Dear Everybody,
Merry Christmas here in
Ithaca again! Need we say more other than we woke up to snow and had
hot chocolate for breakfast. Bah Humbug!!! We heard you all cooked
hamburgers outside on the grill last Monday night for birthday dinner.
No fair!!
But we will begin this email with
the best part of the whole week which was yesterday. That's not to say
that the rest of the week wasn't good but that there's nothing better
than spending the day at the Palmyra Temple. We love this temple on the
edge of the Sacred Grove. It's very small and not open all the time
but the Spirit there is huge. What made our visit yesterday even more
memorable was what we were there for. Gene invited us to help him do
the temple work for his parents and grandparents. Gene is a wonderfully
faithful 60-something year old African American convert to the Church
of about a year and a half, and a couple of months ago he went to the
Temple for the first time. An amazing young couple from the ward helped
him get his family names ready so that the special work could be done
yesterday. This couple helped him with the baptisms, another couple
helped him with the initiatory and then we all did the endowments and
the sealings. It was easy to feel Gene's love for his family but
particularly powerful to actually feel the love of his parents and
grandparents in the Spirit World for him. We were blessed to be able to
be proxy for his parents in the live sealing ceremony as he was sealed
to his mother and father for eternity. That experience will most
likely be one of the highlights of our mission!
We
would have loved to spend time in the Sacred Grove yesterday but
preceeding today's snowstorm was yesterday's rainstorm so the paths in
the Grove were pretty much mud. Can we say one more time that we're
hoping and praying for Spring to come NOW!! But we had a nice dinner in
the local Palmyra pizza place that we've only been to with YSA so we
sat in comparative calm and enjoyed our meal. Then a couple of
relatively new temple missionaries came in and we visited with them for a
bit only to discover they're from Lehi and we both have close friends
in common....Bruce and Dina Webb....us from BYU and the other couple
from their Lehi ward. It's such a small world in the Church!
Backing
up in the week, Tuesday was Zone Conference in Owego. We wouldn't mind
having a Zone Conference once a week! These young leaders do a
fantastic job of training us in our assignments and in teaching us how
to be better missionaries. As a prelude to the Conference, they took us
on a mini-flashback to our time in the MTC and we realized that we were
just a week away from being on the mission for a whole year! We
remember that week and a half as brand new missionaries just 10 minutes
from our home! Wasn't that just a couple of months ago?! And now here
we are realizing that we're two thirds of the way finished and wondering
where the time has gone to. We've taught a lot of Institute lessons,
made more cookies and brownies than we care to count and worn out 3 dish
brushes. And we've made lunch for approximately 1300 young students
and their friends at Friday Forum. Not bad for somebody who hates to
cook (me) and the ultimate cleaner of dirty dishes (Dad)! We will have
about 6 Friday Forums left until school is out and then a break for the
summer. It wouldn't be untrue to say we're counting them down! But on
an average each time, there are anywhere from 6-10 non-members each week
at the forum so it's definately worth it. We need to figure out how
many miles we've put on our car since being here (a nice tax deduction)
and are grateful it's still running.
It's
bedtime....and the end of another Day of Rest?? We're cheering that BYU
made it into the NCAA tournament....well, a play-in game....and
wondering if we can find a way of watching it. Actually we could listen
to it on the radio. Hey, we remember gathering around the radio and
listening to The Lone Ranger! Of course we could do that for a
basketball game!! Or maybe one of these students who think that cable
tv is a necessity will invite us over! In the meantime......we love you
all. It's been and will be a busy time for you until school is out and
we'll miss being around again for all the exciting times. But we're
blessed for being here and we're blessed by what you're doing at home
while we're gone. You all are THE BEST!!!! And we love you....oh wait,
we already told you that. Well, we're saying it again. And have a
great week, a take pictures, and send letters!!!
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