This was a week of tender mercies from beginning to end. Elisabeth flew out to Germany on Tuesday and we successfully got the baby harp she bought herself--case and all--to her as well as her cookbook (found by a miracle) and a stash of cardigans to turn summer dresses into winter ones. At the airport on her way out, Elisabeth ran into the second counselor in the Bishopric and his wife who were there to pick up their granddaughter from a trip to Spain.
When she landed, she was assigned to a ward in which Julia's mission friend is currently living and also to the ward where our dear friends from our time in Berlin, Olaf and Antje Wenke, are serving. Elisabeth informed Justin during her Father's Day call on Sunday that she is assigned to the International Ward, which means they get all the media referrals and just teach lessons in English all day long. They have ten friends with baptism dates, and she is almost unmotivated to do any finding on the bus because their teaching schedule is already so full. She has spoken Russian to three people already and generally has hit the ground running.
Monday we had a hot dog roast for dinner because our attempt at that a couple weeks ago fell through. This would be noteworthy in its own right because we rarely ever have hot dog roasts, but the very fact that we rarely have hot dog roasts makes the ensuing events shockingly hilarious. Lia asked the kids to get out the camp chairs. "We have no camp chairs," they reported. "What do you mean we have no camp chairs," Lia asked, amazed at the lengths they will go to avoid work. "Camp chairs are the things we sit on at every soccer game! They're on the gray shelves! Go get them!" she commanded. "No, Mom," they explained. "Julia took all our camp chairs. Dad said so." Confused, Lia ordered a substitute. Later, Lia commanded Abdiel to go get out our roasting sticks. He came back too quickly asserting that we had no roasting sticks. "Abdiel. We have three foot long roasting sticks. They're in the second bank of shelves on the left side of the work bench!" "No, Mom, Julia took all our roasting sticks." Lia burst into laughter. "Is Julia having a hot dog roast tonight???" She asked, utterly abashed. All eight of the planets and Pluto the ugly galactic stepsister would be more likely to align than both she and Julia have the idea to have a hot dog roast on the very same night. Elinor saved the day by scrounging up two aluminum fork things left over from our grad school days, and Lia found a Really Nice Roasting Stick which tickled Katharine quite pink.
Dinner concluded, we came inside to have FHE. Justin has been making a PowerPoint following the Gospel Principles manual as our course of study lately and putting it on the big screen in the playroom to keep everyone's attention. "All right, Everyone," he announced after we heard a riveting cello solo from Katharine as the talent. "Let's head downstairs." "Oh, we can just stay here," Lia observed. "Julia has the projector."
"Why does Julia steal all our worldly goods???!!!!!" Gwyndelin wailed. Why indeed.
Wednesday we were thrilled to have the LaDukes announce they were in town. Lia, Justin, and Miriam dragged Abdiel and Gwyndelin along to Founding Flavors so they could keep Liam and Claire LaDuke company while the grown-ups chatted and Miriam charmed. After a decade hiatus said adults had too much on which to catch up and so soon moved the party back home. Here was another tender mercy. Cameron, Yale Divinity School graduate that he is, emerged in our living room on the very same day that Katharine received the box of readings from the Witherspoon Institute that will comprise her week-long seminar at Princeton on Moral Life and the Classical Tradition. Lia had asked Justin to make an LDS reading list for Katharine so she would be prepared to add a Restoration perspective to the conversation. Since this was right up Cameron's alley, she relayed the request to him. "You know," he responded as he read over the syllabus of the week, "the Book of Mormon is truly unparalleled for doctrine and clarity. I don't know that I'd go anywhere else." Perhaps Justin would have said the same thing, but coming from an outside, highly accredited source, this was a tender mercy. Not only that, it came the day after Abdiel finished reading the Book of Mormon in just twelve days in response to a challenge his deacons' quorum is undertaking to finish reading it before the summer ends. Surely Katharine can do one more quick read before she heads off to Princeton for a week.
Hitting only highlights now that the whole house is asleep, the family loved feting our man Justin as the greatest dad known to mankind on Father's Day. Smoothies and muffins and crepes and strawberries and pasta al forno and garlic bread and authentic gelato and eight perfectly curated Constitution-themed presents with three new white shirts and a couple pairs of Oxfords set to arrive from Colombia sometime in July to boot, we hope he knows how much we love him.
Extending the theme of tender mercies, we end the weekly catch-up on today, the first day of Suzuki Institute. Lia took the four younger kids at the crack of dawn up the road twenty miles to join the world of stringed instrument Tiger Moms and their unsuspecting children for an intense, six-day musical workout. Actually they weren't so unsuspecting, and Elinor was so taken with the activities she insisted on getting her viola (she had her first lesson on Wednesday this week, but without a viola) that day. Just to give the kids a breather, Lia drove to the shop instead of elbowing her way to the front of the vendor stand they had there at the conference. Talking to Elisabeth for her P-day all the while, Lia didn't see the text Justin had sent asking how she was holding up. She responded with a photo of Elinor sporting her new, 1/8 sized viola. A few hours later she received a text from Justin, "Did you make a purchase of about $1,000 today?" it asked. Thinking he had received a call about suspected fraud, she responded that the viola and all its accoutrements had cost just under that number. She missed the follow-up text, but he explained when she returned home: just hours after the purchase of Elinor's viola, a magazine for which Justin had written an article informed him they would be paying him $1,000. It was not contracted or expected, but what a blessing, and what a tender mercy from the Lord that Elinor is doing the right thing taking up this musical journey.
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