Red bugs and Checkettses

Red bugs (aka "chiggers) are very tiny, little bugs that burrow into your skin and stay there for weeks, causing lots of discomfort.  The bites look like mosquito bites, but they last a few months longer (literally).  The bugs live everywhere in the south and like to eat you if you make the mistake of sitting on the grass or a log or anything else they can get to you from.

I brought a couple back with me, as a souvenir of my lovely trip to Arkansas and Missouri.*  Fortunately, I also brought wonderful memories of time with my awesome family and some of the most beautiful country in I've ever known (I just never get over how incredibly gorgeous the Ozarks are!).

Checketts-es are very large people that burrow into my heart and stay there for a lifetime, causing an increase of love and faith. I got to spend time with a whole lot of them last week. Here are some highlights:

* Being picked up by Rachel and crew in KC and driving to Arkansas in a non-AC car on the interstate (that's what makes it feel like family vacation)
* wading in a stream in the Ozarks and watching several of my very large babies skipping rocks
* Driving up and having Mother and Father come out to see us!
* Staying at the Lewises on their lovely mountain
* Swimming in my favorite Ozark swimming hole
* Feeling the love and goodness of strangers who took good care of us when we had a flat tire
* Cheering on baby Benson and his teammates at the Arkansas All Star basketball game (with almost all of my family there)
* Traveling with Father, reading out loud to him and visiting, as we drove through miles of Ozarks
* Finding out W& L are having another baby! (and playing with their other little ones--so fun!)
* Spending a day with dozens of big Checketts-es** at many Missouri church history sites (so fun to watch the big men and women and the cute children)
* Watching the Joseph Smith movie again (it will always remind me: the gospel of Jesus Christ is so precious, it is worth any sacrifice that may be required)
* Receiving a father's blessing
* Listening to all the cute things Lietta said
* Holding babies (little McKay and Ephraim (cousin Kelly's son)
* Being with my family--I just didn't get enough!
* Feeling the Spirit teach me
* Feeling loved and full of love
* Having confirmed again the importance of families in God's plan for us--past, present and future, they are God's way


*To kill them (they'll live in you for a long time), you put fingernail polish over the bite to suffocate them. I think my roommate thought I was crazy when I asked her assistance with a hard to reach one on my back; but she kindly complied.
** It was sad not to have Ro&Sofia and their girls and Aunt Tamara & family and U. Thad & family. While I know that's the way life goes, I still missed them. And it was a sobering reminder that we do NOT want it to be like that in more important reunions in further distant days.