Last night we thought we were under attack! We heard loud booms just outside our house. The girls asked what was happening. We looked out the window and saw fireworks. I asked Michael if there was a holiday we were forgetting. He said “Ya, isn’t it Pioneer Day or something. I said “No, that’s the summer and they only celebrate it in states near Utah. I then searched the internet for holidays and saw instead a headline that Kansas City Chiefs were going to the Super Bowl. I knew instantly it was the reason for the firework celebration.

I didn’t know this before we moved here, but Independence, Missouri is a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri. The Kansas City Chiefs are a Missouri team that play 5 miles from our house.

We have many Polynesian men in our ward who played football and are big football fans which is probably why none of them showed up for choir practice yesterday. We did a little ladies ensemble instead.

My Amos would have fit in well here. He loved all sports but especially football. He would have been over the moon for all of this excitement. I graduated from Glendale High School in Arizona and that is the City of the Bowl this year. Now we live right next to the Kansas City Chief’s Arrowhead stadium and the head coach, a member of our church, played football at BYU where Amos and I met.

Many faithful members of our ward posted on Facebook about how they didn’t watch the game yesterday in order to keep the Sabbath holy, but that they were elated when the blasts from the celebration began. They posted pictures of “our boys” from the team and praised coach Reid for all his work.

Michael’s parents just moved here from Nevada yesterday and it is amazing to have them with us. They drove directly to church without even stoping at their new home first. They are bigger sports fans than us so they probably knew what the fireworks were for.

Having his parents here is definitely another win for Kansas City, MO but now it’s time for the losses. We are having a funeral tonight for 3 of our precious puppies who didn’t make it over the weekend. Mud’s firstborn son, Franc who was stuck in the birth canal for 5 hours was the first to pass away. He started laying away from Penny when the rest were snuggled up to her.

We assume he was crowded out by the other 10 for food early and became too weak to even try. We got a little in him with bottle feeding but we didn’t want to force the milk and drown him. He just couldn’t take in enough on his own to survive. His mouth started hanging open and I recognized that sign from seeing my loved ones pass away. He passed Friday and we were up most of the night trying to save the next one who was looking weak.

Saturday was a rough morning with the death of the second puppy but we did have a miracle. As we were decorating a box for his memorial, Kirra got a text asking if she was on her way. She had been asked to sing a song for a meeting that had started 10 minutes earlier. She forgot about the meeting but also forgot to learn the solo she was supposed to sing.

I was going to tell her to let them know she wouldn’t be coming but the name of the song was “I Can Do All Things With Christ.” I told her to go get ready for the meeting and listen to the song. She was blessed with Amos’s mind and gift for recall. I knew she could do this. She came down and sang it for us after only hearing it twice. We were at the breakfast table mourning our puppies and her beautiful voice and the powerful lyrics about depending on the Savior caused Ruth to start sobbing which led to the rest of us crying. It was a beautiful moment. Kirra rushed to the church and arrived just as the speaker in front of her on the program sat down.

Sunday morning we found that the last puppy we were worried about survived the night, but just barely. We brought runty little Peso up to comfort him. We tried feeding him but he couldn’t eat. He died in Ruth’s arms and left us all with more layers of grief but with a knowledge that the Lord cares about every one of His creations and that this sweet puppy has a spirit that was now back home.

This experience prompted me to start writing a song. I’ve never been great with lyrics but Kirra definitely is gifted in that area. She sat down with me and came up with astounding lyrics about the life after death and the troubles of this world. The difficult experiences of this life often leave us wanting to give up but the richness of those troubles adds to the depth of the beauty of life.