Mission Evening Devotional

We stayed home and watched it over Zoom since Jena was definitely getting sick on Monday afternoon.  It is not quite the same as being in the beautiful chapel at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, but we were glad that we could still watch it.

Our speakers were Elder Kevin Hamilton and his wife, Sister Claudia Hamilton. She shared about their service in Africa where they lived for 5 years before Elder Hamilton was assigned to the Family History Department.  Elder Hamilton touched a variety of topics from being senior missionaries and the upcoming Roots Tech.  He reported that people believe that 100 billion people have lived on this earth and slowly the family tree is being built to include all of those people.  He talked about the message given by Moroni to Joseph Smith when he was 17--the Book of Mormon--another testament of Christ and the power of Elijah--turning the heart of the children to their fathers.  That is how important the work of family history is!

One of the amazing blessings of serving in the Utah Salt Lake City Headquarters Mission!

A Quiet Week For Jena And I....

 ...not for Gary though.  Jena started getting a sore throat Monday afternoon and by Monday night she had had a few coughing spells.  Tuesday morning, she definitely had all of the signs of a cold.  So she and I stayed home for the most part this week and Gary managed things at the library including delivering the mail.  I worked from my computer at home and got my emails taken care of and a variety of other tasks that don't get done when I am at the library.

My view out my window when I am working from home
No snow in the mountains and a crane working
on some construction to the north.

Jena never ran a fever, but because of the world we live in now (the pandemic part), we did take Jena to have a Covid test on Wednesday which was negative.  

Yay--it was a pretty typical minor cold--the first any of us have had since the beginning of the pandemic.  Although Gary and I both had Covid tests in the summer of 2020 before our colonoscopies, this is the first time one of us had to take one because of illness.

She is doing well and excited to go to Church today and back to the library tomorrow.

Despite being sick, she and I had to leave the building due to a fire alarm mid-day on Thursday.  For us that means down 6 flights of stairs and outside.  The alarm turned off when we hit about the third floor, but there is no way to access the door to another floor except going all the way down and outside and around to the front of the building.  We were the only people who left the building due to the alarm.  Not sure where everyone else was.  When we entered the building to go back to our apartment, an employee was mopping the floor.  I asked him why he didn't leave and he said, oh they told me they were having a practice check of the alarm so I just ignored it.

Apartment living!

Meanwhile, Gary was running from sun up to sun down and beyond managing the many things that 80+ missionaries need each day as they are serving in the Church History Library.  I don't know how the library managed without Gary to handle so many computer issues and training issues ABOUT computers.  He is the man with all of the right talents for sure.  Everyday, I loved listening to him update me on his crazy day of non-stop concerns and problems. Over the years, it has been Gary listening to my non-stop craziness of days so it is nice to return the favor now!

Having your spouse as your misisonary companion is pretty GREAT!

Hall Grandchildren Gallery

I collected photos from my children to give to Ben next time we visit him so I decided to share them with you are well: 

From Tosha and Austen:

Ava

Cooper and Niki overlanding yesterday in the mountains of Washington

Snack time----

Niki

Cooper

From Jessica and Elessia:

Ezri

Alex

Carter

Zander

Liam-- being a "100 year old grandpa" for 100 days at school!  He is using his cane in this photo.

From Scott and Chantel:

James

Scarlett

They are growing up!!!

Speaking of Christmas Cards...

 ...we didn't get ours sent this year (December 2021) because the photo cards I ordered from Wal-Mart didn't arrive until the middle of January 2022.  I considered holding them until next Christmas but realized that we won't be missionaries then and it would be weird to have this photo where you can see our tags.  So, after bouncing ideas around, we decided to send "Happy Chinese New Year" cards out with our photo Christmas card.

from Robynn Thiot

And we got several texts and emails and even some pictures from friends and family who seemed to love getting our cards even if they were "out of season."  We even got a call from our friends from BYU who we haven't seen in 25 years.  Maybe, I will mail them late every year!!

And Happy Chinese New Year to all of you!  It started on February 1st this year which we celebrated by sending Gary and Jena to get Panda Express since I was recovering from a migraine.  Enjoyable but not the "real" thing!!