I Love the Mountains: May 2024

Dear Family and Dear Friends, 29 May 2024

May invites us to remember beautiful people in our lives. Sometimes it is with flowers.

Other times with cotton balls that remind us of a family game of earlier days when a jar would be filled with cotton balls each time someone would answer to a duty or request: “I would love to!” Volunteering requires courage. Sometimes saying NO also requires backbone and strength, and commitment to a greater YES. We are learning that it helps to define such.

The end of a school year symbolizes wrapping things up (a favorite thing!)

In early May, we celebrated a grandson graduating from Arizona State. The speaker in his college of Business spoke of J. F. Kennedy's grandfather in Ireland throwing his hat over a wall to express determination.

Val and I are wondering which hat we will throw over which wall as we come to an end of a year and our service in the Bountiful temple.

Wonderful friends. Beloved experiences. Val is hoping to devote time to spending with a 94-year-old mother researching and performing vicarious ordinances for loved ones passed on.

Laurene has begun calling a nearly ninety-year-old uncle, realizing that links to generations before are fragile, to be guarded with care.

Invitations to watch Shakespeare snippets, choir and band concerts, and assist a grandson to work to earn funds for participation in a national Science Olympiad event invite us to celebrate talents in the arts and music, and the blessing of side-by-side labor.

It is during these cherished moments that we learn to know one another and share the benefit of a job well done along with what we can share with one another as we translate our lives and work to help make things doable and more possible for our younger friends.

One of those such moments came a few days after missing a neighborhood gathering to make dolls for children in hospitals in Africa. I had marked the wrong day for this event on the calendar and instead watched a delightful Bothell Christian school choir concert. One of the helpers invited me to stuff dolls at her kitchen table, while we caught up on family happenings and enriched our friendship: a true embodiment of the words “joyfully repent!”

On Memorial Day weekend, we were blessed to connect with our Denver Duo, to hear of new work improving processes and working to eliminate waste.

We are inching closer to richly appreciate the message of Malachi, inviting hearts of children to turn to parents and parents to children. “Isn’t that what we came to earth for?” to quote a son bursting with emotion on the birth of his first child.

In a few days, three grandchildren from Georgia arrive. “MAKE ROOM” is the message that dons my brother’s in-laws window in December and January.

“Make Room for Ducklings” is a title of a once loved children’s book. Ducklings we love.

And there is ever and always room! We are very blessed to have connection with and learn with and from our next generation leaders. Remembering our past and our future, we are saying "May the Fourth be with you." The Fourth, coming up in just over a month, commemorating seeds of liberty,

along with the Force of Goodness which lights our hearts, from the Father of Lights. Thank you, for choosing to be a light in our lives! Sincerely, Laurene and Val

Dear family and dear friends, 2 May 2024

For Christmas, a daughter shared an invitation to mom and a few sisters that resembled past family health contests. This year’s invitation was to “Take Your House Back!”

(Above are before and after pictures,

upon hearing "Cas from Clutter bug:" compare unneeded or unwanted items in my house to "squatters "

who choose to stay and stay and boss me around and need to be invited to leave.

Saturday, some of my squatters left! Celebrating!)

So, some of us are starting fresh, in more ways than one. Val is doubling his walking and inch by inching toward a stream-lined office space. In the process, we are learning to savor and safeguard things that matter--like memories made with grandchildren and children, mothers and each other.

A recent neurology article reminds: “forgetting is normal – it is part of a process of prioritizing.”

So, what comes first today?

At a recent appointment with Val’s neurologist, director of a stroke clinic, who gave us 70 minutes of valuable consultation (much earlier than expected, due to a cancelation) we learned that habits of diligence pay off and promise dividends. (A grandson and I disected this definition: "Did you know? You’re more likely to be diligent about something if you love doing it. The etymology of diligent reflects the fact that devotion can lead to energetic effort. The word...comes from the Latin verb diligere, meaning “to value or esteem highly” or “to love.” Diligere was formed by combining the di- prefix (from dis-, meaning “apart”) with the verb legere, meaning “to gather, select” or “to read.”...its offspring include collect, lecture, legend, intelligent, and legume."

Grandpa loves legumes. Grandma loves collecting intelligent legends!)

Diet matters. Reaching out conquers tides of loneliness or disappointment. Simple movement -- through walking, games, puzzles, connecting dots (or loved ones) with text, phone calls, or a heartfelt prayer can help rough places become smooth.

In other words "You can make the pathway bright!"

(The choice for next week's opening hymn. You may pray in rhythm for and in behalf of any favorite organist today!)

Sunshine arrived over our mountains in the month of April when daughters to our April (and Tom) flew in for five days to nestle grandparents and cousins, venturing to the Family History library,

Church history museum exhibit featuring artist Minerva Teichert

Manti temple open house,

and a Jake the Snake family hike.

We painted rocks and palettes,

cuddled cousins,

watched and flew kites (best way to fill a 3 hour line wait for a tour!) ate waffles,

raked ravines, concocted spearmint tea,

settled Catan,

baked bread,

arranged Azul tiles, stirred strawberry ice cream and “sang our way home” on the three-hour drive back from San Pete County. The visit flew by -- fast and furious. Mirroring a friend who claims grandchildren are her vitamins, we hope to report following the prophet’s advice to take our vitamin pills and get our rest, as we are living in “exciting” times.

While we are not quite as confident about “rest” (Sister Davies, our former organ teacher has asserted that music is ever more powerful when rests are obeyed!) we did enjoy a weekend of worldwide general church conference and left the following morning for a day’s drive to Washington state. Grandchildren celebrating spring break,

we gratefully connected with each of our eldest Starkey children, Laurene’s siblings,

some dear friends,

along with a temple session with Laurene’s sister and husband at the Seattle temple

(where we were sealed just over 30 years ago) and a wonderful afternoon at Beaver Lake.

This Wednesday, Val and I directed traffic to Layton temple’s open house, and this month will wind down our Friday assignment at the Bountiful temple. Amber and daughters arrive in five weeks to spend six more. Can life be better?

Val recently cut his hair. New temple. New look. Daughter with a new job. Every time beans and salsa garnish our plate in a Chipotle restaurant, we may thank Providence for answered prayers in behalf of an intelligent Denver “process” engineer. A recent podcast suggests working to observe heaven’s "power, process, pace and promises."

How is that for minding our P’s and Q’s?

So what can we do with Q? How about a quick, quiet, quaint quest? Last Thursday, on a hunch--after hearing a brother was in town in a borrowed truck and a mother sordidly sitting on a stiff chair--with a quick text, six phone calls, two store visits and kind neighbor helping to heft, an acceptable offering landed--in less than two hours-- a happily situated mother, Shirley.

Sitting beside me at a movie theater Tuesday, Shirley watched a true story of a courageous young missionary who rescued dozens of his fellows barely before the erupting of a second world war in 1937. Not a quiet movie. But the message came quick and quiet in my heart: Heaven is real.