December Begins

It is amazing to think that it is already December. I know that I have been watching the lights and Christmas decorations as they have been displayed, but for some reason I am not ready for December. December always goes by so fast and then it will be 2011! I think I would like to enjoy this a little longer, maybe stretch out the days some? Oh well.

It has been a busy week and a little unusual. We celebrated Ed's birthday on Monday, the 29th. He had a hard time blowing out the candle because of his age. (hahaha) He is 62 now but I think he gets better looking as he ages. Don't you think so? I love the picture of him all bundled up to go out in the cold. What a cutie!

Each missionary is asked to present a 3 minute sketch of themselves to the mission at the Monday morning devotionals. It was our turn on Monday, the 29th, Ed's birthday! I struggled over what to write down (we are told to write them down and practice them because if you go over 3 minutes they ring a bell and you have to close immediately and sit down). I ended up with two very different sketches but I thought I would just take them both and wait for inspiration. Well, inspiration came all right! We were the last two and as I listened to the others give their life sketches I decided I needed to rewrite mine. I asked Ed for a pen and began to scribble, cross out, draw lines, etc. In the end, what I gave was so different from what I had prepared, but it was under 3 minutes and well received so it was fine. Ed was also under 3 minutes which was great since his first draft was 6 1/2 min. He told of his conversion which was very appropriate. He did a great job. We are both very glad that it is over!

The hard thing about this last week has been to watch what happens after it snows. It was so pretty immediately after the snow last weekend (I hope you liked my pictures), but then it started getting cleared away and along the streets and walkways the snow is shoveled and piled and then it gets grey and then black and what had been a picture of beautiful snow ends up being quite ugly. The sun comes out and slush follows soon after and then a little sprinkle of rain and it isn't pretty anymore. I think my "uglyness" attitude began last Wednesday when I was waiting for the crossing light to let me cross the street between Temple Square and the Family History Library. Since it was my first winder here in a long, long time I had forgotten the main rule after a snow.....don't stand too close to the street.... Yep, you guessed it. I got splashed with the ugly black snow slush first thing in the morning. Not a great way to start my day but I rallied and learned from my experience. I have not done that again. Most of the snow is now gone. The weekend was warmer and last night there was another slight rain so snow is actually difficult to find. (We actually saw snow along the streets being scooped up and put into trucks to be hauled away last week.)

On Friday afternoon I did my first training, welcoming the new missionaries. I will be training most of the day for the next two weeks going back over to the library for an hour or so after 3:30pm to work on the Tongan project for a couple of hours each day. We have received our own Oral History space on the Community Trees site now so I will have to move all of the links to the new place so I want to get started on that as quickly as possible. It should be quite easy.

We also had a new Young Elder start in our zone last week. He is very sweet and learned quickly. He works with us until 2pm each day. Our 2nd Young Elder will begin on the 13th. They certainly add a lot because they are good on the computer. It will be a big help in our zone.

On Wednesday night Autumn came and stayed with us because her husband was out of town and she had a meeting downtown. It was very fun. We met in the Salt Lake Temple and did some sealing work there for an hour and then we had dinner and came back to our apartment and spent some time planning our Christmas holiday when Ashley and Aubree are here. We are going to have lots of fun together. It will be a different holiday for our family. We are looking forward to it. We then went to sleep and Ed and I left early the next morning before Autumn had to get up. She showed up at our work room a little before 9AM and announced that her car battery was dead. Sir Ed of Historical Families to the rescue!!! It was such a good thing that this happened when she was here with us. We were happy to be there to help her when she needed it. Even though she would have been able to get it done, it was just nice for her not to have to do it alone. We think this was a tender mercy from the Lord (although Ed was not happy having to change out a battery while wearing a suit, but oh well). It all worked out.

Yesterday Ed and I went down to Provo for the day to help Autumn and Derrick decorate their little house for Christmas for the first time. They had never put lights on the outside of the house and had never had a big tree so it was fun to be with them. We then went out to dinner to celebrate Ed's birthday and Derrick's birthday. It is the first time we have been in Provo for a couple of months. We really thought we would be going down more often, but we have been staying very busy and haven't had the time and now with winter weather here we will probably not be doing much except when the girls are all here.

We have put a string of lights on our balcony rail and a little lighted tree in our apartment. Most of the other doors on our floor have a wreath of some kind so I decided to do something different and put up a stocking. Maybe I will get something from Santa in it.....what do you think?

P.S. I have discovered that the cold weather does affect my arthritis. Hmmmmmm.