Miracles Abound In Our Day

 Oh hello Joe,

Wow, what a week, miracles abound in our day.

As you know from my last letter, uncle Aaron had a bad day last Saturday. He was driving home from the gym last Saturday when he suffered cardiac arrest…his heart stopped, he died. It took all week for that to set in. I’m grateful that your brothers and I were able to give him a blessing. We went to the IMC to visit him on Sunday. It was stake conference so we ended up spending most of the day there. Several doctors came by and explained to us that all the tests had shown that his heart and organs were okay, but they wouldn’t say anything about his brain function or memory, which made me wonder and worry a little bit. 

Because I’m unemployed, I took the time to go see him. He was awake, sort of. He recognized me, but was pretty out of it and didn’t talk much. Again, the doctors said he was doing better, but wouldn’t say much about his brain condition. I wasn’t worried, but I knew that he wasn’t out of the woods yet. 

I went back on Tuesday morning. When I went to his room he was sitting up with his glasses on, he saw me and greeted me by name—I knew then that he was back and was going to be okay. 

Thursday morning I got a call from aunt Stella, she was feeling really sick and was scared because she’s still recovering from her surgery. Jake was home before school so he came with me. When we got there, she was in bed. She had a bad stomach. We did what we could, including giving her a blessing. It seems like we’ve had a few opportunities to give blessings lately so I asked Jacob if he would give it. So I did the anointing, and Jacob gave a really beautiful blessing to her. I love the fact that you boys have the faith and experience to give blessings. We left so I could drop off Jake at school. After I got home I got a call from her friend  who told me that the doctors office called and, because she had blood in her poop. She didn’t tell me that, which is understandable. She called me again after a few hours to tell me that she was okay. I remembered the blessing, and it seemed to have had an effect.

Friday night was our turn to clean the church. Ben and Jacob came with me, we got done pretty quick. After we went for burgers, it’s fun to be with your brothers. After, we watched Inglorious Basterds. It’s fun to watch and analyze these movies with your brothers even if mom doesn’t always approve.

Saturday I got up to do some yard work. Boring dad stuff that is hard to notice. I thatched the front yard and did some basic weeding. I was going to spread out the Step 1 but it started to rain too much. By then it was time to go to aunt Patti’s house. Her and Artie threw a nice welcome home party for Aaron. He had come home on Friday, and is doing pretty well. 

As I thought about this week, about how differently things could have turned out. About how horrible it could have been to be planning a funeral instead of a celebration for uncle Aaron. And I believe that the priesthood was such a big part of the outcome. One of the days I was visiting him there was a high level doctor there. He was telling us how much he saw the miracles in Aaron’s recovery. I’m told that he was one of the top doctors in the state. He literally knew everything that had to happen for Aaron to recover instead of dying, or having brain damage from lack of oxygen. From the immediate response of the Good Samaritan that stopped to help him when they saw his jeep stop, they broke his window to give him cpr, and how close the off duty paramedics were to get to him and resuscitate him. Then his response to all of the treatments. 

So this has me thinking about trials. There are trials everywhere. Cecily just barely getting normal from her transplants, which happened the month you started your mission. But her health trials started years before that. Then I think of mom’s surgery last year, it took more than two months for her to recover, even longer before the pain went away. And aunt Patti, who went through that horrible divorce that took so long, three years. And your grandma, who although she is doing well, still has that brain tumor. Uncle Justin lost both of his parents within 30 days. I think about how all of these trials have different levels of severity and different durations. Each one of these trials is harder than my current trial of unemployment. But it still feels like a pretty hard trial to me. So I try to find the faith that they have all had to see my trial through. I try to demonstrate their faith. I try to connect more to Jesus Christ to find comfort. I’ve been thinking of Presidents Neilson’s quote about needing the Spirit to make it through. This is what you are teaching when you teach about Jesus, Heavenly Father, and the Plan of Salvation. 

I’m going to have to cash in some of my retirement savings soon. I’m pretty unhappy about that and hoping that sees us through until I get a job. I’m still hoping to get a job soon, but need to have a contingency. But, to tie this back into the first sentence of this message, there’s a pattern to these trials. A start, a duration, and a resolution. I think we’re supposed to use the hope of our faith to get through the duration. And we get strengthened by enduring through them and recognizing the miracle in the resolution of our trials. So that’s what I am going to hope for and look forward to. 

I’m never sure how to get myself out of these things I write, so I’ll just finish the week.

Today was church, then we came home and mom made tostadas. They were good, but your brothers seem to have banned roast beef and mashed potatoes for Sunday dinners. Hopefully we’ll be back to that when you get home. 

After dinner we went to go help grandma get into her email. Apparently, she hasn’t had access on any of her devices since Rod “helped her”. We got her reconnected on her phone. iPad, and laptop. She should have written you by now. 

When we got home, we watched what was probably on of the top five worst movies ever made, it was called Trapped, for a guaranteed rant, ask your brothers about it tomorrow. 

Anyway kid, this was kind of a heavy letter despite the miracle we had this week. 

I sure love you,

Pops