Christmas Eve we went to the Bowman's home, where we had a delicious dinner. Their grandchildren were there and put on a lovely Christmas pageant. The oldest daughter, Anna, was the angel, and she sang the Christmas story. She was very poised, and has a sweet voice. She is 12.
Actually, she's not the oldest. The gal playing the flute is. And the younger children each had a role. The little Mary took her role very seriously, and rocked and gazed at her baby the whole time. It was so much fun, and brought a great spirit into our Christmas.
I should have started out with the breakfast we helped prepare for the 300 missionaries. It was amazing. We started at 6:30 am and helped fix pancakes, sausages, sweet rolls, fruit salad, eggs and drinks for them. Then they put on a talent show, which was wonderful. We then had a gift exchange with our zone. We were supposed to buy something for under $5 to exchange, and you could take someone else's gift. Most of what was brought was dollar store toys, and I was surprised at how much they liked them. Goes to show they are still kids! But one set of sisters brought a reindeer towel that someone in the ward had given them, and that's what I wanted. I think it is so cute, and I want to copy the idea next year.
Elder and Sister Layton and sister missionaries
Some of the Elders we have worked with
The mission president and his sons
The Tongan Elders singing
This is the Elder I stole the towel reindeer from
Our mission president and his wife gave us the fruit bowl, and Dad got the can of fake Spam. It was very fun.
Christmas Day we had a great brunch with a ward family. People are so generous. They gave us 2 gift cards, one for a pound of See's Chocolates, and another for a local restaurant. Haven't gotten the chocolates yet; still trying to take off the 5 pounds we gained over the holidays! We had a nice Christmas dinner that evening with another senior couple, got to talk to most of you, and made it through what could have been a tough day, but wasn't.
So about our car. We couldn't get it in to be serviced until after Christmas, so continued to drive it around a little, but didn't do much actual missionary work. When we finally found a shop that was open that next week, we left it with them and got a rental. When they called us with the damage report, we nearly fainted. The root ball we had run over had tore up the whole underneath of the car. They ended up replacing the muffler and tailpipe, the catalytic converter, the fuel tank, a tie bar, the hood, the antenna and side view mirror and a head light. $8,000! We shouldn't have been driving it at all, and are more amazed than ever that we weren't hurt in the accident. But now we have it back, so are back on the job and happy to be alive!
Last week we were in charge of feeding another 100 missionaries for their monthly leadership meeting. So we made them Sloppy Joes, a fruit salad and veggie tray, chips and cookies for dessert. Another couple helped out, but it kept us busy all week. We enjoyed it, and have volunteered to do it for the next few leadership days. Might as well stay busy, right?
We then had a meeting with 3 general authorities from SLC; Elder Cook of the Twelve, Elder Nielsen of the 70 and Bishop Causse of the Presiding Bishopric. It was wonderful. They spoke and took questions from the missionaries for 3 hours. Then Elder Nielsen came to a special meeting in our Stake the next day and talked. We got to shake hands with them at the Saturday meeting. This is the second time we have seen an apostle since we have been out here, and the third time for 70s. We interact more with general authorities here than at home. It's amazing.
I have to tell you a story that we heard in the special Sunday meeting, told by our Stake Relief Society President. She went to LA to visit a daughter, and the bishop was talking about overcoming challenges. He lost the lower part of one of his legs when he was a little boy, and wore a prosthetic leg from then on. His parents told him he could do anything he wanted, and got him involved in sports, etc. When he was about 12, he was playing baseball. He never had any trouble hitting the ball, but running the bases was always a challenge. On this day, he hit the ball, and knew it could be a homerun if he could make it around the bases fast enough, so he took off and ran as hard as he could. Between second and third, his prosthetic leg broke, he fell, and was called out. When he got up, he looked around for his leg. It had gone flying and had landed on third base! He thought, "shouldn't I be counted safe? My foot is on the bag!". Not! Funny story, huh?
We got a great letter from Abby. We loved the envelope where she wrote the addresses all by herself. Her mom lovingly let her, but wisely put the letter and envelope in one the post office could read, but we have saved both.
We went to dinner in the little town of Gilroy, at a Mexican restaurant the missionaries recommended. It was very good; the menu was in Spanish, and there were lots of Mexicans eating there. They even had a mariachi band.
Not a very good picture, but if I had asked them to pose, I would have had to pay them! They were right in front of our table, and it was loud, but a fun experience.
