Small and Simple Things

Fred and I have had the calling of YSA Advisor for almost 3 months and have only been successful in visiting with 6 of the 24 youth in our group, all of who are still in high school and actively attending our ward. Of the remaining 18, 4 are on missions, and one has such intense special needs that her parents don't feel that the goals of this specific group fit her needs. We have found enough information to move 3 names off our list and have added 3 more, but after every temporal resource and avenue available, we are still trying to locate 8 youth who seem not to want to be found, which is really the group we've been asked to focus on. The nice clean print-out we were given is almost unreadable because of all of the notes and yet, in truth, we have not accomplished anything of real worth in all of these weeks and ultimately it comes down to the fact (in my case) that jumping into the actual trenches is terrifying to me. Sometimes you have to rely on other people in order to find any information and often that information can be intimidating, especially when they involve guns and threats if you show up on someone's porch. But, we can progress no further on paper and now is the time to ACT in faith.

A few weeks ago, as we were sitting in Sacrament meeting, Jet stood up to bear his testimony. It caught me off guard and as he stood there I realized that here was a young man, who a year before was slamming (literally) doors in missionaries faces and would have wanted nothing to do with me, in my YSA role and now he was standing in front of a congregation of hundreds sharing his belief in the gospel and I thought of the scripture in the D&C that says, "And whoso receiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up." and I received the strong impression that if I would just be faithful and put forth the effort, I would be guided to those who do want to be found, no matter what I can't find on paper and I would be protected. Even so, I have let two more weeks go by and continue to put all my efforts after paperwork and active members and I think the Lord is tiring of my lethargy because I opened my scripture study a few days ago to D&C 60 and read, " But with some I am not well pleased, for they will not open their mouths, but they hide the talent which I have given unto them, because of the fear of man. Wo unto such, for mine anger is kindled against them. And it shall come to pass, if they are not more faithful unto me, it shall be taken away, even that which they have." Needless to say, I am feeling severely chastened and have made a commitment to go out every week and start knocking on doors and just trust in the Lord. We have a formal appointment on Thursday and will see if we can't make some informal ones at the same time.

After all, I have spent the last 20 years of my life preparing Jordan to go out and do what he IS doing and what I have been refusing to do. It's funny--as a Primary president I visited every home of every child on my list consistently with no fear, even though I had to approach an adult in order to get to the child, but when I am asked to actually go looking for the "adult", I am full of fear. I know that's because I am not being full of faith, because we have been told that the two can not co-exist.

On a completely other subject...We have had to pull Eden out of Music Theatre of Idaho after only one day of "The Secret Garden" rehearsals, because the scheduling conflicted with Choir tour and was so intense that after missing only one F.H.E., we both knew it wasn't going to be emotionally sensible. The fact that there were a few mandatory Sundays involved made it a clear cut decision, but Eden was initially so disappointed as she has looked so forward to the experience. As novices, there were just so many things to know that we weren't aware of when we signed up, so we lost all of the money that we invested up front, but you live and learn. I will say, that the one practice that we did attend was so interesting. All of the cast showed up and after much kissing and hugging (most seemed to know each other very well) all sat in a large semicircle and did a dry run of the entire script ( a 3 hour experience). It was truly enlightening to watch these everyday (mostly rough looking) people share their amazing talents in that dingy little room in Nampa and when they were near the end, the young woman playing the part of "Lily" started singing her song, "How Could I Ever Know?" and became so emotional she couldn't make it past the first stanza and then the young man beside her became emotional and the young man playing "Archibald" got up and kneeled behind her chair and held onto her shoulders and I became emotional! She made it through admirably, but I was awed by the power of beautiful music and the ability to empathize so completely with a character. Eden got the vibe that the two were married, which would explain how easily she could get "into character" and she has played the part before because I saw her in the play when we first moved here.The talent in the room was truly amazing and I think a bit intimidating to both Eden and I. I am still excited to go see some of the plays even though Eden won't be able to perform in them. I think she has finally realized that her plate is quite full right now and other opportunities will come in due time. She wants to do everything but "sometimes more isn't better... it's just more". College is going to be FUN for her and she will have the responsibility of deciding on her own what she can and can't take on. I will be interested to see where her path takes her.

