Conference

Dear Family,

We are enjoying the conference sessions. Even Emmalynn is doing well at listening. We have had her playing conference bingo which has seem to help. She has picked out the words the speakers have said and marks her bingo sheet that has those same words. Daniel likes to lead the music when the choir sings. We will feel very sad when the conference is over at 4:00.

We received the results back on Daniel's blood work and we are grateful that everything came back fine. We just have a skinny son but Emmalynn was the same ways. This week has found him starting the venture out on his own walking. The most steps he has taken is about 6-8 but his confidence is growing.

A couple of weeks ago I was watching the Wednesday child story on local news 8. Wednesday child is about children who are in foster care who are looking for an adoptive family. There was a girl on their named Jaysin. She grabbed my heart as I heard Jay Hillebrant interview her. I went onto their webiste to find out more information. They connected us to a Northwest Adoption Exchange website and phone number. That night I showed Gary the interview on the web and told him that I thought that we should look into this more. Gary felt the same way. I have made calls to the Northwest adoption exchange and found out what we needed to do to possiblely become adoptive partents to this girl. They gave me information on the need for us to do a homestudy and taking 30 hours of training for foster parents. I then contacted our local Health & Welfare Department to get information on how to go about the homestudy and adopting out of foster care. They sent me information and a list of agencies and individuals that assist with the homestudies. I contacted a lady on that list out of Idaho Falls and she sent us the packet for the homestudy. Gary and I have prayed and attended the temple to know if this is something that we should do for our family. We have talked with Emmalynn about the possiblity of adopting an older sister and she has watched the video also. She has been telling people that we are going to adopt a big sister for her. As Gary and I have prayed, fasted and gone to the temple we haved decided that we are going to do the homestudy and make contact through our caseworker with her caseworker to see if maybe we can adopt this girl. All we know besides the video segment from local news 8 is that she is 11 years old and lives in Washington state. If you would like to see the video you can go to http://www.localnews8.com/ and click on the Wednesday child section of their web then scroll down until you see a picture of a girl named Jaysin. That is the girl we are looking at. She reminds me of a 11 year old Emmalynn and maybe that is why she grabbed our heart. We don't know for sure if we will be an adoption option for her or not but we are going to try. Gary and I have been very blessed in a lot of ways and feel that we could bless the life of an older child who is looking for a permanent home and parents to call their own. I just wanted to let you know that we are doing this and hope that if it works out that you will be able to accept her as a granddaughter, niece, and cousin.

We hope that all of you have a great week and an enjoyable Easter this coming week.

KYLER HAPPY BIRTHDAY! You are born on a great day in the history of our church. I still remember being in New York on my mission the day you were born and thinking that I felt you were so lucky to be born on the day our church was organized. We hope you have a great birthday. It is hard to believe that you are 14 but harder to believe that I have been home from my mission that long.

We LOVE ALL OF YOU!
The Packard's