Counting our Blessings!

Hi Everybody,

That's what we're doing tonight....counting our blessings even if many of them are getting together tonight for family dinner and we're not there!  How appreciated are the letters and emails from you all at home and we got two real letters from the missionaries in Wyoming and Minnesota this week too.  How lucky we are to have you all even when all we can do is look at your pictures.  Autumn is a bit of a nostalgic time....back to school concerts and fall games and CC meets and everything else that everybody is doing.  Here's some more blessings:

1.  A heater that works when we come home after going to a flag football game after dark and freeze.  But it was fun!  "Our team" won and when the other team had the ball, we'd turn around and watch the soccer game behind us.  First soccer in 6 months!  Yes...6 months.....that's how long we've been here.  And we helped one of our married moms chase her 18 month old twins while the dad played football.  We "owe" the dad.  When he was a student at BYU in the landscape management program 6 years ago, he slaved with the rest of the students on our deck and landscaping.  Now he's a masters student at Cornell and in the branch and it's nice.

2.  Being able to use age as an excuse to not have to play Steal the Flag but instead sit at the picnic table and guard the phones and watches and wallets and bags.  Actually we can use age for a lot of things.  But we still mostly be an active part of all that's going on.  Dad is liking the Monday morning and Thursday evening after Institute basketball.  All the fun things the branch women do (book club, baby showers, Relief Society activities, go-karting, etc.)  are on the same night we teach institute in Owego.  But I love being a part of Sunday activities here and I honestly learn so much from these great women who are so much younger than I am.

3.  A CES budget!  Our Friday Forum lunch keeps growing.....we had our most ever last Friday and we're afraid if it keeps going up we're going to have to hire some helpers.  Not really....it will always and forever be ours but how grateful we are that the 4 Elders and 2 Sisters are there to do the heavy lifting.  Plus the Sisters know how to put on a tablecloth and where the glasses and knives and forks go!!  We "rewarded" our missionaries this last week with breakfast on transfer morning.  And the absolutely great thing is that none of them got transferred.  So they've all been in our area long enough that it will really be hard to say goodbye when they leave.

4.  Here's a good one to be grateful for.  We haven't messed up as we've interacted with our fellow workers of other faiths at Cornell.  They're wonderful to bring us juice since we don't drink coffee for our little brunch we have every Wednesday morning when we meet as a group.  We also had a great experience on Saturday night to go to the St. John's Episcopal Church to a program sponsored by the interfaith group which the ward is involved with.  People are starting to recognize us and know that our tags mean something else instead of working at Walmart.

5.  An investigator we bring to our Owego Institute who has now become a wonderful friend.  How we wish we could help her with the Word of Wisdom challenges that are keeping her from baptism.  Dad told her he wants to baptize her before we leave so she's got about a year and we pray that she can do what she has to do.  Addictions are such a chain around one's neck!

6.  Here's one totally having nothing to do with our mission....that BYU is winning their football games.  We've got some diehard BYU fans and some diehard U of U fans and it always helps when BYU wins!  We have to say that the BYU fans here are more united as a group in watching the games on game day than the U fans are!  And if the games are broadcast at their homes Dad can go watch and call it supporting a branch activity!

Six is a pretty good number to be thankful for tonight....even though there's about a billion other things we could name.  It's fall here as we imagine it is at home and the leaves are beginning to change.  People tell us that one morning we'll wake up and color will explode all around us.  We're excited for that.  There are so many things around us that tell us that Heavenly Father is in even the little details of our lives.  He loves us and wants us to be happy.  His Son has made it possible for us to try as hard as we can and then He makes up the difference.  Actually Christ makes ALL the difference. What would we do if we didn't know this!  We have a core group of faithful young single adults and young married adults who are having to live in the world and not be part of it.  It's hard and they just keep going and doing what's right....as you do there (and are there) and we love you all for being such good examples to us of how to live our lives.  We wish we could teleport all of you here for just one day and say "Look at these kids....big and little.  This is what you get to look forward to!"  

Have a good night tonight and a good week this week and know that you're always in our hearts and prayers and we will quit being sentimental now!

XOXOXOXOXO  Dad and Mom and Grandpa and Grandma and Elder Jolley Senior and Sister Jolley

Angela & Yujie at lakeside activity. Angela was baptized in the morning, Sept.6.

Others around the table at lakeside activity

 

 

 

 

 

Elders & Sisters in our district provided lunch and a thank you card

Lunch provided by Elders and Sisters in our district.

Thank you card with personal messages inside.

Josh Robbins at lunch with us Tuesday on Cornell Campus.

 

Elder Jolley at Lucifer Falls

Standing at the base of Lucifer Falls