Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, Everybody!

Christmas came and left and now we wonder if it ever really was here.  We'd like to leave our lights and decorations up all the rest of the time we're here because they so brighten our apartment on these gray, cloudy days.  But one more week and then down they come! 

We're still riding on the high of being part of the Christmas Eve celebration with all of you and the nativity and the program and if we would have thought we could have even coordinated the food.  And then the next day being able to see you all again....and the missionaries in Sundance and Anoka....and waking up to the absolutely great videos of little kids climbing on the roof and "arm surgery."  Sooooo fun!!  We're imagining that this next week will be one of rest for you all?  Relaxation for you all?  Hah!!  Our Christmas week was a busy one with last minute gift buying for Santa to deliver to various stockings here and there, meal preparation, taxi service to doctor's appointments (not us), a bit of un-required-but-just-because-we-wanted-to baking, reading Christmas stories and talks, and we even watched a Christmas movie or two.  There were missionary related things in the mix and then it was Christmas Eve.  We had dinner at the Church with a family from the ward and the missionaries and a couple of absolutely great ward members who have no family around.  We all did it up good!  We hauled all the foyer furniture into the Primary room, lamps and all to make it look like home and set up a big dinner table (3 Church tables pushed together) with Christmas tablecloths and dinnerware (Christmas paper plates) and feasted on ham and potatoes and vegetables and salad and rolls and pie (which pie of course I didn't make but they were homemade as were the rolls which of course I didn't make either!).  Then the 3 little children planned and we all participated in the nativity production and I was Mary (we drew names) and 4 year old Joseph just looked up and said "I don't think Mary really was bigger than Joseph," and Dad was King Herod.  It was a very solemn occasion (NOT!!) and our narrator, a unique, quite a bit older than us, very outspoken sister from the ward, stole the "show."  She read from the scriptures with "added comments" and we had to hide our faces in our costumes to keep from rolling on the floor.  We sang Christmas carols as part of the narration.Then when it was all done, she wanted to sing God Be With You as the closing song so we did!  Matt asked her to say the closing prayer and she was so honored to say it and said that nobody had ever asked her to say a prayer in a "meeting" before and then she talked to Heavenly Father like He was sitting right next to her.  She's a woman who was born in Salt Lake and moved out here for some reason into a little house in the boonies by herself and never married, basically became almost a hermit, and somehow the missionaries found her.  She's one in a million!!  It was the best of the best to finish up the night with all of you via the miracle of technology.  We woke up early the next morning to make waffles for the Elders and Sisters and they stayed until their afternoon dinner appointments and then they all came over here a couple of hours later to use our computers to skype their families and watch Its a Wonderful Life which was filmed not far from here.  It was so fun to be the house on the other end of the skyping!  We thought about not only our homes there in Utah but the homes of the people in Wyoming and Minnesota where our missionaries were calling from.  And the calls from here went to Utah, Taiwan, Mexico, and Texas.  So it was two good days even though we have to admit to having waves of homesickness wash over now and again.

This paragraph can be short because we took a rest the next two days!!  Dad played a little basketball with some guys in the ward and branch and worked on our billion photographs that are on our computer and I did a few things around the house that I've been trying to get to for weeks and when the sun shone (which it did a time or two) we hurried outside and walked a bit around the Cornell Plantations and sat on a park bench down by Cayuga Lake (the temperatures were in the 50's) and once or twice wished it would have snowed....but only once or twice.  That and the cold temperatures are supposed to come this next week.  Our days are already filling up with things to do in the next 3 weeks until the students all come back and before we know it, we'll be back to our regular schedule.  Oh and Santa brought us an IPad so we're trying to learn how to use that as well.  It will be great for using when we need to show Mormon Messages or something like that and don't have computer access.  Our whole mission is supposed to have IPads by the end of February and these missionaries are excited.....but still saying "we'll believe it when we see it."

Well, the Merry Christmases and the Happy New Years are nearly over.  We always and forever will count the blessings of this year and especially these last two weeks when we think of the birth of Jesus and His amazing love for us and for all of you.  Now we need to replace the artificial lights of the Christmas decorations with the pure light of Christ that is in our hearts and permeates everything we do.  Aren't we glad that we never have to turn that light off because it's always the season for living in that Light and loving and giving and teaching and thanking and serving and being kind and compassionate, and turning the other cheek and repenting and forgiving, and most of all knowing of the greatest Gift of all time and forever after. 

We love you for your goodness to us and everybody around you.....and for your new year's resolutions to write to us every week or every other week or occasionally as time permits (smile!!).  XOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Dad and Mom and Grandpa and Grandma and E and S Jolley

We'll be home for Christmas, if only in our dreams!

Hi Everybody,\

That's a old song by the way (the subject line of this email).  We are missing everybody and all the concerts and programs in school and Church, and we're trying to make up for not being there by playing Christmas music all the time and eating tons of fudge and turtles and caramels and other stuff....Oh dear!  But on Friday morning, we can say we'll be home for next Christmas.  But we're finding plenty of things to do to keep us busy which is nice.  Yesterday afternoon we helped with a Stake YSA project at the home of a family whose father has ALS and Lyme disease and the after effects of a massive bacterial infection as a result of some really bad dental work that was done nearly 4 years ago.  He's pretty much bedridden and they are trying to make the house more conductive to his condition.  He's the first baptism we ever saw here in NY that I think we wrote about months ago....was baptized in the pond by their house.  He's trying to get his health under control enough to be able to attend the temple and have their family sealed.  We're also doing some work for and with Valerie, the investigator who attends our Institute in Owego.  When we go there, it also includes many serious Gospel discussions and we feel the Spirit strongly when we give testimony of a loving Heavenly Father and His Son.  The things we do with our special-needs ysa and her mom is ongoing.  Her mother just found that she is too sick for the surgery that would hopefully remove the cancer and will again go through the chemo and added radiation.  The prognosis is not good at all.  As we work with people, we surely see the peace that pervades the lives of those who have knowledge of the restored Gospel and the Plan of Salvation and the belief that the sealing power binds families together through eternity.  We had our last Institute in Owego last week for a couple of weeks and we will miss that but will have a couple of classes there before the Cornell kids come back.  We went to the Owego Ward Christmas party Friday night.  We love this ward!!  They are about the size of a branch because a couple of years ago when Lockheed closed their plant, many of the ward members had to move to find other jobs.  But they NEVER use size as an excuse to not care for each other or to have activities that bless the lives of others.  They have about 6-8 scouts in the ward but nearly 40 attend because they've invited their non-member friends to attend and they are welcomed with open arms.  The baptism of a whole family there a couple of weeks ago came through activity in the scouting program.

New paragraph!  Sorry to just run on.  Last week was also a week of taking people to the airports around so they can go home for Christmas.  We have 3 regional airports and a major airport within about an hour from here.  Anyway, Cornell is pretty deserted (which is nice because we can actually find a parking place when we go up there), and we'll miss our YSA because that's where the fun is.  We combined with the ward today (we actually even sang in the ward choir for the Christmas program today) and will do that for the next 4 weeks.  Only 3 hours of Church today.....wow!  Last weeks performance of the choir of those two selections from the Messiah for the Community Christmas program would have made Handel proud.  And we actually sang most of the notes!

Now for a weather report.....just what you wanted to hear.  We got our first sunshine in 3 weeks today......for all of 2 or 3 minutes.  This will be a VERY long winter.  We may have to go find one of those fake sunshine lamps that people say really work!  It's the blue sky we miss.  In fact last week, we got a picture from a couple who are students here but home in Utah for the holidays and they took a picture of Timp just at sundown (it even looks like they were standing in our front yard) and the sun is absolutely gorgeous.  So if anybody sees a cool "sun" photo op..................We went out to get in our car the other morning to a layer of ice all over the cars.  Haven't had the experience of chiseling ice off our windshield since our Iowa days!  Not a lot of snow on the ground yet and we even had a bit of a thaw last Monday so we hiked back up to Tagganeuk Falls.  But now it's cold again and the Farmer's Almanac says to watch out!  Blah!!!  All this unpredictable weather makes for the passing of colds around a given....especially with all the hugging we do.  Consequently Dad has got the bug but is now getting over it.  I don't supposed it will do any good to cross my fingers.  We used his cold this week as an excuse to watch a couple of Christmas movies at night.  By the way, it gets dark here before 5:00.  Not sure we could ever live in Alaska!  We had a great Zone Conference this last week in Owego too.  These young missionaries are just the best of the best (probably as good as Carlee and Cade....maybe).  We were instructed on being an instrument in the Lord's hands and also had a time to ponder our patriarchal blessings as a guide to what Heavenly Father's will is for us.  The Spirit was strong!

