Dear family,
It’s hard to believe that June is over.
Maybe this is because I try my best to lose track of time and myself during the daily eight hours of work, or because I published last month’s letter a week late, or because the time not spent at work was spent rushing back and forth between Provo and Vineyard trying to collect forms for young women’s camp from various surprise attendees. It’s hard to say why, exactly, but summer already feels like it’s coming to an end, and I haven’t made a good outline for a single unit yet. Hopefully July goes a little bit more slowly and I’ll make myself do a little bit more work.
But I certainly have been allowing myself to relax and have fun. This month marked the first time that I’ve attended one of Luke’s family reunions. His mother’s family, the Hunsakers, were a joy to be around and, I’d wager, plan a pretty different family reunion than most of my family does.
The family reunions I remember have largely featured custom shirts and a fun place where everybody can go to do either a myriad of fun things or nothing at all, depending on who their parents are and what they’re feeling up to. Considering who my parents are, I have spent a number of family reunions following the “nothing at all” route, which looks something like tossing a frisbee with my cousins for about two hours in the street in front of the house we’re staying in, then finding somewhere we can play volleyball or swim or do something that requires little to no planning.
It’s possible that I could’ve found a way to do nothing during the Hunsaker reunion, but there wouldn’t have been anyone to do nothing with (except for perhaps the children who were being isolated because of illness—a classic feature of a family reunion). Every day had another adventure in Moab, Utah planned. There was hiking, river rafting, mountain biking, and hiking, as well as lots and lots of yummy food.
My assessment of the Hunsakers is this: they are good-humored, well-organized, and, with a few exceptions, great lovers of games. I suppose “with a few exceptions” could refer to either games or the people. This seems appropriate to me, however, since, while there are a few members of the family who won’t come to the game table for any reason, Grandma Hunsaker (a central figure at the game table) flat out refuses any invitation to play Cover Your Assets and will stand up and leave if others decide to play it anyway. It reportedly brings nothing but bad feelings and words to the players and the table.
I was thoroughly whooped by a twelve-year-old who must have loaded his sleeve with about five houses before the game started, so I probably should’ve followed Grandma right out the door.
I loved my time there. I learned how to play Bridge (or well, “Mormon Bridge,” which I assume just takes the money out of the game, but I don’t really know), rode in a RZR for the first time, and hiked several miles with very nice people.
The most memorable day was the second day, when everyone decided between a few different pre-planned activities (the only kind of activity at Hunsaker reunions, as far as I know). I went with the group hiking to Druid Arch in Canyonlands, which involved an hour-long drive followed by a 10.8 mile hike. I had learned the day before while hiking Delicate Arch that hiking in Moab feels very different from hikes I’ve done before.
Provo is dry, but Moab is dry, hot, and exposed. There were not many trees, and the ones that were there didn’t do much of anything. The rock was everywhere and probably effectively reflective. Whatever the reason, I needed about twenty times more water than I drink on any normal day.
The Delicate Arch hike was surprisingly tiring for its length, and the Druid Arch hike was predictably tiring for its length. I never ran out of water, but some of our party either did or nearly did, and all of us spent the rest of the day sitting, drinking, and doing little else.
I remember feeling nauseous and unwilling to eat for a time, but after I lay down for about fifteen minutes, I felt like my body would begin to consume itself if I didn’t eat every available calorie within my reach. I did that, fell asleep, and woke up to eat dinner not long later. I just felt really weird and weak.
None of us, however, were quite so affected by the hike, as was Luke’s aunt (one who I’ve stayed with before and is one of my favorites). She fell about half a mile into our hike back from the arch. She fell at a spot where we had gone off the path and were climbing down some rocks that we hadn’t climbed up on the way there.
As soon as she fell, I started praying, because she let out a shout and stay huddled on the ground until her husband convinced her to scoot over towards shade. Luke, Ellie, and I waited above while Marianne (a nurse) and the other siblings discussed what the most likely diagnosis was and what the next best thing to do would be.
They eventually decided that the damage was done to the foot, not the ankle, which meant it didn’t need a brace or a wrap, but that she should just keep her shoe on and walk putting all of her weight on her good foot and Marianne’s hiking poles. We hadn’t gone 100 yards before someone suggested that she receive a healing blessing. The men gathered around and gave her one, and she stood up and continued to trudge the remaining five miles back to our cars.
She had to maintain a slow pace, which was difficult for some of us to maintain with her, and so half of the group (including me and Luke) would walk a ways ahead, pause in a shady spot to allow the lagging group to catch up, and then continue forward again at a regular pace. This gave us the chance to take occasional breaks in a cooler area and sit down, while Luke’s aunt never sat down a single time.
I was aching for her and also a little bit for myself, because I was exhausted by the time we had a mile to go. When the forward group arrived back at the cars, we all crammed into one of the trucks and put on the A/C. We were just starting to discuss where we could go for help if the lagging group didn’t arrive in the next ten minutes when they came trudging back into the parking lot and we ran to them, bearing gifts of Gatorade and water bottles from the cooler we’d left at the start.
