December in Virginia

I absolutely love these natural Christmas trees that grow here.  The little red berries are so festive and fun!  There are trees with red berries everywhere.  Some have leaves, some are just berries, some are trimmed like this into a Christmas tree shape.  I would like to steal one to put in my house.  I wouldn't even have to decorate it!

We said good-bye to one one of our favorite Elders who finished his mission and went home in time for Christmas.  What a joy it was to work with Elder D.

We babysat our "honorary" grandson one evening so that his parents could go to the officer's ball.  He was so much fun and really enjoyed Grandpa Elkins.  His favorite toys were: the bears, the aerobic step, a bucket full of potatoes, a laundry basket, and a phone. We have become good friends with his parents and will miss them when they transfer a month before we do.

At the mission conference it is always fun to see some of our favorite Elders.  Elder S was transferred back to work with us again as a District Leader and Elder R is the Zone Leader in another area now.

We were happy to have permission to spend Christmas with our daughter and her family.

It is so fun to be with family for Christmas.  It was a nice day, even if the kids were wishing for a white Christmas.

Our oldest grandson turned twelve a couple days before Christmas and is ready to be ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood.  What a wonderful blessing.

My sister sent these "stockings" for our Christmas.  What fun. 

We stopped by the DC Temple grounds.  Unfortunately the live nativity display is only in the evenings but they left this camel just sitting around so we had to get a picture or two.  We did enjoy seeing the creche displays in the Visitor's Center.

Soldier "Mom" gets a salute from her son at graduation.

She is one of our LDS soldiers who just got transferred to Korea.

The Chaplain called us!

     Monday was a busy day even though it was a holiday (Labor Day).  Many of our soldiers had left for the 4-day weekend. In the morning we picked up Soldier M from the Newport News airport, then took him around to some apartments to find a place for his family to live. (Some of our soldiers have training for 6 months, so they can move the family to the area if desired - even though they themselves still stay in the barracks most of the time.)  He was successful in securing a place that had a fence for the 3 kids and a dog only a few minutes drive from the base.

     In the afternoon we drove to the Norfolk airport (1 hour away) to get Soldier K.  After a couple calls and 1 1/2 hours of flight delays we were finally able to pick him up.  The poor man had been travelling all day from California and had a major headache. I knew how he felt because flying makes me sick too.  We finally got him delivered back to the base.

     At 10PM we drove back to Norfolk to get Soldier L.  His wife gave birth to twins the previous week so he was happy to go home for a few days.  We didn't know if he would be depressed for having to leave his wife and babies, but he was very happy to have been home. His flight finally came in at 11:30PM.

     We fell into bed just after 1AM, having missed the Senior Missionary Couples dinner earlier that evening.  Most of the missionaries have P-Day on Monday, but we take our breaks when we can get them and Monday isn't usually that day!

     Tuesday we had to be on base early for In-Processing which is usually on Monday, but was delayed because of the holiday.  We received 8 new LDS soldiers from the group.  Normally we get 1 to 4, so eight at once is a fun surprise.  All of these new soldiers are 18 years old, just out of High School.  They are so young!  We really pray that they will choose to attend church and make their army life much easier.

     Next was our mid-day Family Home Evening.  We usually bring sandwich fixings and share with the full-time Elders while we wait to see if any soldiers show up.  This FHE session is not as well attended as the evening session. We had been too rushed to bring food so we took the Elders to the food court at the PX (Post Exchange or base "mall") to buy some lunch. As we were preparing to leave with our take-out lunch a female soldier walked up to us with a big smile. "I haven't seen missionaries on the base for years!" she said. Obviously she was an inactive member.  Elder R took down her contact information and will follow up because she said, "Call me!"  We decided that was why we needed to be there that morning. 

     I am glad that I took this picture of our chapel a few months ago because the look is changing.  The cross has been removed and will be displayed someplace else instead of the front of the chapel.  The chaplain assistant has always been worried about it offending us, since we don't display the cross, but we have assured him that it is not offensive to us at all, since we do honor and remember the crucifixion.  The reason it has been removed is because of the large 60 inch screen TV that will be installed.  Those curtains will also be removed. I guess the drum set will stay since the Protestants use those for their service.  We are really excited that they are working to get an internet connection so that we can watch general conference in this building instead of transporting soldiers to the stake center.  Hopefully it will be more convenient and available for the soldiers - and ready in a couple weeks as promised.
     Wednesday we got a call from the battalion chaplain.  He said that he met with a soldier who should meet and counsel with US.  Imagine that!  We met with the soldier the next day.
     Soldier W is an inactive church member who has been at Ft. Eustis for nearly 2 years trying to complete his training.  He and a couple battle buddies became particularly close. The plan was for the 3 friends to go to Germany together for their next duty assignment. Through a series of test failures and medical problems, he did not graduate with his friends.  The two friends moved on and he stayed behind. Recently he learned that those friends were killed in an automobile accident in Germany.  He certainly would have been with them if he had succeeded in his training.  He was trying to figure out what God had in mind for him through all of this.  He had been raised in the church but at some point fell away.  He was one of those soldiers who did not identify himself as a member, so we were not aware of him on the base. 