For all of you counting the days until Christmas, it's almost time! The people here are taking good care of us....will eat with the missionaries and a couple of families from the ward for an early Christmas Eve dinner and then it sounds like we get to facetime the family Christmas party "program."  Hallelujah, Hallelujan, Hal----le-e-e-e-lujah!!!!  Do you know where the costumes are?  I think in a big bag somewhere in the garage......somewhere??  Sometime that night we'll either watch It's a Wonderful Life or the Christmas Story.....or both.  We'll hope to be able to be part of your skype to the missionary kids and the Sisters are going to skype their families from here on Christmas day so it will be a fun day.  We've had invitations for Christmas dinner but want to stay home so we can be here if we can see of talk to the missionaries in Wyo and Minn and here as well.  When is it we have to start thinking about New Year's Resolutions????

Merry Christmas and MUCH LOVE to all of you.  It's hard to be away from you all this year but know that we are blessed by being here as are Carlee and Cade.  He truly is The Gift.  We know that beyond doubt....that Heavenly Father, the giver of all good gifts, gave us His Only Begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.  How much they must love us!!!

Will be talking to you all in a few days!  XOXOXOXOXOXO

Dad and Mom and Grandpa and Grandma and E and S Jolley

Twas 10 Days Before Christmas!

Hi Everybody,

We can't believe how quickly these days have rolled by, flown by, passed on, whatever days do when you wake up one morning and wonder if we can run fast enough to keep up.  This coming Wednesday we will hit the half mark of our 18 month mission.  Oh my goodness!  Didn't we just leave Orem last week in a snow storm and had to come back to our house because we forgot the kitty litter?  Guess what, we used the kitty litter the other night....not for our car but for the car of a friend who got stuck in a two foot deep snow bank.  Yes, we have snow here in New York and it's beautiful (and would be even more beautiful if the sun would shine.  Haven't seen the sun for 2 weeks).  It actually snowed last Wednesday at the very time we were taking missionaries to transfers in Utica.  It took about 4 hours to do a less than two hour trip.....average cruising speed was around 35 mph and about an hour at 0 as we were stopped on the freeway while a mess was cleaned up.  There were no mountains to go through but some hills where semis can't get enough power to get up the hills when the roads are slick and then all lanes of traffic are stopped and the tractor trailers jack-knife and nobody can get through.  But we made it there (unlike 3 mission cars who were in accidents and 2 were totaled but no missionaries injured), had a shortened transfer meeting, said goodbye to going home missionaries, picked up a new sister for our area and headed home.  Going home was much easier except for the time the freeway was closed by Syracuse because of a major accident involving several cars so we were re-routed off the freeway and back on again.  We think this will be a pretty common thing this winter.  The NYDOT do work hard on the roads though and put tons of salt to keep the major roads snow and ice free.  So Dad has found a new fun thing to do.  We bought a monthly car wash pass and you can wash your car as many times as you want to in that month to keep the salt from rusting it out.  It's a drive through and we will have the cleanest car in NY for the next few months!  Back to transfers, we said goodbye to Sister Davis and hello to Sister Anaya who is new from the MTC and will probably be here for 3 months waiting for her visa to Portugal.  In 6 weeks Sister Lopez will go back to Temple Square to finish her mission so if any of you ever go to Temple Square in the next 6 months, look at all the name tags and if you see a Sister Lopez, give her a hug from us.  She'll be home before we get back.  We're so happy to be able to keep Elder Chao and Elder Thompson!  It would be awful....like having our grandkids gone....had they been transferred a couple of weeks before Christmas.

We just mailed Christmas packages to all of you (except Bryce our favorite child because Santa Clause will still come to him tee hee).  So....watch for the UPS truck.  They promised they'd be delivered before Christmas. You can open up the big box and take the little packages out.....be sure and find the envelope that's floating around loose in the box.  And we just wanted you to know that Taco is still alive and well in pet paradise via New York so watch for your little package from Taco and you can trade around or exchange with each other or at Target if it's a duplicate.  Merry Christmas!!

One of the Sisters in the branch did this awesome thing for Christmas this year.  It's a type of advent calendar where she sends us a talk on Christ for each day and they are amazing talks.  The majesty of His birth and life and resurrection and Atonement as testified of by the Brethren over the years is a wonderful thing.  We think we will do this same thing for every Christmas for the rest of our lives!  Today was our last meeting with the branch for the next 5 Sundays as nearly everyone leaves for the Christmas break.  We'll meet with the Ward during that time and we'll really miss the closeness with the branch.  We thought last week would be a break from cooking and it was somewhat because no Friday Forum.  Do you know that when I went to give blood at the blood drive yesterday, my blood pressure was down to normal for the first time in the last 8 months!  Seriously!!  So we had fun having the missionaries over for transfer breakfast and pictures and we made a ton of popcorn for FHE where we all watched The Saratov Approach (most had never heard of it) and we ate nearly 2 9X13 pans of better-than-anything cake for Institute and last night we had new-found-friends over for dinner.  I might actually have to make a meal or two for Dad and I in the next few weeks!  the ward and branch members who are here have filled the missionaries dinner appointment sign-up sheet clear until the end of December.  We might have to squeeze in a lunch or two if we want them to eat with us! 

Well...this Sunday is almost over except for singing tonight with a ward/branch choir for a community Christmas program.  It will be fun and luckily there are enough singers who have gone to all the practices and know the songs well enough that we can just stand up there and lip sync!  Handel would appreciate our attempts at a ward choir singing the Hallelujah Chorus and Glory to God:)  And tonight we'll go tell Faung Yuen's mother goodbye as she is going back to China and we will never see her again.  What a kind, loving, good hearted woman with whom we can only communicate with hugs and smiles and thumbs up!  We hope she has felt the love of the members here so when the Church goes to China and a missionary knocks on her door, she'll remember!  Our friends also from China that we met the first week here will also be headed back to Mainland in just 6 weeks or so.  Their daughter is now meeting with the missionaries on a regular basis for lessons.  We'll miss being with the YSA for the next month but we're glad they all get to go home and be with their families for the Christmas holidays.  We might have pretty boring FHE with just the two of us while they're gone! 

On to a new week!  Have tons of fun this last week of school all you kids that we love and will SURELY miss at Christmas.  If you get together on Christmas Eve and do the nativity be sure and face time us or somebody video tape or something.  We'll be thinking  a LOT about Carlee and Cade ie Sister Jacklin and Elder Jolley, Jr. but know they'll be happy.  We sent them packages too (and our new discovery... white chocolate covered oreos....a limited edition found at any target.  Look for them!).  If it's possible to do a 3 way skype when you talk to them on Christmas day, let us know.  We know the beauty of this time of love and giving by our Father of His Son will fill your hearts and prompt you to do good and love everybody.  Love You All!!!!!!

XOXOXOXOXOXOXO  Dad and Mom and Grandpa and Grandma and E and S Jolley

Joy to the World!!!

Good Morning Everybody,

At least good morning for a few minutes.....it's an early Sunday morning of the beginning of a busy Sunday day.  We'll be off to Church, then a YSA meeting, then more Church, then an LDSSA meeting, then pick up Chinese friends from the airport, then the YSA will come over for waffles and ice cream and to watch the First Presidency Christmas Devotional,  then driving anyone home who needs a ride....wondering where to fit dinner in all this.....another reason to pull out the leftovers!

