We were so very excited to be attending a theater performance on Friday night. One that we had been waiting so long for…and then COVID-19! Schools closed, our favorite restaurants shut down, and we received notice that the play would not be performed.

Many times over the next few months we would experience disappointments and frustrations. We could not buy toilet paper at the grocery store. Items on the shelves seemed to disappear and were not replenished. We couldn’t go to church or spend time in the temple. Our son was serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Kiribati and came home three months earlier than he was supposed to. All of this because of COVID-19.

But then wonderful things started to happen -when our son came home, our other children came home too. Soon we had all of us together for several weeks, something that hadn’t happened in a very long time. We spent time together working in the yard, watching movies, putting together puzzles, cooking and eating dinner together, and laughing. So much laughing. It was wonderful!

Our lives were dramatically changed with no work, no school, no eating out or going to the movies but we were so blessed to be together. We learned that we could be resourceful, we could learn new things, we could work together and we could do hard things. Our lives will forever be different and we may not ever get back to the old normal. But, we learned what was most important…all because of COVID-19.