More nostalgia

We had a great family reunion this last weekend for my mom's family. Reunions were fun when I was a kid because there were lots of cousins to play with and lots of neat aunts and uncles and always lots of fun games to play and crafts and such. Now reunions are neat because I can sit and talk with those same aunts and uncles, who are very good at witty banter. I also really enjoy picking out aspects of everyones' personalities and seeing where the similarities are. I've picked out several personality traits that kind of run through the whole family in varying degrees.

One trait that's fun to observe is the desire to have things organized, coupled with enjoying numbers and number games. This is a characteristic that isn't really prevalent in that many family members, but it's notable because it was one of my grandpa's defining characteristics. He loved for things to be organized and he loved numbers. He wrote a fifty chapter biography (it had to be exactly fifty chapters- such a nice, even number), and one whole chapter was dedicated to his lifelong love of numbers and an explanation of why every number is interesting. It's such a strong trait in his personality that we laugh whenever anyone else expresses these characteristics. I happened across this comic today and started laughing because it's exactly something my grandpa would have done.

One of the best parts of this reunion was the gathering of the older, temple attending members of the family to the Provo temple on Friday afternoon to do a temple session. We filled up the first two rows in the ordinance room entirely. It reminded me again of the strength there is in family relationships and of the power we carry to influence each others' lives- for good or ill. It also reminded me of just how jubilant I will be when the resurrection takes place and we'll all be able to greet each other with our newly perfected bodies and realize that the greatest family reunion will have started- and never needs to end. In that way, the weekend was both nostalgic and anticipatory, I suppose. And that's about the best you could ask for from a gathering of friends.