Sue

Aaron’s 1st birthday

June 14, 2011 by Sue Leave a Comment

Today I would like to “Pay it Forward” to my friend, Rebekah, who is a heroine to me. She has 9 children and her last has Trisomy 18 and was not expected to live long. I’ve visited her at Primary Children’s Medical Center during long hospital stays and brought her and Aaron home from one, so in a tiny way, I’ve been involved in his life. We’ve prayed for him and for their family over the last year and I’ve worried about her getting enough sleep and taking care of herself so she can do her mom job. Through it all, she has been a great mom to her other children and become a fount of knowledge about Aaron and his condition. She has helped other Trisomy parents with her encouragement and enthusiasm. She wrote about his upcoming birthday on her blog, and last night Scott and I were able to join the celebration. It was wonderful to see family, friends, and caregivers gather to celebrate this huge milestone. There was even a Deseret News reporter on hand and they appear in the paper today. It started raining during the evening and at the appointed time, William stood up to bring us together and say a few words. People were huddled under canopies and umbrellas but just as he started to thank everyone, the rain stopped and a ray of sun shot through to light him up. He read a poem and we released balloons in honor of Aaron’s birthday and also all his little friends who didn’t make it to one year. It was very touching. Congratulations, Aaron!

Elder Brian’s May updates

June 10, 2011 by Sue 2 Comments

May 3, 2011
Martes: We woke up early and we drove down to Del Mar to see Elder Perry. I played an hour of prelude before our mission meeting that we had at 11 and then another 1 1/2 hours of prelude while we were waiting for Elder and Sister Perry and President and Sister Clayton of the Presidency of the 70 to arrive. The first bit was on the organ, but then I was sick of playing the organ so I switched to the piano. I played really good all of the songs, and something really, really special happened. It was pretty dang sweet. Elder Perry was hilarious and it was a really good talk and the spirit was strong. I was on the front row because I was playing the organ so that was sweet. I was exhausted so I slept on the way back. Prayers work!!! Great spiritual day!! Super tired.

Miercoles: I was way tired and so I slept and then went to District Meeting and then we taught [a family] and then I came back and slept some more. I felt really, really sick and decided that I shouldn’t go out and teach in the evening, so we made arrangements and I slept.

Sabado: First, we went down to San Onofre State Beach to help with the state-wide Mormon Helping Hands service project. We all donned the yellow vests and helped out. I didn’t do anything crazy hard, so don’t worry, but it was nice to get out and to be doing something else. It was really fun and then we went down to this beach house of someone in our ward to have shakes.

May 10, 2011
So, my infection hasn’t gone away yet, but I have only been on the meds for like 5 days, so hopefully here soon it will start to clear up. I am super, super, stuffed up but doing well. I have been getting lots of rest.

Jueves: In the morning we hosted this meeting for all of the leadership in San Clemente. We made plans and set goals for the transfer as a zone and it was a very effective and productive meeting. Then I came home and slept.

Viernes: Weekly planning. That went really well and then after that I slept some more. At this point I was really sick, so that is when [the mission doctor] came over to the house and he wrote me a prescription for some medicine. After him, I felt pretty sick and so I decided that I shouldn’t go out in the evening.

Sabado: I went to correlation in the morning and then I stayed in all day. Elder Thomas came and sat with me all day while Elder Gibbons and Ochoa went out and worked. However, I did have some needed projects set up so we were able to do those. We made this huge map of the stake with all of the ward boundaries in it to hang up on the wall, so that took a while. I slept and then by 9, the other Elders had come back.

May 17, 2011

Miercoles: I was still pretty sick, this cold just wasn’t going away. In the evening we went and we taught English classes which are SO fun! I love teaching English classes. We also did this activity with all of the young women to kind of build unity and everything. It went really well.

Jueves: In the morning, we went to the San Clemente district meeting and then I had to take a siesta because I am still recovering.

Lunes: Awesome day! We were running all over the place. At lunch, the wall hit me, and I just fell asleep and slept for like 3 hours. Which was good, because then after that it was nonstop for the rest of the night. It is raining today which is no fun, but it is a nice change. San Juan Capistrano is such a cool city, I really like it a lot. It has tons of history.

