Letter to the Sessions' Family

hola mi familia!

actually, dad can tell you if thats how your really say it. I would say it in chinese, but i have NO idea how. so Hello my family!

anyway, this last month has been an interesting time for the Larsen side. And it had me thinking…. we never talk any more!

I figured the only way to stay connected to a family where everyone lives by each other is to be the one person who actually does the connecting. I realise i have been bad at it in the past and I am trying to repent and do better!

With all that has happened (ask mom if you don’t know, sorry if you’ve been kept in the dark) we decided to resurrect the weekly family email to help connect each other and share our personal and spiritual insights and to lend support and love where its needed

. and i thought to myself, why should the Larsen’s have all the fun!?

SO I’m starting it for our side too. Now i will tell you the rules.

#1. you do NOT have to write. if you are busy or don’t want to. But please know we would love to hear from you.

#2. I will write every week, whether you choose to or not, so you know whats happening all the way over here in sweaty singapore and so I can show you how much I love you. because writing is not easy for me and it does take time so it is truly a labor of love.  I want to stay connected to you and this is the only way I can think to do it.

#3. please share with anyone who i don’t have their email address. Im not sure if some of your addresses have changed and if married or high school children would like to be on it. maybe they think this is all lame old people stuff, but whatev- i can handle rejection. send it to them anyway and watch them squirm!

also, i thought this might be a good thing to start now since we have people going on missions soon! i figured at least mom and dad will be able to email. don’t know about the rules in taiwan. maybe they have changed all that and you have to rely on email? who even uses the post anymore!?

ok. so i channeled my “inner dad” and wrote an email already of my thoughts and impressions this week. and you are welcome to roll your eyes as I share it with you.

By way of update, nothing really major happened here. just more work and school and life. you know the routine. Patrick’s job continues to suck the life right out of him to the point where I wonder if he’s going to come home jobless on any given day.

School can be stressful for the kids.Cache is taking a Malay language class (what is that anyway? ans: The official language of Malaysia. Yeh, I know. totally NOT useful) and ronins talking all about improper fractions and mixed numbers in math (again, what is that anyway?!) and I am completely lost.

but considering all of that, they take it in stride.

Ronin is on the school basketball team and he loves it. He knows if we were in the states he would be way too small to play. Luckily he’s bigger than your average asian so this makes him a prime basketball star. He is pretty good actually. He is also so excited he can do a grind and manual on his skateboard. Whats that you ask? um, i don’t know but I do know it involves jumping his skateboard up curbs and sliding along things and it also gives you really really big bruises on your shins. the poor kid. i think he is loving being a 9 year old.

cache says he LOVES math. who’s kid is this anyway? don’t know what to do with him. HOpefuly he will always love math and understand it since i won’t ever be able to help him. maybe Travis will have a place for him ; )

The babies are growing up wild. like no clothes-Lord of the Rings style. If we can avoid the brutality and violence that ends that book, i will feel we have accomplished something! they are cute and crazy.

So with that brief update, i will copy paste the rest of the family email i already wrote, here. If you don’t want to talk all that spiritual mumbo-jumbo, you can just stop now…..

ok. so the first sunday of April. a new month and new thoughts to bring in our Easter month.

i have noticed that I need to write down my impressions right when I have them because they are so fleeting and the week takes off without my brain fully in gear and I find myself clamouring for any coherent thought and by the end of the week, I’m just a mushy mess. i know I’ve said this before, but its just truth so i deem it ok to be repeated. Also, i think singapore is ruining my english skills! is that even a correct sentence with the proper use of words? hmmm, its either singapore or the children. one of them is eating my brain.

anyway, I do remember a few bits of inspiration, but really, when i was thinking of all of you this week and pondering upon life it was SO much more profound than I am finding it now.

kind of like a painting you are really excited about putting on canvas only to realise when you finally have the guts to show it to your friends that its kind of shoddy and even a little embarrassing.

but since we are all friends here, i will show you anyway and hope you can find your own interpretation that suits you and your week. and if not, you can just chuckle to your self and think “oh kristie, better luck next time"

as you know, the big boys leave for school quite early. cache thinks he goes to school in the middle of the night because its dark when he wakes up.

I’ve started to turn on their bedroom light before i make breakfast in the hopes they will start waking on their own. It happened once on monday. I came back in to find cache already dressed! I almost passed out! this is a boy i usually dress while completely asleep. so it was a welcomed victory.

anyway. the next day I did the same thing hoping to receive the same reward. He staggered out into the kitchen still in his jammies and asked why i had turned his light on in the middle of the night. he was so confused! he said there was still sleeping time left. I had to gently correct him (you never know when a tantrum will strike with a tired kid!) I said “no, its time. the day has begun.”