But actually, this week is the beginning of NO Friday Forum for 6 weeks, so we wonder if we might actually have time to cook for ourselves.  Dad will definitely not miss washing dishes and opening cans!  Actually he's become quite proficient in the grocery store and in the kitchen and may take his turn for Family Sunday Dinner when we get home from our mission.  Now as for me becoming proficient on the computer doing Church work or paying bills....well, that's another story.

Christmas is on us in every sense of the word and we find ourselves thinking about the birth of Christ and this morning thinking about His Father....not His earthly father, Joseph, but His Heavenly Father.....He who loves us above all.  We're thinking of the words of a Primary song that goes like this:

     "How could the Father tell the the world of love and tenderness?

      He sent His Son a newborn babe with peace and holiness.

      How could the Father show the world the pathway we should go? 

      He sent His Son to walk with men on earth that we may know.

      What does the Father ask of us?  What do the scriptures say?

      Have faith, have hope, live like His Son.  Help others on their way!"

This is such a good time of year and it's such a blessing to have the fullness of the Gospel in our lives that helps us to know the power of the Atonement.  We hope that in the crazy busy-ness of these next few weeks, you all will have the time to reflect on the goodness and mercy of our Heavenly Father and His Son.

Well, it's now 10:31 p.m. and the last of wall-to-wall YSA just left our house after watching a beautiful First Presidency Christmas Devotional. I think there were about 25 of them crammed into our little apartment living room and kitchen! Including two investigators! During the closing "Silent Night" when the congregation sang, you should have heard these great young people sing.  It was beautiful!  As we looked around their faces and realized what a diverse group they are and how much strength they bring to each other, we knew that one reason we're here is to learn from them.  And our hearts ache for the ones who have separated themselves.  How much they're missing!  They all came an hour early for waffles and ice cream and there were seriously were wall to wall people and the noise level of normal conversation was off the charts but that didn't seem to bother anyone.  This was the most we've ever had here but everybody settled in on floors and pillows and were just happy to be together.

It's been such a busy , busy week, it's now time to catch our breath.  We had all our normal things.....HEG and Institutes and District Meeting and shopping for food and preparing food and studying for lessons and our chaplain's meeting and Friday Forum (where our CES supervisor came....he's great!) and helping out the missionaries and our branch Christmas party and whatever else we can't remember.  But the highlight of the week was the baptism of Keeley, one of the young students in our Owego Institute.  She's been studying with the Sisters and has finally made the progress she needed to be baptized.  It really was a beautiful experience because she is special needs and there is a spirit about her that is so simple and pure that you know she was one of the noble and great ones that was sent here for the rest of us to learn from.  Dad baptized her and I was able to give the talk on the Holy Ghost.  We joked with her that the fireworks that the little town of Owego set off on the bridge crossing the Susquehanna River was in honor of her baptism because they did them just as her baptismal service was finished.  The fireworks were actually to Kick-off the Christmas season but they came at a pretty appropriate time!  We love the little Owego Ward and the love they have for each other and show to us.

Saturday was spent at a choir practice and trying to learn the Hallelujah Chorus for the Community Christmas program next Sunday sponsored by the ward.  It's a combined ward/branch choir and because they have their regular choir practice during branch meeting block, those of us in the branch who are singing get to learn it on 2 practices.  Hah!!  Dad and I have lots of work to do this week to learn it.  The afternoon was a great time with Jun and Faung Yuen and his mother and their baby and the missionaries.  The Grandma will go back to China next week after having been here for 6 months for the birth and to help care for the new baby.  We made dinner and here we are with a Chinese family eating taco soup and they loved it!  The Chinese are such a warm loving people and if we could ever save enough money we'd go to Beijing (or however you spell it) and visit them in a heartbeat.  Then we watched the NXC Nationals on a computer that kept buffering when we didn't want it to.  Way to go Zac!  Way to go all of you who have done wonderful things this week.....who have been kind to someone else and who have sacrificed time to serve others and to work and study and play hard and teach others the message of the Restoration.  We are so blessed to call you our family!  We love the letters you write to us and the texts answering questions about i-pads because we're so technologically inept.  We love the letters the two missionaries write to us and the blessing they are to the people they're serving.

And now it's time to go to bed because morning comes early.  The weatherman is predicting snow.  The sun shined today for the first time all week and it was awesome.  Had our rain been snow, we'd be snowed in by now.  We know it will come, but we're keeping our fingers crossed not for another couple of weeks.  The weather can do whatever it wants to in January!  Dad's been out raking leaves in whatever spare time he has and all our neighbors think he's crazy but they appreciate that the wet leaves don't go in their houses on the bottom of their feet too.

We love you.....have a wonderful week and know that we do still miss you and all you do and your cute faces and all the other fun things we do together at this time of the year.

XOXOXO  Dad and Mom, Grandpa and Grandma and E and S Jolley

So this is New York Winter!

Happy Post-Thanksgiving Everyone....

It's 4:00 p.m. and already dark....we think this may be a long winter!  The day we left for NYC, the temperature was 68 degrees and when we got back here there was 8 inches of snow on the ground.  And then today most of it melted.  Crazy New York weather!  We've left Thanksgiving behind us and are now well into the Christmas holidays.  At least the day after we got back we pulled out the big 2 foot tall Christmas tree and put our decorations on it and put up the one nativity set we brought.....and then made an emergency run to Hobby Lobby for all the "trimmings" to make the apartment look festive.  We have 3 different activities here in the next week and we wanted it to look warm and inviting to those who come.  We may have to go rent some little kids to come over and dress up and do the "family nativity production" on Christmas Eve!  And we forgot to bring our video of the most famous of the Jolley/Jacklin performances.  But we have Christmas music playing in the background and a calendar full of things to do this month so we think we'll make it without falling apart......maybe.

This past week has been a whirlwind and went by much too quickly.  What can we say about New York City??  Big, noisy, exciting, people filled, interesting, beautiful in its own way, and so many other things.  Somebody told us that our first time there would be like drinking from a firehose.....and it was!  But.....we didn't get lost, mugged, or any of those other things one can worry about.  In fact the people there were so kind to two old people who looked like they needed help whenever we weren't with Jan and George.  The highlight of course was being with real, live family again and going to the Macy's Parade to watch Connor perform with his band.  They are an absolutely amazing marching band and everybody anywhere who has anything to do with them can be so proud.  We became proficient at riding the train into the city (and thanks a ton to Chris Koller and his wife for "tending" our car and driving us to the train station in New Jersey) and riding the subway once we got there.  And we walked and walked and walked!  We had a couple of days to see the sights of the city, The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island (where they charge $7 for a half hour to look up ancestors on their computers....we opted to wait until getting home).  The 911 Memorial was a sacred spot to ponder what happened there and see those thousands of names of people who died and remember what we saw on TV and how we felt on September 11th 2001.  We totally and completely loved seeing Wicked!  Worth every penny spent for tickets that we luckily got before we got there because it was sold out.  The other "excitement" of that night was being in Time's Square at the same time the protestors came, hundreds of them, who were demonstrating against the court's decision to not indict the policeman in Fergason, Missouri.    We were there with the whole group from American Fork, all 300+ students and parents, for the group photo the Macy's photographer was doing when he (the photographer) said "let's get this done and get out of here because the protestors are coming."  Before we knew it, there were dozens of police in riot gear with their big trucks trying to block the protestors who moved right through them, chanting and waving their signs.  So all the tourists are trying to go up one side of the street and the protestors going right down through the middle of the road blocking traffic.  Not more than 10 feet away from us a group of protestors started banging on a cab who had honked at them to get out of the way so he could turn and avoid the mess.....the cab driver, obviously afraid, squealed out trying to get away nearly hitting a woman and her children.  That was a time of actual fear on our parts because Jan was in the intersection!  But we all kept going and as soon as we got to our hotel, the hotel staff was herding all the hotel patrons into the hotel as soon as we could get in.  So....no pictures of a real live protest.  It was basically a peaceful demonstration but for a few seconds we understood how quickly a tense situation could get completely out of hand and dangerous.  For whatever reason people feel strongly about what they feel, putting others in danger is just plain wrong!!!!!!!

