December 31, 2023

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!!! Tomorrow it will be 2024! We are looking forward to a fantastic year continuing our work in the Oregon Salem Mission. Now that we mostly know what we are doing we can work on building relationships, strenthening our testimonies, and sharing the gospel more. Our district leader has challenged us Senior Missionaries to give out at least one copy of the Book of Mormon. Elder Larson has already succeeded by giving one to one of our Landlords. This is one of my New Year's resolutions. We will find a way!

Christmas Day was a fun, exhausting day! We were able to facetime with all of the kids and share in what they got for Christmas. We started out with Ryan and family and it was extra special because Parker was on the call with us too. A special shout out to my friend Pam Fenlon who made missionary pillowcases and mailed them to Parker and his companion. They were happy when they opened them and said the mission provided ones were rough and these felt much better! It was so good to see Parker's smiling, happy face! Ryan and Rachel's families were able to spend Christmas Eve together so that made this mama's heart happy to know that everyone was well taken care of. Next up was Rachel & Chris and I am always so impressed with the thought and care they take in getting each other gifts. We had a quick call with Tracey even though we had just seen them the day before because they had to show off the new kitty Alyssa got for Christmas. She has wanted a cat forever so she is one happy girl! Our last call was with Matt and family and it is always fun to go child by child to see what each of them got. We are so blessed with modern technology which allows us to see and talk with them just as if we were there!!

In the midst of all the family conversations we were hard at work preparing Christmas dinner for us and 8 other missionaries. We had the Larson's, Sister Cox & Sister Ebmeyer, Sister Walker & Sister Jacobsen, and Hermana Pace & Hermana Winsor. The Sisters had no other dinner invitations so they got to be our adopted family for the day! We were very lucky to have them!!

For dinner we had ham (left over from MLC which we had frozen), loaded mashed potato casserole, sweet potato casserole, broccoli, spinach salad, rolls, and frozen raspberry salad. It was all yummy and then we had ham & cheese on rolls with chips later in the evening. The Elders joined us later in the evening for games and it was quite the party!! We played Heads Up, some played Hand & Foot, and then the Elders left and we ended the evening watching Testaments! What a wonderful day it was!!!

It was a quiet week in the office after all the activity leading up to Christmas. But there are always things to be done so we still kept busy. Elder Rowan delt with car issues and I handled the finances. There were a few extra things to get done for year end making sure all the expenses in 2023 were entered for the year but it was not the year end crunch I am used to from my working days. Hallelujah!! One of the extra responsibilities I have taken on is keeping the Mission History. The Church requires every mission to turn in an annual history of the mission. It used to be that it was printed, put in a 3-ring binder and mailed in to Salt Lake. Now we just have to have a digital copy of it that we submit on a thumb drive. I worked on that this week learning how to edit and combine PDF files in Adobe Acrobat and that was fun. I am always glad when I can learn something new :).

Friday Tracey and her family made the trip down to Newberg to play pickleball with us and go out to lunch at Mod Pizza! What a fun afternoon!! I haven't played pickleball since we came on our mission so it felt good to be back on the court. I thought they would last an hour but we actually managed to play two hours and it was really fun. I just wish we had remembered to take pictures!

Friday night we were invited with the Larson's to dinner at Hermana's Finlayson, Burt, & Petersen. Early on in our mission these same Sisters had us to dinner as a thank you for the new apartment they moved into but this time they just wanted to visit with us. We marveled at how far we have come at knowing the missionaries. For instance, we now know that Sister Burt has a boyfriend on a mission in Korea, Sister Finlayson plays the Cello beautifully, and Sister Petersen is a great cook and an even better piano player.

Saturday was our P day so we spent some time putting Christmas away and then doing a few things in the office. We had some Kohl's Cash to spend and then headed up to Washington Square Mall where the Light the World Giving Machine has been set up since December 19th. Turns out that outside of Utah the Giving Machine doesn't have all the International Charity offerings. Instead they partner with local charities in the area to support them. What a nice idea to give back to the community. Before we got there we had decided we wanted to buy a water well because we felt it would have lasting value to a community. That wasn't offered at the Giving Machine at the mall so we had to go online to purchase it but that was okay. How cool is that to know we bought a well for a community! At the mall we were also able to buy a goat that will help a woman provide income for her family. The Giving Machine is AMAZING and such a fun way to donate to a charity!

Today is New Year's Eve but it looks like it will be a quiet day for us since it is Sunday. Fun fact is that the date today is 123123. Not sure that will ever happen again! We did have a great experience at church this morning though. Our Mission President was contacted by one of the wards in the Stake to see if the Senior Missionaries could come and talk about missions for senior couples. They were having a 5th Sunday discussion on Elder Rasband's talk from General Conference, "How Great Will Be Your Joy." We felt a bit like celebrities wearing our missionary badges and being the center of attention. It was fun to share the knowledge we have gained about missions and hopefully inspire other senior couples to consider going. We joined with the Larson's, the Ellis' (she was the mission nurse serving from home right before we got here), and the Hall's (a couple from the ward we spoke in that served a MLS mission in Australia from 2015-2017). Here we are pictured together.

As this year draws to a close we would like to leave our testimony of our Savior, Jesus Christ. He has not promised us that things would be easy but he has promised us that he will be with us--to help us and to strenghen us. In my reading this week I found this scripture in Alma 36:3, "Whosoever shall put their thrust in God shall be supported in their trials, and their troubles, and their afflictions, and shall be lifted up at the last day." I hope each of you feels the love and support from our Heavenly Father and his son, Jesus Christ. We love you too!