Winter and the holidays are here!

Ila, helping her mom.  Note the cooking apron!  And Yuli, the fashion queen.  

A New (for us) Season in Manilla

Roy and I spent a couple of days in Manilla this week.  It was relaxing for me, but Roy had to work.  He did his regular work, and it was also a work trip to get some things taken care of (we had a water softener installed).  It was very cold, each morning it was about 5 - 10 degrees, warming up later in the day to a balmy 18.  We woke up to snow on Friday which is wonderful since we need the water so badly. We dressed warm and took a long walk.  I thought my feet would freeze as I only had a pair of sneakers, but my feet were the warmest part of my body.  

Flaming Gorge in winter

Jieun has been painting in our basement.  She's now finished Roy's Christmas present.  Usually she works with water colors, but this painting is with oil

While we were away, Nick and Sara moved in for the weekend.  Sara has redone their wood floor.  She put the floor stain and varnishes on after they got the family out of the house, then worked until 3:00 am Saturday morning.  It has to be left untouched for a while, so they're staying until tomorrow.  They even decided to go to church with us so the kids could watch their cousins in our ward's primary program.  Amazingly, Camden and Yuna didn't fight in the nursery, which is great since I understand they haven't been getting along very well lately.  

We enjoyed dinner with Christine and Steve after arriving home on Saturday.  We ate at Kyoto.  After dinner we went to their home to see their newly remodeled basement.  They have a fun bunk room for their grandkids. Apparently, Nathanael's girls couldn't wait to go to bed when they were staying with them.  I didn't realize how big their house was until I walked through their never-ending basement! They've made it to be a great gathering place for their big--and getting bigger family (Mykael is now expecting!).  I hope Christine doesn't mind my sharing the miracle that Peter and Mykael have experienced.  The two of them had been trying for quite a while to get pregnant and nothing was happening.  After some time, the doctor wanted to do exploratory surgery to check for endometriosis or anything else that might be keeping her from getting pregant.  While in surgery, her appendix appeared to be way oversize and close to rupturing, so they removed it.  They told her that the appendix was up against her reproductive organs and was probably what was making pregnancy impossible.  Peter and Mykael were relieved knowing that now there was a real possibility to have a baby.  However, the real miracle came later when it was discovered that it wasn't the appendix that was over-sized, but a tumor attached to the appendix.  The tumor was full of cancer.  If the tumor had ruptured, the cancer would have quickly spread throughout Mykael's body.  It was providence that this was discovered.  Christine made the observation that this grandbaby was a miracle they had to wait for.  Sometimes it's hard to wait for God's timing in our lives, but this time it was clear why they had to wait.  If Mykael had easily gotten pregnant, the doctors wouldn't have found the tumor in time to remove it before the cancer spread throughout her body.

 

I was also privileged to attend a beautiful Relief Society Christmas program in our ward.  The R.S. leaders had arranged a lot of art pieces depicting the Savior (brought by various ward members) all around the cultural hall.  They decorated with fake candles and Christmas lights.  After hearing the song, Peace in Christ, sung by the young women of our ward, we were directed to the cultural hall.  Everyone reverently filed through and looked at all the art.  We then had a few minutes to contemplate our Savior and who we are really celebrating at Christmas.  I was touched.  As always, when seeing pictures of the Savior with little children, my thoughts turn to Thomas.  I love to picture him with the Savior.  There was a plaque among the art that  caught my eye and touched my heart: "One cry awakened the world, One birth changed history, One life made all the difference."  I hope we'll all take some time throughout this busy season to turn our thoughts and hearts to our Savior.