Three weeks ago my sister Rachel called me from Alaska. "So I have a story for. Dick and I took this boat out into the middle of nowhere, and then we hiked for two miles, and then we eloped!"

Wait WHAT?

Although they had been telling everyone they wouldn't get married till January, they had been planning their Alaska elopement since May. What they meant by "getting married in January" was their temple sealing...but that's just because the temples have been closed. So why wait?

The only people they told beforehand were my parents and his dad. Needless to say, EVERYBODY was shocked. 

 I was happy to have a home visit for a week before my grad program started.  My body seems to have acclimated to Utah temperatures and therefore forgotten how to cope with Arizona heat, but it was well worth the sweat, especially when I got to cool down with a Dutch Bro's frozen hot chocolate and the pool. While we were there, Dallin and I rotated between the three households. While Dallin joined the Samuelsons at the flight school, I want shopping with my (or his) sisters and accompanied my mom on a lot of trips to the tile store to help her prepare for the big remodel. My family bought a boat, and we went to the lake twice to test out the incredible wake-surfing gear. We joined the Urness family at the shooting range.

On Saturday, my mom took our dog Dakota to get a C-section. She had 7 puppies, including a 9-ounce runt (as a reference, the biggest sibling was 18 ounces). A few hours after she was born, Sophie started shouting.  The pup stopped breathing, started foaming at the mouth and went completely stiff.  My mom gave her mouth to mouth, and her breathing resumed followed by gradual relaxation of her muscles.  We looked it up, and apparently she had had a seizure.  Dallin and I rushed to the store to get ingredients for puppy formula including Karo in case her blood sugar levels were off, which can sometimes cause newborn puppy seizures.  Then everyone took turns watching the litter box and bottle feeding her throughout the night.  The next day, the little pup was very wiggly and ate way more than her siblings, even figuring out how to latch onto her mom by herself.  She and her siblings are now almost a week early, and my mom reports they are all doing well! 

 Today was my last day working at the treatment facility because I am starting grad school. I told them in my interview that I could only work through the summer, but still I dreaded today. 

I was working with the same "cottage" of 10-16 girls for most of the time I worked there, but ever since I came back to work after having corona, I was instead place on the quarantine cottage with patients who contracted the virus. Because of that, I didn't have the chance to give my other cottage a heads up about quitting. When I went to tell them goodbye, they had already heard the news, and most of them hugged me and didn't want to let go. Two of the girls, however, were  very bitter. These are girls that I feel especially bonded to, girls that have been in the facility for a very, very long time. One of them refused to look at me.  "It's just how it always is," she muttered.

I sobbed on the way home.  What if, by leaving, I undid any of the good I might have done for them this summer? Have I just reinforced the abandonment theme in their lives?  I feel racked with guilt.

You see, the theme on Instagram lately has been about ending human trafficking and pedophilia.  These girls that I work with have been through hell and back--most of them sexually abused, many by their own family members. These girls have lived through neglect, drug abuse, physical abuse, desperate self harming and suicide attempts. 

And yet I abandon them. 

All these girls at the facility have changed my life.  I didn't realize how peachy my life was until I met them and saw their resilience. I hope that as they one day discharge and remember that they are worth more than the hellish backgrounds they come from. They are cared for, and I am one of the people who cares. 

I just wish it wasn't against privacy laws to keep in touch.