I Love the Mountains: Purpose in Places of Promise

Dear Family and dear friends 23 July 2024

What a blessing to welcome summer and grandchildren and blessings of a chosen land of promise!

Our new temple recently received a dedication by Elder David A. Bednar.

Is it not all about making stronger long lasting connections? Is it not about FAMILY? What is the root of the word of "familiar"? In the love and light emanating from the celebration of a long-awaited treasure, can you think of a more singular memory walk hand in hand with a new generation, to venture along careful paths, sharing sacred songs?

How best can we express thanks for our forebears? In what way best may we acknowledge courage, sacrifice and determination? What are the foundations they have built for us? We rejoice in finding roots in places that offer cherished memories. What better, than Great Grandma Mary Ann Price Stucki’s

Idaho, Paris pioneer home--

planned and purchased by those who went first, rebuilt and blessed by those who follow?

Can life be fuller than when siblings draw near?

Is there a happier mix than combining “immediate connections” from Georgia, Colorado, Washington, or Utah in Idaho and elsewhere, with bubbles and beaches?

Plays, patriotic parades and programs? Flags and fireworks, food, or festivities?

What could be more peaceful than striding near a sibling, inhaling fresh oxygen in an hour free of frenzy while morning rays mount and crest majestic mountaintops

or watching a full moon peek above evening silhouettes after an evening of citizen connections?

What can teach little fingers better than poking in seeds of summer squash,

in the training of twins awaiting their "fairy" golden birthday?

What can we learn about the impact of planting good seeds--clusters of flavorful, colorful fruits, raspberries handpicked, flavoring peach specks of frozen homemade confection?

Is there a finer feast to be had than that of helping hands huddling and hefting to make light work and shoulder the wheel?

(We are learning that some new things, like babies and badminton, are awe-inspiring. Other things, like 30 year old air conditioners may keep going and going and are better maintained rather than replaced!)

(What better way to say we love our land than a "hand"-made "title of liberty?)

(What better way to end a car wash party than a cup-held war with water?)

What better treat than hearing a 94-and-a-half-year-old great grandmother and her twin offer advice on brush and color, tea parties and tales?

(If you have not been to the History Museum on temple square, there are children who say you might venture!)

Who can excel an awesome auntie with coaching in creating, crafts, or cooking?

Who can cap common childhood favorites, collecting cousins cuddling in comforters to care about an imaginative red-haired orphan sauntering with her “bosom” buddy along a seascape at sunset on Prince Edward Island?

Or surpass the pouring over pages to race through the air with an orphaned child sent packages by owl?

Catching the last of the Mohicans, or Mo Willems, or Animal Babies...

How best is the rising generation empowered in embracing holy habits, or loving legacies that last?

May we learn, with a toddler, age two,

the power of working to “ar-ti-cu-late” things we know and things yet to be mastered?

May we lift our legs faithfully forward in footsteps familiar and steps that seem strange?

Is there a more blessed month than one where we remember the coming together of gifted minds,

wise souls, heaven-inspired leaders to create a document promoting life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

May your month recalling “Independence” instill a reminder of interdependence on Providence, a striving to honor heaven in the lifting of future generations.