The Elve's Have Gone??

Well, Christmas has come and gone already. My sweet daughter and her family are on their way home and should be there by now. They had a rough trip up, but we so did enjoy them all. She and her husband are doing such a great job raising our grandbabies. The children are really nice people. Owen and I were just sitting and listening to all of them talk with each other and must say how impressed we were at how sweet they treat each other. We heard NO quarreling nor arguments between them. When I commented on that, Austin(15) said it was because it was the day before Christmas Eve, so he knew he had to be extra good. Sherry says they have their moments, but actually are pretty nice most all the time.

We had a wonderful Christmas with family and lots of snow. The children were very happy to be able to play in the white stuff and Christmas day was beautiful and sunny, so playing was pleasant. Took hours longer than it should have for the turkey to get done and dinner was late, but delicious just the same. Christmas eve was a very special night. We had Janelle's baptism in our stake center then came home for dinner of creamy potatoe soup and homemade dinner rolls. Our full time missionaries came to eat with us and also enjoyed a recorded Music and the Spoken Word from a couple of weeks ago. The Choir had guest performers with them who sang the 12th century carole of THE FRIENDLY BEAST and a reading about how the carole, I HEARD THE BELLS ON CHRISTMAS DAY, was written with a little history on Longfellow. It was beautiful and worth listening to. The special thing about that recording was that Elder Barwick(missionary) had used the same poem in his talk and Bro McClune had used the same topic of the Longfellow carole in their talks the same Sunday as the broadcast. Neither of them knew about the broadcast which really surprised Elder Barwick when he watched the program. We talked about simple gifts which was a perfect ending to a beautiful Christmas eve.

I am not looking forward to the schedule change for our ward meetings next week. We will now have the early schedule which starts at 9a.m. but I guess the plus side is that we weill be out at noon. Makes it really hard to get people out for choir practice is the tough thing. I thought about asking for a release from that call, but was reminded that I should just serve as long as needed...so I am still waving my arm around like I know what I'm doing. It is a wonderful calling and I do love to hear the choir do well, so guess I shouldn't rock the boat.

I am wishing all you a very happy and prosperous New Year. I am thinking there will be alot of changes headed our way and am so grateful to have the gospel in my life to help me understand the big picture.