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.

Merry Christmas!

Week 15 (December 22-28)

The opening of Church was pretty small so I ended up passing Sacrament again.  We went to the memorial early as we were having a “Birthday” party for the Prophet Joseph

Smith (today so as not to interfere with family night on Monday).  The Parker family (family of 12 children and polished musicians from New Hampshire) came to play background music for the “party”.  Unfortunately for me, I didn’t get to hear a single note of their program as I went to the visitor center to give a tour while they were setting up and then people just kept coming in and after about 3 hours their program was over and I missed it all.  There were about 350 people we counted in attendance.  As we were trying to close up, Misty called and said they had just moved to the cabin for their Christmas and there was water running on the floor from broken pipes someplace.  David tried to fix the problem bur couldn’t find the leak.  He took out a wall in mud room and the cabinets and still had to go higher.  They couldn’t find my torch so I called Morris Tanner and sent them to his place to borrow his.  They replaced the cap but didn’t get far enough in to the ceiling to find the leak so they turned off the water and spent the night with water for the toilets they bucketed out of the ditch by the town center.
Monday 12/23  Joseph Smith  Birthday   Today was a warm and windy day, a lot of the  rain is melting and making things very slushy and wet.  After several calls back to Misty, they finally got a plumber there from Kamas  who was able to finally “plug” the leak in the pipes.  They ended up cutting several holes in the basement ceiling before they found where the pipe was split.  The plumber said whoever put in the lines laid them right along the outside wall which was a dumb thing to do as far as freezing is concerned.  After things for the cabin quieted down a little we got in the car and went back to Lebanon to get more supplies for today’s Family Home Evening, Christmas Eve dinner at the Dyches and Christmas morning breakfast at the Osborne’s.  When we got home from town, I grabbed a bucket and gave the car a quick wash job as it was so dirty from the snow/road sand, etc.  Just as we were getting ready to go to the Memorial for FHE, Misty called again and said that Janalee had called her and said Kevin’s house had burned down and that Kevin was being transferred to the hospital in Provo by ambulance.  Very upsetting news to hear.  Janalee only had Misty’s number so she was to call Rhonda who then was to call her sisters.  So, when we got to FHE there were several calls going on trying to get the facts.  About time FHE finally started, visitors came for the Memorial so I missed all the lesson and almost missed the treats until Rhonda came and had me fill a plate which I did so I could eat it later. You would have thought we were having the birthday party all over again as we had nearly as many people stop in for cider and a cookie as there were yesterday for the original party.  As we were headed home about a half hour past quitting time the Johnson’s were just waiving good-by when I happened to look up and see Annie (the donkey) running around out on the grounds.  It took a few minutes but Elder Johnson and I along with our wives were finally able to head it back into its pen between the buildings.  It was quite nerve racking and I was beginning to wonder where I could quickly find a lasso rope but luckily enough, we didn’t need it.

           Tuesday was still warm in the day but by night the skies had cleared and the ground was frozen again.  I ended up having to put on my over coat, gloves and ear warmers to keep warm.  Feet were cold all the time.   I could hardly believe the throngs of people out on Christmas Eve coming to see the lights and have refreshments.  We were in hopes to close an hour early but by 8:00pm we had recorded over 325 people who had been there with other groups still roaming around.  Finally, the Johnson’s decided that they didn’t dare leave with so many people roaming around so they sent us on to the Dyches for a Christmas Eve dinner party.  We didn’t change and went straight there and were just in time for the eats.  After arriving back home, Rhonda started making her food assignments for tomorrow.  I meandered around for a while and finally went to bed at 1:00am.  MERRY CHRISTMAS.

   

Christmas Breakfast at the Osborn's cabin

Christmas day was actually very lovely. We had Christmas breakfast in the up-stairs area of Osborn's cabin.  It was pretty and fun.  Then Elder Ogden and I had to leave by 10:00 to go to work  (This was an hour later than usual).  There were actually some visitors on Christmas day, so it was good we were there.

After our shift was over, we went with Shefchik’s to Christmas dinner in Bethel, VT.  at the home of the Feeney Family.  Had a nice dinner including lamb and ham.  We saw their home movie about how their home was washed out from hurricane Irene a year or so ago.  It was pretty miraculous how they were able to rebuild as nice as they did.  After a nice evening, we came back to the apartment and opened our Christmas presents about 9:00pm.  It was a little different for a change but it was nice anyway.  I think we had a Wonderful Christmas although we missed being with our family.

Ready to unwrap gifts around 9:30 pm

Misty made these cute "Missionary" stockings & filled them full of presents.