Day 16

I am thankful for the holiday season. I love how it helps me to refocus on the things in life that are truly important. I think that is the reason that everyone loves Christmas so much. It's not the gifts, it's the spirit of the season. I love the beautiful music, the yummy smells & picking out presents for loved ones. I'm excited for the lights, the concerts, the nativities and the pageants, but mostly I am excited to remember my blessings the greatest of all being the birth, life, death & ressurection of my Savior.

Day 14

Today I am thankful for grandparents. I think they are the best kind of people. It was so fun for us to be able to stay a few weeks with Grandma & Grandpa Bickmore. I want to be just like them. Even in two weeks I feel like I have learned so much about them, their lives, & things I can be better at that I may never have known if we didn't get that opportunity. That alone makes this move a blessing for me. I am like my Grandma in some ways I never knew before. We are both ocd clean, we both love to read, we both love chocolate. If only I had her sweet countenance. My Grandpa is an advice-giver & a businessman. He is in love with my Grandma and he has the greatest laugh. Sometimes when i'm around him I know what he is going to say next before he even says it because it is exactly what my dad would say. He is frugal. He worked hard to earn a living & knows how to save. Both of them are so Christlike. I love playing aggravation with them, & hearing stories about Pennies and watching them with Luke (he loves them so much) and most of all watching them interact with each other. I am so excited to live closer to them now.

My Grammy & Grandpa Kresge are so warm. That is how I would describe them, and when you walk into their home it is the same feeling. My Grammy is the most selfless person I know. She gives and gives and gives & never keeps for herself. I have to be careful around her to not say anything that we need or want, or compliment her on anything she has. She has quite literally given me the ring off her finger, or the table in their kitchen. It's unbelievable. My Grandma doesn't judge anyone. I will always remember that she bought me my "clam up" shirt that I wanted with sparkly clams all over it that my mother wouldn't let me wear. She has always been just like a friend to me. My Grandpa is a master storyteller. He gives the best hugs. I think he is the only person I know who picks Bryce up to hug him when he sees him. He's strong as an ox & I love stories from his soldier & wrestling days. He has the greatest testimony. I love both these Grandparents were converts and grew up in New York. They both serve in the temple each week. They always cheer you on. I love them. They are also so Christlike.

Grandma Prince is so spunky. Even though I have known her for four years now I love how I never know what she is going to say next. She has a great love for her children & family and has raised them well. She is a strong woman. It has been hard to watch her lose her companion, but she is a fighter & I am always impressed by her strength & poise. I love her. Grandpa Prince was adorable. I can still close my eyes and picture his smile & laugh exactly. He was always smiling. More than anyone else, he immediately made me feel a part of this family. He was such a hard worker. He taught me so much in the short time I knew him and I miss him.

I am also so grateful for Luke's amazing grandparents. He loves them so much. I don't know how anyone could have grandparents better than mine, but my son might have a fighting chance at it.

Day 1

I am so grateful to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The happiness, peace & direction the gospel brings into my life is indescribable. Because of this gospel, I can have my family forever. Because of its teachings I am a better person. Because of my Savior, I am never alone. I know this church is true. But even if it wasn't, there is no better way to live a life, or raise a family, than by adhering to its teachings.

Life is Beautiful

I am feeling very grateful today, very positive, very fresh & I just wanted to remember it. Death is an interesting thing, and so is human nature. On Saturday after I heard about Bo I was devastated. It was hard to imagine doing anything or feeling completely good again. Nothing else seemed important & all I really wanted to do was cry until there was nothing left. I wanted to be alone. To mourn. On Sunday night I opened up to Bryce & talked about how I was feeling. Which felt surprisingly good. I told him how it felt like no matter what else I was doing what happened was always what was really on my mind. Even if I was laughing at something that was happening it felt hollow & forced. But then, I wrote down a bunch of memories I had of Bo. The memories I have are all positive. I read other peoples memories. I prayed about it all the time. Things started to turn around to where I still thought about it constantly, but it was more about Bo's life, & not his death. More peace, less pain. The funeral yesterday was really beautiful. The spirit was so strong & the music & talks were perfect. It granted me not only peace & closure, but perspective. When I was driving away the world felt like a beautiful & happy place. Hearing about Bo's struggles & the way he continued to serve, continued to be positive, continued to put others first made me realize how often in my life I complain about the smallest things. How often I feel sorry for myself when I am SO blessed. How often I put myself first. How much room I have to become better, & what a blessing this time we have on earth is. I continue to think about Bo often & those thoughts now lead me to think about our Savior. How blessed I am to know the truth. Each day is a new day, a day to repent, to become better, to help another, to reach toward my potential. The world feels bright & full of promise. I feel empowered & strengthened. I'm so grateful for Bo's example & I know that I will always remember him & that his memory will always make me push to be better. What a wonderful gift this life is. I want to make the most of every moment.

Meet Jonah.

Isn't he adorable?

One day about seven months ago Kelsey came into the office and said, "Jessie, you need to pray for Brooke."

Brooke was Kelsey's college roomate & one of her very best friends. Although I didn't know her very well, I had always been very impressed by her & her husband Ransom. At the time Brooke was very pregnant, & about the cutest pregnant woman i've ever seen by the way.

