BENGE
I'd like to start this newsletter extolling the virtues of the sea pig (also known as Scotoplanes by upwards of four people). I cannot, however. I don't really know anything about sea pigs, or their virtues. I've thought about looking it up a few times, and this time I got as far as "Scotoplanes", but I haven't felt like it was the best use of my time.
Instead I spend my time--hours even--doing things like replacing the window regulator in my car. I asked around about it, asked the Autozone guy about, and watched a couple of Youtube videos about it, and came away with the distinct impression that I would have plenty of time to read all about the exciting adventures (virtuous, of course) of sea pigs. I was deceived. Window regulators come from Middle Earth or Iron Man comics or someplace where natural physical laws don't apply. This is my excuse for losing hours of my time, and I am sticking by it.
The fun part, though, was that Lucy and Joshua worked with me for quite awhile on it, and it is usually much more fun having them around, at least until they get really bored and forget that hindering isn't helping. But I am certain that even a sea pig would get bored watching me stare at the inside of a car door for ages with a tool in each hand and a bewildered look on my face.
Sunday, I interviewed Joshua. At the end, I offered a prayer. In the middle of my prayer, Joshua whispered, "don't forget to ask that you can fix the window." I am sad to say the thought had never occurred to me. Monday I stayed up late, but the car is fixed. Well ... that part of the car is fixed. I have to replace a side window, but I am sure it will be a snap and I'll be reading Diary of a Sea Pig any minute now. (It better be virtuous or I'm getting a new hobby.)
I also will be spending time ushering for The Drowsy Chaperone. I haven't seen it yet, but I hear great things about Isaac and Gideon's performances. It goes through this week and finishes up Monday night.
I learned that Gideon has lost his calculator and his shoes. I don't know what to say about that, and I am sick of sea pig references, but I just felt like this was somehow newsworthy. (Lesson: The worth of soles is great--but incalculable?) (Man, I am punchy.)
In short: we are busy, happy and usually tired. Juggling work, church, school, magical vehicle repairs and family activities is exhausting but joyful.
Here is some stuff that popped into my head:
- Susan was released as Primary president and is now the Primary chorister. She had a birthday (29th, probably) this month, too.
- Isaac is working for the Salt Lake Lions as a statistician and loves it, and recently took a trip to the Bay Area with the team.
- Susan reminded me that not long ago the children were playing "house" and Joshua said "Rachel is the mom and I'm the honey."
- Miriam has been selected to be in the junior high's advanced choir and is an excellent student.
- Andrew does an amazing amount of homework for a 5th grader.
- Lucy wrote me one of the sweetest notes I have ever received.
- Hannah has had some trials but appears to be doing well. She is a good missionary. We are glad she met with her grandparents briefly Monday on their way to serve in North Carolina.
- Esther and Enoch are really cute.
- Sea pigs.
We love you! May peace "not as the world giveth" be given to us all as we follow the Holy One of Israel.
Isaac is working as a Statistician for the new Utah Professional Ultimate Frisbee Team. The Salt Lake Lions are a new team and they need fans, Isaac can get you free, or really cheap tickets; they play in Taylorsville. Isaac gets the chance to even travel with the professional team, and has already been to San Jose, and San Francisco. He will be going to Seattle soon, as well as Vancouver! Come enjoy this wonderful sport and support your Utah team!
NIELSON, C
Bryony got a job. She's working as a legal secretary at Mawhinney Law.
JOHNSON
Hello from the Johnson family. We are all healthy and doing well. With the end of the school year looming, we are all very busy--and looking anxiously forward to summertime.
As for news, I guess our big news is that Bethany went to prom. She had a great time and I even managed to get her dress finished hours before she needed it. They went to Texas Road House for dinner, and Bethany ordered a cheese burger.
The other big Johnson news is that Mike and I went to a fabulous gardening seminar and we are doing a major renovation on our garden--well, actually the entire back yard. We have been digging out the yard. We have filled the trampoline pit up, and we even took out a couple of trees will shovels and muscles--yah, don't mess with Risa, or she might show you how she takes out trees. Hopefully, by the next news letter we will have some pictures of our beautiful garden.
