Hello Everyone!

Merry Christmas!!  It has been a wonderful time to prepare to serve a mission and actually do it.  Brent and I leave for Houston tomorrow to spend Christmas with our son Nick and his family.  Then, on the 27th we will leave for Baton Rouge, Louisiana and begin serving in the mission office of the Louisiana Baton Rouge Mission.  We have planned this for over a year and half now.  It feels good to finally get to it.  We spent the last week and a half in the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah.  There are several MTC's around the world......Spain, England, South America are a few.  All young men and women and older folks like us, who wish to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, spend time in the MTC learning their roles as missionaries.  They may be there for service missions, proselyting missions, humanitarian missions, etc.  We had an extraordinary experience.  I felt the love of my Heavenly Father so strong.  I really believe the MTC is on consecrated ground.  It is extraordinary that these young people give up18 months to 2 years to serve, at their own expense.  It was great to be around them.  There are about 3,000 in the Provo MTC at any one time.   The Elders and Sisters who will serve foreign missions stay at the MTC for about 2 months.  The others, who are serving English speaking missions, stay about 2 weeks.
This is a picture of new arrivals on Wednesday.  Every week missionaries arrive and depart from the MTC.  Their parents or friends drop them off at the curb and they begin their 2 year journey as a missionary.  It was cold that day!

An icicle on our house.

Our backyard.  It's been chilly.












Well, we are off on our big adventure tomorrow.  I hope to post about once a week.  I love you, my friends and family.  Merry Christmas!