Where Thy Victory O Grave?

Happy Easter! This week had so many great and difficult things. It is lovely to know that the great wins.  The great makes the terrible lovely.  (Ether 12:27) And it really was mostly good.

First some fun papers:

I loved the menu Eve made for our dinner with the missionaries.

Then as we were doing taxes we found a similar precious set of papers made by Willa about 16 years ago.

This news article represents success! I have trained someone else to do press releases for our stake and she got one published! Well, actually she knew how to do press releases. But she is doing them for US now!

Then ELIZA AND EVAN CAME TO OUR HOUSE! They flew in to help us use the crazy present I gave Alan for Christmas--tickets to the Bad Bunny concert. 

We got a very short time all together, a small visit and some excellent tacos at Taco Naco.

Then we were off to the T-Mobile Center!

The concert itself was such a cool (if worldly) experience. The arena was stuffed with all the 20-something Latinos around, plus us. We didn't really fit the demographic. I asked Eliza what I should wear and she said something wise. "Whatever we choose will be wrong, so just wear some casual clothes you like."  How liberating is that?!

Bad Bunny is very cool, very Puerto Rican, and often very raunchy. I was okay with not being able to understand a lot of what he was singing and saying. It made it easier to vibe!

He spent a good share of the concert in shades and a hoodie.

We got tired of all the standing and took advantage of the seats we bought. Hardly anyone else did.

Gray puffy cat hanging out on our cold basketball court the next morning.

I dropped Evan and Eliza off at the airport the next morning and raced to Union Station for the Giving Machines check presentation, which was a small collection of really lovely people doing a press event. The Giving Machines brought in nearly $250,000 this year! And I made a connection between my longtime friend Tami (representing Ronald McDonald House) and the service missionaries. Another success!

I got to sit by Michele Stitt. She is just wonderful--so capable and full of goodness.

Eliza has been sending me beautiful pictures of food she has made. I thought my Hawaiian haystack was pretty this week too. 

The rest of the week was getting ready for and executing our stake event Walk With Jesus--which is an interactive stations of the cross. We had never done it before, and it turned out amazing. We had 672 people come, including pastors from three other churches.

Setting up in the Gethsemane room

The betrayal room

Ironing the tablecloths. I only did a couple. My friend Sonja and her husband Karvel did the vast majority.

Candace teaching her kids about Jesus being condemned.

The death room. It was dramatic and silent. Many of the other rooms had soundtracks and smells.

Julie Hanson with honored guests Pastor Dennis Lester and his lovely wife Jenelle.

The last room was titled "Sunday Will Come" and spoke of hope in the resurrection. We asked people to write the name of someone they love who died that they hope they will see again because of Jesus. If you zoom in, there is a blue sticky near the center in Griffin's handwriting that says "my uncle Joel."

And there were so many other things this week! Cleaning up a road with our ward family. Having Gretchen and Meyer here playing wiffle ball with Griff and Eve on the front lawn. Taking down all the Walk With Jesus stuff and returning back to proper places. A date to eat pho and watching half of the Eras Tour Movie at home.

The hardest parts were keeping up with all of this in our mortal bodies. Alan is a little sick. Eve is a little weepy and feeling down. Griffin still needs help regulating his blood sugar and sleep. And I--I am a grandma now you guys! The drunk/high girl next to me at the Bad Bunny concert just couldn't handle it that I wasn't up and dancing the whole time so she had to trade seats with her even more high friend. 

But it will be okay because of what we celebrate today. Jesus Christ really did overcome everything. Because of him every tear will be wiped away. Our bodies will be perfected in him. Our spirits can choose to become more and more full of light until we see him as he is. That is the happy news of Easter. Alleluia!