An amazing tribute!

Yesterday I went to the funeral for an amazing man. RJ Nelson lost the battle with skin cancer. At the funeral services all of his six children spoke and gave such wonderful talks and tributes to him. It was such a wonderful time. I wanted to take a few minutes to capture my thoughts and feelings from the day. First, when you pulled into the parking lot you drove under an arch created by a couple pieces of construction equipment. I have a picture of it on my cell phone, I'm trying to figure out how to get those into this post, hopefully they are by the time you read it. When I went and said Hi to Regna his sweet wife, she seemed stronger than me. She just seemed so at peace. One day I want to be that strong. While waiting for the service to begin memories were shared with friends of what a fun couple they were. I remember a dinner we went to at their house when we were new in the ward. It was a progressive dinner we started at their house and laughed so hard. That was just the way it was for me whenever I was around Regna. At the funeral you could see the peace each of the children had with his death, and the sense of humor their parents passed on to each of them. All the children and grandchildren got up and sang a primary song of eternal families about being a builder, at the end of it they transitioned into Popcorn Popping with the hand actions and all! What a fun, fun tribute to him and his love of the song. After that each of his six kids spoke about him. Telling the stories of his life. So much of this was the part of his life that I hadn't known. It fun to learn more of him, though it's sad that it takes his death for us to learn all the other parts of a persons life. It made me want to do better. We all have great stories and they should be shared and remembered, we shouldn't wait until we have gone to have people know what helped us to make us who we are. Some interesting things I learned about RJ that I hadn't known before, His mission president was Pres. Thomas S. Monson, He went to college before he became a ditch digger, he pinned Regna before they got engaged, it's his high school's 50th reunion this year. Many other things I learned had more to do with his character. They are things I knew but not as strongly. He is a man we could all learn something from in being a good worker, in keeping your word, in your love of the gospel. Those were all things said over and over again. Thanks Nelson family for sharing those moments and memories with us. I was so uplifted and will strive to be a better mom and wife.