The Tangrens

The forecast predicted rain and even snow for yesterday but the morning broke clear and bright. As Derek drove off to help someone he home teaches he called to remind me to put out the bag for Scouting for Food. I put the bag of food outside lamenting that I hadn't gotten more food to contribute. Disappointed I closed the door and got on with the day. Derek called me later to tell me that he was at the Steve and Teresa's house. He said they'd just knocked down their garage and to come and see when Hyrum woke up. As I walked down to their house I passed the church parking lot where I'd seen large orange crates earlier in the week and wondered what they were. When I saw them now I understood.


They were for Scouting for Food bags. They were loading them into a huge military truck. I was amazed and relieved to see them brimming with white bags filled with food. I thought about how I hadn't contributed much but then looking at all of those bags I realized that everyone just did a little bit. All of us doing our little bit made a big difference. I need to remember that.

I got to Steven and Teresa's and saw all that was going on. It's so exciting that things are finally happening. It won't be as amazing to you because you didn't see it before, but this can be a reference for future updates.

That's where the garage and shed were!

This is where the addition is going to go. They took everything out of the crawl space because they won't be able to access it when the addition is complete.


They had to move all the stuff they had been storing in their garage on to the front lawn to demolish the garage and people kept coming up to ask if they were having a garage sale. They said that they weren't, but told them about the sale they'd be having on April 26th. They even had people asking about specific items. One man asked about a world war two trunk that was Steven's grandfathers and had his grandfathers uniform inside. And yes they intend to sell it to fund this build. The family historian in me was screaming "NO!!!!" I was thinking it would be great to buy it and give it back to them. I'm sure they'd stop at sacrificing nothing after seeing the generosity of complete strangers in their behalf.
My boys checking out the demolition and clean up. Hyrum was just fascinated with the little track hoe they rented for demolition day.

They had a really good turn out yesterday. A bunch of young men and elders and high priests, which I was really glad about. It's amazing how things like this bring people together. But in the flurry of activity I couldn't help but notice Steve. I thought how hard it must be, and has long been for him, not to be able to be out there helping, working, running, jumping, wrestling with his four boys. He was a clog dancer before this disease took the strength of his legs. As we looked at the pile of things in his front yard that had come out of the garage he was saying that he had so much that he didn't know why he saved. One of the things he mentioned was his clogging shirts from high school. The look on his face when he mentioned them told me why he kept them. Something inside wanted to hang on to the man that wore those shirts while dancing. And perhaps letting them go was letting go to the hope that he would one day dance again.

I was surprised by the weather yesterday because as I said they'd predicted rain and snow for the day. But I can't say that I was surprised to see 3 inches of snow on the ground this morning and it snowing all day today. I'm sure the storm was stayed to precipitate this effort. We're so glad it was. In church we were having a discussion on judging and the man pictured to the right of Steve was discussing that Steve probably envies the fact that others can walk and work while other men probably envy the fact that he gets to spend so much time with his boys. As he said that I noticed the look of a different perspective on Steve's face. Isn't so much of our happiness dependent upon perspective. I'm sure he'd considered that there were people much worse off then him that may envy his position but I don't think he ever considered that an able bodied man would ever envy his position.

As I picked up Hyrum, my scriptures, the diaper bag, Derek's scriptures, his notebook and a bag of clothes I lent someone and walked out of the room I was happy that I could do so. We could all stand to live with a better perspective. We could be even happier.