We are on Spring Break and as usual, there is no feel of Spring, but I have brave crocus and the grass is turning green so it is literally in sight. Mikayla and I will be working hard on Personal Progress this week and we have family activities planner, so an indoor vacation isn't so bad. We went to see Rogers and Hammerstein's Cinderella with our family at the Morrison Center on Friday. It was a BSU Theatre production and was very enjoyable despite the fact that Prince Charming...wasn't! (much more Mr. Collins than Mr. Darcy)  =). But he wasn't the star of the show and the rest of the cast made up for him. It's a rare treat to get to see a live production and so much fun. It was Jordan's birthday and we've been celebrating the whole weekend--we even made a cake and sang "Happy Birthday!" Tuesday we are going to see "Tangled" at the dollar theatre and the other days we will try to get in some clothes shopping since the kids are running out of clothes. I'm looking forward to just being together.

Abe's name got picked in our Charter school "lottery" last week. We have decided to give it a shot and see if we can have a better experience than Eden's middle school years. I will be sad that he is farther away and it will be a different experience for him since the Charter School is really just 8 portables in a field for now, but I think the different kinds of opportunities will be good for Abe's personality. He doesn't seem to care much either way since his best friends are both going to be homeschooled next year. I think he would like that option, but specifically for Abe we feel like we should encourage less isolation and we have seen good things come from having our children "in the world, but not of the world", especially here in Middleton where we are still very "sheltered" and there are so many good youth to stand together. My only real concern is that the Charter School starts a week before all of the other schools here and gets out at the same time, which Abe is NOT going to be happy with and neither will any of the rest of us since everyone else will be in the regular school district. I have a feeling it's going to get complicated with Eden moving into the new High School and Mikayla taking off to college--6 kids, 4 different school, 3 different cities, 2 different countries. Who would have thought! Things started out so small and simple.

Our sweet (destructive) little Maunzy

Happy 7th Birthday Lily and Sophie

Cover of photo/quote book we made for Jordan's b-day

Eden's "RM"

From Jordan

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jordan Bloomquist
Date: Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 3:56 PM


My dear family,

  YOU´RE ALL CRAZY, and I love it because I have a few marbles missing out of the old nogon as well.  

  Thank you so much for all your love and your letters that alone is the best birthday present one can recieve.  

As for the earthquake it happen while we were in the middle of a prayer at one of our investigators houses, Christian, the one that speaks Hebrew, but I only knew it happened because his wife gasped.  I didn´t feel anything, neither did my companion, but when we left and went to our next appointment the asked us if we had felt it.   It was probably bigger in other parts of Chile but Chile is a big country.  When Japan got hit with their tsunami we had earthquake warnings all along the border of Chile and some towns next to the coast evacuated everyone.  Everything is ok with us though and we are still working strong.  Well that is... this last week I got hit by something I have no Idea what,  I was out for 3 days vomiting up a storm but now I am back to 100 percent so all is well.  Fabiola took good care of us as well.  She called us every night to see how I was doing, she brought Elder Lyman lunch, and then today she lecutured me telling me not to get sick anymore.  She is kind of like our second mom and one of our best friends here on the mission.

  Lily the only holiday on your list that they do not celebrate here is St. Patricks Day all the others yes but they have different names.  Valintines Day is Called   Dia de Amor,    Christmas is Called  La Navidad   and Easter is called Pascua.   I am so glad that you and Sophie had a wonderful birthday it sounded like it was really fun.  The word EAT in spanish is Comer and RABBIT in Spanish is Coejo.

Lily and Sophie listen carfully, you are no longer allowed to beat up or attack Abe........unless you want to and then it is OK.   

  Today we have an appointment with a Jevova´s Wittness that we contacted on the street,  he and his family were very nice but we will have to be carefull not to get into any battles, that can be easy sometimes but it never ends out well.  

