FINISHED!!!!!

Maysen submitted her final final essay! She is 100% completely done! She is a college graduate! Woohoo! Her graduation ceremony would have been Thursday. Oh well. So nice to be done! She worked most the day Monday on a paper and all day today on the last paper. She doesn't have any finals, so this is it. So proud of her!

Utah announced a timeline to get back to outside life. We are almost finished with the urgent faze. Looks like it will be a looooong time until recovery.

We were downstairs doing scripture study when Jorja started laughing. She showed me a message her friend Cade sent to her. Hahaha Cade was in student government with Jorja for two years. I think he sat by her both years. (They have assigned seats) Cade was the financial chair. Braque was the senior Vice President. Cade came home from his mission early because of corona. He has been a good friend to Jorja.

Braque & Cade

Interviews

The kids started back at school today. Well, Jorja and Preston did. Maysen has been going strong for awhile now. We had lists ready for them of tasks they needed to finish before they got free time. Both of them did really well. Jorja also started PLT interviews today. She is a PLT officer this year, so she gets to be a part of the interview process for the people trying out. It was sooo cute to hear her during the interview. We couldn't hear the kids trying out because she had headphones in, but it was fun to see her interact with her peers. She is amazing.

Jorja

Chick-Fil-A started their two teams today. Today was the A teams first day. Jorja will be working exclusively with these people. Luckily she is very happy with who is on her team. Jorja was anxious to quit before quarantine. Now it is one of the only places she is allowed to go, and she is only allowed to hang out with the people she works with because we figured they are together so much anyway. Jorja has enjoyed it though. The pace is much slower. So... she gets to make tiktoks while at work.

Behind the scenes ~ haha

We talked to Stockton today! It was super quick, but I didn't think we would hear from him at all. He and Elder Jenson got Elder Wells dropped off and ready to go home. Elder Jenson is now his companion. They cover Elder Jenson's two wards and Stockton's two wards. Mission life has sure changed. Stockton said, "The grand total damage done by the coronavirus in this mission was 19 closed areas and 75 missionaries gone home." Wow. Stockton is also district leader again. Luckily Stockton enjoys Elder Jenson. That makes a big difference. Stockton sounds happy and they are still planning on having a baptism on Saturday. Hope they can pull it off!

Good Friday

Today we moved the giant beanbag we got from Lisa down to Preston's room. It wasn't the easiest thing to move, it is huge! Preston helped us push it all the way there. Getting through the doors was tricky. Preston is so happy with it in his room though.

Preston, Bear, Jorja

 Preston & Jorja

 Bear

 Preston & Bear

 Bear & Mike

Jorja went on a hike today with Riley, one of the few people she is allowed to hang out with. They work together all the time. They tried to take Bear with them, but the signs said no dogs allowed. They thought about taking him anyway, but ran into someone who said a lot of rangers are out and the fine is $1,500. Yikes! They brought Bear back and went on a hike to Lisa Falls. They had a great time. After they got some frozen yogurt. They are going to try and do this once a week.

Riley & Jorja

 Jorja & Riley

Riley & Jorja

Jorja had a drive-in movie night with the new student body officers. Mike set up our movie screen in the church parking lot. They brought their cars to watch a James Bond movie. The idea was this would be okay because everyone would be in their own cars. But.... the kids were not good at social distancing. I talked to Jorja about it. She said, "We'll get in our cars when the movie starts." It won't matter then! Uggggg. At least they were in a group of less than ten. As Mike and I left we drove around with our windows down to see if the sound was too loud. It seemed fine to us. Apparently it wasn't fine for someone. A police officer was sent to investigate a noise complaint. He was nice to them though. He watched the movie for a bit and said it was a great idea. They turned the sound down two clicks and all was well.