We get to attend a concert by Alex Boye on Saturday, so are looking forward to that. We have been visiting members of the Young Single Adult ward who are over 31 to try and get them to join our ward, as they have aged out. That's been interesting. They are pretty touchy about it. The bishops and Stake President have been slow to deal with the issue, so have asked us to. Hmmm. Wish us luck with that!
We haven't gone site seeing for awhile, but hope to next week. We are excited for Tracy to come see us in March. We will take a few days off to spend with her and show her around.
January is half over! Yay! I can't say it's been too bad, with temperatures in the 60s during the day, but it still feels like winter.
We're getting spoiled, for sure. Next winter will be a shock.
Hope to hear from everyone, as always. You know we love you and miss you, but time is flying. We're half way done. Can't believe it. Be safe and stay warm!
I'm so glad you had a good Christmas. Ours was good too. We spent a lot of time with the Shipleys playing games and eating yummy food. I know how you feel about being in the January slump. It's the worst time of year; so grey and cold and LONG. Only two more months until Spring! I can't wait to see green again outside!
ReplyDeleteWe have been going crazy, as usual, with all of our many responsibilities. It's the end of the term for the kids tomorrow so this week has been a stressful one trying to push them to finish up their assignments. As per usual, they have procrastinated the big projects until the last minute, so there has been many late nights for them. Ah well...it will all work out in the end.
I'm sorry to hear about your car! I hope you were able to get your insurance to pay some of it. Cars are such a pain in the butt. We keep waiting for one or both of our vehicles to die very soon, but by some miracle they keep on running. They are definitely living on a prayer!
In other news, I have decided to delay my college education endeavor for a while. Up until a few days ago I was determined to continue, but then had a few realizations. For example, I was trying to help with Abby's homework the other day, but we couldn't find it. In the midst of the search I found four other weekly homework packets from November and December that were never finished or turned in. I know she's only in first grade, but it made me realize that I have been neglecting some very important things with my kids. The boys have also been struggling with school and other responsibilities and I simply haven't been available to check in with them and help them stay on top of things. It feels like I have been sacrificing their education for my own and I decided that was a high price that I don't want to pay. But I am still planning on going back as soon as I can, even if I have to wait a few more years. I am glad I tried though. I can now see that a college degree is not out of my reach. The timing was just a little off.
I couldn't post my entire comment (more like a novel) so I had to start a new one to finish it. Here is part 2:
ReplyDeleteEverything else is pretty much the same as usual. Alex and Nate are having a really good time with their band. I love to see their enthusiasm; it makes my day. Seth started playing the trumpet in the school jazz band and is loving it. I think it has made a huge difference in his life. His confidence in himself is higher and most days he comes home really happy. Now we just need to get him organized so his grades will come up!
Abby has been especially funny lately with her lively imagination. Her latest thing is pretending to be a spy. She walks around the house with sunglasses on and a lanyard around her neck to hold her important spy keys. She explained to me what her keys are for:
"This one is for my jet, this one is for my scooter and this one is for the bathroom in my treehouse." She also has a magic ponytail that turns her hair different colors when she lets it down. What a nut!
Shawn is still working at the hospital. It's pretty intense and he is already feeling a little burned out. But he does like the work. They just don't staff enough nurses, so all of the nurses there run around like crazy all day. They rarely have time to even eat. He recently started looking around for something that pays more and isn't quit so stressful. He would still stay at the hospital as a PRN employee and work two or three days a month. He is so good at his job. I am constantly in awe of the things he does every day.
I probably shouldn't end with sad news, but I can't remember if I told you all about Kaiser. We had to put him down about a month ago. He was getting to the point where he couldn't walk up and down the stairs, had lost a lot of his hearing due to his many recent ear infections, and was having a hard time breathing. He also had a really bad infection on that fatty tumor on his belly. We took him to the vet and he told us that the infection had likely spread to his lungs. The vet said he could remove the tumor and pump him full of antibiotics, but his recovery would be difficult because of his age and there wasn't a very good chance that he would be successful in curing it. So we made the very difficult decision to let him go. It's been hard for us to get used to him not being here any more. The kids were pretty upset, especially Abby. She couldn't quite understand why we needed to let him go, but has seemed to get past it. He was a good dog and very much a part of the family!
I hope all is well with everybody. We don't talk much anymore, but I hope that will change soon. I miss all of you!