Christmas Pics

Dec. 25, 2011

Dear Elder Alex,

It was fun talking with you today. You looked great and sounded happy and fulfilled. It was all good for a mom to see. I'm listening to your beautiful CD as I write and I can't say I'm able to listen without emotion on my side-sorry I can't keep that promise for you. You know that's a song that always has touched me and to hear you sing it so beautifully, so soulfully is a beautiful Christmas gift. Thank you. I'll treasure it always.

Tell me a little about how you were able to record it. Who did the instrumentals for you or was that pre-recorded, etc? How fun for you.

As I promised, here are a few pics from the last few days. It was fun having G&G Thompson here with Charmaine this year. It seems like they haven't been here for quite a while. 

Our Sacrament meeting this morning was wonderful. It really set a nice tone for the whole day and we -the choir- sang really beautiful songs. Our narrators did a great job too and it was extra fun having Becky Johnson, the girl from England, be one of the narrators. She made the stories sound so much more interesting with her accent. I loved it.

Tomorrow dad is back to work, Kirk is back to work, Charmaine is taking the girls on a shopping spree, I'm doing some catch up work on patriarchal blessing typing. Dad then has the rest of the week off. I gave him a gift certificate to Shadow Valley so if it warms up, maybe he'll get a chance to get out on the golf course. I also gave him some new balls that are supposed to fly straight and long-yeah, right. Sounds good anyway.

Any news about Shawna's baptism? I meant to ask you if some of the people you've been teaching made it out for church today. I hope so.

Give our thanks to your Bishop again for his generosity and kindness. It's so great knowing there are people out there working with you and caring about you. It means a lot.

Have a wonderful last week of the year. We all wrote down our gifts for Christ and put them in our treasure chests tonight. Take some time to do the same. He truly loves each one of us and wants us to succeed, to be happy and to return to His presence. It's an extra special gift that we get to live in a time with the fullness of the gospel. I love it.

Take care.

I love you dearly,

Mom xxoo

Festive Sunday

Dec. 11, 2011

Dear Elder Alex,

Just got home from the Stake Christmas choir concert. Wards took turns singing one piece, we had congregational hymns and some selected soloists. You would be proud of the new boy band group from EHS. They harmonize well together and who knew Spencer Madsen had an awesome set of pipes. Spencer is the one that's Kristina's age. Anyway, it was all very nice and our choir, of course, sang the most beautiful song.

This morning in our sacrament meeting Bro. Jensen and Jake were our speakers. They did a great job. Jake spoke about his mission and how powerful prayer was for him. Bro. Jensen spoke a little about missions to the young men. He mentioned how much he loved reading letters from the missionaries that were out now. He said he always gets a good laugh when he reads your letters. Just thought you'd want to know your name got mentioned today from the pulpit.  :)   A little side note-Kirk told me that Jake has posted on facebook that he is now in a relationship. Saw him come into church with Kayla so I'm assuming that's his relationship...

We also went to the 8th ward mtg this morning to hear Devin Larsen give his report. His brother Dallin was giving his farewell talk too. Dallin is going to Tokyo. Those brothers are excellent speakers. They really have a gift. Devin talked about how hard the first part of his mission was especially after having experienced what he called the "spiritual Disneyland" or the MTC. He said his mission wasn't what he expected and when he got sick and almost had to come back home, he actually thought that might not be a bad idea. But then he remembered some words from his patriarchal blessing that spoke of his mission and it gave him the strength to go on and he had a wonderful experience. Jake was the musical number at the meeting and he sang "Be Still My Soul".  It was beautiful. Devin asked about you after the meeting. He's going to BYU in January.

I liked something Dallin said in his talk about our constant need for nourishment through scripture study. He said there's a magnet on his grandparents fridge and it says, "Studying the gospel is like shaving--no matter how well you did it yesterday, you still have to do it again today."

Then this afternoon I had my PPI with Pres. Stafford so that's always enjoyable. He's very wise and spiritual and very down to earth at the same time. We're getting ready for ward conferences coming up and also a stake conference. I never hesitate to receive counsel from him and he always asks about you.

I also heard from a little birdie that you did a great job with your talk today. Sure wish I could be a fly on the wall sometimes, but since I can't, it's just nice to hear from people who work with you occasionally. Your Bishop sure speaks highly of you! I'm grateful for people like him in your life too. Loved the picture he sent!! 

On Saturday I went to Trish Cub's baptism...yeah!! I'm so proud of her because I know it was a hard road but she wanted it so badly. It was a wonderful meeting. So many people came that it was standing room only. Kate Rasmussen (Nicole and Trevin's daughter) got baptized too and it was perfect since she was the one who first started answering lots of church questions Trish had when she'd go to her house for horse training lessons. So all of their family including the Yorgasons were there. Trish spoke at the end and said she just wanted to stand up front and bask in all the love she was feeling and then she bore her sweet testimony. Her grown children all came too which I know meant a lot to her. She was just beaming. Pres. McCauley baptized her and then today he confirmed her and her blessing was so beautiful. She's going to be a great member of our ward. There's nothing more invigorating than to feel the strong spirit of a new convert.

So are you going to be able to skype with us at Christmas this year or will it be a phone call? Just curious. We're hoping to get G & G Thompson here and Charmaine for Christmas, so if they are, you'll be able to chat with them too.

