Sunday was a wonderful day. We shared the video "He is the Gift" with the Grow family and then we invited our young neighbor family to come enjoy the First Presidency Christmas Program with us. That was a wonderful start for the week.
This was a predictably more difficult week. Hard to find people willing to meet and take time away
from their busy schedules. We did some service on Tues. for a sister who is moving from Hyrum to live with family. She has a big job and she needed the help which we were happy to provide. The ward members have been wonderful in helping her.
Wednesday we met with a couple that where we are trying to get the husband interested in returning to activity. The sister has a wonderful Christmas display of things in the home. We showed them "He is the Gift." The husband seemed more responsive in this visit than before. We followed up with a sister that we had been asked to visit. She lost her mother and her husband a year or so apart and was feeling a little down. We encouraged her to attend meetings and feel the love of the ward members and of the love of the Lord. She promised to attend meetings when the meetings are a little later starting in January.
We stopped in to see a few more single sisters and a family that we felt could use an uplift. We felt good about these visits. We love to share the video "He is the Gift" but many have seen it. We found another Christmas video to use when needed.
Thursday was our zone Christmas devotional and luncheon. We had a great devotional with several of our missionaries bearing their testimonies, a beautiful solo by Sister Gammon. Pres. Heirs and Elder Larson, our area Seventy speaking. It was a very uplifting meeting. The lunch was a turkey dinner and then the desserts were furnished by Senior Couples. Wow, what a display of homemade goodies! Our contribution was red and green Jello cookies with icing. They were cut into Christmas shapes. My favorite was German chocolate brownies. Following the lunch we had a program. Several skits or talents were shown. For our zone it was Sisters Gietz and Bowman singing from the movie "White Christmas" the song "Sisters" with some different lyrics reflecting missionary sisters. After they sang one verse, they put their tiger scarves around Elder John and my neck and we acted out the same scene. We also had our trousers rolled up to look like Capri pants like in the movie. It was pretty hilarious from our point of view and there was a good amount of laughter from the audience.
One of the most impressive numbers was when a Senior sister played "Silent Night" about four time through, and while she was playing Elder Coronado was drawing with a marking pen on a white board. When she finished they turned the white board for the audience to see and he had sketched Joseph leading the donkey and Mary riding toward Bethlehem. Across the top was written Merry Christmas. Wow, what talent!
In the evening we attended the 10th Ward Christmas Party. It was a light meal of soup, salad, and cinnamon rolls. The Primary sponsored the party so after singing Christmas Carols they explained the children had been learning about missionary work this year. They asked Ruth and I, our sister missionaries and the Ward mission leader and his wife to come to the front of the hall. The children had made each of us two Christmas cards with sweet messages of thanks for our service, what a thoughtful thing to do.

Friday we took one of our sisters to Ogden for a meeting. While there, Ruth and I attended a session at the Ogden temple. What a beautiful place to worship! When we returned home we made several visits in our neighborhood to distribute Christmas gifts. In addition to some homemade goodies we gave the families a video entitled "No Ordinary Shepherd."

Saturday we had a big family day. It was so exciting because Hallie's husband Te Te was baptized a member of the Church. Our son Keith baptized him. Te Te seemed quite happy with his decision to be a member. George will confirm him in Sacrament Meeting on Sunday.