While the first group took our time getting food into us and using the bathroom, the second group (and the first by that time) wanted nothing more than to get into the cars and make the hour-long drive back home.
Luke’s aunt was clearly miserable on the car ride home, and I felt so badly for her. It’s a difficult emotion, pity, because so few people want to receive it and yet it feels so bad and uncaring not to express it. A broken foot probably feels worse though.
We did eventually discover the foot was broken in the fall and probably not helped by the five mile hike afterward. I think all of us, despite the miserable second half of the hike, still consider the whole occasion a miracle because we were able to make it out without having to send somebody running towards cell service and somewhere with accessible rangers. I’m certainly grateful we said all the prayers we did.
After the reunion, Luke and I were happy not to hike again for a little while, though we will both continue to report that the hikes we did in Moab were fantastic. I suppose I haven’t said that yet.
They really were lovely.
I’ll admit that I am someone who is usually unimpressed by cool rock formations, probably because I have little enough understanding of pretty much everything in the natural world that the rocks somehow shaping themselves into arches is really not all that surprising. I mean, lizards can grow their tails back. Why aren’t we talking about that?
I’ve been told that the reunion was originally going to take place in Tennessee, but had to be shifted around because a certain member of the family decided to get married in Utah the day before the reunion was scheduled to start. The aunt in charge of planning this year’s reunion likely realized that very few people were likely to go to both the wedding and the reunion, and so she changed the location to Moab. The result was an exciting weekend for everyone, followed by a drive to Moab for all except the newly married couple.
For some reason, they didn’t want to join in on our fun.
This month has been a month for weddings. I’ve had a wedding or wedding-related event nearly every weekend this month, which is fun and a little expensive.
First was the wedding a beloved mission companion who was kind enough to get married in Utah instead of her home state, Texas. This wedding I actually attended, and it was beautiful. I even got to be in two whole pictures outside the temple before I stepped aside and watched them take the real pictures. Luke was likely invited to come along, but he would’ve had to take off work.
Second was the wedding for which the family reunion was relocated, and it was also an exciting affair. I didn’t get to go to the actual sealing, but the reception that evening was full of Hunsakers and generally a good time. This, despite me having nothing to say in a few conversations with Luke and his uncles beyond, “Yes, I’m studying English Teaching,” before the two of them got into what they really wanted to talk about: each other’s jobs.
Relatedly, Luke is still loving his work with PROFi. He loves the tasks, respects the people, and is probably one of the most appreciative recipients of pay you’ve ever seen. He is sitting for the exam that can qualify him to be a certified financial planner (CFP) later this month.
Wish him luck, because he’s been studying more for this test than he’s ever studied for anything (including college entrance exams; he is, at times, an annoyingly good test-taker) and we would love for him to never have to study so much again. Except for, perhaps, when we starts work for his graduate degree.
I, on the other hand, have yet to write a lesson plan for the coming August and am starting to feel concerned. Though, my mentor teachers don’t seem concerned about me, which is nice.
What I have done is adopt a sourdough starter and learn how to make sourdough bread.
Which is to say, I made a batch of two loaves last Saturday. They were both yummy, even though the first one was burnt.
When I shared my creation with my two friends the next day, they said, “Wow, Sophie, you’re so domestic.”
Here in Utah, this is considered a compliment.
I’m honestly torn between wanting to learn all of the “domestic” skills like baking, sewing, knitting, decorating, doing hair, etc. and just…not. Does anyone else ever feel that way? Like, on the one hand, they’re useful skills that would be welcome in my life and my household, but on the other, they get me called things like domestic and make me feel like I’m upholding some old and arbitrary gender role?
Of course, my dream has always been to be a stay-at-home mom and my chosen profession is to be an English teacher, so it’s not like I’m really trying to destabilize anyone’s expectations of me.
I remember when I was companions with a sister at Temple Square who was planning on studying electrical engineering. When guests on square asked what we were studying and they heard my answer, they would nod and say, “nice.” It was one of those responses that sounded like, “Yeah, that seems like a major a white girl would choose. You are predictable.” When they heard what Sister Brown was studying, they would become a lot more impressed and interested.
I guess what I mean to get across is that I feel like I should learn a martial art to counterbalance my desire to make a really beautiful quilt.
What’s really been keeping me busy this month, however, is not baking or trying to self-teach myself to be a FACS teacher. Outside of working at the bindery, I’ve spent a fair amount of time panicking over preparations for Young Women’s camp, which is scheduled for this coming Monday.
In mid-May I was called to be the Young Women’s camp director for the ward. I was a little surprised at the timing, but it sounds like it’s a calling that they have a hard time filling (or perhaps simply remembering) in a timely manner, and so I accepted. And, well, I generally don’t turn down callings. This calling is the reason that Luke and I have continued to attend our Vineyard ward since moving all of our things over to our Provo house.
