Our Christmas photos

Here they are. We didn't take many pictures once the unwrapping was done. We got too busy, I guess.

Denisa and her family came over, and a couple of other friends we've known and shared Christmas with for 17 years now. It was a wonderful day.
Everyone was healthy (though Elaine still sounded terrible from her recent illness), and the weather was great!

My kids are jealous of your Utah snow, but I was loving our warm weather! It got to 83 on Friday!
























Unfortunately, Lynette came down with Elaine's virus on Saturday, so some plans Craig and I had made got canceled so I could stay home with her.
We've pretty much been having lazy days just playing games and enjoying each other.






Elaine's ballet production is coming up. She starts with rehearsals again on Tuesday, and then has her first performance on Saturday. She is very excited. This is what she lives for all year long!
This year they are doing "Orphan Annie". She is a chef and a hobo. She also gets to perform on pointe for the first time.

LaDawn

After the holiday

The good thing about peanut brittle is that it stays good almost indefinitely. Hands off, dad.

We had a very white Christmas. We still have close to two feet of snow in some spots. I spent a couple of hours shoveling on Christmas and I wasn't sure everyone would make it even just across town. They all did, but everyone got stuck in front of my driveway when it was time to leave.

We had some happy grandchildren in our house on Christmas Day. Harvey was a little overwhelmed, but got over it quickly. They each made a good haul on presents.

Today is finally sunny and Creed and I watered horses this morning. It is supposed to snow again this evening. We were going to drive to Nevada today to visit Anette's parents, but we have postponed that trip until New Years. It is supposed to be sunny and slowly warming all of next week.

Christmas 2008

Dear family,
We don't have any pictures to post since we didn't take any. Ruth and I just sat around and watched the snow falling. so far it snowed for two full days and we received 12 t0 15 inches on the level. We went to Kaye and Dee's for Christmas dinner and Tom and Monica's family were there also.

We made it to the temple today but it was a very slow day as for the normal endowments etc. but we had seven own endowments and two weddings during our 6 hours plus two rescheduled to a later time.

There is one advantage to our not getting to Flint's for Christmas. Ruth made a big batch of peanut brittle for Flint and it is very good. Too bad Flint.

Christmas Morning

Merry Christmas everyone! Here are some pictures of us Christmas morning, and me modeling the apron Mom made. I wish we could get together on the holidays, but it is also nice to be home having our own little celebration. We got to talk to Sam yesterday as well. He is doing well, and we are all getting anxious for his return.

-Newel

Ready for Christmas

We are all ready for the big day tomorrow. We are sorry that Mom and Dad won't be with us. It won't be quite the same. They didn't want to fight the winter weather and the temple schedule.

Here are a few pictures from Tagg's first birthday and building gingerbread houses. If you are younger than 2 you have to do it mostly naked.

Samuel's Mission E-mail December 22, 2008

Everyone:
It's actually been kind of rainy here this last week, so we've been having to deal with the damp. I can't say that I really mind, though. It's nice to have a change.
As for the week, we tracted and street contacted basically every day this week, so I'll just focus on the other things that happened. On Tuesday we had our Christmas Zone Conference, with our mission pictures and Christmas dinner and everything, so that was pretty fun. Wednesday was just tracting and contacting (in the rain). Thursday was weekly planning, and in the evening we visited the Burkhardt family. We had prayed the week before about families in the ward we should visit, thinking that we would work with them to get some referrals. But lo and behold, we called them and they were all going through some kind of family crisis, so I guess the Lord had a different purpose for us in mind. We ended up talking with the Burkhardts about trials, the Comforter, and trusting in the Lord. Sister Burkhardt's father died over the weekend, so hopefully what we shared is helping.
On Friday evening, we had a Christmas Devotional with President and Sister Blackburn. They talked about gifts we give to Christ. Saturday was just tracting and contacting, and Sunday was, as well, after Church. Today we don't have an activity, so we'll have a lot of time to get ready for the week.
Well, everyone, have a merry Christmas! Remember Who it's about, and think of what He would do.
Elder Samuel Stephens

