My Projects

Happy Dahl family reunion and happy birthday to Lina! I'm thinking of you all today. We've had such a wonderful Sunday. Our ward is so nice, and Jesus Christ and His gospel are amazing. Nikki spoke in church! I love listening to him talk. He prepped for a 10 minute talk and then got to speak for 25 minutes, but he had a lot of poise and did great. 

I've been busy with a lot of projects. I like working on them a lot. The biggest one is that the book Dad and I wrote, Autism in Christ's Church, is officially published and available to the public!! I spent a lot of hours on it and am really excited to be in this stage. I messaged all the people I interviewed for the book to get their address so we can send them a copy. I've also been contacting lots of podcasts to ask if Dad and I can talk about the book with them. So far we have two interviews scheduled!! They're with Latter-day Light and Leading Saints. And hopefully we'll get a few more. Here's the basic blurb I've been sending to people about what the book is about:

Autism in Christ's Church shares the stories of 40 individuals with autism and their families. These narratives center around the families' experiences in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Autism is a spectrum and looks different for each person and so does conversion to Jesus Christ. Autism in Christ's Church showcases that diversity by showing a wide range of ages, family situations, autism levels of severity, and participation levels in the Church. Stories include parents with young children with autism struggling to find the motivation and stamina to continue going to church; young men with autism passing the sacrament with the support of their ward; adults with autism managing parenting, the social demands of church, and their own relationship with Jesus Christ; and much more. Each narrative is followed by key gospel and behavior takeaways from the authors, drawing from decades of experience as a special education teacher, behavior analyst, and disciple of Christ. As authors, our hope is to recognize and make visible the triumphs and struggles of individuals with autism and their families in the Church. We hope people with autism and their families, friends, and ward members who read this book will be encouraged, find new insights, know they are not alone.

I've also been working a lot on my job. I'm doing research on all the 50 states plus Washington DC for a state study that will hopefully come out in January. It's fun work. Parts of it are pretty mindless, so I've started re-listening to Harry Potter while I do those bits. It's perfect for that sort of thing because I already know the story so well.

I'm teaching youth Sunday School for the first time next Sunday, and I've been working on my lesson quite a bit. It's a little stressful to teach a group of 7th and 8th graders I've never met, but I think we'll have a great time. We're going to talk about not procrastinating promptings. 

My thesis data is all collected, and I've coded it initially. Mom has been helping me with it because she is an absolute angel! I need to do a bit more with the codes and hopefully start writing the findings section soon. Next week I'm starting a class on qualitative research that I think will be really helpful. 

Less fun projects this week have included getting a new title for our car and finding health insurance and a pediatrician. We mostly have them figured out though. 

Besides my projects, I get to hang out with my wonderful boys. I am obsessed with them!! Parley is maturing rapidly. He smiles and giggles a lot, especially when I kiss his belly or pretend to eat his belly. He's a pro at rolling and is getting so good and playing with his toys! Nikki and I just dote on him. On Tuesday Nikki started his classes (though they're actually all seminars), and I turned 25! Nikki worked so hard all day and spoilled me rotten. We had steak and shrimp tortellini and mint chocolate chip ice cream with hot fudge sauce, and I was a happy lady. College football is back in full force, and we've been enjoying that, especially since BYU and FSU both killed it yesterday. Also, my parents got me a Hobby Lobby gift card for my birthday, and we had a great shopping trip on Wednesday. My favorite thing I got is a big painting of a field of sunflowers to hang over our bed. We have a very happy life!