While I was going through some old papers, I found this one. Mike made this list while I was in the hospital with baby Stockton. We were planning on naming Stockton 'Maxwell Joseph Smith' for the last part of my pregnancy. Once he was born, I just couldn't do it. Max Smith sounded weird to me. Then a pediatrician came in and said, "I have five Max Smiths in my practice." Welp. I didn't like that. Sometimes it is super annoying to have such a common name. Like when we buy a house Mike has to sign pages and pages of papers saying he doesn't owe alimony to tons of people. We changed Stockton's name four times in the hospital. I remember a nurse saying, "What are you calling him today?" I said, "Today his name is Greg." She rolled her eyes at me and said, "You guys are driving me crazy!" Hahaha. Anyway, Mike made this list and said, "Okay, we are only going to choose a name from this list." Stockton isn't even on there. Hahahaha. I really wanted Stockton's middle name to be Michael. Mike wouldn't put it on the list. He said, "If he has the middle name Michael, then he will want to go by Mike and I don't want to have a 'big Mike' 'little Mike' situation." I asked why he would go by Mike. He said, "Wouldn't everyone if they could?" Hahahahahaha. When we decided on Stockton, Mike thought he would like that more than Michael, so I got to use that for his middle name.

Last Day of March

This month has seemed to last years. Who knew the world could change so quickly? Jorja worked for about five hours yesterday. I found these pictures on her phone. She's basically quarantined with two sets of people. Her family and her Chick-Fil-A family. Hopefully none of them get sick.

Jorja & Kiana

 Jorja, Genesis, Kiana, Maddie, Abby

Preston and Jorja both did all their school work. It's great that they can do that and don't have to make up all these quarantine days. That would be awful. We played Snorta today. Stockton used to love that game, and he is SO GOOD at it! Preston did not want to play, but that is the game that was voted in. I don't know if Preston had ever really played it before. He ended up thinking the game was hilarious. Because it is. Jorja was a beast and dominated the game. It was so funny. I love my family. For scripture study we watched a video Rachel sent me. Their stake put together a ten minute video of kids telling the story of the first vision. Mina was one of the kids. We loved it.

I went downstairs to get Jorja to bed. She was FaceTiming Ben. He taught me how to 'throw it back.' It was pretty funny. He was a good sport.

Jorja & Stephanie

Trio

We talked to Stockton today, which is also his 14 month mark on his mission. He is thriving, despite the crazy quarantine we are all in. He is now in a trio. There were two sets of missionary companions living in his apartment complex. His mission had to send any non-American or Canadian missionary home. Elder Price is from Wales, so he had to go home. Stockton has loved Elder Price. Elder Price's companion, Elder Jenson, moved in with Stockton and Elder Wells. Stockton and Elder Wells are taking care of two wards. Elder Jenson is taking care of two different wards by himself. I asked Stockton how they are doing sacrament. They now have keys to the church, so they were able to go in the church and have sacrament by themselves at an official sacrament table. Luckily Stockton gets along well with both Elder Wells and Elder Jenson. He is not bored at all, but it is tricky trying to figure out how to do missionary work remotely.

As far as life here...kids did school. Mike did work. I tried to catch up on things. Jorja went to work. Voting also ended today. No idea when they will find out who won. Jorja's nervous. Jorja had to close today. When she got home we stayed up way too late playing Jackbox. It was fun though. I love my family.

Stockton Goldberg

We got to talk to Stockton today! They are asked to stay in their apartment unless they have a scheduled appointment and they are not sick. And the people aren't old. Stockton made me laugh when he said that some missionaries clearly haven't mastered the art of amusing themselves. Especially when we saw the Rube Goldberg machine he made with his companion. Hahaha

Elder Wells and Stockton

My favorite part was the bicycle tire. They have a full water bottle at the top, so when the cereal hits the flyswatter it moves just enough that the water bottle falls down, moving the tire, which moves the flyswatter, which hits honey Bunches of Oats. Hahaha. I LOVE him! I'm so happy he is happy.

Maysen had her last dermatologist appointment today. I'm glad they didn't cancel. She has been taking accutane. There is a 100% chance of birth defects if someone gets pregnant while taking accutane. Because of this, girls have to be seen in a certain time frame and they have to take a pregnancy test every time. This is Maysen's last time. She has one more month of pills, but doesn't need to go back. Yay!

Maysen and I went through the drive thru of Jamba Juice to pick up Jorja an açaí bowl. Jorja worked 13 hours today. She took someone else shift and had a two hour break before hers started. The dining room is closed, so Jorja brought her homework to do and we gave her the açaí bowl to eat. Jorja was very tired, but happy when she came home. She even brought us food. :)

The sad thing that happened to Jorja and the happy thing that happened to Preston today was the schools are not going to be reopened until May 1st. Preston is loving life and Jorja thinks she will go insane. I am so thankful that my family gets along and loves being together. I'm thankful that Maysen is home with us. I'm thankful that Stockton is happy and bringing joy to others in the mission field. Life is good.