I helped him dress and commenced with the usually morning routine of uniforms and shoes, backpacks and packed lunches. Once they finally left at 6:30 i walked to their room to peer out of the window. I like to watch them walk along the sidewalk so many flights down. sometimes ronin is in front pushing the limits as Patrick teeters in the middle eating his breakfast and cache lags behind. Patrick is caught in-between telling one to slow down and the other to speed up. Sometimes Patrick is in the lead as the little ducklings drag their feet hoping if they fall far enough behind, dad will leave them and they can come back home.

I can enjoy this because I am 30 flights up and unable to hear the squabbling and complaining that happens all the way to the bus. and for that I am immensely grateful!

anyway, this is all prep for the real reason i am actually telling this story! I know I’m SO long winded sometimes. need to work on that ;)

anyway. the boys usually leave anywhere between 6:30-6:40. The singapore sun rises at 7am every morning. not really one minute earlier or later all year long. 

So as i was watching the boys walk by, i started looking around at all the other commotion of the early morning. I watched other people shuffling onto busses, or driving cars out of the carpark. I could see the guards in the guardhouse letting people in and out of the complex. People jogging to and from the beach, dogs being walked, babies in strollers, all regular life activity. I was so enthralled in the commotion of random people that I realised i had missed the sun rising. The beautiful orange and pink tones that streak across the sky, every day at the same time. There is a special moment when the sun rises that the light comes on before you even see the sun. the sun has to rise to a certain point above the haze of the horizon to be able to see it in all its glory. but the light is there shining and illuminating all that it touches. By the time you actually see the sun, the clouds are tinted and glistening and really, it moves so fast that once you recognise it as a moment of pure beauty, its gone.

i was reminded that there are so many distractions in the world, whether they are “joggers” or our own kids needs that take our attention so completely that we forget to look up and out of life and see the beauty that surrounds us. I realised that all those people moving through life on the ground had yet to be touched by the suns rays even though the light had come. The immense blessings we are given every day can be seen or lost depending on where we choose to look and spend our time.

Ronin’s school teacher taught them this week about how to see clearly. Imagine him and his little hand clenched in a thumbs up. He holds it close to his eye. He says sometimes if we look too closely and intently on whats right in front of us, things get blurry. The closer you bring it to your face, the more blurry it becomes. When you pull it at an arms length it finally comes into focus. We need to pull back. Take some time, ponder and see clearly what our life is really about.

I love when kids are so much smarter than adults. Its humbling and inspiring. This week I want to be more caught up in the beautiful sunrise of the day and not in lifes daily grind. Because i would hate to finally look up and have just missed it…

All of you are enjoying conference this weekend. Im jealous! I wish so much we were a bit farther west! I miss hearing it live. There is just something different about it. I love conference (as a kid I never thought i would say that! but I do) I am excited to take my time this week and listen to something every day. I love the boost of hope and courage it gives me to live life every day.

I listened to the womens conference and felt like i was walking on air. honestly! It was so great for me. I put it on while I ironed and cooked and even levi sat for  a good amount of time to listen with me. I loved the music and the talks and really felt strong as a woman and mother and daughter of God

And wouldn’t you know it, in less than an hour I was back to yelling at my kids and cursing under my breath. Seriously, I’m so ashamed…

It made me realise how important it is to ALWAYS be feasting on the words of Christ. There really isn’t much room in my life for anything less. I can’t afford it! both mentally and spiritually. It was such a stark difference from the ideal of the gospel to what i actually live. It made me see I need to step it up. A LOT. which i knew already, but its good to be reminded.

Makes me wonder how God can stand us being so mortal and weak all the time. he must really love us a lot to deal with our inadequacies on a daily basis.

Tonight at bedtime, i asked the kids to brush their teeth at least 5 times. And thats 5 times per kid. which means I actually said the words “go brush your teeth” a good 20 times! Maybe a bit less since I got so tired of doing it by the end. It dawned on me how exhausting we must be to our Creator. How many times he has to ask us to do simple things. Things that are for our own good. Things we ignore or avoid because we are lazy, uninterested or rebellious. Really, i want to step it up just because i know how exhausting just my 4 kids are. can you imagine an entire human race! UGH! that is one BIG job.

anyway.  I felt a sweet spirit today that I’m grateful for. Fast sunday isn’t always the best, but today was actually nice. The kids were relatively well behaved. I paid my own tithing in cash cause I was NOT going to use patricks check book to do it. I bore my own testimony and enjoyed feeling my own spirit strengthened because of my own covenants with God.

Just another reminder that this gospel is a personal endeavour. But all our personal efforts also bind us together as families. How that works, i don’t know. I just know its true.

well, thats all for this week. We are so grateful to have you as our family. Have an amazing week.

love you all

p&k