Throughout this month, Garrett and I tried to live life more like Hock and Lani. Do more things with our children, be with them, make memories with them, be more patient and loving.
In trying to decide what to do for the Hock family, I first was tempted to just do something with me and Garrett, and not include the kids. But, I thought about the Hocks and how even if it might be harder and more time consuming and take more patience, I knew that one way to serve the Hocks was to do it all together, as a family. Christmas Eve we did our Season of Service as a family together. Garrett and I thought of something that the Hocks would do together, as a family.
Christmas Eve morning we cut papers and wrote inspriring notes on each one. The kids wrote on them things to encourage and spread the Christmas spirit. "You are awesome", "Happy Holidays", "Merry Christmas", "Let it Snow", "It's going to be ok", and lots more. We then went to Lone Peak Hospital in Draper, and we went and put the little slips of paper on all the cars in the parking lots.
The kids loved running around from car to car and putting their slips of paper that they created on each car to spread Christmas Joy. Sometimes, people were in the cars waiting. Those people would sweetly roll down their window and we would hand them a paper. Gates loved these since sometimes he was a little too short to reach the windshield wiper. They would sweetly smile and Gates would say "Merry Christmas" and run away to the next car. It was such a joy to feel the spirit while serving the Hock family. I thought how this is something the Hocks would do with their family. Something all together, from Houston down to Mayley, something they would do together. We thought of all the times they have spent with a car in a parking lot of a hospital and loved serving those who hopefully would come out and see a sweet message on their car.
It's interesting because we were going to go to our local hospital that is just down the street basically from our house. But for some reason we felt like going to Draper. While there, Gates put one paper on a car, and a lady was walking out of the hospital emergency area, limping, with a knee brace on. When I asked her if she needed help, she said sweetly "Yes, can you give me the paper you put on my car?" We ran back over, and handed it to her. Hers said "You are going to be ok." She read it and started crying and said "Thank you. I needed this today." When I asked Brooklyn about that phrase, Brooklyn said "I only wrote that one once. All the other times I wrote "It's going to be ok."" We thought of how special and tender mercy that was. That the one person who needed "YOU are going to be ok" received it, and was coming out at that exact time.
One more tender mercy is that we had just enough papers for EVERY SINGLE CAR in the parking lot! We couldn't believe it! It was a special start to our Christmas Eve together.
Merry Christmas Hock family! WE LOVE YOU! Love Uncle Gmaughan, AuntTiti, Brookie Cookie, Zelda, and Gates.
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