So off the soapbox!  More sightseeing the next day, complete with umbrellas for the New York rain that luckily wasn't snow....Macys, FAO Swartz, St. Patrick's Cathedral, lunch at the famous John's pizzeria and around and through buildings and on streets that we'd heard of but never been to.  We loved theTop of the Rock, Central Park, a perfect oasis in the middle of all that concrete, saw the Guggenheim Museum. Carnagie Hall, Radio City Music Hall., Trump Towers, the tree at the Today show square.   As we said before, the parade was so exciting.....and so easy to get to and see.  None of this sleeping out on the parade route all night.! We walked a block and a half from our hotel, were some of the first ones there (6:30 a.m.), got perfect seats which happened to be right on a subway vent which meant warm air blew up from below (wonderful since it was 35 degrees outside), made friends with all the people who came behind us (by the time the parade started the crowd was about 10 deep), sent one or two of us around the corner for hot chocolate and bagels, and could even walk back to the hotel when the "need" arose.  So we were just a few feet from the balloons and the bands and all the wonderful floats.....and NO polititicians!! New York at it's best!!  Thanksgiving feast that night was a dinner cruise with all 350 American Fork Utahans on the Hudson River.  The food was sooo yummy and the view of the skyline at night was amazing, especially the Statue of Liberty. 

So that was our week.  Ahhhh the perks of being senior missionaries!  But now it's time to get back to work and work it is.  But we're invigorated and ready to dig deep for a couple of weeks before all our students head off dozens of different directions for a very long Christmas break....nearly until the end of January.  We hope to get our apartment painted (which looks like it hasn't been painted in 50 years), sing in the Community Choir for Christmas, and do lots of service with the missionaries and anything else we can find to do.  We've started crossing our fingers because transfers are already again in a week and a half and we would be way too sad to see any of our missionaries go.  But....whatever happens happens but we're hoping they all stay.  They've become our family away from family and we love them all.

But who do we love the most????  Is it ok to have favorites?  Because we do!!!!!  We are a happy family!!  And we miss Carlee and Cade and know that there's no better thing to be doing during the Christmas season than to be testifying of Christ whose birth we celebrate.  We know they'll be happy even if they are a bit homesick.  If anybody happens to be reading this besides our kids and grandkids, service and missionary work can be done anytime, anywhere, anyhow!!!  Thanks to all of you, family and friends, who teach and have taught us how to be disciples of Christ.  We know He lives and He loves us more than we can understand or comprehend.  We are grateful for Prophets and Apostles and Scriptures and for the Gift of a loving Heavenly Father who sent His Son.  And yay for Christmas music, especially the Christmas carols.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO    Dad and Mom and Grandpa and Grandma and E and S Jolley

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hi Everybody!

This will be a Thanksgiving that will be more different than any we've had since our Iowa days!  We actually don't remember that long ago but we're sure we survived being away from home and family.  But wait!  We're headed out to NYC tomorrow afternoon to meet Jan and George and Connor.....that is if we don't get hijacked on the way or get on the wrong train and end up in who knows where.  So.....we get to be with a real live part of our family and we'll get the rest of you on the phone at sometime during the day or the day after.  So needless to say, we're excited!!  The missionaries here love Thanksgiving because they usually end up going to more than one dinner.....that sounds a little filling!  The branch and the ward are so good to make sure everybody has somewhere to be and we're glad we get to be in NYC.  We're hoping for a good day for Sister Jacklin and Elder Jolley....and that they don't get transferred the day before....but that may happen and then it's off to new adventures.  We like the life of senior missionaries!!!

So this week has been a whirlwind of a ton of different kinds of activities:

 

     1.  Our car has been in the shop for 2 days and so the young elders and sisters hauled us around!  What goes around comes around.....and we were so appreciative of their willingness to help.  It was nothing serious....well, nothing that couldn't be fixed for some major bucks, and we were thrilled when the mechanic said it was good for another hundred thousand miles.  Yay Toyota!!

     2.  Family Home Evening (HEG as it is affectionately called here) was something called human fusbal.  It consists of standing in your spot on the gym floor and having someone kick the ball at you as hard as they can.  They let us be the "mechanism" that puts the ball into play!  And they ate 72 chocolate chip cookies.....what would I do without frozen cookie dough!

     3.  Elder Katcher, 2nd Quorum of the Seventy, visited our mission and spent several hours with our missionaries in our zone and then a stake wide fireside which was so good.  It reminded us of the days when we were at the MTC and how we loved it when the Apostles came but that also some of the most memorable talks were from General Authorities that we could hardly remember their names (or hardly had heard of them).  And of course it's always so uplifting to hear President and Sister Wirthlin speak.

     4.  No Institute in Owego this week because it was the same time as Elder Katcher's fireside and we missed seeing our class!  But we were glad to see some of them at the fireside and especially Grandma Bonnie and her Granddaughter Keely who is going to be baptized on December 5th.  Keely has asked Dad to baptize her (she's 20 years old) and I will give the talk on the Holy Ghost.  That will be an exciting event for all of us.  But we did have Institute at Cornell and we love teaching 3rd Nephi.  These kids know so much!  And their insights into Gospel doctrines are profound...most of the time:).  We sense a strengthening of their testimonies and more of a willingness to trust in Heavenly Father and His promises.  We still worry about a lot of our Freshmen who are afraid that if they miss a minute of studying they'll somehow not pass their classes.....so they tend to fall out of Church activity.  That was a huge topic of discussion at our CURW (Cornell United Religious Work) weekly meeting.  So many of the faith groups on campus are loosing their kids to even Sunday worship services because the University puts so much pressure on them 7 days a week.

     5.  P.S. to Institute night.  The YSA all went after class to the 10:00 p.m. showing of Mockingjay part 1 and since it's within the "definition" of our calling and responsibilities, and they begged really hard, we went with them....two old people out past their bedtime in a sold out theatre of teenagers and young adults.  It was a blast and the movie was senior missionary appropriate.....and Dad didn't even fall asleep once.  It was a bit hard to get up the next morning but we did anyway!  We were wondering if we could use the 3 non-members and 1 less active who came to the movie on our key indicators for reporting!  Just kidding!

     6.  Oh and we went to a Cornell men's basketball game this week because one of our YSA is on the team.  They are 3-0 and have already tripled their wins from last year.  With 5 minutes in the first half, "we" were down by 20 or so points....I think all the team scored was 8 points in the first 15 minutes.  Then they went on a bit of a run and were only down by 15 at the end of the half.  Long story short, they kept plugging away and ended up winning in the last 2 minutes by a couple of points.  We were glad for two reasons, first that Kyle is on the team and second, when he got here this fall new off his mission and approached the coach about not playing or practicing on Sunday, the coach respected his desire to be true to his belief that the Sabbath is sacred, and didn't tell him to go fly a kite.  Kyle is a great example of wanting to please God more than man (our institute topic this week).

   7.  The ending to the week was the best with a trip to the Palmyra Temple where we took Angela and Jun (the two convert baptisms since we've been here) to do baptisms again.  Several other young adults went and some did baptisms and some of us did endowments and then we all went for pizza after and then home for a branch mission correlation meeting.  And we were glad that the roads were good all the way!  We've lucked out on weather here.  It's been really cold and windy but only a skiff of snow.....nothing like the Buffalo area.  But everybody tells us to just wait....our turn is coming!

So that was our week and we're looking forward to a few days of not Cooking Every Second.  Oh my word!  No cooking or washing dishes from tomorrow to until Friday!  Actually the work isn't that bad....it's the deciding what to have and shopping and wondering if there will be enough that's stressful.  Good thing that is offset by studying the scriptures for Institute and planning lessons....except for when Word eats 4 hours worth of lesson plans.  We've discovered we have ups and downs just like the young missionaries!  And.....everything is finally resolved with our stolen credit card number from somebody in Maryland.  And we discovered we lucked out because before the little charges started showing up on our statement, whoever got the number had tried some pretty big things and the card was denied.  The funny one was the $50 charge at the liquor store....the man at the credit union got a laugh out of having that bill on our account!

