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