On November 13, 2009 Bradley Samuel Markham was born to a young mother who loved him very much but knew that she couldn’t give him the best life he could have. So she selected Melissa and me to raise him. On November 15, amidst much emotion, she placed him into our arms.
And that makes us… (fill in the blank) parents, sleep-deprived, very happy, learning to be comfortable with baby poop, covered in baby spit up, elated, extremely grateful, more familiar with wee hours of the morning than we ever wanted to be, the proud owners of numerous boxes of diapers and cans of baby formula, still trying to believe it finally happened, trying to give Phoebe (our dog) plenty of attention so she doesn’t become too jealous, madly in love with our little son, and/or all of the above.
Sammie’s ecstatic that he’ll be able to watch the next Super Bowl and World Cup with his son. Melissa made the rule that all stinky diapers that happen while watching sports are Sammie’s to change.
Thanks for all the prayers and good vibes sent our way-
Favorite mission
memory -- Anziano Rob Smith subtly reminding me in the middle of a
discussion that we each had fake tattoos on our chests. A friend of mine
had put them in a care package and we thought, at the time, that it would be
funny to put them on our chests and see how long they would last. A couple
of days later, in the middle of a discussion with our best investigators,
Carlo and Laura, I looked over to my companion and he patted his chest to
remind me what was there. I have no idea how I managed to not let out a
laugh for the rest of the visit, but once we left their home we laughed
quite a bit. And continued to laugh about it for weeks more.
