Our First Mission Christmas

Our Branch Christmas Party--held at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, with the view out of the window!

Our Social Group Party


Lunch at the home of my trainer and her husband--Elder & Sister Bennitson, the view from their living room is fantastic!!



Lights in the early morning!

The entrance to our apartment building.

A plethora of Christmas trees!

Church Office Building Trees.

Cafeteria Trees

Joseph Smith Memorial

Building tree.

Christmas Eve in Orem, with Fosters.

Jack in the 10" of snow.


Christmas Day in Layton and Roy.

Kent's house BEFORE the

star blew off!

Memaw's house in Roy!


Snow on our deck the day after!

Christmas is Coming

This was the scene on Monday, Dec 8th--our first day as "missionaries" It snowed all day long!

Today, December 11th, is Bill's birthday - so we know Christmas is exactly two weeks away.

This is the tree in the Joseph Smith building, where we train. The picture is taken from the balcony.

This is the tree in our apartment.

This is our chapel!! It used to be the ballroom when the building was the elegant Hotel Utah!

Temple Square

The Nativity in the Reflecting Pool (daylight)

Life-size Nativity on lawn

Trees and figures

Temple and the lighted swags on the outside walls

Our way home--trees between the Conference Center and our apartment.

Our Mission

Bill and I entered our missionary work today--Friday, December 5, 2008. It was a very unusual day for the mission. Elder Joseph Wirthlin died this week and his funeral was today--so we had a "Meet the Presidency" breakfast instead of a lunch. Met the mission presidency, branch presidency, and some office staff and the other new missionaries--I think there are six couples and about 6 singles--two young elders and a young sister and some senior sisters.

We were given a stack of tickets and such--to the funeral today, the First Presidency broadcast on Sunday, our schedule for the week-end and where to report on Monday morning at 7:30am. Can I just say, "It is COLD here at 7:30am." We walked over to breakfast this morning and I was freezing!

We attended the funeral at noon, with all of the General Authorities and President Monson conducting. Temple Square was closed and locked down except for people with tickets to the funeral. We sat in the balcony, second section, left-hand side---nice seats.

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