   I had an interesting spiritual experience this week.  Knowing two languages sometimes helps you understand one language much better.  The word SIN in spanish means WITHOUT but the word SIN in english means to do something bad but then I thought in away it means to be without.  To be with out the presence of the spirit, to be without true happieness, or Joy or comfort or peace.  Then I thought how wonderful the Atonement is to be At one with our Father in Heaven once again.  To be  RE united with the spirit and all of the feelings related to that.   

 2nd Christmas is coming "General Conference" I am so excited. 

I love you guys so much keep doing whats right.

Con todo el Amor en el mundo,

Elder Bloomquist

The pictures are of Elder Lyman and I making bread this week with Alvaro, one of our investigators.

From Jordan

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jordan Bloomquist
Date: Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 2:51 PM


Dear Family,

        This week has been so good, like always.  Unlike you guys over there here it is starting to cool down it is nice and Chile in the morning, get it like I am in Chile right now and it is chilly in the morning, its kind of like a little joke.  Oh man I just crack myself up sometimes ha ha ah aha ha ha ha....um .. yeah.  

  Well we don´t have day light savings time here so I made it to church on time,  but I did have to speak for the third time in the same ward in three months,  I talked about prophets and how it is important to attend General Conference.  I am always stressed right up to before i have to talk but when I get up all of my fear seem to fly away.  Dad I just want to let you know that I shared the story of when we were on the father and son camp out then the rain came down so hard and then we had the beautiful sunset that you didn´t stop talking about.
   Where is Drew White headed and Josh and Connor.  And you will have to find out who is coming to this mission.

  So while working this week we have set 3 baptisimal fechas but none of them showed up to church this Sunday, which was a bummer we will need to just keep working with them.  One of our investigators that we are teaching right now wants to be baptised in a river that would be interesting but we still have a lot to teach him he has a lot of evangelico ideas like he believes he can speak hebrew but he just doesn´t know what he is saying.  He is such a great guy though.  His wife had a baby on friday and so we are going to see them tonight.   The castiano is slowly picking up to where I can understand almost everything people are saying and can hold a decient conversation.  I keep working hard at it so hopfully soon I will speak fluently.  

   For personal study the other day I was reading the conference talk of King Benjamin which starts in Mosiah 2.  I challenge you guys to read that .  It´s really good.  Dad what conference talk did you send me I looked through all my emails and couldn´t find any. 

I just found out that the mission has a blog with more pictures   www.santiagomissioneast.blogspot.com 

Thank you for all wrighting I always love to here what is going on in your lives.

I love you so much.

Elder Bloomquist 

P.S. Dad I told the story of the Blue and Yellow ball to my companion for his bed time story last night... he didn´t like it.

From Jordan

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jordan Bloomquist
Date: Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 2:56 PM


My Dear friends and Family, implying that as family you are my truest friends,

    Life as a chilean is wonderful and the life of a missionary is something I wish that everyone could experience.  Lucky I have the privalege to be both.  This change I get my carnet which is my chilean identification so I will officially be a chilean, I already am but I will just be more.  This week was a good one we are still on the constant chase of finding new investigators,  the hard part is keeping them but we have some hope for a couple that we have been teaching for sometime.  

    Jonathan was so excited to recieve a messege from you,  he actually talked to the stake president a couple nights ago to get his mission papers started.  He is a good kid.    Andrés recived the holy ghost yestreday and recived the priesthood,  he couldn´t be here the week before because of his work he has been traveling to Brazil and Venesuela with a construction crew.  

   This week I had fun with a dog, normally dogs are running around in their packs keeping to themselves but this time Elder Riding and I were walking down a street, Elder Riding is the companion of Elder Grillone, we were on Exchanges, and a female dog came up to me calmly but stopped an inch from me, it looked me and then made a dive at my calf... Im guessing it just wanted to play tag... with its TEETH it got me with its gums but I was to sly and slick for it to get a nice jucey bite.  It did get my heart pumping though which was actually a blessing because I had been really tierd that day but after the incident had a second wind and went full out with double the strength. 