We finished the day today with an Inter-Faith Thanksgiving Service at the Jewish Synagog here in Ithaca.  We took the Elders and Sisters and after the wonderful program, they had "refreshments" in the basement that consisted of at least 25 different kinds of sweet treats and fruit and nuts and cheese and crackers and everything.  Puts our treats to shame!  The message of the program was good as well and several references were made to the Church and the willingness of the members to serve in inter-faith activities. 

Well.....goodnight.  We'll be thinking of you all especially this week.  We'll miss left-overs and Black Friday and putting up the tree and decorating the house and especially being with everybody, but we can't help but count our Blessings a million times over and we're so grateful to "name them one by one."  We love you all and we love what you do and who you are and how you love and serve each other.  And we love that you still sing Happy Birthday just as bad as ever!!!  That made our week by the way!

XOXOXO   Dad and Mom and Grandpa and Grandma and E and S Jolley

Let it Snow!

Hi Everybody,

At the beginning of the week the temperature was in the high 60"s and we hiked without even jackets on Preparation Day and 3 days later we took hot chocolate to Institute because it was snowing.  We hear that winter has come to Utah as well.  Such is life.....keeps things interesting.  We can't believe that next week is Thanksgiving....it was just a year ago that we got our mission call (November 13) and here we are almost half done.  Time flies when you're having fun!  Have we said that before??  Dad is still celebrating his birthday.....we took chocolate cake and ice cream to district meeting and we sang and he blew out candles.  Then that night the YSA brought chocolate cupcakes and cookies to Institute (to go with our hot chocolate) and they sang again.  The next night we went to the Browns for dinner and Eliza made homemade from scratch chocolate cake and white cooked frosting and Dad thought he'd died and gone to heaven (and we sang) , and tonight we ate dinner with the Crespos (former Dad's BYU student) and John made chocolate cake and we sang happy birthday and the little 18 month twins blew out his candles.  Do you think we might be on a chocolate high?  But we still missed the family sing-along birthday song.....next year for the big 70 we'll have to do something really spectacular.

The ward Primary brought all their little kids into our Sacrament Meeting today and they did their Primary program for the Branch.  We loved it!  And we pretended that they were all Emma and Mason and Hannah.....that's all we have left in Primary??  Stop growing up!!  There couldn't have been a better time for the children to talk and sing about families.  In the middle of all this crazy world we still know and believe and teach the Doctrine of the Family.  So we left the house at 9:00 this Sunday morning and got home around 7:30 tonight.  Long Day!  But it also included a symphony orchestra concert at Ithaca College that two of our YSA students were performing in and it was so wonderful to sit in soft chairs and listen to beautiful music done by a first class college symphony.

FHE was fun Monday night.....we had Show and Tell!  Anybody who wanted to brought something to show and talked about why it was important to them.....just like Kindergarten days!  We had a good time and learned new things about these kids that we thought we knew pretty good....we had a photographer, a hockey player, a Russian space program expert, a quilter, a book binder/"movie" producer, an author, a graduate from a citizen's police academy, and we discovered that $3.98 per dozen Walmart donuts are pretty good if you bless them in the closing prayer!  These guys are just plain fun to be around.  Cornell is a really beautiful campus with a new dusting of snow on the ground and trees and buildings......we had to get the missionaries home or might have stayed and enjoyed the snow.  And then it was fun to talk on the phone to our own YSA (TJ) who was only 6 hours away but we couldn't figure out how to meet up with her and still be obedient missionaries.  Missed you, Taylor, but glad you got to go to Central Park!

More opportunities for service this week too with some branch members and non-members and our missionaries.....plus studying some of the best of the Book of Mormon for Institute (3rd Nephi).  We learn so much when we study and when the institute students teach us.   Another big Friday Forum because our Stake President taught the discussion.  Only two more "Make it and Take it" Friday Forum lunches this semester and then a break until the end of January.....which is good because our brains have run out of energy to come up with ideas of things to fix.  We may just recycle our ideas for the next semester!  Any spare time we've had, Dad's been out trimming bushes and sweeping up everybody's leaves.  It appears that our apartment complex doesn't rake leaves which is a bit frustrating because when they get wet, we have a leaf carpet in our front room!

We were typing this when the great face time call came!!!!!!  Totally made our week to see everybody and talk and laugh with you all.  Just think.....on Christmas you can do the same thing with Carlee and Cade.   Unbelievable that they both will have been on their missions for more than 5 months when you call them.  And chances are they both will be in different areas.  We may have our same Elders and Sisters at Christmas....we hope so because we'd love to spoil them as much as the rules allow.  It is complete Christmas season out here.....the Mall is decorated to the max and Santa is there every weekend.

Thanks for being the BEST!!!!!!!!!  How did we ever get so blessed to have such good kids and in-law kids and grandkids and grand friends who might be reading this.  We are counting our blessings!!!!!  Have a good week and remember to count YOUR blessings too.

Love you all...........................XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Dad and Mom and Grandpa and Grandma and E and S Jolley

A dog named Billy.

Another of a dog named Billy.

Upper Buttermilk Falls

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

It's whose birthday?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE GREAT ELDER JOLLEY WHO IS ANOTHER YEAR WISER TODAY!!! YOUR FAMILY LOVES YOU AND WE'RE PROUD OF YOU!

Pictures!!!

Jolley's with recent convert, Angela Hsieh, after her first trip to the temple.

Jolley's with Sister Lewis, one of our MTC missionaries, who is returning home next week.

Elders Napote & Flaherty

Elders Thompson & Chao

Normal Missionary Pose at Jolley's

Sisters Davis & Hopkinson

Some of our favorite missionaries after transfer breakfast. Weird Lot!

Fall Colors

Hand rail Joseph and Emma grabbed.

Josiah Stowell Living Room

Sacred Grove late fall.

Are we ready for this???‏

Happy Sunday Night All,

We just heard the weather report for the next week, and we think now would be a good time to go to Hawaii or someplace like that.  So it's supposed to be record high temperatures here the next two days and then we'll get slammed.  But we think that Carlee and Cade will be worse than us....both Minnesota and South Dakota were actually on the news for projected sub-zero temperatures,  so you all need to feel sorry for them and not for us! Our missionaries are gearing up with warm coats and boots and being glad that they can now teach on-line lessons if worse comes to worse.  We went to dinner at the Brown's last week and they are in a "snow pocket" and by the time we got there, there were several inches of snow on the ground and the little girls were out in the yard making real snowmen.  It was fun....we'll send pictures of the snow on the jack-o-lanterns.

We had a great branch conference today....except that we had to miss the ward's Primary Sacrament Meeting Program in order to go to branch council meeting.  Dang!!  But word has it that by popular demand, they will perform for the branch next week.  We hope so as it has probably been really a lot of years since we've missed a primary program which are the best meetings of the whole year.  We're also sad to realize that we don't have too many of you all singing in Primary anymore....everybody stop growing up!!

We went to the Mall yesterday looking for WARM winter coats and all the Christmas decorations are up and there is Christmas music playing in all the stores.  What happened to Thanksgiving!  This past week wasn't as stressful as the last few have been which was really nice.  A highlight on Monday was visiting Greene, New York which is about an hour from here and having lunch with the other senior couple in the Owego Zone, the Willes from Lehi who have been out just a month longer than us.  They're MLS missionaries and part of their assignment is to check periodically on the Joseph Knight and Josiah Stowell homes.  They are two families and homes that are prominent in the Church History of this area.  The Church isn't doing any restoration on these homes but 3 families (I think from Arizona?) have bought the homes and are doing their own work to make them such that people can visit.  Joseph and Emma lived in both homes at various times and it was a great experience to walk up and down the stairs with our feet on the same steps and our hands on the same handrails they used.  Because it's not an "official" restoration much of the structure of the homes is exactly the same as when the Prophet was there.  We sent you pictures of the actual room where Joseph proposed to Emma in the Stowell home and it was pretty awesome to think of the events that took place there.  The last part of the Book of Mormon was translated in the upstairs bedroom of the Knight home and it was Joseph Knight's wagon that the Prophet borrowed to go all the way to the Hill to get the plates.  These 3 families who are doing the restoration are hoping to have the homes ready for visitors to come on a regular basis.  Also across the road from the Knight home is the pond where Emma was baptized.  Anyway, it was a great day to talk senior missionary talk with somebody like us...old (and they made us lunch!).  And then we finished up the day with a rousing game of Disney charades for FHE (it has a new acronym here...HEG or home evening group....it will always be FHE to us!) and I think Dad's team won which means that my team lost.  Oh well, life could be worse!

