Next letter

Hi my dear friends,   Since Leigh Ann emails me (bless her little heart), I figure she knows her way around and I hope she will forward this to all of you.   She has asked me for my address and no one seems to know it because we live in the boonies so if you want to sent me Christmas cards, packages (with candy and such...don't you dare) my address has to be the office: 100 Perinton Hills, Office Park Suite 120, Fairport, New York 14450.

All is great here.   My daughter has set up a blog but the pictures haven't shown up and I don't know the address so I hope you all rush to it.   The time in the MTC was great.   I added to my weight gain from the cruise and the two weeks before I left by another 5 so by the time I got here I was up about 15 pounds but have lost 2 since so I am sure I'll roll home just fine.

We have got an amazing house.   I'll bet it is at least 2000 square feet with four bedrooms, a dungeon and secret rooms above that we just found.   It is a perfect combination of the old and the new.   It is beautifully insulated and never cold (has radiators...I'm a fan).   All new appliances--even a washroom!   Yet it has door hinges that I am sure have been here since Brigham Young.   It has no garage by it though or carport so we have to park about 50 yards away, but it is in a garage with a garage door opener.   We just park on the lawn when we are emptying things out which is about daily.   The only bad thing that has happened at all is that yesterday we were talking about how friendly everyone is and that we haven't encountered any negativism and she drove to the store getting home about 9:45 alone and was standing by the street to wait for a car to drive by and the car drove by and slowed down and a man yelled really loud "Mormon Bitch."   That was a bit disconcerting.

Our office day consists of getting there about 8:30 and working til 5 but usually longer than that.   I love all I am learning, but I am so detail challenged that I am sure I am going to send a parent letter to their stake president or send off a letter from the previous mission president   or send a letter intended for one missionary to another or any of a number of things...I mention those things because I have caught myself in doing all of them, but caught them before they were sent out.   SHEILA I need your focus, and Cheryl how can you keep so many things going at the same time?

my companion is a marvelous cook and loves to so we are assigned to be at lots of places where food is served.   District meetings, zone meetings, confrences, training sessions, missionaries leaving and missionaries coming etc. so it keeps her very busy cooking and I stay busy eationg what she has cooked.

I do sew for the missionaries but it is easy jobs.   I take in shirts (one time 3 times for 6 shirts as they were never slim as he wanted) and making their pants "skinny lets", button, rips etc.   I enjoy it, but then again, I forget who needs what and until I had them put their names on papers and what they wanted done, in their pockets I don't know what I did.   Maybe that's why I don't hear from them as much as I did at the beginning come to think of it.

On our very first day here we went to the Sacred Grove, Joseph Smith's farm and the "frame" house built by his brother Allvin.   It was especially neat because our president knows everything.   That isn't said with sarcasm; he knows everything.   He has written 10 books and is so knowledgeable about all church related things.   He has worked in the CES for about 30 years and is just so interesting and fun.

Well, that's enough to swallow for the first letter so I will just stop.....Oh that's a lie..I went to the office Saturday to finish up some stuff and just as I was walking out, the phone rang and I answered it and the lady said she was looking for a certain song that her mother sang all the time.   She is in the final stages of cancer (the mother) but continues to sing the song.   This Gayle had gone to her pastor and music person in her church and they hadn't heard of it so she put the words in the internet and found it was a Mormon hymn.   She looked up the church in the phone book, called one building where no one answered and then called the mission office.   It was "There is Sunshine in the Soul".   I told her that we had just sung it the day before and she was so excited.   She was heading down to get her car emissions checked which was directly on my way home so I made her a couple of copies and we met her there.   She talked to us for quite a long time and we offered to send a couple of the sister missionaries over to the rest home where her mother is to sing the song for her and she was absolutely teary.   We will definitely follow through with that one. 

I go to the mall (huge mall 10 minutes away)---every store you could ever think of 10 minutes away...and I just start up conversations with people sitting on the benches.   It is great fun, but it costs me about $60 dollars a trip because I can't help going in to Christopher and Banks, Macy's   etc.   and their sales are so great..but I do digress.   Anyhow they ask me why I am here and I talk about it, but haven't thrust a Book of Mormon at them yet.   I   Chriswill though.

Cold here averaging 30 degrees high, but you have been blasted with winter a lot more than we have.

OK OK I'll quit.   Love you all much,