Happy New Years From Our Home To Yours!

Wishing all of our wonderful friends and family a very Happy New Year for 2017. It is remarkable how time flies and we are now at a New Year moment. We have certainly been very busy this year in our Mission endeavors. We have had many prayers answered, miracles received and a few disappointments along the way. We enjoy serving with the MLS couples and younger missionaries. We have worked with Elders most of the time until recently.  We now have great Sisters to serve with. We love attending our District, Zone, and MLS couple meetings. We have also had some outstanding Zone Conferences and recently a Mission tour and a Christmas Devotional. We have a lot of individuals and families that we meet with on a regular basis and have been blessed to see them progress in different ways. 
Our greatest source of joy has been those sweet times with family. Although it hasn't been as often as I would like we have enjoyed some fun minutes with them. Our Grandson Jackson returned home from his mission in Omaha, Nebraska in March. Our second son, Travis received his BA degree from BYU, Idaho which was such an awesome accomplishment.  We had a spectacular family reunion in June and everyone was able to attend. We were able to break away and watch a few of our Grandson's play in football and soccer games. The ones we were able to see play were Joseph, Jonathan, Jeffery, Joshua, Austin, Ethan, and Christian. Some of the games were on the internet but that counted as seeing them. My dear daughter in laws Amber, Amanda and my Granddaughter, Justice took me to TOFW in November for my birthday and Amandas. 
We had Sean's family down for Thanksgiving which was really nice. Our daughter visited us from Australia which was a highlight for this year. Then two of our Granddaughter's Sariah and April came in December to visit us from Australia. I shopped till I dropped with those two. We then had our son Sean's family down for our traditional Christmas Family Home Evening. We had a wonderful Nativity activity. 
We had a delightful Christmas. We attended the Christmas sacrament meeting held in the building we are assigned too. They were all very spiritually uplifting and we felt the spirit as talks and music were given on the Savior, His birth and atonement. We then had a quiet Christmas time with phone calls and Skyping with our children. 
The following are some more of our Christmas Activities - 

We are assigned to attend and work in the 5th ward. This is their Christmas Party. It had the theme of "The Grinch Stole Christmas". It was an elaborate celebration and everyone had such a good time. They put on the play; "The Grinch Stole Christmas." It was fantastic. 

We attended the 3rd ward Christmas breakfast. We loved having our photos with Santa along with our sweet sisters who were there enjoying the celebration. They had a great Nativity program and the Primary children were awesome. 

The 8th ward had a Christmas dinner. It was so fun. My husband played the part of Moroni in their Nativity program. The dinner was wonderful and the program was a lovely one. I loved the play and the music so much. The dinner of course was delicious. 

We had a uplifting Zone Conference and it was so fun to be with all the MLS Couples and the missionaries in two of our zones. The messages were so inspiring and helpful for our work. We found out that Elder Bowen who is in the photo with us is a 3rd cousin to Elder Williams.

We always have great District meetings. The large photo on the left side is a photo of a convert, a return missionary and then the sisters we are serving with; Sister Hanson and Sister Turner. The Upper right  photo is  Sister Pinkham and Sister Turner. This was transfer day and Sister Pinkham's last day in our Zone. We will miss her. 

Here is a flash back photo of our family Christmas's in the past. . We have several traditions in our family but doing the Nativity story is the one I love the most.  

This is our oldest son, Sean's family that came down for a Christmas Party. We have this every year and sometimes other families join us. We continue the tradition of the Nativity program. This was a sweet year. 

We had a fantastic Christmas with just each other and Sammy, of course. It was a really lovely day. We feel so blessed. We attended our ward meetings. The highlight of the day was hearing from our children. 
May this coming New Year bring you all many blessings from our Loving Heavenly Father. May your faith in Jesus Christ continue to grow. May you feel the peace, comfort and love of Savior more abundantly in your lives. May this year be a blessed one for all!