Very Real Troubles

On Wednesday night, John and I decided since Kate is 11 next month, and if we leave just around bedtime it would be okay to leave Kate with the kids while we went to the Temple. We instructed Kate to put the 3 youngest kids to bed about 10 minutes after we left. Kate did not. Anya and Rachel went out the back door. Earlier that day, one of the kids had opened the gate and did not close it back. Anya ran off. When Kate realized Anya was missing she started running down the street calling for her. A couple of neighbors came to help. But they could not find Anya. A Bishopric member decided to search our house and found Anya asleep on the couch upstairs. She had come home unnoticed while everyone was looking for her. The primary president, who was helping to look for Anya called the police. No one, not even an adult thought to call the Temple to get John and I. So we came home, and Kate told us the story. We had to call the police. The police came over and said they get calls about runaway 2 year olds all of the time. But then he said that while he thought Kate was very mature, we have too many kids. He even said he did not think a 12 or 13 year old could babysit here. Utah does not have a law about how old you can leave your kids. But, because this police officer thought we have too many children he said that he was going to write a report. That report, like all incident with children reports will be forwarded to social services. Of course, we all feel devastated. Probably nothing will come of this. We will probably not even here from social services. But this is hard to deal with. We are not abusive or neglectful with our children. We did not leave our children to go out to a party or anything. We did not even leave our children to run errands. We left to serve the Lord and to to do the work of our ancestors. There are so many things that could have been different. If the primary president waited for the house to be checked, or called us first thing...if Kate had put the kids to bed like she had been told to do...if the gate had not been left open...but here we are, and this is a very real tragedy.

Last night, I went with Kate, and my sister in law, Becca to go to my mother in laws house to secretly clean her home while she is in AZ for her birthday. All was going well. We were having fun cleaning together and chatting. Then when I was cleaning the master bath tub, and went to grab the hose shower head to rinse the tub, the plastic piece that holds up the shower broke. So I had to replace that. I went to Wal-mart, picked up a new hose shower head ans when back to install it. This one did not fit. So I borrowed Becca's key to the house, went back to Wal-mart returned the one that would not work and purchased a different one. we went back to the house and installed the second style easily. We then had to go to Becca's house to return her key. He started back home at about 12:30am. But, we were not on the highway long before we were in a major traffic jam. It took us 30 to 40 minutes to go about 3 miles. Not too far after we got out of the traffic jam the "service engine soon" light flicked on. I felt rather panicky. We were still a good 35 to 40 minutes from home. I kept going until I got to an exit with an open late gas station. I pulled in, checked the oil and the coolant, which, I think were both low, but I am no car person. So I bought oil and coolant and added those to the car. The engine light was still on, so Kate and I said a prayer and headed for home. (Oh, and we did not have a cell phone, because one of our children took the charging cord and we cannot find it and do not have money for a new one until payday.) I certainly felt nervous, but we did make it back here. However, as we were getting close to home we got stopped at a railway crossing by a very long train. About the time Kate counted the 96th car, the train just stopped. We had to turn around and find another way through the track. We got home at 2:20am. I logged onto the bank to move money from our savings to our checking to cover the shower head, the coolant, and the oil. We thankfully get paid on Monday. But we also have no car until we get this car fixed. The van we were going to buy, sold the morning, I called about purchasing it. We are looking at a different van that may or may not be sold on Tuesday. Indeed, I feel tired and troubled. But at least I can say, I have been trying to do good things.