Happy New Year!! Our Sacrament meetings now start at 12:00 so we have a quiet morning to read the scriptures and prepare our lessons. We had an interesting Testimony Meeting. We were invited to share our favorite hymn and why it was special to us, then the congregation sang the first verse, Musical Testimonies. It was so good. There was never a lull in the meeting.
We started off the month with our week off. Of course, we have Presidency Meeting on Tuedays so we have to be to the temple in time to conduct the 9:45 Preparation meeting, then Presidency meeting starts at 11:00. We had planned to attend the 2:30 session but because of an extra sealing session, needing President Taylor to be the sealer, and an abbreviated veil and sealing for the president, we conducted the PM Preparation Meeting and then attended the 4:00 session. We then went to eat at Juanitzio's. Tuesday is becoming a big day for temple work, even if it is our day off.
Wednesday, after visiting with Mom, we attended the 4:00 session, a Spanish sealing session at 5:45. and the Spanish session at 7:00. It's just too windy and cold to do anything outside so we are enjoying the temple.
On the 5th, Barb and I finally got to go to lunch. I went out to Barb's house, and we had a relaxing afternoon eating soup and visiting. We fed Meryl Zysett on the 2nd, 16th and 30th. He is so mixed up. His dementia is progressing, but I think he still recognizes us as friends, but usually doesn't know our names. He usually doesn't remember that Barb has died, wondering where she has gone. So sad.
On the 6th, Shayla and Justin came through and took us to dinner at the new restaurant in town, The 208. This was our Christmas and birthday gifts. Perfect gift. We love spending time with our kids. Riley and Josh are managing this restaurant, so we got to see them too!
As I am writing this in March (boy did I ever get behind) I don't have to keep our changes in the temple a secret anymore. On the 8th, we met, the Temple Leadership Council (I will refer to this as our TLC from now on) at the temple at 2:30. We had to preview the new Endowment films to make sure that everything was working correctly. We previewed the 2 new English videos. We are so excited for our temple family to see the changes. We are so thankful for ongoing revelation that makes this possible. We have to keep all of this a secret until the 5th of February. It is so hard. We had to change the times of our endowments and as people see on the computer the changes in times starting on the 7th, we are getting lots of questions. Some of our shift coordinators are very concerned that we are going to make a big mistake and they are being so kind to try to help us. We just can't tell them the reason for the change yet. The new films are longer, so we had to change our starting times. The TLC met again on the 15th to preview the Spanish and ASL videos. Kjel Neilson, our Temple Recorder, is busy getting all of our training materials copied and laminated in preparation for the 7th. We spend our TLC meetings trying to make sure that we are ready with all the little things that will need to happen on the 7th. We are so anxious for the 7th to come so we don't have to keep this a secret anymore.
We opened the week of the 10th, but on Saturday President Harris felt like he should attend his Stake Conference, so we opened, came home and fed the missionaries and were back in the temple by 6 to close. Long day!
We closed the week of the 17th. Gene VanWagoner came to town on the 19 for his sister's funeral. He stayed with us, and his daughter stayed in Twin. They headed for home right after the funeral on Friday.
We were off the week of the 24th. Lon has been working on his boat and watching a lot of basketball. He and LaRon actually went fishing on the 26th. We spent the week enjoying the temple, visiting Mom, dentist visits, and preparing for our assignment to speak in the Jerome YSA Sunday School on Sunday the 29th.
On the 27th, we got a call from the Taylor's. President Taylor had been in the hospital that morning and wasn't doing great. His meds were causing problems for him. So, we worked the PM shift for them, then got up at 4AM to work the AM shift on the 28th for the Harris's. A Saturday afternoon nap felt so good. A typical week off for us😜😂
Our Sunday School lesson with the YSA really went well. We talked about preparing to attend and serve in the temple. We really enjoyed being with these young adults. We hurried to our ward afterwards to attend our Ward Conference. A great Sunday with a 3 hour nap in the afternoon. I think we are tired from our "week" off😂.
We were in our TLC meeting on the 31st when the secretary came in and handed Lon a note. One of his mission companions from his youth was in the temple and wanted to meet with him after his session. Lon was so excited. He served with Jim Ekles in Columbia 50 years ago. We met up with him and took he and his wife to lunch at McAllaster's to catch up. These two hadn't seen each other for years.
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