Helping Our Refugees

About a year ago, I felt like we should volunteer to help a refugee organization, Utah Valley Refugees. So I called them and gave them our information but nothing happened. About six months later, in June, someone called me and asked if we were still interested in helping and I said yes. So we were assigned to a family that lived really close to us. They had recently moved over from Democratic Republic of Congo. This family ended up being really hard to help for a variety of reasons. So the organization assigned us to a different family and that has been working out much better.

This family is a single mother and her four children. They recently moved here from a different state, leaving a bad family situation. They have lived in the USA for several years so they know more English and have a better idea of what they need to do. I have been teaching the mother English over the phone and have also helped her in other ways--get groceries, take her to the bank, etc.

Tonight we went over and played card games. The oldest boy was feeling kind of grumpy because what he really wants is a new video game. But the other kids were enjoying themselves.

Most of the time, I really like helping this family because it feels like they have real needs and I can help solve at least some of the problems. It's a good feeling to know we are making a difference.

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Visiting Susquehanna: The Priesthood Restoration Site

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This is a juvenile fiction book about a young girl named Melody with severe cerebral palsy. Her body doesn't allow her to feed herself, speak, or do much at all. She's very intelligent with a photographic memory but she can't really communicate. Finally, in 5th grade, she gets a "Medi-Talker" which is a computer that speaks what she types in. Finally she has a voice. This book explores what it is like to be severely physically disabled but not mentally disabled. It seems like one of the most frustrating of all scenarios. She is completely aware of all the cruelty (subtle and otherwise) that her classmates inflict on her because they don't really want to include her in their activities. One of the saddest moments in the book comes when she realizes that every one of her special ed classmates is kind, where the "normal" ones are not. Who really has the worse disability? The book was a quick read and fairly enjoyable. Wha...

Nauvoo Pageant!

I have been a negligent blogger this last month. My reason is that we have been super busy. At the end of July, we went to the Nauvoo Pageant. We were able to participate once again in the Gold Cast like we did in 2007 and 2014. We picked up our daughter at the end of her cross country camp in Price, Utah on our way out of town. Then we drove to our friends' house in Golden, Colorado near Denver to stay the night. It was fun to reconnect if only briefly. The next night we were in Lawrence, Kansas, visiting my brother and sister-in-law and their family. That was also fun but short. We left the next morning, attending nearby church before taking off. We arrived in Nauvoo around 4pm with just enough time to have dinner at our cabin before going to our orientation at the pageant building. The next day we went to the pageant building to get our costumes and to learn how to do our hair in the 1840 styles. ...

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