards to my Spanish, Estoy mejorando, no hablo o entiendo mucho, pero lo intento, siempre. Estoy aprendiendo muchos palabras chilenas, estoy escribiendolas en un libro para estudiar personal. Enseñando el evangelio en Español muy difícil, pero el espíritu santo me ayuda.

 

Id like to get emails back from ya’ll if you’ve got a minute, love hearing about how things are back home :) I really miss music. Pero, todo bien. Las escrituras son mi gozo ahora. Everybody email me pictures of you guys, I don't have any, I don't wanna go 2 years without seeing all your faces :) I'll send ya’ll some pictures in this email.

I love you all! Con mucho amor

 Well family, have a wonderful week and wonderful Thanksgiving.  I have so much love in my heart for each of you.  It almost brings tears when I realize how fortunate I am to have you all in my life and in my memories.

Love Mom, Grandma, Great Grandma, Sister and Aunt Suzanne

 PS Carter's Email address is in the To: in the email