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