We are hoping that all you who are going to Seminary are loving this new program!  We had our CES training this last week and it's mostly geared to the Seminary teachers but we love it and we usually help with it as much as we can.  In fact, most of our Institute preparation is done from the new Seminary manual (we're still in B. of M.) because we love the increased emphasis on the doctrines and principles in the scriptures.  The curriculum is based a lot on questions and answers and lets the students find out exactly where their testimonies come from and how strong their conversions are.  So.....listen to your teachers and read and ponder all they have you do and you will be great missionaries whether or not it's serving as full time missionaries or member missionaries.  And we just learned how to give the assessments (ie "tests") and you will pass them with no problems at all.  Our supervisor, Matt Baker, is a phenomenal teacher and we wish we could be like him!  We have one Seminary left to visit and then we're done until next Spring.  Now what can we use as an excuse to go out for breakfast two times a week!  Wait a minute, we don't need an excuse!!

It's been a busy week this week though with "missionary support."  Our new Elder with the hip problems had to go home for hip surgery and that along with a couple of other situations in this area made it so we lost a set of missionaries at least for this transfer.  So Elder Flarety was transferred to Cortland and Elder Thompson and Elder Chao along with the Sisters are covering three areas as much as they can and boy are they working hard and when they work hard, miracles will happen.  We're excited.  So one morning last week was another goodbye breakfast which they ate to the last piece of french toast.  We probably spoil them a bit much....but they are always helping us, especially on Friday Forum day.  And the members of the branch and ward are going to have to step it up a bit too which will be good and which they are doing, especially in the branch.  We love our missionaries and they are finding and teaching and walking and knocking and just about everything else under the sun.  The other service organizations are discovering that when they want to get good hard workers, they call the Mormon missionaries and the missionaries love service!  That's what we'll be doing a lot of during the Christmas break so we're looking forward to that (and the break from cooking every second!).

Well, it's time to go get caught up on all of the extra reading we've neglected for the last 3 or 4 weeks and when it gets dark at 5:00 at night, it feels like it's time to go to bed!  But we guess 6:15 at night is too early to go to bed, right?  We've learned a lot of things this week that make us better missionaries.  We love the opportunity to spend several hours studying for our Institute lessons and are preparing for Christ's coming in 3rd Nephi which is our next lesson.  We have two investigators in our Owego Institute and when you see them hear some of these things for the first time, it's worth being here.  And here was a great experience last week....one of the investigators, Keely, who is 19 and has never learned to read and is now learning to read, read a scripture for the first time last week in Institute and it was as powerful as somebody giving their testimony.  She was so happy and we were so proud of her.  We love those people there and our really great young single adults in our Cornell group who sacrifice time and energy and sleep and everything else to gather together and teach each other the doctrines of the kingdom.

Good night everybody and get ready for a new, busy and productive week and know that we're always thinking of you and praying that you'll all be happy and work hard and love and serve each other.....and that you'll have lots of fun along the way!

LOVE YOU (a bushel and a peck and a whole lot more)! 

XOXOXOXO  Dad and Mom and Grandpa and Grandma and E and S Jolley

P.S.  Get your flu shots!

 

Going, Going, Gone!

Good Morning Everybody!

With the time change, we're up "early" and ready to go.....well, we're up but not necessarily ready to go anywhere.  This past week we put nearly 800 miles on our car (and no flat tire, cross your fingers).  It was a week of going here and there and everywhere but all good and so far no snow so we'll take advantage of that.  Our phones are programed to tell us the daily weather in all the places we care about (Orem, American Fork, Lehi, Firth, Salmon, and all the home towns of our missionaries) so we just wake up here and it is what it is.  We're part of the polar vortex these last two days that was famous from last year when we weren't here but now appearing to go for a second round.  Yesterday we were in Palmyra and the car thermometer said 37 degrees.  We didn't want to get out!  But we did and had a wonderful day.  We had driven YSA and our newest baptized member, Angela, for some site-seeing in Palmyra and for her very first visit to the temple to do baptisms for the dead.  We started by stopping at the Peter Witmer farm and who should greet us but one of our sister missionaries from those great days at the MTC.  Here's what's more amazing.  She, Sister Lewis, is finishing her mission in Rochester, NY Spanish speaking mission on Wednesday so the chances of us EVER "coincidentally" running into her are next to nothing.  There are NO coincidences!!  Dad should have made her give the tour in espanole!  The change from the day before a young missionary leaves the MTC to just a few days before that missionary goes home is phenomenal....and there it was right in front of our eyes!

Here's another NOT coincidence.  It was mission transfers on Wednesday.....more about that in a minute....and we were in Utica  to transport missionaries and luggage and we were getting 2 new missionaries.  Our first "new" one wasn't exactly new as she has been a Temple Square missionary for almost a year but our new Elder is brand new on his mission.  We should start at the beginning and try not to confuse you.  In February, our Elder Thompson entered the MTC.  Unfortunately his assigned companion wasn't there as he had to have emergency hip surgery and postpone his mission.  So Elder Thompson was put in a "trio" at the MTC, completed his training and came here to NY where he served in other areas and then we got him about 13 weeks ago and he became our district leader.  Last week he found out he'd be training a new missionary and so we took him to Utica with us to pick up his companion.  We should say here that President Wirthlin knows nothing about the new missionaries coming into the mission when he makes transfer assignments but he does know "his" missionaries here in the mission and makes those assignments completely under the direction of inspiration.  There were 14 new missionaries being assigned that day and Elder Thompson was the last to meet his new companion and LO AND BEHOLD,  it was Elder Larson.....the young missionary from clear back in February who was supposed to be Elder Thompson's companion at the MTC and had to postpone for his hip surgery.  President didn't have ANY idea of any of this but Heavenly Father did.  Elder Thompson and Elder Larson are supposed to be together....if not last February but for sure last week and the next 12 weeks!  And our new Sister from Temple Square is Sister Lopez from Mexico and she's wonderful.  She and Sister Davis will do great things together.  But oh how we miss Sister Hopkinson and Elder Nepote!!  We get so attached to these Elders and Sisters and they become so close to each other that even though transfers are exciting, they're hard.  Transfer day consists of lots of hours in the car (where everybody but us is higher than a kite on the way there and sleeps on the way home) and then great training from President Wirthlin and the assistants and pizza for lunch and testimonies from all the Elders and Sisters going home.  We got back from Utica that day in time to change bags (less than 5 minutes) and head down to Owego for another hour's drive and Owego Institute.  From there we drove the Owego Elders home and decided to stop at Valerie's house on the way home and make sure she was ok as she hadn't ridden to institute with us as she always does but she always calls and lets us know she's coming and we couldn't get her on the phone at all.  Val is the investigator we've talked about before.  We got there about 8:30 that night and found her in a dark place spiritually.  When one makes a commitment to baptism, Satan pulls out all the stops!  Long story short, we felt the Spirit as we talked and talked and talked until nearly 11:30 that night and then still had to drive home.  But Heavenly Father blesses us old people to have the energy in the moment because we left our house at 7:15 that morning to go to transfers and got home just before midnight that night....almost a 17 hour day!  We think it all might catch up to us tonight but no rest yet as it is 2 sessions of Church today and CES fireside here tonight (and waffles and ice cream!). 

