Prayers for uncle Aaron

 Good afternoon Elder Rivera,

Mom’s writing to you now and she writes a lot faster than I do, so by now you know the shocking news about uncle Aaron. In short, he has had some sort of event that made his heart stop beating. He’s in the same ICU that you’re mother was in for her surgery last year. He’s under sedation with lots of tubes and things. They’ve scanned his heart and organs and they are all okay. They won’t know what his brain function is like until he comes out of sedation, perhaps on Tuesday. That is the scary part.

So to give you the story from the start. Yesterday we got up to go see aunt Stella. She’s doing better, but I think her medication is slowing her down a little. Because of that we were there for a little while trying to get her account statements printed out. Your brothers heard some interesting tales from uncle Temmy regarding fighting Jews and hitler, you’ll need to ask them about that though. On the way home I noticed a fire truck down the street as we crossed highway 89. I didn’t think much of it. Mom and Jacob wanted to make chiliquillas, so we stopped by the first Rancho Market on the way home. While we were there, i got this message from your cousin Cecily: Georgie, I cannot talk.  But my husband’s heart stopped beating.  They did CPR and the shocked him.  They took him to Lakeview.  Please please pray for him. I am so scared 

I need to admit that even after reading it several times, the gravity of it did not sink in. I even had to show it to your mom to make sure it said what I thought it said. So we checked out and went back to the hospital in bountiful. We got there and had to wait a while in the ER waiting room. Finally Artie came and got us, all of us to go back. It was tough to see Aaron all hooked up with tubes and wires with his hands and feet bound to the bed. He was unconscious. Cecily was extremely upset, as you can imagine. These situations are awkward because there’s nothing you can do but be there. After a few minutes Cecily asked me to give a blessing, to Aaron and her. That’s something we can do. So Artie did the anointing and I gave the blessing, your brothers also administered. Being able to give a blessing in a situation like this is no small thing. I always remember this lesson that bishop Powers gave right after we moved into our ward. He taught us that a blessing is not a prayer, we are not asking God for something. A blessing is us wielding Gods power, having been given his authority, to give the people we are giving blessings to what they are in need of. I usually don’t remember everything I say in a blessing, but I do remember a couple of things. I remember admonishing his spirit to hear the blessing, I remember blessing him with a full recovery, and I remember promising him (and this one was surprising, it almost felt like I was listening to my own voice more than actually saying the words) that there was a legion of angels there to care for him. After we gave Cecily her blessing. 

They were going to get him transferred to this hospital so we headed home for a while. We came back this morning. Here, he’s even more connected to stuff, he has several tubes in his mouth and limbs, he has wires connected everywhere. He’s even connected to a machine that cools his body, to the point of hypothermia. That’s to help his brain heal. He’s had tests on his heart and organs and everything is fine. The just don’t know about his brain yet. The EMTs that rescued him guess that his brain could have been deprived of oxygen for 10 minutes. That’s what has Cecily so scared. They are going to keep him sedated until perhaps Tuesday. I’ll keep you posted.

Seems like the other events of the week are not coming to mind after this. The Utes bball team hired an assistant coach that looks pretty impressive, though he’s not a former player or anything. Spring football at the U started, so the hype train starts again, they are talking about replacing the huntsman center — which makes me sad, BYU is going to the sweet 16, which makes me more sad. In more serious news, I think I told you last week that uncle Justin’s mom had passed away, her funeral was on Friday. Being unemployed gives me the flexibility to support family.

Speaking of the job search, I’m redoing my LinkedIn profile and my reel and going to tweak my portfolio a little. I also joined another networking group. I’m not really sure how much difference this will all make, I just got to keep working at it. I did find a job posting at the Church that interests me, so I’m connecting to my friends that I know there to up my chances, I’ll apply this week. Keep that in your prayers for me.

I think I’ll end this letter here, love you kid.

Pops