Samuel's Mission E-mail December 15, 2008

Everyone:
It's strange to think that this is my final transfer. It doesn't seem real to me yet. Of course, that's what all missionaries say. Except the truly trunky ones who wish they were already home. I'll try to not fall into that category.
As for the week, on Monday Elder Mijares got all of his stuff packed and ready to go, and he mailed off a lot of boxes of stuff that didn't fit in his luggage. He went with one of our zone leaders who also finished his mission on Tuesday morning, so I spent Tuesday with Elder Gonzalez, our other zone leader. It was a pretty good day-- we worked hard, it just wasn't in my area.
On Wednesday, I met up with my last companion, Elder Spencer. He's from Mesa, Arizona, and has been out for a little over a year. Oddly enough, no one knows which one of us is supposed to be the senior companion. Fortunately, I don't really care--I prefer to think of a missionary companionship as being made of equal partners anyways. He is the district leader, though, just as Elder Mijares was. On Wednesday, he got settled in, and then we tracted for a while.
On Thursday, Elder Spencer had one of his fun leadership meetings, so I took Elder Jenne (pronounced like Jenny), a new missionary who is being trained by one of the other district leaders, out tracting for a little while. We before and after the meeting, Elder Spencer and I did the normal weekly planning, and tried to think of some new things we could try in the area.
On Friday we had our normal zone meeting in the morning, and then we helped a family move their stuff into a storage unit. They're living for a while with one of their relatives in the ward. Afterwards we tracted for a bit.
On Saturday morning Elder Spencer had another of the beginning-of-transfer leadership meetings, so I went with Elder Jenne and helped a family move out of his ward. In the afternoon we tracted for a bit, and then Elder Spencer did a baptismal interview for one of the zone leaders' investigators. After that we kept tracting, but then I got the feeling we should go street contact. Elder Spencer suggested we go down by the beach, so we went down there. We didn't have much luck--it was really windy and pretty chilly, so there weren't a lot of people around--so we headed back to our car. Just before we got to it, we bumped into an older lady who explained to us that she couldn't find her car, so we let her get in ours and we went looking for it. We did find it eventually. The Lord uses us in a lot of ways, I think. In the evening we went to the Ward Christmas Party.
On Sunday, we had our typical church meetings, and then we street contacted and tracted. There wasn't really anything else big that happened that day.
Today we helped Elder Haws and Elder Holmes in our district help one of their members move (we've had a lot of moving this week), and we went to a meal at a member's home who invites the whole zone over every transfer. All the missionaries brought "white elephant" gifts, and we had a lot of fun trading them around. I found some floppy diskettes in our apartment, so I just had to bring them.
I can't remember if I mentioned this earlier, but Elder Mijares stumbled over this Ensign article a few weeks before he left that I really liked. It's in the February 2005 Ensign, and it's called "Seven Lessons on Sharing the Gospel". I highly recommend it. The last couple of lessons he shares are particularly powerful.
Elder Samuel Stephens

Winter happenings in Plano

We've been busy with normal December things. Thank goodness everyone is well again. The first photo is from our Dicken's Downtown festival. Craig takes the kids every year while I go to a party with my quilting friends.

The second photo is from this last Friday when we went to a local Lutheran Church's "Journey to Bethlehem" that they do every year.
We hadn't gone since James and Elaine were small, so we figured we needed to go again. They have a replica market village inside their church, and then outside they walk you through six scenes representing events leading up to the nativity. They have real animals in all the scenes; the most popular are the camels. Fortunately, it was not very cold. The first time we went it was freezing.

This week we are having typical Texas weather. Yesterday it was 79 degrees, today it is 29. And the forecast is for it to be 72 by Thursday. Unfortunately, those 70's only come one day at a time. It seems they are usually surrounded by 30's!

Samuel's Mission E-mail December 8, 2008

Everyone:
Well, we have transfers on Wednesday. Elder Mijares is leaving, so I'll be with one of the zone leaders tomorrow.
As for the week, starting on Tuesday, we tracted a whole bunch. We decided to do twenty-four hours of contacting for Elder Mijares's last week, so most of our days were pretty much just tracting. On Wednesday we tracted, and then on Thursday we had a car-free day, so we did some street contacting after we planned.
On Friday we had our normal zone meeting, and then Elder Yuill wasn't feeling well, so Elder Mijares went out and worked with Elder Weber while I took care of Elder Yuill. On Saturday, we decided to street contact from our apartment to the beach. We had some decent sucess. When we got back to the apartment, Elder Mijares couldn't find the keys, so we started to backtrack. Oddly enough, though, first I and then Elder Mijares thought we should check our car trunk (we had gotten some cards out of the trunk before we left the apartment), but we didn't go back until Elder Mijares thought to check a picture we took of him at the beach, and he didn't have the keys in the picture (he usually wears his keys on a little belt clip), so we went back and--sure enough--the keys were in the trunk. I kind of wish we'd listened to the prompting sooner, but I guess we had to learn. In the evening we helped out with the Palos Verdes Regional Orchestra Christmas Concert, and that was pretty cool.
On Sunday we knocked Elder Mijares's last doors, we watched the First Presidency Devotional, and we taught Leo.
Well, it's been really weird knowing I'm only six weeks away from what Elder Mijares has been experiencing, but I'm also a bit excited to find out who my companion will be. We'll find out shortly, I guess.
Elder Samuel Stephens

Samuel's Mission E-mail December 1, 2008

Everyone:
Well, this has been a pretty quiet week. I'll go ahead and get into the details:
Tuesday of last week we did some street contacting, and while doing so I started to feel really weak. We came back to the apartment and I took my temperature, and it came out at 102.7, so we stayed in the apartment the rest of the day. I was feeling better on Wednesday, though, so we got out and tracted for a bit, and then Elder Yuill called and said he was pretty sick, so I stayed with him while Elder Mijares and Elder Weber did some more tracting. Too bad we couldn't have coordinated and both been sick on the same day, eh? I did appreciate the rest, though--I still wasn't feeling 100% on Wednesday. For that matter, my nose still hasn't cleared up since then. Oh, well.
On Thursday, we did our weekly planning, we went and kept some people in a convalescent home company for a while, and then we had our Thanksgiving dinner. We went with Sister Paris's family. Sister Paris is Samoan, so... there was a lot of food. Not only was there turkey, we also had pork and pot roast. It was really, really good.
On Friday we got back to work with some tracting and street contacting. On Saturday I was on exchanges with Elder Haws in my area, and... you guessed it, more tracting and street contacting. I can't say much of anything exciting happened during all of this.
On Sunday we had our church meetings and tracted and street contacted more.
Well, I think that's pretty much it. I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving. Stay thankful!
Elder Samuel Stephens

More Changes

OK, the NASA picture of the day never changed pictures, so I took it out. I also changed the game at the bottom because parking was just too hard!