Good Sunday Night Everybody!
This
will be a short email (whew for you), because it's bedtime and we just
walked in the door not too long ago after being gone since 8:30 this
morning. How is it possible to be tired when you spend the whole day
sitting in meetings! But one of those "meetings" included a clarinet
recital at Ithace College by one of our young single adults. She was
awesome! And another meeting was with the ysa planning committee for
MarCon which is a big young single adult 3 day conference in two weeks
that our stake hosts which includes activities and workshops and food
and fun and a dance and ice skating and our special speakers are
President and Sister Wirthlin (mission pres. and his wife) and Terrell
and Fiona Givens who live and teach in Virginia and are the authors of
some great books.....and that was way too long of a sentence....sorry!
We're amazed at the level of organization that exists with these young
people and their willingness to work all hours of the day and night in
school and Church and anything else they do.
Back
to the subject line of this email. We had over 50 people show up for
Friday Forum a couple of days ago and it was minus degrees and 20 mph
winds and FREEZING cold and they still came and we had enough food
because we always over-plan and they ate it all. People will eat
anything with 7 lbs. of cream cheese in it! At our institute in Owego
on Wednesday, we had 3 non-members besides our regular attendees. That
institute also included a little birthday "party" for our wonderful
Charlie who's 83 and Ceasar who is 70 something and Bonnie who is
raising her 2 grandchildren and has some huge health challenges. She's
diabetic and so we discovered how to make a chocolate bundt cake with 2
ingredients....sugar free devils food cake mix and canned pumpkin....and
it was good....especially with sugar free ice cream on it....and lots
of chocolate syrup for those of us who cheated. We love these
"salt-of-the-earth" Saints in Owego! Did we tell you to read the
article in your February Ensign about the Owego Ward? Probably. These
are some of the great people we've met as we've gone there every week.
We
did do other things this week besides cook and teach....just can't
remember what they were! The weather was purely miserable again, snow,
cold, wind.....and if we're counting our blessings, we had ONE day of
gorgeous blue skies and bright sun and even if the temperature never
broke 10 degrees, it was a great day. We took pictures that day of our 6
foot drifts and 6 foot icicles....and we washed our car at Squeeky
Clean almost every day last week! Also we took Valerie to a doctor's
appointment and "dinner" in the car because the only food place in town
had closed their dining room for renovation and take out was our only
option. Ahh....such are the tiny towns in upstate New York! It was an
interesting dining experience and the food was actually really good and
Val was very appreciative. And we learned that there's a lot more in
4th Nephi than we ever thought even after reading it many times over a
lifetime of reading the Book of Mormon. We love studying and teaching
The Book of Mormon and were sad to leave 3rd Nephi.
Last
but not least and pretty much the best was taking a carload to the
Palmyra Temple. The temple closes for its two week cleaning period so
there were LOTS of people there. We all had a great temple experience.
Unfortunately the weather was too cold and the snow too much to do
anything else in Palmyra except eat a extra huge pizza and laugh a lot.
We want to go back again soon and walk through the Grove in the
wintertime when it isn't minus something. On the way home, we stopped
by a YSA's home in Trumansburg and helped him get his car out of a snow
drift (where it's been for the last 2 weeks). The women pushed and
shoveled as much as the men and I sat in the car and took pictures of it
all....playing the old lady card!
We promised
you short and short it is. We have a busy week ahead of us and need our
beauty rest tonight so it's off to bed. Thank you, thank you, thank
you to all of you for doing so much for us and you don't even know
you're doing it. It's the little things that count! We love you and
what good things you're doing with your time and your lives. You're
always in our thoughts (yes we still get homesick at times) and prayers
and we appreciate that we know you're praying for us as well. We feel
it!
WE LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dad and Mom and G and G and E and S
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