A Birthday and snow

       The week of January 14th we were snowed in from Sunday the until Wednesday the 17th, when our Bishop/Landlord (who runs a snow plow business) sent his crew over to dig us out. They had been so very busy with their big accounts but was finally able to clear our parking area. The salting trucks and snowplows run almost 24/7. We actually enjoyed a couple of days being snowbound. Let's just say that "old Blue" (the nightgown) and I became pretty good friends. The clearing might also have something to do with the fact that I called the Bishop and told him that I had 2 dozen Cinnamon rolls for his cold, wet and hungry workers. Funny how it that Cinnamon Roll bribe works every time. We had to cancel our Literacy learners on Tuesday as we couldn't get out and it would have required them to walk to the Library in the snow, as that and a city bus is their only mode of transportation. By Thursday we were able to get out for our Institute / Pathway lessons. 

       We celebrated Pat's 71st Birthday by taking a P-day trip to Sam's Club and having lunch at a Restaurant called "Casa Grande" across the border in Ohio. It was very tasty. The servers came and put a Sombrero on his head as well as gave him a sparkling Fried Ice Cream. They sang Happy Birthday to him. The funny part was that the guy that played the guitar strummed with the left hand and just held the guitar with his right hand. He played no chords. The servers all sang in what ever key they wanted.  We also went to a Movie. He had a great day and heard from all the kids.     The next week we had another great Zone Conference. Our President's training was on the Restoration of the gospel. Restore means to "bring back" that which was lost. During his message he made a great list of  all that had been on the earth when Jesus was here but that had been taken away. How blessed we are to have the Gospel in it's fullness restored to the earth thru Joseph Smith. He talked about how Truth was restored to each of us individually, and how others can have the blessings of the restored gospel through us.    We had the opportunity to watch the Worldwide CES broadcast Friday night. It was broadcast from the Tabernacle and the main speaker was Elder D Todd Christofferson. His topic was on TRUTH. All Seminary and Institute teachers are to teach and defend Truth. These are some points from his talk. 1-The word of the Father and Christ is truth. 2-The witness of the Spirit is truth. 3-Truth is knowing of things as they were, are, and will be. 4-Knowledge of truth requires assistance, the divine help from Christ through the Holy Ghost. 5- Our grasp of truth comes by grace.   We are grateful to be part of this CES force and I hope we all feel the blessing of having Seminary available to our families. We also are so grateful for the Pathway program. What an inspired opportunity for continuing education. We are doing well. We love you all and miss our family and friends but golly we love these folks here too. Almost Heaven, Traynors  

It's really cold!

   OK, so our weather is really cold here. The morning lows have been in the low single digits many times  and sometimes our highs for the day have not reached 20 degrees. My Arizona blood is not accustomed to this sort of weather abuse. The snow is really quite beautiful as it fall, and then for about 10 minutes. But after that it's just just a nuisance, and the salt on the roads to melt the snow gets all over the cars. How many more months until Spring?
   January 7th we facilitated another Self-Reliance Devotional in Ashland, KY. This resulted in 48 people forming 7 new groups that will start their 12 week courses.
   Our Tri-state literacy learners continue to make progress. Working with these learners is probably one of our most meaningful experiences here in WV.
   As we continue with our mission duties we just added another one, and quite the challenge it is. As the Pathway Connect deadline approached we were trying to recruit students to sign up and be ready for the new program this semester (which at the time we did not know there was a minimum). We were told that between our 18-30 group and Elder and Sister Mazon's (stake Missionaries) 31+group our Huntington program did not have enough students to qualify for the Pathway Connect Program.
   So our North America North East Pathway Program director opened up the opportunity for a "Virtual" Pathway program for this area. This allowed for more students to participate virtually in pathway gatherings and not have to drive such long distances. This has been tried in Russia because of the huge distances but is now available here in North America NE area.
   This created another issue as to what to do for the Institute class for the students. Again, we were given the opportunity to be a pilot program for a "virtual" Institute class also. CES strongly believes that an "in person" experience should always be the first choice for Institute. However in our situation this blesses the lives of so many more people that would not have been able to travel to Huntington  every week.
  So we now teach two Institute classes. Pat teaches the live, "in person", class for those that are within  an hour of the stake center, and I teach the "virtual" institute class for those further away. One of my students is about 7 hours from Huntington but this allows him to participate too. Then we all meet together for a virtual Gathering.
  This has required us to learn to use a computer program called Zoom, that allows us to see and talk to each other. This required us to stretch our technology challenged brains. But I can report that last Thursday night was our first week of classes and through much prayer and training from Pathway support and help from above, we did it. We were able to get everyone in the Zoom room and stay connected for both the Institute class and the Gathering. A huge thank you to our Emily. She knows the Zoom program and was able to teach us in a more understandable way how to set up a Zoom room (that our students would come to each week) and use the program, encouraging us along the way that we could actually do this.
  From time to time we have been asked to drive the Sister missionaries to transfers in Charleston, WV. This past Friday we drove Sister J and Sister W to Charleston as Sister J was departing for home. Sister J was dear to us. We picked up Sister T, fresh out of the MTC, that Sister W would be training. On the way back to Huntington Sister W ( who does not have a drivers license) casually mentioned something about driving on West Virginia roads. Sister T announced that she does not drive and does not have a license either. This meant that neither sister was capable of driving the mission car waiting at their apartment. Sister W quickly called the Mission President as we turned around to head back to the transfer church building. President Lindhardt had to do some fast thinking as all the other cars had already left to drive to their areas throughout the whole mission.
  Long story short, 1-The President ended up creating a three some so that there would be a driver.
2-We had to stop to get the new Sister's stuff, 3-We tried to take them to their apartment but couldn't because of a Gas leak which was being repaired and service trucks blocked the stairs to their door. 4- We kept them with us in our small yet comfortable place all day, including 2 sets of luggage, a boxspring and mattress, a desk and a dresser which were delivered here because the zone leaders could not access the apartment either. 5- We made arrangements with our Elders Quorum President to come after this work day to get the sisters stuff.  He came with a forty foot covered trailer because it was still raining hard. 6- Finally delivered the Sisters to their apartment by 6:00 PM to unpack the truck and move up the stairs, all in the driving rain which then was turning to sleet and then, yes, snow. Hmmm, very eventful day.
Saturday, lots of snow. We stayed in the whole day.
  We also have another new assignment that we have put on hold until we get this Zoom thing under our belts. It's a literacy opportunity for members of the stake. I will report on that next time.
  We love you all. We are cold and happy. We love the people here. We love our Savior Jesus Christ.
Almost Heaven, (I'm questioning that this time)
Traynors
PS. More snow over night, expecting more tonight.

