Happy New Year!!

The Temple in December. It's beautiful any time of the year. Our snow is just about gone and some of the pansies that have been under the snow are still in bloom.

Today, Sunday, we attended Church in the Fayette Ward. We saw many friends we have made and serve with at the temple. After the meetings we had Sister Beal take us on a tour of the Whitmer Farm and visitor center. We invited Dr. Lowry's, our chiropracter who has been very good to us, daughter to come with us while she waited for her tithing interview with the Bishop. She is 8 years old. This is a replica of the log cabin the church was organized in on April 6, 1830. Joseph and Oliver also completed the translation of the Book of Mormon upstairs.

We stopped to visit Nancy Bassett in the care facility. She is our home teaching sister and has undergone hip surgery. We took her an amarillo bulb which should grow into a beautiful plant. Paul's mother, Marge, always loved them. On our return home we had a call from our Bishop's counselor, Bro. Ingold, to see if he could come over to visit with us. Paul is now going to sub in seminary for a few weeks. He gets to teach 14 youth and they are studying Old Testament, Deuteronomy. Keep him in your prayers.

Christmas afternoon we drove down to Harmony, PA. We stayed overnight in Johnson City, did a little after Christmas shopping at the Mall across the street from where we stayed and then on down to Harmony.

It was a little too icy to walk down to the river so we will save that for summer. These are Emma's parents graves and Emma and Joseph's first son, Alvin, is also buried here.

Christmas Eve we were invited to Bishop and Sister Hill's home for a very nice dinner with family and friends. We then went over to the church where they have a Christmas Eve devotional which was very nice. The choir sang and we had several other Christmas numbers and Bishop Hill spoke. Christmas day we got up about 7:30 am, read the Christmas story, opened some presents, and we especially thank the Christenots for their fun package. We then went over to the Hill Cumorah visitor center where we joined the site missionaries, sister missionaries and friends for a Christmas breakfast and program. It was held in the basement and was lots of fun.

We had to get a picture of my walking partners. Sister Burris, Taylor, Potter, Black and me. We walk at the Community Center most mornings at 7 for an hour. The three in the middle are going home at the end of the month.

Elder and Sister Potter are the Directors of the sites and they are going home at the end of the month. They live in Park City now. Elder Young, an FM missionary, made them a replica of the box Joseph hid the plates in. He used wood from the Hill and the Palmyra area. What a treasure. We then went over to the Amsden, our friends from the temple, for lunch and visiting. After that we headed for Harmony.

It has been a wonderful holiday and we appreciate so very much your cards and gifts. The Lord has been so very good to us and your friendship and love is most treasured.