Dear Elder Alex,
We just pulled in to the house, back home from our trip to Utah for Dakota's farewell. It was a quick trip but very fun, of course, very much worth it. Dakota did a great job with her talk today. She will be a wonderful missionary. She said she was so nervous up there that she didn't have any saliva in her mouth and she started twitching her ring around on her finger while she was talking and then her ring fell off onto the pulpit. The nice thing is she said she wrote her whole talk while listening to your song you sent me. I sent a copy of it to Steve and Carolina. She just loved it and will be taking it with her to Croatia. Everyone sends their love to you.
I'll send some pics from the weekend. After Dakota spoke, they had an open house with tons of food at the house. I've never seen so many single guys all congregating in one place. I think there were only 2 girlfriends there of Dakota's and about 30 guys.
Toni came up for the weekend, so she came with McKenna (who has now moved up to Salt Lake with her boyfriend), Patrice, David and Selene came(they appear to be getting more serious), Allen, Lisa, Jesse, Malcolm and Maggie, Lindee, Charmaine. Dakota has never looked more beautiful than today. She's going to have to fight off the Croatian guys in the midst of trying to teach the gospel.
Laura and Axel's little twins are getting bigger but still seem so small for 4-month olds. Having twins seems like a lot of work too, but if anyone can handle it, it's Axel and Laura. They love being parents and their little girls are so cute. It's fun having 2 of them so more of us get turns holding the babies.
Kirk had to stay home because he had to work and since he's leaving this Wednesday to go to Canada, he couldn't ask for any time off. So he and the dogs had a lovely time home alone.
Saturday morning we woke to about 4 inches of snow. It hadn't been in the forecast so it took everyone by surprise. But everything looked beautiful and it the first snow we'd seen this season. Early in the morning, me and dad, Steve and Carolina and Dakota went to the temple first thing in the morning. I really like the Provo temple. Then dad and Allen went to G&G's house to look at some water damage that took place so Allen could put together a bid for doing repairs. They had a water leak from the upstairs guest bathroom down into the basement bathroom as well as into the hallway and partway into the basement kitchen. They are just barely getting their upstairs kitchen all fixed up and now they have to work on more areas. They could really use some updating, so in the end it's a good thing.
Yesterday afternoon we went to a BYU basketball game. This new league they're in seems way too easy and it was an easy win over USF. The biggest cheering we did was in the end when there was only 10 seconds left and in order for everyone to get free yogurt, BYU had to score 80 points or more. They were at 79 with 10 seconds left, and in the end they scored and the place erupted as if they had just gotten into the sweet 16 or something.
So the girls are in bed and I'm sure will have a hard time waking up tomorrow for school, but being with family this weekend was worth any lost sleep or time at school. Dakota is a beautiful example of Mormon young woman, so out-going and fun to be around. I hope she rubs off on our girls.
I hope all your parties last week were fun. Are you back into the swing of things? How's Laura doing? Did she get baptized? Can't wait to hear your news.
Have a great week and I hope you've made some new year's resolutions. I've been working on a couple and love the feeling of the new year. I also love that we are studying the Book of Mormon in gospel doctrine now. I'm going to make a new reading goal for the BoM. I love reading it in a relatively short period of time. Somehow that really makes a difference for me and I always receive powerful re-confirmations about its truthfulness. I'm looking forward to those same feelings and many new insights. One of the speakers today talked about meeting with Jehovah's Witnesses during his mission and how they would ask questions but then they'd be very combative about every answer they gave. One time when they were having a meeting with them, they took a sister with them, and right while they were being extremely argumentative, she suggested that they just start reading directly from the Book of Mormon. So she turned to 3 Nep 11 and started reading very calmly at the same time the JW was arguing and trying to make some point. He all of a sudden stopped talking and listened. The speaker said the whole spirit in the room changed and it became so peaceful. The JW later told them he had felt the same peace. There really is a power that comes from the book. Enjoy sharing its message and its power.
Love you,
Mom xxoo
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