week 47

December 10, 2017

 

Dear Loved Ones,

 

Busy week in the mission!! Monday, I woke up to the first real snowfall of the winter.  It was perfect timing because in the afternoon, the office staff went to President McNabb’s neighbors to have our picture taken in a horse drawn sleigh.  I will try to get a copy of it! It was fun to hear the ring of real sleigh bells as the sleigh came up from the barn.

 

Later that evening was the farewell dinner and fireside for the two sisters and five elders that were going home Tuesday morning. Those farewell testimony meetings are my favorite part of my mission. It was hard to say goodbye to Sister Costa because she had helped with our rice-bag project for Just Serve. She had never used a sewing machine before, she loved learning. She has gone home to Peru and dreams of coming back to BYU Idaho. I will miss her! The other sister served mostly up in the Star Valley area, so I didn’t know her as well. We also lost Elder Ashton! We never got the chance to see if our Ashton lines connected anywhere.  He has gone home to Tucson – maybe the Funks will run into him.  He always said he had 5 generations on a thumb drive and we were always going to check it out – but the time got away from us and it didn’t happen.

Wednesday morning Sister Rasmussen and Sister Robison of the office staff took me to a brunch to celebrate my birthday.  We had to hurry back because we had 12 new missionaries arriving. Shirl came by the office and brought be candy and a poinsettia.  There wasn’t much time to visit with her because we do training with the new missionaries.  After they are welcomed by the President, Sister Hancock, and the AP’s, they have their pictures taken with the Hancocks.  They are then divided into 3 groups and they rotate through our training while the President briefly interviews them one at a time.  When I got back to my desk there were your beautiful flowers.  Thank you for making me feel special. The missionaries then go to the mission home and relax until dinner. After dinner, the Assistants tell them about Idaho and have a little quiz about the church in Idaho.  Sister Hancock has a power point about their family in Winslow and then they are given an envelope which they open and read to discover who their new companion will be and where they will be serving. It is also a fun night to get to know the new ones whose pictures we have been looking at for weeks.

Thursday was hectic – I send emails to all the parents of the new missionaries attaching their picture taken with President and Sister Hancock.

Saturday Morning, I went to the Gateway Rehabilitation Center and read Christmas stories to some of the patients, it was fun!  Afterwards, I took the headbands and gloves that I had collected to give to the Salvation Army when I thought Em and I were going to do dinner for them.  The dinner idea fell through because none of the Salvation Army employees wanted to come to work on Christmas Day.  So now we will go to Gateway and take wassail and sing carols, read stories, play games or whatever.

In the afternoon, I went to a choir concert with the George family.  Sister George is David Linford’s niece. This is a children’s choir connected with Idaho State U.  They are 4^th thru 8^th grade and they sounded like angels. The two oldest George girls, Mariah and Elaine sang solos with their Mom at the piano.  They were amazing!!

I Love and hugs,

Grammie/Sister Shill