Week Ending December 29, 2012

Sunday morning I sang Happy Birthday to Mom. She would be 96 on the day. I did a lot of thinking about the New Year’s Eve Party and about my seminary students. Church was amazing today. We had about 80 people there. It helped that several were visiting for the holidays. After church we were eating dinner when Ted received a call from a family asking him to come help give a niece’s baby a blessing. He is in the hospital and is having trouble keeping his oxygen levels up at night. We hurriedly left for the hospital. When we got there Pres. Pine was on his way so we visited until he arrived. The men gave the baby the blessing and I visited with the mom and daughter in the hallway. They are a sweet family.

Monday was Christmas Eve. It was a beautiful clear day. We started the day with a Skype call with Steven and Heather’s families. They were having a special breakfast together. I think that sounds like a great idea. We enjoyed the visits. The grandchildren were too busy playing to do more than say hi, but it was good to see them.

I spent most of the day preparing food for Christmas dinner. We were having a replay of Thanksgiving. The Relief Society President called to say they would be coming for dinner. Just as Ted finished telling them the weather would be good I looked out the window to see a blizzard with the car covered in snow already. It was crazy. It snowed off and on the rest of the day. I studied some when food preparation was done. In the evening we read the Christmas Story from Luke 2 and also from Helaman where Samuel the Lamanite prophesied to the Nephites. We sang a couple of carols and went to bed.

Tuesday we woke to more snow. I made some monkey bread for breakfast. We had our scripture study then began opening gifts. We received some wonderful gifts from our children and friends. We talked to each of our children and their families during the day and got to watch a couple of grandchildren riding their new bikes via Skype. Technology is wonderful. One of our grandchildren had made us a card and enclosed a dollar bill and four mints in a little pocket inside the card—very touching. Ted gave me a necklace of turquoise stones that we’d seen at a craft fair a couple of weeks ago. Very sweet. We felt very blessed by all the wonderful gifts and all the cards and remembrances we received.

After we opened our gifts we had a light meal. We put a puzzle together to see if we could do it in a short period of time—test run for the New Years Eve party. It took us 1 hour and 20 minutes, both of us working on it. It was fun to have Ted help with the puzzle and I think he enjoyed it. When our dinner guests arrived we enjoyed a good meal. We played a couple of games with the wife—the husband read. It was good and we laughed a lot. It was a good day and we have much to be thankful for, not the least of which is the gospel of Jesus Christ and the opportunity to be here. What a blessing for us.

Wednesday we woke to more snow. The forecast was for clear weather, so it seems to change quickly. I spent the day studying, trying to make up for the time off for Christmas. We are studying the last week of Christ’s life for the next several weeks. This week I needed to read about 12 chapters and it was overwhelming. I also spent time working on party plans. I’m not sure what I’ve gotten myself into.

Thursday we woke to more snow and cold weather. I worked on the party quite a bit, putting together some of the materials for games and relays. I studied some more. In the afternoon we taught a young man. We have one more lesson with him. We dropped some popcorn off at some friends’ home. After we finished there we drove to Gallup to shop for the party. It took about 2 ½ hours to get the food and prizes and everything we needed. We filled the cart to the max. We took most of the stuff to our house and put it in the refrigerator then we took the water directly to the church. Poor Ted had to do a lot of hauling. We were glad to get home.

Friday I studied most of the day mixed in with stuff for the party. We left early to drive to seminary so we could drop off our last popcorn to two families in Sundance. One lived on Sundance Loop. We had never been on that road before. It looked OK at the start, but it quickly degenerated into a muddy, icy, pitted mess. We weren’t sure what we were looking for since the numbers aren’t really a prominent part of the home. We went up one driveway. We were looking for 13 and it was 17 so we turned around and went back down. Since we didn’t know which way the numbers progressed, we kept going the same direction—bad idea. What we thought must be the place was up a really icy hill, rutted and ugly. When we got as far as we could go, Ted got out and walked to the house to see if we were in the right place. We were not. We had passed it, but when we turned around to go back, it wasn’t at all clear where the road to the house was. We finally parked on the road and walked up a very steep and snowy hill to the house. It was 13. Fabulous. We knocked and the lady answered the door. I didn’t recognize her because she usually wears her hair down in curls and she had it pulled back from her face in a pony tail. We weren’t sure we’d get out, but we carefully drove back to the main road.

The second house we were looking for was surrounded by a tall wooden fence. Ted parked just off the road at the entrance to the driveway and we walked in. He is getting a bit leery of seemingly safe driveways. The lady’s grandmother came out to meet us. We invited her to the party and gave her some popcorn. After these two stops we were ready to head out.

We arrived at Toh-La-Kai with plenty of time to spare and got everything set up. Just after 5 PM a new student for Ted’s class arrived. He wasn’t sure if it was 5 or 5:30. We visited with him for a bit while we waited for the others. I have been feeling rather disheartened lately. I sat in the seminary room for a while and reflected on my challenges. After a prayer I felt the Lord’s blessing and felt much better. I had three students come. After class the grandmother of one of my student’s told us the girl was being baptized on Saturday. Wonderful!

Saturday we woke to hard frost on the car. We got ready and headed over to the church for seminary. I started cleaning the cultural hall—it really is in desperate need of a deep clean. We talked about Christ cleaning the temple so it would be a proper place to worship. After my lesson I asked the kids to stay and help clean. We worked for about an hour and it looked markedly improved. We then rushed home where I got rolls onto pans and started them raising. We drove to the stake center for my student’s baptism. They had trouble finding her a baptismal outfit and her dad didn’t arrive until very late, so it was delayed in starting. There was another young girl being baptized as well. My student is really a sweet girl. Everyone thought she was a member until I asked at our first class if everyone was a member. She shook her head. I told her we would be happy to change that. That was when the elders began teaching her. We enjoyed the baptism, expressed our congratulations, and drove home.

All afternoon I baked rolls. I could only get one pan in the oven at a time, so it was a slow process. That worked OK because they didn’t raise much faster than that. I finished putting things together for the party. We have several boxes lined up in the living room that will need to be taken to church. It feels good to be this ready. I just need to do the meat and cut the rolls. A couple of women are doing a couple of games, but I want to do the food and the rest of the games so I know they’ll get done.

When I finished baking we went to pick up the roaster oven to cook the meat in. The people’s driveway is like a loop, but their car made it so we couldn’t drive around to get out—we had to turn around. Ted backed up, hitting a rock on the underside of the car. I got out to guide him, but I couldn’t see the rock because it was under the car. When he backed up again he hit it again. We were a little concerned that we had punctured something on the underside of the car, but as we drove out, the snow in the driveway was still white, so we must have been protected. Tender mercies.

Back at home I made pizza and Ted did dishes. His tooth is getting worse and he wasn’t feeling at all well so he went to bed early. I stayed up finishing a few things. Just before I went to bed I checked the weather. There was a weather notice that we should expect snow to some degree on into Monday. We’re hoping it doesn’t scare people away from the party.