Miller Family Reunion

My extended family on my mom's side had a family reunion on the 17th (I am catching up). I love family reunions because it is so great to see family and get to visit and catch up. It is amazing how fast kids grow when you only see them every other year.

My mom is the second to youngest in a family of seven children. I seriously do not know how my grandma handled seven kids. My Grandma Miller (pictured above) is the most wonderful woman ever! i so admire her. She is 87 years old and doing great! She is smart, funny, loving and giving. I have such special memoriest of my Grandma from my childhood. She has always been there for me. She is the only Grandma I have ever known. We are super close (I am her favorite grandchild) I think it is so important to the family to get together while Grandma is still around. I love her so much and don't know that i will ever be able to handle loosing her. (kinda funny story - my mission president called to tell me that my Grandpa Marx had died while I was on the mish, but he mistankingly said my grandma died. I was so heartbroken, not that I was not sad because my grandpa had died but I knew he had been in bad health. I am so happy to have my grandma around!) She is so amazing! Her husband, my grandpa Miller died in 1998. She has been a widow for 11 years. She wrote me faithfully while I served on my mission. When I would write to her I ALWAYS ended by saying "Hope you are happy and healthy." - because my worst fear of leaving on a mission was that my grandma would pass away while i was gone.

Back to the reunion - sorry for the detour, just wanted you to know how fabulous my grandma is. I was asked by the planner of the reunion (my cousin Jeremy and his wife Melanie) to do a game for the reunion on Saturday while we were at the Newton Park. I decided that instead of doing just another silly game I would do a game that would be fun and meaningful. I made sheets for people to record their memories of grandma. On it I had questions like -

What is your favorite food that Grandma Miller makes?
Alot of people said Thanksgiving stuffing and fudge cake - both excellent when made my Grandma.

Grandma Miller is always so supportive of all of her children and grandchildren; in what ways has she supported you in your life?
Everyone put how Grandma Miller has been there for every major event in their lives; which she has, she is amazing!

We also had a game where we (my sister, mom and I) came up with questions to ask people about Grandma to see how well they know her. Some of the questions were -

Q - What was Grandma Miller's first car?
A - 36 Ford

Q - What are Grandma Miller's Sister's names?
A - Muriell, Arva Lue, Ona (Grandma's name is Lael)

The games were lots of fun!

After getting the memory sheets from those who completed them (I tried to bribe people by saying they could have an airhead if they completed it, but some adults still would not do it, but some kids tried to do two.) I started compiling them into a book for my Grandma to keep and be able to read when she is lonely. I really hope she likes it! I also included the pictures of each of the families that we took at the reunion. All of her children and their spouses were there, 20/30 of her grandchildren came and 12/24 of the grandchildren-in-laws came. I am unsure of the exact number but about 44/69 of her great grandchildren came.

Here is Grandma with her children in order (oldest to youngest) L 2 R - Gma, Pam, Brent, Shari, Debra, Layne, Anita (my mon), David

Here are her children and their spouses.

Here are 20 of my Grandma's grandchildren.

This is a picture showing Grandma Miller with Pamela's family - only person missing is Tawna and her family (she passed away)

Brent and Lynne with Grandma - Their 6 children and 12? grandchildren were not able to come.

Shari's family with Grandma. (Except for Chad and Meladie and their children and Scott)

Debra's family with Grandma. Everyone was there except for Kirstyn.

Layne's family with Grandma Miller. Adrianne's husband Jared, and Mike's wife Jayna were not able to come

The Marx bunch! 2 of my brothers (Craig and Preston) were unable to attend, as well as Melissa's husband Malik. (and my husband) :)


David's family with Grandma. They get the award for having 100% of their family there!

As the primary song says, "When it's reunion time, no matter what the weather, it is such a happy day when the family gets together."

I love my family! I love coming from a big family. My dad comes from a family of 8 children so I have 20+ (I don't know all of them really well.) cousins on the Marx side and 26 on the Miller side. I cannot imagine growing up in a family without lots of cousins, aunts and uncles.

Family is such a wonderful thing!

Yesterday was such a great day. I had a super great surprise that made my day! My first companion in the mission, Sister Rogers was in town and had just attended the Salt Lake Temple and parked at the Conference Center. She had remembered that I worked there and so she came in to see if she could find me. I was sitting at my desk (back faced towards the door) when I heard the door open I looked in my mirror to see if it was someone that needed help. I did not recognize it as being her but turned around to see if the person needed help. I then recognized her and started screaming because I was so surprised and happy to see her. I only got to chat with her and Steve for a few minutes but it was SO GR8 to see them. I really need to make a trip to Arizona to visit them.

Here are some pictures I stole from Megan of us together on the mission:

My first transfer I was in a three-some. I came mid transfer and was given the BEST TWO SISTERS IN THE MISSION to be my companions! (President Cannon told me that - which I believe is true) Sister Yu (on the right) is from Taiwan, she went home at the end of the transfer. She was amazing and I learned alot from her. I was so glad when the Mission President let me stay another two transfers in that area with Sister Rogers. I consider her to be my mission mom because she taught me everything I knew.

She made missionary work fun! We had SO much fun (made up a dance to do on a video for our families, studied hard, worked hard, taught crazy people, took a ton of fun pictures, worked alot with less active members, made visuals to teach lessons to children, did lots of service, she helped me with certification (memorizing scriptures) witnessed a family come unto Christ as mother and son were baptized, lots of fun) After I left Savage Mill area I was transferred to an area where missionary work was no longer, I no longer had a companion that I knew loved me and wanted me to succeed. I missed Sister Rogers so much! It took me a while to kick back in gear and realize that missionary work was fun and that I could be happy doing it.

Seriously this woman taught me so much about missionary work, the value of knocking, the importance to work through members, the importance of being happy, the need for meaningful prayer, the absolute necessity it is to have the Spirit. She was an amazing missionary, teacher, friend, mission mom and companion. She was my favorite companion my entire mission.

Here is a picture of us in my first district

The elders in the picture are (L-R) Valdez, Carpenter, Cassidy, ?, Mortensen, Allen, Wood, ?,Patterson.

Sister Rogers and I were comps from Jan 26-May 25. (I am pretty sure on the dates, but could be wrong) We spent Easter together. I still remember how fun it was; we went to a part member family's home for dinner (they did an easter egg hunt for us), ate a ton of candy, rolled eggs down the hill and made our lips blue as you can see here.

Love you Sissy Rogers!