Week ending January 1 2012

What a wonderful week we had and it is going to be hard to get up early again because we have been sleeping in this week.  Monday we did the usual Boxing Day activity.  But instead of boxing up gifts we didn’t want to exchange for gifts we wanted, we just went to the Mall and looked at what they had on sale.  We went through the whole mall and came out with nothing.  From there we went to Testco’s.  I tried on 2 shirts but came away with only some food items we needed.  Bill got himself a shirt.

I tried to get Brenda to bring her husband and son over for dinner and to play games but she turned me down.  She is the friend from work that asks me questions about the church “just to know more about us” and I think she was afraid we would try to teach her the gospel or didn’t think her family would want to come.  I will keep trying.

Tuesday and Wednesday we decided to try riding the bus into the City Center from home.  Parking is so hard to find there.  We went and explored the National Museum of Scotland and it is huge.  It would take at least a week to see most of it.  It covers a little of everything. 

Tuesday night we also went to Falkirk to start planning for mutual next year.  The YM were all there, but we didn’t get any of the YW to come and so for us it wasn’t real successful.

Thursday we went in to work on Family History at the Center in the morning.  I found a few wrong dates on the information I have and so I felt successful.  From there we went back to Holyrood Palace to see it decorated for Christmas.  We can go all year this year for free and so it was a good chance to go back.

Friday we took Elder and Sister Hambelton from Meridian to Sterling Castle.  It is one of our favorite to take people to because they just reopened it after spending lots of money redoing it to its former splendor.  We had a wonderful day with them.

Saturday we went in to the Connelly’s along with five other couples to have our New Year Celebration.  We each brought part of the meal and we ate and visited.  We were there from about 12:00 until 5:15.  The President had asked us to be back in our flats by 6:00 and so we were for a quiet night at home.  We were actually in bed by 9:30 and so the New Year came in with us sleeping.  New Year is probably as big or bigger a celebration than Christmas.  All of the stores close by 6:00 after being totally swamped all day with people buying food and drink for Saturday night and all day Sunday.  They eat, drink, dance, set off fireworks etc. to bring the year in just like you see on television.

As a result of it being New Year’s Eve yesterday and also because this next week the children are also out of school, the attendance at Church today was very small.  We ended up with only one young women and Bill had one young man.

Bill and I were also called into the Branch President’s office and he called us to be the teachers of the Teacher Development Class.  They want to start the class in two weeks.  Life is getting busier each week but this is something Bill has done before and so he will know how to make it work. 

We have two more days to do things before the National Archives opens again.

It was fun talking with so many this week and sharing Christmas with you.  I am glad family traditions are still going on without us so when we come home we will be involved again in them.  We love you all so much.  We wish you all a Happy New Year and may Christ and the Book of Mormon be in your agenda daily.