They had recieved some hard news. I don't want to tell their story, because I won't be able to describe it accurately, but if you have time, you should read it for yourself. Read their story here.

Right about this same time, Bryce & I had begun praying about whether or not it was the right time to start our own little family.

We were praying for Brooke & Ransom & I anxiously checked their blog for updates to their situation. Every time Brooke posted I was filled with the spirit. Each time I read of Jonah I felt a powerful manifestation of the truthfulness of the plan of salvation & of the importance of eternal families.

I knew that motherhood was the work that I wanted & needed to be about.

This post is a thank you. Thank you Jonah: because of you, I have a stengthened testimony of this gospel. Thank you for the work you are doing now for all of us. Thank you to Brooke & Ransom: for sharing your story. Because of you, I have renewed faith, & I know that I will be able to do hard things, if necessary, with the Lord's help.

We are grateful for your example, & we're still praying for you.

Of the Season

So many times throughout my life, & so many times lately I have found myself pondering on how blessed I truly am. I am pretty convinced that Bryce & I are the two most blessed people on the face of the earth. What is even more overwhelming to me than that is the fact that I don't deserve those blessings at all, at least no more than anyone else does. With this admission, comes a burden that I feel every day. A responsibility to help others, to be my best self, to better the world. All three of those things are pretty open-ended. It used to make me stressed that they were, because I knew that I would never feel I had done enough, but now I see that that is the whole point. I never will have done enough. I'm not meant to. I'm meant to keep trying, to forge ahead, to push harder & be better. I'm so grateful for a husband who supports me in anything I want to do, & who feels the same responsibility that I do to give to others. It is so humbling to think that so many of the good people I know are unable to have Christmas this year. & it is also humbling to think of all the people who help others, when they can hardly afford it themselves. Out of the 150 items on the Angel tree our ward is doing, not a single item is a toy or a game. Only clothes & shoes. It is so humbling to think back on my own spoiled Christmases, where one year of our gifts might have given all those families who are in need their biggest Christmasses. The greatest Christmas gift I ever recieved from my parents though, was their ability to keep the focus of Christmas on the Savior. I can remember being excited about presents & having a mountain of them, but I can honestly say that as I look back now my favorite memories & the ones I treasure are of family time & traditions, of the giving & not the recieving, of serving others & feeling gratitude, of my testimony growing as I saw what mattered most to my parents, & realizing what matters most to me. I'm so grateful for this time of year when we have so many opportunities to turn our thoughts outward instead of inward, to be joyful & a grateful for whatever it is that we do have, foremost among those blessings for me, is a knowlege of my Savior, Jesus Christ, & of the sacrifice that he made for us all. I need his gift more than any other, I would be lost without him, & I am so grateful for a month to celebrate what he did for me & re-commit myself to being a better person today than I was yesterday.

Ken Prince: Our Grandpa

Marrying Bryce 2&1/2 years ago has changed & blessed my life in so many ways, one of those ways being that I gained a huge new extended family to love & laugh with. I loved Grandpa Prince from the start. His warmth & enthusiasm for life was undeniable. Every time we were with them as soon as we got in the car I told Bryce, "he is the sweetest man in the world," & he really was.

It was always crazy to me how healthy & active he was at nearly 89 years of age. Just last week on July 13th Grandpa was heading down the stairs to get ready for bed & fell. Grandma rushed to call an ambulance & he was rushed to the hospital. The Dr.'s knew that there was brain damage & internal bleeding but at first they thought that he would live. In the days that followed though, he slipped into a coma & things took a turn for the worse. Just this morning he passed through the veil, to be with his Father in Heaven & his family on the other side.

This has been a very spiritual & emotional week for all of us. It has been such a blessing for us to live close & be able to be at the hospital with him & Grandma so much this past week. I'm so grateful that I got to hold his hand & kiss his forehead & tell him I loved him one last time. Even more so it has been a huge blessing how much we were able to see & visit with him these past few months of his life.

I think I am about the only member of the family who was in complete denial. I thought the whole time he would live. I am horrible at letting go. On Saturday Bryce & I were at the hospital for about 6 hours, & for a pretty good chunk of that time it was just us, Colleen & Grandma. Grandpa seemed so peaceful, & every time I looked over at him memories flooded my mind, almost always of Grandpa laughing, he had the greatest laugh, or of him whispering to me (as i'm sure he told all the grand-daughters) that I was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen, with the greatest sparkle in his eyes.

We will miss him so much.

But what a legacy he has left behind. The spirit has been so strong throughout this entire process as his posterity gathered together in the hospital to pay tribute to a man we all love & learned so much from.

My testimony of the plan of salvation has grown & strengthened throughout this experience. I KNOW we will see Grandpa again.

Until we meet again, thanks for everything you taught us Grandpa. We love you so much.

25 YEARS

What a beautiful marriage you have had so far! Thank you for teaching me what a sucessful, loving, equal partnership looks like in a marriage. I know i'll be forever indebted to you both. We are so grateful to have you as parents, and to get to be together forever because of the covenants you've made. Thank you, thank you. We love you! Here's to another 25 years!