Journal Entry

Dec. 10, 2011

Dear Family and friends,

We too are really missing our kids. We've been out almost a year and still have a year to go. What were we thinking! If the next year goes as fast as this one has, we'll still be home in no time at all. I can't believe how fast the weeks and months fly by! We have also talked about how sad it would be if our kids got so used to being without us they won't care when we get home, and they will be so involved with their friends and family they won't have time for us. We want to visit them in the spring after we get home on our way to Florida for our "Old Family" reunion! I think it will be really fun! Of course, we're not thinking about that right now, but will be next year at this time!

We do have time to reflect and read quite a lot, though we have been pretty busy this past week with a funeral on Friday, (the guy who was flown south, died of an aneurysm) getting the church ready for meetings on Saturday, conducting and holding meetings on Sunday (The branch president is still gone for a couple of more weeks), then spending Monday and Tuesday sawing up and splitting a second tree that blew down in the parking lot of the church. We hauled it over to a widow's house that heats with wood and now between this one and the one last month she has enough wood for the winter. She really appreciates it. I hope they are about done blowing over, though. When I was young it didn't take three days afterwards to recover! We had to split them all with a maul and wedges and it still feels like work! Then we stacked it on her porch so it will be out of the snow.

Wednesday we did the family history center in the morning, visited in the afternoon, and in the evening I helped teach the community woodworking class at the high school that I've been doing. Next week is the last night, but they asked if I could help again starting in January. It has given us a great opportunity to get to know fanatics. We have the blessing of our mission president to do so. Of course I'm doing it as community service and not getting paid for it. The guy I teach with (the official teacher) attends the Baha’i church with his wife, and the other shop teacher doesn't go to church, but we found out his wife who lives in Montana is a member. She came to visit him for Thanksgiving, and we picked her up for church. She is a recent convert, and will be moving up next fall. We asked Darwin if he'd like to learn about what is wife believes and he said he's not ready yet, but will let us know when he is. Anyway, Thursday was our “P” day for washing, shopping and cleaning the house with Family History in the evening again, yesterday we helped a lady work out some problems with her home loan and insurance company, today we went to 33 mile with a young couple for hamburgers (the only place in the area for good ones), then came home and helped decorate the Christmas tree over at the church, then went and watched the “Snow Dragon” in the Community Christmas Parade. Also visited some less actives and made arrangements to pick them up for church tomorrow. So goes our weeks!

The weather here changes from month to month. Today's paper said we got 11 feet (135.8") topping the previous November record of 68". On December first it turned warmer and windy, thus the trees blowing down, as well as power lines. Weather has been into the 40s, we've also gotten about 10" of rain, so the snow level has dropped to about 18", and most of the roads are nearly clear. I'm really glad, I've been getting really tired of blowing the walks clear of snow every day, often with 2' of new snow. Today was cooler, about 32F, but crystal clear and sunny. The sun rises about 8:45, goes down by 3:15, but hey, any little bit helps! At noon it was barely above the mountains on the Southern horizon, goes down fast. When it does cool off in the evenings the roads get really slick, but at least we don't have to shovel it! We are warm and cozy in our little cottage, we have baseboard heaters heated by water from the church. Like heated floors, baseboards take a long time to respond, so we pretty much set it and leave it the same all the time. Sometimes it feels a little cool when it's windy, when it's nice it's a little warm, but we're definitely not complaining! The church system is heated with oil which is really expensive, but electricity is even more so, and they don't have natural gas available here. Many people spend $600-1200/month just for heating oil. We're really glad it's included with our cabin!

We are planning our branch Christmas party tomorrow; we'll have a dinner at the church, play a couple of games, and exchange "white elephant" gifts. The people seem to really like doing things, even though they are older. We changed it from next Saturday to Friday so one of the part member-less-active families could come, but the dad got a new job so he can't come anyway. His wife and two youngsters will be there. We are really hoping to teach him as we get to know him better. He works as a mechanic in a garage, but works half days Saturday and all day Sundays. Maybe pretty soon he can trade some weeks with others who work there.

Some of our dear friends from Whitehorse called and want us to come have Christmas dinner with them. We'd really love to, but can't unless President Lehman gets back from Washington and is feeling well enough to do without us. We won't know for another week or so. If all goes well, they should be back on the 20th or 21st. I hate to be gone the first week he gets back. We're still trying to find out what the Sunday schedule is for New Years this year. Is New Years Day going to also be Fast Sunday? What are they planning over there?

Well, I guess I'd better be going. I still need to do the paper program for church tomorrow; it's our primary program for our one kid in primary. He just turned 11 two weeks ago, so unless we get some more kids coming next year we'll have to cancel primary and start up a young men's program!

Hope things are going well for you. Did you have a good Thanksgiving? What are you doing for Christmas? We have loved getting family letters from some of you, especially with the pictures!

Love, Elder & Sister Powell