Christmas in South Carolina

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! Christmas Eve was spent quietly at home and Elder Lovell commented on how unusual it was not to have family with us, or a nativity program to take care of, or finishing up the last of the Christmas presents. Our family has spoiled us along with the branch. We had supper at the Weatherford’s and was able to meet some of their family as they came in.  Christmas morning I made bread for dinner, then went to the Weatherford’s for the rest of the day. More family came and some of their daughter’s in-laws. It was loud, active, and there was lots of food. The Christmas dinner consisted of 3 turkeys (2 fried and one roasted), a ham, plain rice with giblet gravy, greasy rice, corn, cornbread dressing, macaroni & cheese, green bean casserole, relish plates, homemade bread, kidney beans, cookies, cakes, pies, etc  It was all very good. I spent a lot of the day practicing sons with children & grandchildren as they were to do the Sacrament meeting program on Sunday and since they were all very talented singers, I was privileged to be their accompanist – and some songs were not easy. However, I guess we were as ready as we could be. 

Christmas Day - it was a beautiful day!

Watching the weather, we are discovering that there are actually some days that are warmer in Ririe, ID than here in Latta, South Carolina!!!! Bro. Hill said that they’ve got to quit sending missionaries from Idaho as we seem to be bringing the cold weather with us.  They say that this winter so far is the coldest it’s been in a long time. I kept telling people that having Christmas without snow is hard.  They assured me that Christmas will still come. It did, but the snow didn’t come until the next day. During the night it actually snowed! We woke up to about 2 inches of wet snow and it is still snowing.  Church was canceled so I don’t have to worry about playing and messing them up!  However, we have really noticed that without church, the rest of the week was really hard - many of us just felt down and really had to work at getting excited about doing anythng. 

Sunday morning, the day after Christmas!

We were told through a text message from the mission office elders, “Because of the snow, leave your cars parked except to drive…” We got a chuckle out of that, then later we received the rest of the story, “to church if your unit has not been canceled. Be safe.” That made more sense. The snow is very wet, cars continue to go by. We are told, however, that we need to stay off the roads even though we can drive on these roads, the people here don’t know how and that’s where the danger is.  The snow is very wet and as it melts on the roads, the temperature drops and then its black ice.  We have been warned to get to the stores and make sure we have food, and have some water on hand as the power will probably go out, and if it does, go to the Weatherford’s as they have a wood stove and we can stay warm there. It’s nice to be looked after!