January
It’s me and I’m back again. Still behind in my writing, but trying to catch up! I’m actually writing this at 3:27 a.m. because I can’t sleep. This doesn’t happen often, but when it does I hate it! I’m just glad that this time it’s on a Friday night/Saturday morning so I can sleep in. No promises on what this blog will say or look like. Hmmmm - I wonder if I'll remember it in the morning! :-D
This is actually a December item, but it was one of the highlights of Christmas. Tyson had his 12th birthday on December 30th, so while they were here, they went back to their Salt Lake City ward and Mike ordained Tyson to the office of a Deacon in the Aaronic Priesthood. It was a really nice occasion. After the ordination, we all went to an Italian Restaurant called Robintino’s. It’s one of Tyson’s favorite places. It was both sides of the family and Robin and her son, Brandt.
This is the entire Collett Family after Tyson’s ordination. What a cute picture of all of them. It was a proud day for Heather and Mike. How cute are all of them!
OK – for the month of January – here’s what’s been happening. First of all, I had to take down our Cruise Calendar and put up the new one. I love the picture calendars, but I especially liked the Cruise one. It brought back such good memories. Just a year ago today, we were somewhere on the Disney Wonder having the time of our lives. I hope we can do that again sometime. Oops – I should be writing about what’s happening now, so enough of that! First of all, this is the birthday month for our family. It was Brighton’s birthday first, then Heather’s, Mikes, and finally Gregg’s birthday will be this Sunday. I wish we could go see everyone for their birthdays like we usually do, but not this year. This Sunday Gregg and Marthea, and hopefully Lynzi and Ron are coming over to celebrate Gregg’s birthday. He’s asked for Cheesy Chicken.
On January 6th, we had our Capitol Theater tickets to South Pacific. I don’t know if it was because it was South Pacific, or just the show, but that’s the first time we’ve left one of the productions and been disappointed. It wasn’t bad, but I don’t think it was just up to their usual standard. Still, it was fun and enjoyable!
I don’t know if I’ve already mentioned this, but we have two new missionaries – the Partridge’s, from Rexburg. Their son, Don, was at the Playmill with Tami. They’re going to be a great asset to our floor. They’re working hard and learning quickly. We’ve also received a new C.S.M., Sister Jamie Kay, who has been doing genealogy for about 20 years. She LOVES it, and already knows everything so just needs to learn the British end of things. She went through the entire Apprentice manual in a week and is almost through with her England/Wales portion of the Journeyman, and only comes to the library 2 days a week! We had another couple on our floor, the Taggarts, but shortly after they came, Elder Taggart became ill and now they’ve been gone longer than they were on our floor. The learning was VERY difficult for Elder Taggart, so if/when they are ready to resume their mission, they will probably be assigned to a different place so there’s not so much stress on them. They have been on 11 other missions so I’m sure will adapt quickly wherever they’re assigned.
The Gilbert’s are going home to Australia in a few days, and Sister Rose is also going home to England at the end of February, so the Presidency has promised us at least one more couple quickly, and we’re hoping for two more couples!
Speaking of the Presidency, we had an interview with President Stalvey last week. During the interview he said something about us going home in four months. I just laughed and said, “It’s not four months, it’s more like 5 and a half.” He looked down at his papers again and said, “uh no”, and counting on his fingers, said, “February, March, April, May. That’s four!”. WOW – what a jolt to reality! I just didn’t realize the time was going so fast!
About a week ago we went to Gilbert’s house again for dinner. She’s trying to get rid of all her food so is trying to feed everyone she knows. It was a good dinner to celebrate Australia Day. Only problem for me was that the roasted potatoes were too roasted and very hard. When I bit down on one of them, I broke a tooth! Fortunately, Gregg and Marthea have a very good dentist here in Salt Lake and I was able to get an appointment to get it fixed. He had to put a crown on it, so right now I have a temporary and will get the real one in a couple of weeks. He even called me that night at 7:00 to be sure I was doing alright!
Last Tuesday, we went to Lynzi and Ron’s, & Gregg & Marthea’s house for dinner. I took dinner there this time. We had chicken enchiladas. They turned out pretty good, but I didn’t have my real recipe and the one I used didn’t seem to have as much flavor as I remembered. I guess they were OK – they were all eaten. It’s fun to go there and be with them. We are so blessed they are here in Salt Lake so we can see family!