   Something I have learned from my studies this week,  I have been reading in the new testement and I came to the part about Jesus raising Lazerus from the dead.   First of all I thought it was intersting that when Jesus heard that lazerus was sick he stayed where he was at for two days knowing that lazerus was going to die.  After two days he left for the city where Lazerus lived when he arrived Lazerus had been dead for 4 days,  something interesting about that is that back in the day they people believed that the spirit left the body after 4 days,  the part I like the best though is that when Jesus got there Martha was Crying or weeping because her brother was dead in John Chapter 11 verse 35 it says Jesus wept,  for a little while I was curious, why would Jesus be crying, he already knew that he was going to be able to raise Lazerus from the dead so why did he not just tell her everything would be alright. Then I thought perhaps sometimes it is better comfort just to morn with those who morn and comfort those who stand in need of comfort.  

I also had another idea in 2 nephi 2 25 it says Adam fell that man might be and men are that they might have JOY,  Chirst was perfect, never made a mistake, obviously,  but he was crying with martha which made me think that to have true gozo, felizidad y paz.  Doesn´t mean to just always have a smile,  life is difficult and everyone passes through malos momentos so to have true gozo in our lives maybe means more to have a knowledge and an understanding of the atonement a true understanding that we can know how to put it to work in our lives.

Lily and Sophie 

Happy Birthday

Words of the week 

Gozo= Joy

Felicidad= Happiness

Paz= Peace

Malos momentos= bad times

Abe I found a scripture that may help you because you are now out number by girls who I know get crazy sometimes If that happens you know where to go.  Proverbs 21:19  

I love you all like you were my own family...wait a minute you are my own family, SAWEEEET

Elder Bloomquist

Panic and Peace

I got a message forward from Facebook last week from some guy I had never heard of, written in spanish, so I deleted it and chalked it up to a mistake on his part, but yesterday, while Fred and I were trying to track down some of these single young adults on our list, I got onto Facebook and the message was still there because I had only deleted it in my e-mail. So, I clicked on and deleted it from Facebook and then had one of those post-realizations that I had seen the word Santiago embedded in the message. Of course I got all excited and then panicked because I had deleted it, but my super "techy" daughter retrieved it for me and then I had Elder Navarette, our Spanish Elder translate it for me (and then had Taylor translate it for me since Spanish and Chilean are different). It was from someone named Jonatan Rodriguez who said he was in Jordan's ward. He told us that Jordan was a great missionary, that he loved him, and that they had shared some great times together. I wrote Jordan, asking about him and he verified that he knew him and that they were good friends, so Taylor said that if we want to write back and forth he will translate for us. What fun to have that contact!

A strange, scary thing happened with Maunzy, our chinchilla, this week. Friday night Mikayla had him out in her room and I went up to visit. He was being as crazy as ever and I started looking around the room at all of the damage that he has caused in there (which is very visible and extensive) and as he was jumping around my legs and being charming, as usual, I made a comment to Mikayla about how in the world I was going to keep him around for 15 years, as all my kids started leaving, with his destructo personality. He immediately got up on top of his cage and jumped off and landed halfway in Eden's purse that was hanging open on the closet door, which made him flip and he landed really awkwardly and then ran off. He is hyper and is constantly pulling dangerous stunts so I didn't think anything of it and I left. Five minutes later Mikayla came down really worried, carrying him. She said he was moving like something was wrong with his back leg and when she put him in his cage he flopped limply onto his side. I took him from her and could tell there was definitely something wrong because he wasn't wriggling around (the only time he is still is when he is sleeping and even when you hold him still you can feel the energy in his body). I took him back upstairs and called for Fred, who felt all of his bones, which seemed to be stable, but within minutes he couldn't even walk straight, but kept falling over on one side and then he ears became really limp, so we knew it wasn't just an external injury. It was late at night so we couldn't call the vet, so both Mikayla and Fred got on different computers and started looking up the symptoms he was having and Mikayla  found similar symptoms to heat stroke. The house was only 72 degrees, which is normal for us, but 80 degrees can kill Chinchillas and the post said they could work themselves into heat stroke if they are highly stressed or in pain and so we thought maybe the fall had hurt him enough to panic him. He was going downhill so fast it was scary. We opened the window, put him on refrigerated marble slabs and held ice packs against his body and then Abe suggested that we pray. Everyone was crying. We finally put him in Chester's (our late guinea pig) old cage so he wouldn't be able to move around very much and wouldn't have our added body heat, while trying to hold him still. After about 20 minutes he seemed to be hungry which we thought was a good sign, so we fed him and then left him in a dark, quiet room and checked on him every few minutes. Within a couple of hours he had started to regain his curiosity and by Saturday afternoon seemed to be back to normal. We were all so glad. He is truly a holy terror and I don't know how much will be left of the girls room by the time the responsibility of him gets transferred to a new child, but he would have been sorely missed. he really is a sweet thing.

