Hosting Elder Costa

 

 

This has been a busy, but rewarding month after spending the first two weeks of February in Eugene helping in the home while Tiffany was gone to Europe with her family.

The highlight of the month was hosting Elder Joaquin E. Costa, a General Authority Seventy over the weekend for our stake conference. He was called as a General Authority in April 2016. It was delightful to host him in our home and he was so easy to have. He reminded us so much of Uncle Oscar. He is from Buenos Aires. We have been spiritually fed by his counsel, testimony, and spirit over the last couple of days. Crismon spent many hours with him as they drove around the stake Saturday and Sunday afternoon doing ministering visits. Elder Costa was so good in his way of connecting with the members and inviting them to make a change. It was a great stake conference. He was so warm and personal with us. He asked about me and I shared about my post polio. He was amazed by what I had gone through while raising nine children. He said, "How did you do it?" We both knew, of course, that I couldn't have done it without the Lord's help and sustaining influence. I hope I'll remember that sweet gesture he made of placing both hands over his heart as we spoke with me. We’re grateful for this sweet opportunity to be blessed by these good men that come in to our home as representatives of the Lord in his kingdom on earth. It was kind of funny, when I said let's take a picture, he said, "Let's do a selfie!" So we took a selfie with a General Authority!
For my own record, I served Wild Rice Chicken soup for lunch after they arrived from Crismon picking him up at the airport. I was so grateful to Ondalynn for coming two days before to help me prepare some of the food. She brought Paxton and he helped Grandpa clean up the yard. Thank goodness for sunshine! The rest of lunch included Caesar salad, yummy artisan bread from Fred Meyers that is so easy to bake, apple slices and yummy oatmeal cookies for dessert. He basically only ate the soup and cookies, but he may have been nervous, or something as he hardly ate while he was here. I prepared an Apple Pear Oatmeal bake dish for breakfast the next morning, with carrot muffins, banana bread, fruit, etc., but again, he hardly ate. It must be hard going in to different homes with a variety of different foods. After the Saturday night meeting he didn't want to eat but went straight to bed. Emily says Argentines each basically one thing in a meal.
Because of Stake Conference, we couldn't go to Evelyn's baptism in Hawaii. We felt so badly about that. She is such a special girl. I have enjoyed reading the Book of Mormon with her on a regular basis in the evening. We are three hours apart in time zones, but we make it work. We're glad Herb & Keren Williams were able to be there for this special day.
Dad was under a lot of pressure preparing for Stake Conference. Two days before our Elder Costa arriving we were given free tickets to the BYU BB game against the Univ. of Portland. It was a relaxing reprieve from the demanding schedule.

Home Schooling in Eugene and more

On Monday, January 30th, Crismon drove me down to Eugene. I was spending the next, nearly 2 weeks with Seth and his four boys, Jackson, Addison, Preston and Asher, while Tiffany was in Europe with her family. It was a busy day learning from Tiffany what I was to do to home school Preston and Asher. They attend the "Academy for Character Education" one day a week and then home school on the other days. Also, we went to the boys violin lesson and I got an idea of how I was to help them through their practicing each day. They have a very busy household, and by the end of the day I was wondering how I would be able to do this, but I know the Lord blessed me greatly. Crismon had given me a blessing the week before, and I felt added strength to keep going, despite the usual pain and exhaustion I deal with on an ongoing basis.

Crismon headed home on Tuesday afternoon. He needed to get back for his Stake President responsibilities, stewardship interviews, and to keep our business going. I was so thankful he came back on Thursday afternoon until Saturday afternoon. Then the following week he joined me again on Wed. late afternoon and drove me back home on Friday afternoon, Feb. 10th. The boys loved having him there, and I really appreciated the extra hand with meals, cleanup, running to basketball practice, etc.

Seth was a good help as well. The first week I was there he was under a tremendous amount of stress as he had a deadline to apply for a Grant, and all that has to be done in pulling that together. Also, he met personally with the Univ. President in seeking for funding for a project. All of this along with preparing for the classes he teaches, etc. It was truly a team effort to keep everything going on at home. 

The boys are so good, always willing to help when I asked them. It was busy getting the older boys out the door in the morning, and then jumping in with the younger ones to begin violin practicing and home work assignments. It's a tremendous curriculum, but very intense, and confusing to me at times, so it was stressful trying to keep them on task, by being kind and loving, but also having to gently get on them to keep pushing forward in their work. It was delightful to listen to Jackson and Addison practice the piano each day. They are getting very accomplished and Addison even wrote a piece that sounds amazing!

Seth and the older boys helped some with the younger boys homework on Saturday, but there was still much to do for Preston and Asher to be ready to turn in their school work by Tuesday morning. After our meetings on Sunday, Seth felt the boys should work on their homework. This was causing a lot of upset feelings by the boys. They definitely wanted a day off. I couldn't blame them. I asked Seth that instead of having them work on their homework, how about we all pray for miracle that somehow the boys would finish their work in a timely manner if we kept the Sabbath day holy by not working on their homework. We asked Dad to pray with us and that was our sincere pleading in all of our prayers for the next 24 hours. It truly was a miracle! Asher finished his work by 1:30 pm on Monday, and Preston finished up by 8:30 pm that night. It felt so good to have them finish, and I was very grateful to our Heavenly Father for His tender mercy in helping this miracle to happen. 

That night Asher was begging his Dad to take him to the library to get the next Harry Porter CD so they could listen to it in the car. Seth was about to ask him to wait, but Asher was so anxious, and he deserved it for all of his hard work. I thought there was no way they would be able to get the CD book version without placing it on hold. But at the library, Asher was able to find it on the shelf. He grabbed it and raised his arm triumphantly to tell his Dad, "It's the last one. It's a miracle!" We were blessed with several miracles that day for which I was so very grateful.

Other activities of the week included all the boys, Seth, and Grandpa going to the Univ. of Oregon basketball game. Then the next night, Grandpa, Seth, Jackson and Addison attended a speech at the University. It's so nice they live so close to the campus to have these opportunities. Saturday morning Dad took Jackson and Addison to an Eagle Project activity, planting trees, then to their church basketball game. This was a wonderful opportunity for us to having more bonding time with these good boys. I wish I didn't have such restricted energy, as I wanted to do so much more with them. I went on a short walk with Grandpa, Preston, and Asher, and played the younger two boys in a game of ping pong, otherwise I was busy keeping up with the daily schedule of events. We are happy we could live just two hours away from them so we can help occasionally. 

The boys adore their mother, Tiffany, and they were so excited to have her home on Saturday afternoon. She's a great mother. We're thankful she returned home safely to her precious family.