May 24, 2011

Some not so good news, yesterday I got pink eye :(. No fun. I am pretty sure that the next thing is going to be boils haha. Today it hurts pretty bad, but it should blow over here in a few days. Besides that, life is good.

Viernes: I slept in, because my mono was killing me and I had NO energy. Then we had to take our car up to Aliso Viejo because our check engine light came on, and so we weekly planned at some library up there in Aliso Viejo. That night was sweet because Elder Gibbons got invited to a baptism in the Oceanside 5th ward, the ward I used to serve in. So, because our stakes touch, we could go to it. The cool thing was that I got to see a lot of my recent converts.

Sabado: The end of the world!!! So many people came up and talked to us about it.

May 31, 2011

Wow, we had such a great week!! Our area is exploding. Really, it is awesome. I don’t think that I have ever seen an area like this before. Even Escondido which was the gold mine of Spanish work, I think that this definitely rivals/maybe succeeds it. The Lord truly is blessing us and his children here in San Juan Capistrano. Our teaching pool right now is so strong!! It is the strongest that I have had my whole mission. We are getting legit member referrals every day it seems like and all of these crazy miracles are happening!! It is so sweet!

So just so you know, my pink eye has now subsided thank goodness and I am doing much better. Apart from one tiny inflamed lymph node, I think that it would be safe to say that I am all of the way back to normal. It has been 11 weeks now, and I feel much much better. So yes, take heart in that I am fine and doing well.

Basically we are doing so good and for some reason the Lord is blessing us. Just this morning, we got a call from the Mission office saying that someone called in from Irvine because the family that cleans their house had a Book of Mormon and they read it every night and they knew all of the stories and they want to be baptized, they just need to go to a church that meets in Spanish and in the afternoon. WE MEET AT 1!!! So we called him a bit ago and he was all up for it and we are meeting with him and his family tonight. Wow.

I am doing so good here and I can’t believe that tomorrow is June. Wow, it is going way way way too fast.

Utah Women and Education Project

June 7, 2011 by Sue 4 Comments

I was asked to be involved with this project in a small way and one of the outcomes of the research and summit were three videos that are hot off the press and now available for distribution. They detail the drop in college attendance and graduation rates by Utah women and explain some of the benefits of college. You can read more about the project here. I was interviewed for the videos last February and my wisdom was edited down to a couple of brief snippets, but you can see me in the following videos.

Making College a Priority at 2:10, 7:18, and 8:00.

Pieces of the Puzzle at 1:06.

I don’t appear in In Their Own Words, but it’s great and you should watch it, too!

Please make an effort to encourage the young women in your sphere of influence to attend and graduate from college, because research shows that your example and encouragement are one of the main elements that help women to stay the course. And a big shout-out to two of favorite women who are going to college this fall: Leslie, who will be doing a post-baccalaureate program for teacher licensure, and Holly, who will be starting a baccalaureate program from scratch. Both of these women have grown children and it takes a lot of courage to do what they’re doing, but I know they’ll reap big rewards of personal fulfillment!

Thanks to great teachers!

May 31, 2011 by Sue 1 Comment

I read this awesome post by Ali Edwards about her experience at a school conference for her autistic son. She looked around the table at all the great people who work together to make her son feel successful and was so very grateful for their dedication and hard work. My sons have left public education and are wending their way through higher ed now but I think back to all the great K-12 teachers they had in Florida and Utah who helped them on their way. Teachers who work hard, go the extra mile and really care about students.

Thanks!

Sitting on Santa’s lap…over time

May 30, 2011 by Sue Leave a Comment

I have taken pictures of people sitting on Santa’s lap at the Carey Christmas party for the last several years and thought it would be fun to see how we’ve changed through the years. So here are some photos, organized by family.

See us sit on Santa’s lap. See us have fun. See us get older.

Disclaimer: I thought I snapped feverishly at every party and got every child every year. But when I gathered up all the pictures I found some people are missing. I can’t explain this, so nobody should infer anything or take this personally. There’s one year I don’t even have pictures of both my own children. I can’t explain this, either. If you have other shots you’d like me to include for posterity, send them along and I’ll update this post!

Click on a photo to see them all in a gallery by family.

Scott & Sue’s family