And now it's just about time for Good Night.  We just finished saying goodbye to the last of the YSA after watching Elder Halstrom speak and the last of the waffles and ice cream were eaten.  Most of these guys had never heard of waffles and ice cream before and it was a hit.  How could you not ever know about waffles and ice cream!!  I made waffles for a solid hour so sometime we need to figure out how many that was.  Let's see, 4 waffles every 6 minutes....about 40-60 waffles and a gallon of ice cream and all the good stuff that goes on top.

So this was the big Halloween week.  On Monday, FHE was carving pumpkins and decorating cookies which was great.....and it didn't involve hiking anywhere or playing a game that we have never played before!  We had a lot of kids come which was fun.  It seems like they get so overwhelmed with school and need an hour in the day to just come and hang out and relax.  Halloween is a big deal around here with decorations and costumes and parties and every grocery store in town selling pumpkins and having a Halloween parade.  The missionaries have to be in somebody's house by 5:00 that night, either their own or a members.  So they all came over to our house for dinner and then we went to the branch presidents house for other activities.  We were so beat by the time 9:00 came that we came home and turned out the lights and went to bed.  So here's a loaves and fishes experiences for Friday Forum that didn't have anything to do with Halloween except that it happened on Friday.  We'd made this wonderful thick potato soup that we were having with hot french bread and broccoli waldorf salad and we had the soup in two big crock pots and one of the missionaries was moving the table with one of the crock pots on it and the table leg collapsed and dumped one of the things of soup right on the floor.....horrors!!!  But we cleaned it up (this was before everybody came) and put out the other one hoping that maybe we'd have a sparse crowd but they kept coming and kept coming (I think we decided 44 people counting a few little kids) and the "soup pot" kept producing and producing until everyone had plenty to eat.  Imagine that!!

This is a 3-part email!  It's now Monday morning and we're headed to a little branch called Green to visit with the other senior couple in our zone and have lunch and they have the keys to a couple of old homes that the Church owns but that haven't been completely restored yet or opened to visitors and we're going to go see them.  They are the Josiah Stowell home and the Joseph Knight home.  Josiah Stowell brought Joseph Smith to the Susquehanna region to work where he met Emma and after they were married, they lived in the Stowell home for a few months.  Joseph Knight's family were stalwarts of the early Church and original members of the Colesville Branch.  It was his wagon that Joseph used to go to the Hill Cumorah to get the plates.  And then the rest of this week promises to be like last....go, go. go.  It keeps us happy and the time just flies by!

We had some great discussions in both Institutes this week on the last chapters of Helaman.  Don't mean to sound like a broken record but as we read these scriptures, we are more and more convinced that we are in the days leading up to the 2nd Coming.  Our discussions this week focused on following the Prophets (Samuel the Lamanite) and how do we follow the Prophets and what do we do when we are shown signs.  We feel a strength building in these kids (and not kids) that we didn't feel when we very first got here.  It's not anything we're doing, but it's in them teaching each other the doctrines and principles found in the scriptures and how those doctrines govern their lives and keep them safe from challenges to their testimonies and even from apostasy.  They teach us way more than we teach them!!

We missed being with you all last week for the beginning of the holiday seasons but we are pretty sure you all had a great time without us!  Now the weeks will fly by and the snow will fly down (there were a few flakes here yesterday morning) and we will hunker down NOT for a long winter's nap but to doing what we were sent here to do.  We're being blessed as we know you all are.  Keep making us proud of you all....that's a good kind of proud....and keep posting on facebook and sending us pictures and writing to us and we promise to keep working hard so you can be proud of us....only proud because these old people keep on keepin' on!!

LOVE, 

Dad and Mom and Grandpa and Grandma and E and S Jolley

Happy Halloween!

Hi Everybody,

The Missionaries are trying to figure out how to have a Halloween party according to the white handbook....at our house!  Actually on Halloween all the missionaries are supposed to be in either their apartments or member's homes by 5:00 on Halloween night.  That's probably a good idea!  Not that they'd get in trouble but they could easily be a target for mischief by somebody looking to cause problems.  We'll probably get a bag of candy and let them "treat" at our house whatever they decide to do.....actually we anticipate at least some of them needing to "share a message" with us around dinner time!

So one of the fun things of this week was driving to Owego to Institute the exact same time Zac and his team were running and winning the 5A State Cross Country Championships, and when it was all said and done, we pulled off into a parking lot and cheered and checked all the stats and all that fun stuff.  Then we got to Owego and our phone start dinging and it was Cameron's win in State Cup soccer and so everybody at Institute celebrated with us.  Actually all of our friends out here celebrate with us when all of you do something wonderful which is usually all the time!!  In Stake Conference today, somebody in one of the talks said that you can never tell how good of a parent you've been until you see what your grandkids do.  And that "what" can be absolutely anything from working hard to achieve a goal or working hard to be kind and loving to everybody.  We're so proud of all of our kids and grandkids and everything they do in "Trying to be Like Jesus."  Have you all noticed that music pretty much says everything we need to say?! Now we're not saying that you're perfect.......but oh you're good.....so good!

It's been a busy week here.  It began with having the district over for fried chicken dinner on Monday night.  Since transfers are coming up, we knew this would probably be the last time we'd all be together.  And we are losing two of the best of the best this Wednesday to transfers....but unsaid prayers are sometimes answered in Heavenly Father's way.  Sister Hopkinson and Elder Napote (our two "first area" missionaries) are being transferred after 18 weeks to other areas but still in our Zone so we'll see them at Zone meetings.  So in other words, it's like going away to school and coming home for spring break or the weekend...final "parting" in steps.  And we will get another two brand new missionaries to be trained by Sister Davis and Elder Thompson so we get to transport Elders and Sisters this Wednesday to Utica to Mission Transfers and be part of that very exciting day when missionaries go home and new ones come.  It's a coveted assignment to be the chauffeurs for these great young people!  The only challenge ever is trying to figure out how to get  4 missionaries and all their luggage into our car!  Our Chinese speaking Elder Chao and his companion Elder Flarety (who is actually learning Chinese by virtue of hard work and teaching to Mandarin speakers) are staying here because there are so many students here from China who discover the Church and God and it's like the flood gates are opening.  They'll go back to their country and be ready to help the missionaries when the Church is able to send missionaries there.  It is so exciting!!

Our green countryside has turned from green to gold and red and yellow and with a couple of days of rain is now turning to a "carpet" of the same color and bare trees.  Soon the snow will fly!  So we were glad to get the last of our "far" Seminaries visited this last week.  We're too old to get up at 4:00 a.m. and go to bed at 11:00 p.m.!  We just have a couple more to go to here in this area and then will be done until next spring.  These are good teachers and good kids!  And the kids love it when we can talk soccer or cross country after class or music or anything else that we've gone to a billion times with kids and grandkids.  So sometime in one of those trips we picked up another screw in our car tire!  It was just 11 days ago that we had to buy a new tire and now another one!  Is it something about New York roads or what...this is our 4th new tire since coming here.  Pretty soon Discount Tire won't love us anymore!!  But thank heavens for their tire protection coverage!  

Let's see....what are some miscellaneous  things to tell you?  Here's a funny one.  Once a month we can have "District Lunch."  That's when the district plans a lunch before our district meeting and they chose "bring your favorite cereal and Jolleys bring the milk" lunch.  Then since we were celebrating two missionary's birthdays, we had their favorite food. So lunch that day was cereal and onion rings and rocky road ice cream.  Healthy??  We think not!  But it sure was fun.

I was able to take the Sister Missionaries to an Ithaca Ward Relief Society activity yesterday morning which was going to sites in our little Lansing area that were pertaining to the time Brigham Young lived here.  We went to the site of the 13 days of his formal education in a little school just a few miles from our house.  Then we went to a little rural cemetery  where Brigham's mother is supposed to have been buried.  It's a small cemetery about the size of a front yard with headstones in various stages of dis-repair that's been vandalized in the past but one of the young men in the ward several years ago put a fence around it and they try and keep it up.  Then we went to an old restored home that has the original stair railing and fireplace mantle hand carved by Brigham Young when he lived here.  The work is absolutely beautiful.

