Another Year Gone

December 29 - 31

The "Lights of Christmas" will be over New Years Day

SUNDAY arrived whether we were ready or not.  It was now time for us to give our first talk in Sacrament meeting since coming on our mission.  Rhonda’s talk centered on LOVE.  She did a great job and even took up her allotted time slot but left plenty of time for me.  I decided to talk about New Year’s Resolutions and tried to tie it in with our resolve to Keep the Commandments of Our Father in Heaven.  I heard several positive comments about our talks but the best thing about them is they are over!  From Church it was our turn to go straight to the Memorial.  Things were kinda slow but Sister Johnson filled in the spare time telling us some of the trials they had had with their children.  As we were finishing up at the Memorial, a snow storm was moving in.  I don’t know if I have ever seen bigger snowflakes in my life.  It only lasted 2-3 hours but still put down about 7” of new snow.  It was pretty to see but not so much fun to drive in down the steep hilly roads on the way to the apartment. 

 MONDAY we thought we would get a little rest but Elder Osborne called and wanted us to come early and fill in for him as he had lost a took cap and needed to see the dentist in Lebanon to get it fixed.  Elder Johnson is not doing too well and was to the doctor himself so that left me in charge.  Sister Josie Best, the animals owner, called about moving the animals.  Since I was the only one here, I made the decision and told her to come take them away ASAP as it seemed to be causing Elder Johnson stress worrying about them.   By this time, guests were arriving for FHE.  Elder Osborne was ill, and Sister Scott was ill so I ended up giving my yesterday’s church talk for the FHE lesson.  I hardly got a break as people just kept coming and coming all night long.  I made a count and counted 168 people who stopped and got out of their cars and came to see the animals and/or in the house for warm cider and cookies.  

TUESDAY, Dec. 31, 2013.  We were scheduled to have the late shift and were also trying to coordinate a new year’s eve party with all the missionaries.  We finally decided to move things to the Center so the Johnson’s  could attend as they wouldn’t leave the animals  (Sister Best said it was too cold to come get them).  We tried to start our “party” at 9:00pm but people just kept coming and driving through.  Even though the lights were out, they were still coming until 11:45p.  The party was kinda fun, I tried to teach them how to play “crazy rook”.  It was pretty crazy as I don’t think some of them even know what was going on after we had played all 10 rounds.  We also played a couple other games, had lots of nice eats and treats.  HAPPY NEW YEAR  We were soon gone after the stroke of midnight.  We were still having flight problems for our proposed trip to Utah in the morning so after we got home Rhonda stayed up and was working on that for a while but I was tired and it was too late so I went to bed.