Since Young Women’s camp is this next week, this coming Sunday will be my last one in this ward, which is quite sad. It’s been odd to have a calling that, only in the last few weeks of my time in the ward, has greatly increased my tie to the place. I loved the people and community there before, but Luke and I didn’t have any particularly strong relationships before I started going to the weekly activities and second Sunday lessons, as well as praying for these girls, their wellbeing, and their relationships.
I’m going to miss living in the Vineyard 2nd Ward.
But, as the bishop has pointed out, we’re already breaking rules by staying there to fulfill a calling even after we’ve moved.
Though you could argue that we’re still informally renting the Vineyard house since we paid for June and Luke’s brother and his family have not returned yet. So I see no problems.
My main stressor within camp preparation this month was definitely collecting forms from all of the girls who plan to attend. This wouldn’t have been so difficult if it weren’t for the deadline that the stake decided to set for me, which was about three weeks ago. I managed to turn in most of the forms at that point. Since then, however, about six more girls have joined the number of girls who want to join our ward at camp.
Of course, as soon as I frantically gathered these forms and spent a week feverishly checking text messages to make sure everyone was on track to get their paperwork done and get it to me in time to get it to the stake, the nice lady I was giving the forms to told me that as long as the came in a week or so before camp, it should be fine.
Which probably means they really need them when we’re actually pulling up to camp, but that would be an unfortunate time to not have the right things.
Anyway, I think I made Luke anxious with the number of mile-long text messages I’ve sent out to various parents and teenagers this month, and I hope it was all enough.
Of course, I realized two days ago that one of the young women is gluten-free, which is another thing I should have known about two weeks ago.
But of course, none of this is as important as the knowledge that I am incredibly fond of all of the young women who are going to be attending and that I want to make sure they have as amazing of a time as is possible for them to have.
One idea that I’d been battling since joining the Vineyard 2nd ward was one of performing a vocal solo as a musical number in sacrament meeting. There have been a few times in my life when I’ve been new to a ward and, when asked about my hobbies and after explaining that I like to sing, have been jokingly asked whether I’d mind doing a musical number sometime.
It’s a suggestion made in a tone of voice that makes it sound like the person I’m speaking to doesn’t actually have the authority to give me such an assignment, when that person is usually either the bishop himself or one of his counselors.
Which means that, no matter how many times the suggestion has been made, I haven’t been asked to sing in sacrament meeting since graduating high school. I suppose the mental mind trick is trying to get me to volunteer myself and schedule a time that works with the appropriate person. Either that, or it’s simply a polite thing to say and the only thing a bishop can think of when a new congregant says she likes to sing, just like a solid fifteen percent of his ward.
The mind trick normally doesn’t work on me, but it did this month. I volunteered myself to the music leader when I found out that our ward choir was not going to be ready to perform during my last remaining month in the ward. I figured that since I hadn’t been asked to speak during my time there, a musical number could be a sufficient contribution.
I practiced and practiced it. The song was as arrangement of one of the new hymns called Behold the Wounds in Jesus’ Hands, which I think is currently my favorite hymn. I think there was probably a time when I wouldn’t have felt the need to practice for something as trivial as a musical number in sacrament meeting unless I was going to be playing the piano. I’ve since become less confident in my singing, as well as humbler and more appreciative of putting work into talents rather than just believing that I come by them naturally.
So I was disappointed when, during my performance, my voice shook throughout the entirety of the first verse, which caused my breath to be insufficient to get me through a few phrases. After the first verse I gained confidence and did much better, but I still trembled a little bit on my way down from the stand.
The whole experience reminded me of when I was about twelve or thirteen. For some reason, I would go up to bear my testimony every month on fast Sunday. I suppose I was in a phase of “never suppress an impulse to do a good thing.” Bearing your testimony is a good thing, and so I guess I thought I had to do it every time the thought came into my mind on fast Sunday. I would go up, bear a testimony, then come down and sob into my mother’s lap for the remainder of the meeting.
Truly, I don’t know why.
It was probably a sign of anxiety and perfectionism.
I did not cry after performing in church last Sunday, but I did consider it. Luckily, I soon saw the text from one of my ministering sisters asking me and Luke to teach a primary class that day. I convinced Luke to teach with me and then got the materials for the lesson that would take place about thirty minutes later. It was a great distraction.
It was not a particularly great lesson, but I suppose that was to be expected.
I lost the kids when we got to “The Gift of the Holy Ghost” being represented by a rock on the covenant path. They just couldn’t handle it and wanted to know what nonsensical things the flower and tree were going to represent.
I’m grateful for the learning experience.
Here’s to many more next month!
I love you all and wish you an excellent and manageable July.
Love,
Sophie
Senior Contributor to The Famlet Monthly