On the 12th day before Christmas....

(Any reader should note that I have not ranked these tender mercies in order of importance or significance (for they all are treasures to us) but  I am documenting them as they come to my remembrance. )

On the 12th day before Christmas......I am so grateful that Scott was able to be here for Hayden's mission and to see him come home from his mission. There are so many reasons why this fact is truly a blessing to us.  I will literally list some reasons.

1- Nobody loved missionary work like Scott.  If Scott had passed when Hayden was on his mission (which was such a close possibility with his being in the hospital on four different occasions in the first 6 months of his mission), Hayden's mission experience would have been so altered.  But  Scott was able to counsel Hayden in the work and he sensed things that I had no clue on and would not have been able to give advice on.  Hayden was able to give his mission his best efforts without worrying  about what was going on at home. We both loved having a missionary in the field.  We felt truly blessed by Hayden's service.

2- Scott was able to spend some  quality time with a post-mission son.  Scott got to hear Hayden speak at Sacrament meeting, see him work long, hard hours in the heat at his job during the summer, converse upon gospel topics and about the mission experience, eat Mexican food together  and see the man Hayden has become.

3-  Scott even got to do some special things when Hayden came home, like going to see the Beach Boys in concert in New Mexico.  Hayden shares Scott's love of all things Beach Boys.  Scott splurged on some front row tickets to the 50 year commemorative concert and Brain Wilson was even with the band that night!  The concert was great but even better was the fact that our brand new returned missionary son did not have a cell phone yet and was still media shy and we got to have that long drive to New Mexico to talk with him.

4-  Going together to the Priesthood Session of General Conference at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City was a gift for Scott and Hayden.  Thanks to our friend Dan Gallup, Scott and Hayden went together to the Priesthood session like they had done locally before Hayden's mission.  Scott so looked forward to going to those sessions with his son.  They even got a picture together in the Conference Center which is posted on this blog, the first entry.  Scott was not well enough to attend the Sunday morning session of General Conference which we had tickets to, so his attendance to the Priesthood session was significant.  I need to mention here that we had never before travelled to General Conference session at the Conference Center!

5-  On that trip to go to General Conference with the kids who are at BYU, I decided that we should get a family picture taken with the beautiful changing leaf colors.  We had not had a family picture for about 3 years since Hayden had been gone to college and a mission.  Melissa Gallup (again the Gallup family gave us some real family treasures with that trip) was gracious enough to take some time to do that for us in the canyon by her home. The pictures turned out great when we could get Scott to stop making faces and be serious a bit.  I do not think any of us knew how important those photographs would be, so very soon...only a month difference would have made that possibility an impossibility .  That trip was something that Scott really wanted to do even though it was a very hard trip for him to make physically.  I will be eternally glad that we made that effort because so many blessings have come from that trip and to have those memories with Scott is priceless.

6- On selfish note, I am so relieved that Scott did not die when Hayden was on a mission.  I would have been devastated without access to a close family member to give blessings.  At Scott's accident and hospital stay, Hayden was able to give me a Priesthood blessing through which I found comfort.  I can not imagine going through this experience without being able to talk freely to both of my children.

We are truly blessed that Scott did not pass away while Hayden was still in the mission field.  Those four months with both Scott and Hayden here or as close as a call away are precious to us each.