I know Kristina told you about our brush with David Archuleta, but it happened because dad and I just happened to stop into Deseret Book to look for something and we saw people in line. They told us David was coming so I decided to stand in line and gave Kristina a call. The line got really long and we were right up front. Wish we could have heard him sing though. His song Pat a Pan is still one of my favorites.

Tomorrow I'm making cookies for the prisoners in Boise, then tomorrow night we're building gingerbread houses at the Braithwaites.  I'm also making spiced apple bread for my visiting teaching sisters, so looks like I'll be in the kitchen most the day.

Kirk and Sean are busy with finals, Kristina and Nikki will be getting ready for their big Christmas concerts next weekend, dad only works 2 shifts this week so he'd looking forward to fun times, Leah is in a play this week at EMS-Peter Pan. She tried out and got the part of one of the fairies. She's memorized her lines and says she's ready, so it will be fun to see her in that. I was really surprised that she wanted to try out, but she's enjoying it. 

Let us know if you got the package we sent. We were just trying to help make your apartment merry and bright! I hope you're enjoying the ChemPal newsletters too. 

Have a festive week. Your letters always cheer me up and my heart is always with you.

  Love you much,

mom xxoo

Is It December Already?

Dec. 4, 2011

Dear Elder Alex,

Can't believe how fast time is flying by.  We're putting up Christmas decorations this week and it kind of feels like we're in hyper speed. I don't like that. I'm going to try hard to slow things down, relish each moment, smell the roses or the poinsettias, etc. 

I've already had my Material Girls Christmas luncheon complete with an ugly fabric exchange. We each brought a piece of "ugly" fabric in a brown paper bag a couple months ago. Then we exchanged bags. Our mission was simple-make something beautiful from something "ugly" and bring it back wrapped and ready to give back to its owner at our Christmas meeting. I can't believe how creative everyone was. The one who took my fabric made it into a chenille scarf. I made 4 organizer baskets out of the fabric I received. Not one person actually made a quilt from the fabric.

We've also already gone to Mike and Dawn Wright's house for their annual white elephant party. We almost came home with something cool, a DVD of Cars 2, but then Dawn decided to play the 'right, left' game where she told the story of The Night Before Christmas and every time she said the word right, we passed our gift to the right and vice versa. so we ended up with a candle. But it was all fun.I have my RS progressive dinner this week (I'm singing in a sextet for it) and then the ward Christmas breakfast is this Saturday. Sunday is our Stake Christmas fireside.

We've also already gone to tithing settlement. So you see, half the annual activities are already behind us. I hope you're enjoying some festivities of sort there in Tennessee.

Kristina just stopped by the computer and said to tell you she had a date on Friday night. She went out with Cade Anderson (Trent's little brother), so we okayed him thinking that you'd probably be okay with that. She had fun.

We got good news today in church. Trish has set a baptismal date for this coming Saturday and she is very excited about it. She asked us a couple days ago if we would all fast for her so that's what we are doing today. I'm hoping her husband will be there to support her, but he's been kind of up and down with this. Trish is so excited to finally be a member of the church. It's so refreshing to see and feel of her strong spirit.

Today in RS we had a fun treat with Tanner Myler coming in and singing a song I hadn't heard before, but I thought it was beautiful and could hear you singing it sometime. It's called Welcome to Our World by Chris Rice. It's a song about welcoming the Savior into the world, a beautiful tenor song. Tanner had the accompaniment on his iPod and sang with it. 

I'm glad to hear you had a great Thanksgiving and the people there sound like they really took care of you. We're sending of a package to you tomorrow, a little something for you to open right away and use through the season. We put it together tonight while listening to the First Presidency's Fireside.

How are Alicia and Shawna doing? Remind me again how you met them and their story, etc.

Sean and Kirk are just about getting into their finals. I think they start the end of this week and go through next week. Sean got off 2 weeks from work so he'll be able to hang out with us the whole time. He's thinking of doing a couple shifts at the Blue and Orange while he's home too. Speaking of BSU, dad's not very happy about them not getting a BCS bowl. Looks like they're going to be playing Arizona St. in Las Vegas at the Poinsettia Bowl. They finished out 6th in the nation and no BCS bowl...go figure.

Kirk will be coming home for the next semester and he was able to sell his contract to Jake Jensen, so we're all happy about that. At least I am cuz now I don't have to pay $300 a month for a place he's not even living in. This next Sunday Devin Larsen will be giving his homecoming, so I'll report back to you on that next week. His brother is leaving on his mission just a couple weeks later. Good timing.

No other news that I can think of around here. Last week I read several of the talks that were given at our last Gen. Conference, but I read the ones from the Priesthood session. Wow, they were wonderful. I really enjoyed Elder Waddell's talk and thought of you often while reading it. So take some time and re-read that talk. I got several thoughts even for my upcoming ward conference talks I'll be giving, just putting a little RS spin into it.

It's been fairly cold here lately and we even had our heater go out for a couple days-good thing my bed warmer still worked :)  I hope you are warm enough. Do you need anything for Christmas that would come in handy?  Let us know. Send me your list...Hope you enjoyed Nikki's list, it's another classic. I'm secretly hoping she never really learns how to spell in life just so I'll get plenty of laughs from her lists, her future emails to me, future text messages, etc.

Have a great week. Help people around you slow down and appreciate the beauty of the season and the spirit of the reason. That's the only way to feel true joy and peace on earth.

love you much,

Mom xxoo