Happy New Year 2018

Much has happened since my last post. The busy month kind of got away. Here are some of the December highlights.
   Dec 1st- December started with arrival of Emily and Erik's Baby Rose Arnett Olsen. What a sweet little addition to their family. We got to meet her at Christmas. I'll report on that later. The delivery went well and Emily and baby Rose are doing great.
   3rd- Had the Sister Missionaries for dinner and they watched the Christmas devotional with us.
   4th- Had our adult FHE/dinner at the church. There are many widowed and single sisters in the ward, as well as a senior guy that joined the church in May. They appreciate getting together for some food, a little fun and a nice message.
   5th- We had another great zone conference. My take away from this conference was, We have been promised blessings, We must qualify for them.
Elder Holland says,"Believe! You do not have to know everything to believe. But what you do know, hold your ground and build on that". "If ye believe these things, see that ye do them."
Mark 5:36, Be not afraid, only believe. These Mission Presidents are inspiring men and have such love and devotion to the missionaries the they serve. What a monumental responsibility.
   After the lunch the young Sisters and Elders had a chance to hang out playing games, and had fun letting their hair down so to speak. They sang Christmas carols, and could watch a Christmas movie if they wanted. It was about as close to a party as they would get. As it was time to go they each were given gifts that their families had sent to the office as well as some Christmas treats. With the gifts came a warning to NOT open them until Christmas. I thought of each of our family missionaries with a bit of a lump in my throat. Being away from home is hard even for us older folks.
  Also that week had our literacy tutoring and Pathway.
  8th -The highlight was face timing with my brothers and sisters who were together at our annual dinner. How wonderful to have the technology to see and speak with each other. We appreciated your lovely gifts and thoughtful well wishes. I was so touched by Max and Marilyn's gift of the mission stockings. We can't thank Marilyn enough. Let's just say, "Stockings, Boo hoo hoo." You know the story.
  11th had a nice birthday with many thoughtful messages from friends and family.
  14th A big day!!! Our last Institute/Pathway class. Our Stake Presidency arranged for a lovely Italian Dinner and congratulated the students. This is a big deal. The end of a long committed year. We are so proud of them. Now they are going forward to BYU-I online and two of our class members are getting married in March and will attend BYU-I in the Fall. They are already registered and accepted ready to go. How's that for a success story?
   16th YSA dinner and a fun Christmas service activity, then games.
   18th this week we delivered lots of date candy to West Virginians. They, of course, have never had the stuff and quickly turned crazy about it.

   22nd We left at 6:30 AM to catch an Amtrak Train to Alexandria VA. We liked the mode of travel but let's just say looooong, 11 hours, with questionable restrooms. The song, What goes up, must come down, applies to return train trips too. Also looooong. On the return the first restroom I went into I cleaned up quite a bit before usage. Mother would be glad that I left the place better than I found it. Not hard. This paragraph may be TMI.
  However the prize at the end of the train ride was Emily and her sweet family. We had such a great time. We played games with the grandkids and loved their quick wit and knowledge of the games we played. Christmas morning was so fun with all the little ones, gifts, chaos and enjoying each other.
  I happened to love hanging out with Rosie a good amount of time. She's a keeper.
  29th Erik took us back to the train. We road home all day. As we pulled into Huntington Station we saw a couple of inches of beautiful new snow.
  30th A bunch of new snow. It's cold. Sister Missionaries to dinner.
  31st had the Sister missionaries for dinner as no one signed up for them. After dinner we played a couple rounds of Apples to Apples. They left at about nine to go home and we spent the last few hours of 2017 talking to our family members before ringing in the new year. By the way, neither of our 2 stations we get showed anything from New York to count down to the ball drop. What? that's dumb. Oh well, we went on to bed.
  A short discussion regarding cold. We woke up this January 1, 2018 to 4 degrees. As I write this it is 18 degrees which will be the high for the day. Tomorrow is supposed to be worse. This part of the WV mission I am not so wild about.
As we close the calendar on 2017 we have learned a lot this year.
1-We can drive to a new place and finally find our way around.
2-We can enjoy the spring and summer with it's beautiful mountains, flowers and gardens.
3-We can see the beautiful fall leaves and truly see the bounty of the harvest.
4-We can experience holidays away from home with new sights, sounds and traditions.
5-We can love new things, people, foods, places, all while holding our loved ones deeply in our hearts and thoughts.
6-We can feel our Saviors love stronger than ever before. His love is real and He will sustain us as we do His work as well as always.
Love you all, Almost Heaven, Traynors