I Love the Mountains: Indeed, He is Risen! Where are we finding garments strewn in the way and an empty tomb?

Dear family and dear friends: 22 April 2025

“Christ is risen! Indeed, He is risen!” [Words spoken from our friends in Russia and eastern European countries. (Luke 24:34) ]

Recently, I admired Ukrainian eggs made by a friend.

Is it not lovely to view miraculous gifts from friends and neighbors, and nature,

as blossoms bud and open to light?

Grandchildren try new things and open their hearts and minds to adventures and invitations to learn.

Val invited us to southern Utah for some quiet time in April.

In the process, we found a valley bursting at its seams with attendees of an annual “Jeep Safari”

where we met tourists from Trinidad to Macedonia, India to Beijing.

Mostly our eyes and hearts carried awe in viewing “empty tomb” rock structures to dot the desert,

pondering the power of small drops of living water upon hard surfaces.

As we traveled south, our path diverted to tour a museum in Helper, Utah, a small town that once boasted more than two dozen languages—where immigrants establish roots, in mining ore to provide fuel for the coal driven steam engines, which Val’s father’s father Alva serviced for years in Ogden, after following his parents and siblings from Ohio and Illinois. I watched an interested husband explore the fascination of connecting a continent of thousands of miles with rails and effort.

Old tools were featured: this organ, brought by handcart in 1854, resembles a pump organ I remember from a rented building for our worship services and children's meeting in Sanford, Maine.

How they heated and washed were not so distant: my Mom grew up using a coal burning stove and wringer washer. What "old" tools hold fondness in your memory?

I also was invited with grandchildren to a baby animals day at a state park:

where grandchildren panned for “gold" (The guide told us we really found quartz.) Are not every day a bit like this? Sifting until we can find and gather treasure?

While driving, we listened to a book tape and learned of a character who possessed a tool that offered to help him connect with one of his beloved friends. He stashed away and did not use it. If my tool would be letters, and texts and phone calls, then what if an Easter Resolution is to NOT stash the tool away?

In what way today will I remember to “call home”?

Reach out with earnest interest to favored persons?

Thank you for choosing to be among them!

We are grateful for the effort of willing hands assisting the move of our mother from one side of her care facility to another:

“How are you doing?” “Great!” “How are you liking memory care?” “I love it!”

I have seen videos with Mom shooting air gun bullets (and scoring) on delightful aides. One of my favorite parts of the process has been watching synchrony in a brother’s family, in their kind ministering, and “Magical Care of Beloved Creatures.”

(HOW did they manage to fit the larger room into one smaller

and end up with next to nothing left over?)

A favorite Easter quote is from grandchildren, pondering Palm Sunday. Matthew 21:8:“And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way; others cut down branches from the trees, and strawed them in the way.”