27 August 2015
Dear Rebekah,
Today has been an
overly busy day and so I’m taking a quick mental health break. I was going to
check my blogs or personal email but decided that maybe I should take a quick
minute and write you a letter. Today seems to be the day for sending letters to
nieces and nephews.
A week or two ago I got a call from a mobile number but it
didn’t say who was calling. After I said hello, the boy called me by name, said
it was Josh and proceeded to tell me about the 24 hour run that his school was
doing. I couldn’t quite place the person’s voice. We have a Josh that lives
around the corner but it didn’t sound like him. I figured, however, that he’d
been away for 2 years on a mission so maybe he just wasn’t as familiar any
more. I pledge to pay 15 cents per mile run and I told him good luck with the
run. 
Later I told Scott about the call and he teased me about
giving money to people without knowing who it was. He also said “why didn’t you
ask his last name”. Well, I didn’t want to offend them by not knowing who it
was . . . Anyhow, I wouldn’t pay anything until when he came to get a check
from me after the race and by then, I’d know who I sponsored! See, it all would
work out. Well, I got an email from Josh Campbell, your cousin, yesterday where
he told me about his race and the 208 miles they ran. He reminded me that I had
sponsored him so would I please send a check for $31.20? Ah mystery solved.
Josh my nephew!!! I think I should feel bad because I didn’t know him when he
called but he didn’t call me “Aunt” Melissa, which would have solved the
problem and also, Josh has NEVER called me before. So there is it. I sent him a
check today. So, two letters to some of my favorite teenagers today.
I love reading your emails home. They are filled with optimism and happiness and the Spirit and your testimony. I know that there are certainly hard times, probably times that you handle less well than others and you maybe don’t share them in your emails. When those happen I know that you are turning to the Lord in prayer to help you to not be discouraged. I have a young woman who went into the MTC about 3 weeks after you, called to the Houston, TX mission. Her mom was telling us in Relief Society last week about how sometimes she gets letters talking about many investigators who seem to be progressing and then they drop off the planet (you’ve had plenty of those too I’ve read). Her mom said that it seemed like more dropped off than actually continued through to baptism and in a moment of discouragement in proxy for her missionary daughter she had written about this. The sister missionary wrote back and said “I’m planting seeds mom”. We talked a lot about how we are always planting seeds with every interaction we have with a non-member or less-active member – or nourishing the seed that somebody else planted. It’s not often that we get to be the one to harvest but more often we are in the process planting, watering, nourishing, tending to that seed as it grows. All those stages are important though.
As a member missionary who has a hard time sometime with the
big gestures (invite someone to church/missionary discussions/read the Book of
Mormon), it was nice for me to hear that these people might just need me to
plant the seed or help it along the way. Or maybe, the seed has been planted
and nourished and they are ready for harvest. I guess that is when it becomes
extremely important to listen to the Holy Ghost and to put trust in him and let
him put in my mouth what I should say.
Well, Maddy has started 1st grade. She’s been
there for a full week now and I think she is enjoying it. She is in a Chinese
Immersion program so she learns math and science from her Chinese speaking
teacher Mrs. Bryant, before lunch and then after lunch she goes to Mrs. Dean
who speaks English and teaches reading, language, arts, and all those other
subjects. She has taught me to count to 9, say ‘I have to go to the bathroom ‘and
to say ‘I need a drink’ in Mandarin. I must say, she is learning it faster than
I am! By the time she graduates the program and goes to Junior High she should
be fairly fluent.
We start Chorale a week from tonight and I can’t wait. This
summer break is such a long one and I miss having my family fix each week. I
miss your mom and Katie and grandma and grandpa! Our cousin Liz Birnel (one of
our Laudie cousins) is joining chorale this season. Her sister Joy plays the
violin in our orchestra. So, the Dalton family connections expand to one more.
It will be fun to have her join us. Maybe one day you or Julianne will live in
the area and could join too. My favorite rehearsal of the season is the first
one because it is so exciting to see friends I’ve missed all summer and open my
folder to see what songs we’ll be singing and whether I know any of them, and
then we sight-read through them all. Now that I think about it, it was kind of
like the first day of school where we get all dressed up cute and was friends
who’ve been gone all summer and we got our books and our syllabuses and were so
excited to see what we would learn that semester!
Well, you are probably bored but maybe it’s nice to get a
letter that is all about nothing and is just about plan normal life. Or maybe
that’s simply foreign to you.We love you. We are praying for you all the time and I am so pleased to see your beautiful, smiling face in each picture that you send home to your mom. I’m so glad you are enjoying yourself and experiencing such a wonderful country and meeting so many different people from different places. I am smiling like a goof as I sit here thinking about you.
I love you dear
Rebekah! I’ll leave you with a nice quote that has been nice when I’ve come up
against challenges “I didn’t come this far to only come this far”. Keep going,
endure to the end, choose happiness, make it Your Best Day Yet, and know that
these goofy people love you.
Love,
Aunt Melissa
Aunt Melissa