Last Saturday, Sister Marks, Sister Rose and I went to Bountiful for an afternoon of shopping. It was fun to go be with the women and not really need anything but just look for bargains. I bought a cute outfit for Brooke’s new baby when she’s born.
We’ve also celebrated Robert Burn’s birthday. I guess in England that’s quite a celebration. Sister Brown had a typical English Burns dinner. We had a good time. It was Sister Brown, Sister Kanuff, Elder and Sister Thomas and us. Dinner was good, and after dinner, Terry read a couple of Robert Burns’ poetry – in a Scottish accent none the less! We’re certainly learning about other British countries and all the holidays they celebrate!
Oh my goodness! I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned that we know we live in a missionary apartment because of several reasons – ie: no dishwasher (which I really don’t miss that much - anymore), no washer/dryer (which is OK because the laundry room is in our building), but now - because our kitchen lights and refrigerator keep going off! We will be working in the kitchen and all of a sudden, no power! Worst of all, is that the breaker to our kitchen is in someone else’s apartment! We reported it a while ago, but when they came in to repair it, couldn’t figure out what was wrong, so didn’t do anything. We’ve just lived with it for several months, but finally decided we need to complain about it. One night, the power went off and on about 5 times! By the way, we know that when our power goes off, it must go off in another apartment also, because they are the ones who have to turn it back on. If it didn’t go out in their apartment also, how would they know to flip the breaker back on! When we called, they came over while we were gone and left a note (like before) saying the lights were working and things were fine, so they didn’t do anything. That night, when the power went off again, Terry said, “That’s it! I’m calling again and I’m going to TELL them what’s wrong and what they need to do to fix it!” The next morning, he called maintenance, and told them the breaker was in a different apartment, but it needed to be replaced. He told them to:
1) Find the apartment that had the breaker to our kitchen.
2) Check the breaker because he was sure they would find it was faulty and needed to be replaced.
3) Replace the breaker before it caused a fire or the power was off so long that the food in our refrigerator spoiled!
I guess they figured if he knew exactly what was wrong, and how to fix it, they better check it out a little better. That day, when we got home from the library, there was a note saying they had called an electrician who checked and replaced the breaker, and we “shouldn’t be having any more problems.” Viola! We have power in the kitchen. We can use the microwave and the oven at the same time, and all with the lights on! We think the lights are even brighter than they used to be!
Two weeks ago, we had a Zone Fireside. That’s the first time any of the zones have done anything like that! It was wonderful. We held it in the Relief Society Room in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. We had a lady give a few remarks about her family history – and then the main speakers were President and Sister Peterson. They are amazing speakers. They kept everyone totally captivated with the things they spoke about. He mainly talked about the Nauvoo Temple. Before they were our Mission President, they were President and Matron of the Nauvoo Temple. We had a special musical number, “To Those Who Came Before Me”, by 9 people from our Zone. I played for them. They were wonderful! At one point, while they were singing, I actually got goose bumps! Terry said he felt “like a proud father” when they were singing. After, we had refreshments: 3 different kinds of sweet breads and lots of fruit! It was a wonderful evening. We hope we can do it again sometime. We also want to do a Zone picnic in the spring.
Things in our Zone are going really well. I’ve gone from fretting over the schedule for 4 days down to 2 days. I’ve found a few things that have made it much easier, and I’m trying to let people do more of what they want instead of randomly putting them everywhere. I figure if they’re happy, things will run more smoothly. Terry’s doing a wonderful job of writing the newsletter, taking care of zone business, going to meetings, keeping up with all the extensions and doing interviews. We were just saying today that we’re finally starting to feel comfortable with being Zone Leaders. However – we also said that’s not necessarily a good thing. As soon as you start getting comfortable, things change! Good thing there’s not enough time left to make any big changes!
Yea!!!!!! This pretty catches my journaling up to date! I didn't think that would happen! OK – it’s now 4:12 a.m. so I’m going to try to go see if I can sleep!
Just FYI, Tyson was ordained on a sunday. The Robintino's dinner was the night before. After the ordination, we all went to your place. :-)
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