8th Grade Will!

 Will, 

There have been A LOT of changes for you the past few months and you are taking it amazingly! Not only did you enter the 8th grade for this school year; not only was it a new school year where half of your friends stayed at the other middle school and you are at a brand new school, but it is like you have a brand new home life because your big sister is not home anymore, because she went off to Utah State a few weeks ago. 

Will, you are amazing because you have had some tough days where you want to go to the school that has the majority of your friends, and I talk about trying to figure out how to get you back into that old school of yours, but your amazing resilience kicks in and you say to me, " I just need to give it a few more weeks. I have to study anyways. I have to get good grades because some of my classes are high school credit now. " And you are amazing because you are trying really hard with having Spanish class and having a hard enough time with reading and writing English, you are wanting to learn Spanish and work to study with your Grandma Pack and me as you ask me if I know what certain Spanish words mean to practice. 

Speaking of Spanish, it is not a coincidence that you were able to go to Guatemala this summer. It was a blessing from the Lord, Aunt Audrey and Grandma and Grandpa Pack and me, who bought your airline ticket, that you and I could go and meet Aunt Audrey's family there. 

You really loved Guatemala Will, because you love family. Even when some of our trip was sitting with family that spoke the entire time in a language you did not know, you were patient and engaged in the conversation where you could be until Audrey's kids arrived on the trip. Grandma and Grandpa Pack were so giving wanting you and I to stay in a 5 star hotel in Antigua before Aunt Audrey's family arrived. We literally stayed in a Montessori where the nuns from hundreds of years ago lived. On the grounds of the hotel there were priest buried there. It was funny sometimes to be creeped out for you by that and it would be creepy except, it was actually sacred if you asked me, since the early Catholic church was incredibly important for Christianity to spread and exist which was enabled so that when the religious freedom could be in the USA, the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ could arrive and priesthood. I told you that there couldn't have been a better kind of 5 star hotel for me to stay at, because we were surrounded by artifacts with plaques explaining how the nuns used them, and yet it was very beautiful even though old. 

You take after your Grandma Pack and me Will, more so Grandma, but me some, in that even getting to the hotel in Antigua, Santo Domingo , you guys still went to the gym to workout, at past 10pm at night! 

You talked me into going on a zip line with you Will and it was pretty scary but so pretty. The zip line was high in the mountains and the last of many flys was a superman position and the person at the bottom pulls a cord where you jolt to a stop. I would not have done that if you didn't want me to Will. You are not afraid of heights at all, and actually you made me not be afraid either. 

When your cousins Hyrum, Eli, and Lehi ( the boys ) arrived, you had them to disappear with in the market and because Hyrum just came home off his mission and speaks fluent Spanish, I was not worried as much about you. 

You are so intuitive and smart Will. Once when just you and I were shopping at the market, you would always pull me aside before I went to buy something and tell me that I can pay less and you'd go talk to the sales person by putting a number in your phone and showing it to them. You'd play this silent game with zero words, negotiating back and forth on your phone with the calculator, until they said yes. 

Once when the power went out in the entire Air B&B and Grandma and I were figuring out how to finish getting ready, you found some power that worked only in the kitchen and you plugged my straightener in and you went and took the mirror off the bathroom wall and came and got me with a solution none if us even thought of. 

I was very scared to walk onto this hand up in the mountains of Antigua at Alta Mira and I truly almost didn't walk onto it scared, since you and the driver guide we had talked me into it, I overcame my fear of heights which I didn't know I had until being asked to walk onto a high high mountain and a hand like a cliff. After I was not scared, the second time we went there with Audrey's family, I was prepared with a better outfit and carried my heels in a back pack and hiked up in my skirt but changed into my heels before getting on the hand. When we were doing this, you were able to show Grandma how to take better pictures by adjusting her light on her phone, so then you became the photographer too. 

It was really neat to see you meet your family in Guatemala that you had never met and we got to go perform vicarious baptisms in the Guatemala temple which was so special that your cousin Hyrum could perform the baptism. It was special to see these boys faith filled together in a country of their heratige doing work for their ancestors. You told me you felt their spirits and I know I felt the angels around us in a thick presence of the spirit which is faith, love, gentleness, patience and all holiness. 

I wish your Spanish teacher could know how much you actually want to learn Spanish, but I know that she has a lot of kids to teach, but I know how you keep asking to study, and I know that's how it is with Heavenly Father, that He knows how we ask in prayer and in our hearts for things, and I think you will be able to speak Spanish fluently someday because, in all reality Will, you have been asking if you could study Spanish with Grandma even years ago and you downloaded Dulingo to learn Spanish 3 years ago! 

That's another reason I know its not coincidence you were able to go to Guatemala this summer, you always asked me, " Mom why don't we have the Spanish culture. " 

Even though you are missing Brooke you are making it a point to call her and you make the best of everything and the new school, etc. That's why I know you are amazing Will! You keep telling me you want to make friends with the boys in your quorum being at a new school where they are and sometimes you have prayed in our dinner prayer that you can be their friend. I know this shows your great faith that you pray for this Will. You know to pray, Heavenly Father will help you. 

We are so grateful for you Will. 

Love, 

Mommy💝