That is about it for now. We just keep plugging along as usual. No news is good news, right?
Love you all!
The Johnsons
HARDMAN
Hey Everyone!
We are happy to participate in the newly resurrected Nielson Family Newsletter. Our news for this month is as follows:
Steve turned 43, Sarah turned 9, Abby turned 13, Jacob turned 16 (I know, scary! Don't worry--he doesn't even have his learners permit yet, and we're in no hurry to get it for him.) We had our 21st wedding anniversary on Easter Sunday, which stunk because we couldn't even do anything by ourselves because we were celebrating Easter with the family, and you can't really go out to eat on a Sunday, or even afford to when you've already celebrated four birthdays and Easter in that same paycheck. Raise your hand if you think April sucks!
We took Abby and Jacob to the Saturday evening session of Stake Conference Saturday night, and they were awful. I felt like I was sitting through Sacrament Meeting with two toddlers. I'm pretty sure they were the only teenagers acting up in the entire meeting, and they did act up the entire meeting. I had envisioned a spiritual evening together and then maybe a trip to Cold Stone or something to bond together. Instead to took them home and popped them into their beds. The next day at Stake Conference the stake split four wards into five and took a few streets of houses from our ward to add to the new one. I was sad because some of our only friends in the ward are no longer in our ward. Sad tidings for us. All of this taking place deserved a pity party, which I indulged in through the rest of the day--and also most of the talks in stake conference were about being better member missionaries, and I am not very good at that, so now I had guilt to add to my pity party.
Charlie is just finishing up her first year of college, and is coming home this week for the summer. Actually she's only coming home for a few days, as she has rented an apartment in Provo with one of her roommates for the summer. She does have a boyfriend who went to Madagascar on his mission, but we're still rooting for her missionary.
The only other news we had in April was that we sent Mom and Dad off on their grand mission adventure, and we are so proud of them. I am taking bets on how long it takes Dad to buy himself a new king size bed. You can place your bets in your newsletter or email them to me privately. I give him about two days/nights.
So there it is, all the interesting news from the Hardman Clan. Oh, and we didn't have any new cavities at our dentist appointments, even with all that birthday cake and Easter candy. I'm counting that as a miracle blessing from Jimmy's faithful service in the mission field.
Love,
From all of us
To the wonderful Nielson family,
My mission is amazing! It finally stopped raining up here in Portland and the sun has come out! Oregon is so beautiful and I love how many trees are up here -- all of which are full bloom! Everything is very mossy and wet, and the skies here are always breathtaking.
I am currently in Gresham, Oregon, which is one of the most dangerous parts of our mission. I haven't been mugged or anything yet, but I've got at least six more weeks here, so we'll see what happens.
My testimony of the church has grown considerably. I know that Jesus is the Christ. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and that he saw what he said he saw. I know that Thomas S Monson is a living Prophet of God and that we are currently a part of something great! The church is true folks.
We've got some neat baptisms coming up! We're teaching a lot of wonderful people from countries all over the world. I have made friends from Cuba, El Salvador, Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Honduras, Chile, and the Dominican Republic.
My favorite foods are either the mexican street tacos (lots of members own taco trucks) or the Argentinian steaks (there is an Argentinian family in the branch that I am serving in that knows how to cook carne!)
My spanish skills haven't improved much, but I am still very grateful for the summer school spanish classes that Kari used to teach us (I was the only missionary that knew that carrots were called "zanahorias").
I would love to hear from all of you. I would love to hear any mission stories or experiences that you would be willing to share. Letters are my favorite, but emails are nice too.
If you are interested in following my weekly escapades, email me at james.hardman@myldsmail.net and let me know. I'll keep you posted with some of the miracles that are happening here in Vancouver.
I love and miss you all! Keep fighting that good fight of faith!
Con Amor,
Elder James Hardman
You can write me at:
Elder James Hardman
2223 NW 99th St
Vancouver, WA 98665
NIELSON, J
Our baby's going to be a girl. Did I tell you that? Oh, and if you didnt know, Liz is preggers.
Here's some news, if you're still looking for it. They just announced the Marvel version of Infinity Sam and I have been working on. There's even a trailer on Disney.com. So we don't have to keep that quite as secret anymore.
