My Good Trek Family Children,
Daughters: Hope, Faith, Charity, Grace, Mercy, Harmony and Felicity
and Sons: Lehi, Ammon, Mormon, Mosiah and Nephi
We recently attended Hope's wedding reception and met the nice man she met at BYU, celebrated with Nephi and Harmony along with our own Adrien at their high school graduation ceremonies. We were pleased to see Charity and Grace and Ammon called to serve on Seminary Council this coming year in Magrath. Mercy, who also served as Seminary President a few years back, has received her call to serve a mission in the USA. She is scheduled to leave later this year. I happened to attend Magrath 2nd recently for a family baby blessing and noted that Mormon was presented to advance to office of Priest, Harmony was presented her YW award, and Adrien's grad date was the youth speaker that morning. Don't you love small towns! We see Felicity, still happy and smiling, and Lehi and even sometimes Mosiah around town from time to time. The only one of you we have completely lost touch with is our Faith who moved to BC .. You will remember we decided to give you trek middle names after reading Helaman 5:5-6 where he explains why he named his own sons 'Lehi' and 'Nephi'. Your trek names have meaning, that were meant to help you remember to do good, as they did .. that “when ye remember their works ye may know how that it is said, and also written, that they were good .. do that which is good, that it may be said of you, and also written, even as it has been said and written of them.” As you can see from above, we have a GOOD trek family!
Sitting in testimony meeting this week (remember those big testimony meetings at trek?), I was thinking on just what it meant to bear and to have a testimony. The scriptures talk about being “mighty in word and in deed, in faith and in works;” (Helaman 10:5). It seems to me that a testimony can be demonstrated in both what is said as well as, perhaps more importantly, in what what you are found doing. “.. not only to say, but to do according to that which [He has] written” (D&C 84:57).
At trek you will remember that I joked along the trail saying that somehow our family seemed to be missing Faith, despite having plenty of Hope and Charity and all your other remarkable virtues .. and now we seem to have misplaced her again somewhere over in BC. I suppose that Faith will 'Precede the Miracle' and that one day we will finally see what the Lord has in mind for her. We love each of you and would love to keep in contact as much as possible. I think you will be surprised at how often your lives will intersect with those from your trek family in the next few decades .. as perhaps there was a reason, a tender mercy, for us all to be assigned together as a trek family all those months ago.
As I wrote previously; despite not knowing you nor your names before trek began (and even now since we gave you all new ones) we were taken by surprise with the overpowering sense of family love your Ma and I still feel for each of you. Keep in touch (we promise not to kidnap you or anything like that).
With much love from your trek Ma and Pa.
Safe journeys and be Good!
[Match up your names: Hymns 37, 45, 298, 30, 20, 38, 147 and 1 Ne 2:15,16; Mosiah 6:6, 7:3, 26:15]