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
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