NIELSON, S
Juniper just turned 3.
Marigold is turning 1 next month.
We’re studying electricity right now.
Sam and I really liked the IMAX movie “Jerusalem.”
HUNT
Ella is learning all sorts of new words, she likes gardening and washing dishes. ( those are just ways to play in the dirt and water). Gwen is ready for school to end. She was sick a couple of days but is feeling better. Jane went on a field trip with Gwen to Bard's Birthday Bash. They got to eat cake with the queen, play on a maypole and do improv. Then Gwen got to see a lamb in her classroom. A boy in her class has a crush on her and keeps writing her love letters and she wishes he wouldn't.
Abe is just working and Jane is trying not to go crazy.
FROYD
I had decided not to write any news about Sandin and me. Nothing new happens in our lives. But then my visiting teacher reminded me of something. I am a reminder to all that your lives could be worse. So here we go. Sandin is still trying to get the government to help us with food and health care, this is the third time we've applied since last October, we'll see if it helps this time. My health though not declining is not any better. My hips have been particularly achey this spring. My head fluctuates between good and AARGHH! With no hope of the proper medications in the the immediate future, I am grateful none-the-less for the blessing of having a clearer brain. I've actually worked on my books recently. Those of you who are familiar with such work should be happy to hear that. I even worked on my short story based on Puss in Boots. By the by, I named the main characters in that book after Miriam and Jimmy (well mostly).
Naya is a strange little thing, she recently made friends with, what I call, a gang of hooligans in the neighborhood. She tears through the house with this group of boys totally oblivious to the fact that they speak different languages, (Martian vs. Venutian) and they play their favorite game, Superheroes. Naya is either Wonder Woman, Supergirl, or more often than not, Batgirl. The funniest thing about this strange friendship is that none of her little boy friends remember her name. It's really funny to hear them shouting up the stairs for her, "Hey GIRL!"
ADAMS
Michael is busy playing CEO for a master's degree course. He's discovering he likes it very much. He is a natural leader, and we laugh all the time that his team thinks he has an "A type personality".
Pamela is consumed with music: with her choir directing, voice lessons and trying to heal her own voice. Hopefully one of these days she'll be able to get rid of all that tension in her throat and get back her 4 1/2 octave range.
Evelyn just lost her other top front tooth. It was a surprise to all of us when Pamela offered to wiggle it and it came flying out at her face, accompanied by much screaming from all the females is the family. Now Evelyn speaks with an adorable lisp that we'll be sad to lose when her new teeth come in. But we won't be sad that we won't have to cut everything up for her anymore.
Penny is working hard on becoming an obese pug, but it's not working out, due to her wheat allergy and Pamela pulling all those rotten berries out of her throat.
We also just refinanced our house, so hopefully we are no longer upside down and we will be able to sell someday! Hurray!
Very Respectfully,
Michael Adams, CSCP, CPC
Recipe of the Month
As most of you know, Sandin and I don't have a lot of news in our lives. It's as unchanging as it is depressing. However there is one practice I love to share. So included in this and hopefully future issues I thought I would share with you all my recipes:
This month's recipe was born of a need to use some veggies in the fridge before they went bad. It ended up being delicious enough that even Naya ate it, with a satisfied moan after every bite.
Sausage and Veggie Sandwich
1 lb. sage sausage
1 sweet onion
1 green bell pepper
2 roma tomatoes
sprinkle of garlic
Salt, to taste
1 T. white wine (optional, it does cook out)
1/2 t. apple vinegar
Hoagie rolls (or other sandwich roll of choice)
1/2 cube butter
sprinkle of garlic
sprinkle of onion pwd.
sprinkle of It. Seas.
Brown sausage, and add veggies (yes even tomatoes). Salt and add garlic, wine and vinegar. (If you add salt directly over veggies it keeps the sausage from being too salty.) Cook uncovered until excess liquid is boiled off. Meanwhile cut open your bread of choice and mix garlic butter (my ingredients for garlic butter are listed under the rolls, but if you have a preference make your own). Spread the butter on rolls and broil for a minute until toasted in oven. Add sausage mix and enjoy.