The last thing has been a wonderful Stake Conference.  The whole Conference was on missionary work and was so good.  The Saturday afternoon session for all adults and teenagers was held in our building in Ithaca, and among the many spiritual things, we learned about hash tags and tweets!  We think we're going to have to learn how to start posting on Facebook instead of just liking and commenting.  Our session this morning was at the Stake Center in Owego (our 4th trip to Owego in 7 days) and we went early because all the missionaries sang in/were the Stake Choir.  We have a great mission president and stake president and a counselor in the Palmyra temple presidency was there too and they and their wives spoke.  One of the best things was a beautiful talk and testimony from a former member of a bishopric in our stake who had left the Church for some time after he was released and now has returned.  The Spirit spoke to many as he spoke and from our spots in the choir seats we were able to see many tears in the congregation. 

Time to call it a day.  We were just thinking about our discussions in Institute this week.  We were in Helaman 10-12 and talking about pondering and receiving revelation and what kinds of great things Heavenly Father trusts us to do.  It was the best ever to hear the doctrines in the scriptures taught by our students to each other.  When our wills and God's Will are so closely aligned with each other that when we pray His answers and our answers are often the same,  then He trusts us with amazing blessings and assignments.  And if we listen closely enough, we'll hear his loving and appreciative voice, in the "presence of His angels, telling us that we've done good....that the things we do with "unwearyingness" will allow Him to bless us forever in faith and works.  Read Heleman 10:4, 5, and 6.  It's awesome!!!!

We love you all and good-night sleep tight and don't let the bedbugs bite!!

XOXOXOXO  Dad and Mom and Grandpa and Grandma and E and S Jolley

Was that a snow flurry this morning?

Hi Everybody,

As inevitable as the coming of winter is, we'd be glad for Fall forever!  For about 3 days last week the colors of the leaves were unbelievable....every shade of red, orange, gold, yellow, brown imaginable.  Our "hills" were a riot of color and those fall days of 72 degrees were the best.  But today is cold and rainy and even a snowflake or two and it will be that way all week.  So that's the weather report from upstate New York!

Thanks for your notes, letters, e-mails, and cards this last week.  You all may be out of sight but never out of mind! It seems like we're beginning the holiday season already (all 3 months of it) and this will be the first time we won't be surrounded by family for all the festivities.....except for NYC on Thanksgiving Day if we don't get lost trying to get there.  We're excited for the Macy's Parade and hope that we can find a place to actually see Connor march.  That minute or two will be worth it all!  Why don't the rest of you come too!!!  But we'll patiently wait until next summer for whoever makes it.  There are some pretty impressive Halloween decorations around here.  We have two pumpkins that we bought to carve for our District activity on Preparation Day last Monday.  But....we decided to paint them instead and they were so ugly we washed all the paint off in the bathtub when we got home!  But the activity was fun and the creations of the young missionaries were pretty original.  This District of amazing Elders and Sisters most likely will be changed significantly in about 10 days at transfers.  We've been together for 3 transfers (18 weeks) including 2 new missionaries that came here for their first areas in their missions.  We feel like their Grandpa and Grandma!  They've taught us a lot and we think we've been there when they needed us too so it's probably time for them to leave the nest.  What a blessing it is to know these "kids" and watch them grow and increase in faith and knowledge and power.  It makes us think about what transfers have been like for both Carlee and Cade this last week.  We're glad we don't have to pack up and move and get used to another companion!  We're also glad we can text and facebook and write whenever we feel we need to! 

One of the good things of our mission has been when we visit the Seminaries.  We're doing that again for the next three weeks.  We decided to be a little more sensible in our approach this fall than we did last spring.  We're just doing it 2 days a week for 3 weeks because getting up at 4:00 a.m. to be out the door by 4:45 and to our seminaries by 6:00 is a little intense for these old people!  Last week was Binghamton and Corning and those are the longest away and they're done.  But whenever we get to feeling overworked, we think of those faithful Seminary teachers who teach 6:00 a.m. seminaries 5 days a week for a whole school year.  And they always have smiles and act happy to be there......they actually are happy to be there!  Besides our other normal activities this week, we had some of our YSA participating in a wind symphony concert at Ithaca College and 2 of our women are on the Cornell rugby team so we went to be supportive of them.  We didn't know that Ithaca College has one of the preeminent music schools in the United States.  And these rugby players are REAL WOMEN!!  They all seem happy when we come to anything they do.  Another really good time of most weeks is eating dinner with Danile and Eliza Brown and their two little girls, Rhoda and Dacie.  If we told you about them, forgive us for repeating.  They have dinner for the young elders and sisters once a month and since there are 3 sets we get to drive them at least 3 weeks out of each month because they live quite a ways away and the missionaries don't have enough miles on their cars to go.  They live on a wonderful little piece of property in the country with a beautiful home and chickens and they grow just about everything we eat.  Eliza is a gourmet cook and it's an adventure in culinary expertise every time we go and we love it.  Friday night's menu was a pot pie that looked and tasted like it came from the world's most famous chef.  It had things in it that we couldn't even pronounce.  And dessert was a made from scratch angel food cake with raspberries from the garden in whipped cream directly from the cow.  Are you hungry yet?!  A couple of weeks ago they had a bear amble through their property and help himself to the chicken feed! 

Another blessing this week has been helping Harmony, one of our YSA, with her mother who now lives with her who has cancer and is undergoing some heavy duty chemo.  We spent a lot of time with them this summer when Liz (the mom) had major back surgery where the doctors discovered a stage 4 bladder cancer.  The back surgery probably saved her life as that's how they discovered her cancer.  She's now living with Harmony so we help whenever we can.....with transportation to and from the hospital and yesterday we spent several hours at their home putting up cupboards and helping rearrange the kitchen to make it more usable and Dad put up plastic on the windows to prepare for winter.  Sometimes when we see people go through such incredibly hard trials, we think how can we ever possibly complain that things are tough for us. 

We had the normal institutes and friday forum (chicken enchiladas, sunrise salad and no-bake cookies---hungry yet?) this week which we're getting better at with not stressing out so much....except for wondering if we'll have 15 or 50 for friday forum so we prepare for 50 and it all gets eaten.  But one of the highlights this week also was going with the Sisters to teach Steve, a young man who needs Jesus Christ in his life.  Our newest Sister Missionary bravely gave him the baptismal commitment and it seemed as if the Spirit were audibly speaking to him through her.  It's an amazing experience for me not having ever served a mission before.  These experiences are worth all the Cooking Every Second!  Another good thing this week was today, going to the "farewell" Sacrament Meeting talks in Owego of our friends the Ormes who will be going into the MTC on November 10th. They'll then be coming back out here to be MLS missionaries in the Malone Branch of the Potsdam District which is clear up on the Canadian border.  They had requested this mission and will be phenomenal missionaries.  We'll miss them as they're about as far north as the mission goes and we're on the southern part of the mission.  Then we went to the hospital to visit Brother Albuja who is one of our institute older students who has been very, very sick and in the hospital for two weeks.  He and his wife were some of the first people we met here.  We think we wrote about them in the first email we wrote home....they're the ones who held the Owego institute together for several years.

Well, it seems like when we write on Sunday night that it's the end of the week but it's really the beginning isn't it.  This will be another busy week as they always seem to turn out to be but the blessings just keep coming.....both at home and here.  We spent most of our institute lessons this week with Helaman 5 which talks all about "remembering."  What an awesome thing it is to remember the experiences we've had in our lives and what we know and who we love and why we love them and especially that if we build our foundation on the rock of our Redeemer, Jesus Christ,  when the "mighty winds of Satan and all his hail and his mighty storm beats on us" that it won't have any power over us because of the "rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall."

LOVE YOU A BILLION TIMES!!!!!!!

Dad and Mom and Gpa and Gma and all our other names.....wait a minute....do we really have first names????