New Pictures of Irene's Wake

These are some pictures that the young Elders loaded on my computer of some of the things that went on during the aftermath of Hurricane Irene. The youngsters in the yellow vests are from the ward we attend here.



In retrospect, we have had a great change of heart in many of the local people here because of the work of these young adults and children. We are thankful for them for what they do.

Well today we celebrated Joseph Smith Jr's 206th birthday. It was a beautiful deal and we had over 400 people come to the site tonight. It was hectic, but wonderful. We have had a 'Mr. Well's' winter so far. It has snowed 5 times this winter and up until this last one, they have all melted away. The pictures are of this winter...all of them. You will see that there is snow and green grass.
The two ladies in this picture are Sister Charchenko and Sister Fisher. We went to Randolf to go shopping for Christmas and this is after we went to lunch. Awesome aren't they?!!!!

A Beautiful Winter Day.

Things are pretty slow here now with the cold weather and the snow. Most of the snow is gone, but it still slows some folks from coming. We are seeing mostly non-members now that come to see the lights and we do very little guiding of tours. We talk a little about the gospel, but most don't want to hear anything about Mormonism, even though they think we are really a cut above when it comes to putting a good foot forward. They all are impressed with how nice the place is kept and the peaceful feeling they all get when they come here. I always love to go to the site myself.

Another Fabulous Sunday

We got a message that a woman who is less active wanted us to pick her up for church today after backing out about 5 times in the past. We were excited to be able to take her. She canceled once in the past because a member of the Stake Presidency was going to be visiting her and she was nervous and had to fix up her place a little. The man's name from the presidency was President Bush. Another member of the presidency's name is Tom Sawyer and they were going to visit two other members of the ward whose names are Dick Tracy and Dan Boone. These are all totally honest real names. I've met two of them. I don't have any new pictures and so you will have to make do with these.

Mr. Wells' Winter

Well, it is Sunday again and I have been a little remiss in posting. That is because it is getting quite busy with everybody coming to see the 180,000 lights that are here now for the Christmas season. Yesterday, we had almost 200 come to see the lights and the nativity scenes we have in the visitors center throughout December. I will try to get some good pictures of the paintings by Simon Dewey. They are gorgeous. Here are some of the lights that I could capture with my wannabe camera.
As you can see, we have snow now. It has snowed three times this winter and each time the snow has gone completely except for this time and even most of that has melted.
When Junius Wells came to put up the monument in 1905 the locals here called it "Mr. Wells' Winter" because there was no snow then either, otherwise they wouldn't have been able to put up the monument. We are having a Wells winter.

Sunday at the "Memorial"

We had a great day today. It was Sister Fisher's birthday and we celebrated it with the young missionaries here. Elder Barnes' birthday was the 2nd, so they celebrated together with some of "Paul's Ribs". It was delicious.
We had over 100 people come through the site this evening and it was great. We got to do a little missionary work and give a few tours though they were difficult with the numbers of people that came through. A good day for all. The boys have been calling to wish their mother a happy birthday.
These pictures are where we go to church every Sunday. It is a beautiful place.

December 1...What will it bring?

Well, we are into our 'busy season' where it has been predicted that we will see an onslaught of visitors. We were on the sight from 9:00 AM until 4:00 PM and between the two of us we had two tours. I sure hope it gets a little busier than that. I have been doing a little drawing and here are a couple of the missionaries and some other friends that are here at the sight...well actually I wish the little guy was here but that is just a picture a friend sent to me. Isn't he cute?!!!...unlike the other pictures.