Platform and Packet

Schools were closed today. Teachers were there if the students needed anything. Jorja had her student body campaign platform and packet due today. She dropped that off. Who knows how elections will work this year. She is so nervous! She also stayed at school and finished her math test. This kid that has been messaging her and asking her to hangout picked her up from school and they went to Swig. Then Jorja went to IHOP with Lucas. I wasn't sure if I should let her do that, but she said all restaurants are closing tomorrow. So.... I let her go. It is so hard to know what to do!

Jorja's platform

Jorja, Lucas and Bode turning in their SBO packets 

I do not know why she insists on sticking out her tongue. I hate it. One day she is going to realize she looks ridiculous when she does this. Still love her though. :) Jorja finished her day at Chick-Fil-A. First day of quarantine and we hardly saw the Porge.

Jorja

The World has Gone Crazy!

Utah State cancelled all classes until Tuesday, then they will be online after that. Today was Maysen's last day of going to a college class in person. At least for undergrad. She also picked up her graduation stuff. Her gown and tassels, things like that. Maysen was going to see if she could just check out and come home, but Utah State sent a message asking people not to leave. So, I guess she'll just be doing online classes up there.

Jorja is sad. Prom in cancelled. Elections are maybe going to be online. Not sure how that is going to work. Jorja said hardly anyone is at school today. She sent me this picture of the lunchroom.

 Jorja made a 2020 yearbook just in case

 Dawson, Riley, Jorja, Kelsey ~ not practicing social distancing

 Random picture of Jorja and Ben

Mike flew out to Universal Studio's in California with Larkin for her birthday. Disneyland also announced they would close in a few days. Luckily Universal was open today, even though it was raining hard. Mike sent us these pictures. Larkin LOVES Harry Potter, so glad her birthday trip wasn't ruined! There was hardly anyone there and Mike got a little sick going on the rides quickly. He would have loved that as a kid!

Larkin & Mike drinking butter beer

 Larkin in the Harry Potter ghost town

The NCAA announced they cancelled March Madness today. So sad! BYU and Utah State were both heading to the tournament this year. BYU has not been good at basketball for years, but this year they were amazing! This was the only year the seniors had made it to the tournament, and now they don't get to go. Sad that this happened on a year when BYU was really good! Charles made this bracket. Pretty accurate.

I picked up Audrey from Alta and took her to the bus stop. I had just gotten home when Sherry called me and told me to go to the store and get milk and anything else we needed. She said it will probably be gone if I waited until after work. I hurried to the store. It was a madhouse in there! It looked like Black Friday. The lines went halfway through the store. I was able to secure milk and other items. So that's good.

Elder Alia came over today. He texted yesterday and said he would be in town. Stockton loved having him as a companion. It was awesome to meet him!

Jorja, Preston, Jae Alia, Stephanie

 Mike got home right as Elder Alia was leaving, so we got a quick picture with him

Jorja went on a hike with Ivan. She told me Ivan's friends would be there too, but they ended up not coming. I wasn't too thrilled about that. She had a good time, but got home way after dark.

Ivan & Jorja

Church was also cancelled today. Now that is weird!!! Home church. I do love home church. I think that is actually going to be pretty fun.

ASL

I still felt super sick today. Jorja texted me this morning and asked if there was two World War 1 packets on the game table. There was. The packets were Jorja's and her friends, and they were due today. So, I forced myself to get somewhat presentable before I stumbled to Alta. Kanani saw me as I was walking in. She knew I had been sick and asked what I was doing out of the house. I explained. As I walked away from her I almost fell down. Not feeling well at all. Jorja met me in the hall and I was able to get the packets passed off to her. Jorja also met with the ASL club for her video after school. Look how cute her poster turned out!

Jorja

I sent this picture to my brothers. I thought it was so funny. It was obvious to me that this is the BYU volleyball team. The caption says #1 TEAM IN THE COUNTRY. The funny thing was the comments of so many people thinking this was the basketball team and trying to set BYU straight. Made me laugh anyway.

The coronavirus has also hit Utah a few days ago. There is one person in the hospital right now for it. He happened to be at the BYU/Gonzaga game a week or so ago. That's not good. Hopefully he didn't infect a ton of people there.