Fred and I booked our flight to Taylor's wedding this past week and are getting excited for a mini trip together, since it will be close to our anniversary. This will be my first experience flying and I think we are on the same departure flight as Mom and Dad, so it will be fun. As an aunt I am not starting any traditions here. Taylor is probably the first and last wedding I will book a flight for until I am in the role of mother or grandmother, which makes this an unique experience, so I want to make the most of it.

Mikayla found out her college track to BYU-I yesterday. She will be on the Winter/Spring track which starts on Jan. 4 and ends in July. I would have preferred Fall/Winter but she did get her paperwork in one day late, so I guess those are the consequences. That will give her almost a year to work if she can find a job. If not she is going to get pretty stir crazy, I know, but I know it will all work out. I will be so sad to lose my daily work companion and confidant. Her leaving is going to make another enormous hole here at home, and we are all getting a little anxious. They need to teach mini classes in R.S. about the process toward "empty nesting" because it is HARD!

Still hibernating and waiting for the temperatures to come back above freezing.

Jordan's Letter

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jordan Bloomquist
Date: Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 10:09 AM


Hows yalls doin down in M town,

                         To answer your question about the picture the boy in the picture is the brother and he was in the family photo.  This week has been so awesome we had a goal to find 200 investigators this month and last week we were only at 120.  So this week between 18 missionaries through fast and prayer found 89 new people it was a great experience.  Somedays we knocked for four hours straight without any luck, but it seemed that everytime right before we were going to try something new we would find someone and have an incredible lesson with them.  I got sick this week from eating too much food,  it is tradition here that almuerzo is thanks giving but compact into 1 hour for example the other day I had soup first then they brought out a plate of lazagna piled with rice on the side, by the way i have rice at the very least 3 times a week,  when I was done with that they brought out a 2nd plate of the same thing for dessert I had cheese cake and not just 1 serving but not just one two big slices .... for 2nd dessert we had a plate of icecream.  I love the members here and the food but sometimes you CAN have too much.   We also this week were able to get a family to church that hasn´t been in 10 years it was so exciting to see them coming from afar as we waited for them at the chaple.  What even made me more happy is that almost every single member came up to them and introduced themselves.  Tonight we have a family home evening and we always do the treat or the game as well as the lesson.  We are running out of good games so if you guys have any good simple one you should let me know.   

  Mikayla and Eden are you both going on Choir tour and if so where are you going?

My card is now working I don´t know if you did something for that mom or if I just did something wrong the first time but if so thank you.  I will look get a camera next week hopefully.

All the best Wishes and the best love 

Elder Bloomquist  

P.S.

Dear Mom, Got the letter, thank you so much, I am glad manzie is ok,  Jonathan is one of my good friends here the past couple sundays we have gone on splits together and found and taught people together he is 24 and we have been trying to get him excited and started on the wonderful journey of serving a mission.
Have a simply scrumptious week
LOve ya mucho
your son,
Elder Bloomquist