The Jolley Mission: 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