Merry Christmas!

As I write this, I am enjoying a beautiful Sabbath Day in 70+ degree weather, listening to a variety of old Christmas music favorites sung by Andy Williams, Doris Day, and others that bring back memories of my youth. I am thinking of family and friends and hope this Christmas season finds you all well and rejoicing in all that our Savior and Redeemer has done for us. I shed many tears of gratitude in Church today as feelings were expressed of the true meaning of Christmas and the Christmas hymns were sung. I know each of you are having similar experiences and it is wonderful to be connected in this way so many miles away.

In Sunday School class we finished the last lesson in the Prophet Joseph Smith manual and I gained an even greater appreciation for him, as Prophets, since his day, expressed their testimonies of him. I finished the Doctrine and Covenants some time ago, having read it completely through for the first time. I look forward to the study of the Old Testament and bought a book that will be helpful in that study. I also look forward to the new Gospel Principle book that we will study in Relief Society. I love to learn and am so grateful this is an essential part of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are also listening to the General Conference CD's as we travel and I learn more every time we listen to the talks. Elder Jeffrey Holland's testimony of the Book of Mormon was powerful!

I found a little time to make some traditional holiday cheese balls and carmel popcorn for the Missionaries, as we did the apartment inspections on Friday, and for some of our regular volunteers. It took a bit of organization to make 13 cheeseballs but was well worth it as they 'dug in', savoring every bite. I made the carmel popcorn for Elder Valentine as he is lactose intolerant and also can't have gluten. He is on his way home tomorrow having completed his mission. We will miss him as well as Sister Amitoelau and Sister Fifita who got transferred this week. They were disappointed it happened before Christmas, but demonstrated obedience and a positive attitude. The missionaries are a great example to me!

It felt good to have our volunteers and Elder Avery find 12 people who found work this past week when they did the call backs. We even had some new people come into the office. I finished up the missionary résumés and made a couple of business cards for people trying to do some self-employment work. We also had a good meeting with the two Edinburg wards and are so grateful that President Barry of that Stake is so enthusiastic about the potential of the ldsjobs.org web site. We will meet with President Young of the other Stake this week, because we feel we need to have the leaders be informed if this work is going to flourish and reach its potential. I pray the Lord will bless them in the great responsibility they have with these good people.

Please know how much we love you and pray for you and your families!

Los Averys