     Elder Elkins gave him a blessing which told him how much his Father in Heaven loves him.  He seems like a really nice young man who is at a turning point.  He can choose to come back now and have some real peace in his life.  We hope that is what he will choose. We invited him with all of the energy and love that we could offer.  At his request I called his parents that evening.  They have been praying for him and love him very much.  There must be reasons for him to be here, and he is trying to figure it out.
    Soldier N is one who has recently come back into activity and has been attending faithfully.  By requesting his records we learned that he is a Priest.  He wasn't sure what Priesthood he had been given before he fell away.  He will now have the opportunity to use that Priesthood as the other soldiers guide him. His great desire is to receive his Patriarchal Blessing.  Because of the changing of leadership in the ward, we have been unable to get him an interview.  We had hoped for this Sunday, at Stake Conference but he will be in FTX (Field Training Exercises) and that makes it impossible for him to attend conference.  He only has a few weeks left here. Ahhh...the challenges of Army life at Fort Eustis.
     This morning we attended the graduation that was supposed to be for one of our dear soldiers.  He has been trying to pass his PT (Physical Training) tests, getting closer, but ultimately failing each time. Since he was not in attendance at the graduation we knew that he had failed once again.  He has such a tender heart it is sad to see him not be able to succeed.  His instructors must have felt the same way about him, since they have given him extra tries.  We don't know yet whether they will give him one more try or if they are processing him out of the army this time.  He volunteered to lead the music in our meetings for the past few months and we will miss him terribly.  The army is not the right place for everyone.
     Zone Meeting today made it a good day for feeling the Spirit.  Our young Elders and Sisters are so wonderful.  It has been a busy week and we will not get much rest till after Stake Conference on Sunday.  We had to find a new driver for the church van to transport soldiers to the Stake Center. (Brother D got transferred to Hawaii!)  Hopefully that will work out along with the meal and everything involved.
      Keep praying for us.  It does help.

Hurricane Irene - A Slight Inconvenience

Calm before the storm, a nice sunset and trees over the pond the night before Hurricane Irene arrived.

One of the drains on our apartment building.  You can see that it is putting down a LOT of water.  We got somewhere around 12 inches of rain in 24 hours.

The level of the drainage "lake" behind our apartment rose 5-6 feet during the storm.  The edge of the water is normally on the other side of those trees.  It could have gone up a few more feet before we would have been in danger of getting flooded.

In the afternoon the windows in the study began to spring leaks. We soaked up the steady rain with towels around the windows. Evidently the seal wasn’t adequate for this kind of torrential rain. We changed the towels often and wrung them out as they got soaked. We were grateful that I had thought to remove all papers and a small filing cabinet away from that side of the room, away from the windows, and also that we had decided to stay home. The carpet would have been very soggy and in need of being replaced, not to mention the mold which is a problem in this area. Eventually one window in the bedroom sprang a leak as well, but not till the rain had slowed down quite a bit.

This crawdad walked across the lawn and visited our patio.  I guess he was evacuating from the pond out back.

This was the landscape pretty much everywhere along with lots of branches and a few trees down.

Our power quit at 1:00pm on Saturday and came back on at 4:00pm on Monday.  We stayed away from the roads for 2 days because people don't know what do to without traffic lights and there were many accidents. We were disappointed that our land-line telephone quit working a few hours after the power went off.  We thought that would keep working and found out that the current technology only supplies battery power for a few hours.  Even the cell phones didn't work.  We were able to finally get a couple text messages out to let people know that we were  OK.

The entrance to our apartment complex is usually immaculate.  It took a few days to get back to normal.

This is just one small branch that broke off. All roads were lined with broken trees and branches.

On the army post, this used to be a covered area (gazebo) where the soldiers could get out of the sun when they were outside doing field exercises.  The tree that took it out is lying there.

Some of the smaller trees had problems too.

The top broke off of this poor tree.

On Sunday all church services were cancelled in the area.  We were encouraged to go out and help our neighbors with chainsaws and tools.  Since we didn't have any of those things we went outside at our complex with some bags and began picking up pinecones, branches, and debris.  One young couple saw us and asked if they could help.  We filled 6 bags in 30 minutes.

     Hurricane Irene wasn’t as fierce as expected, but it still took out enough trees to leave over 7 million homes without power along the east coast. The prediction was for a category 2 or 3 to hit our area but it was mostly a category 1 with gusts that would measure a cat. 2. We had prayed for safety and also that the hurricane would be turned away from the land. It was definitely moderated from what it could have been. The Mission President moved all of the young missionaries to the Richmond area to keep them out of the direct hit.  Richmond got as much wind and rain as we did here. We were given the choice whether to relocate or stay in our apartment for the storm. We opted to stay since we weren’t in a mandatory evacuation zone. We never felt panic or promptings to leave the area. We would have had to leave Thursday or Friday because once the storm began on Saturday, many roads were closed because of flooding and other major roads were clogged with traffic. We did know that we would likely lose power, and that came true. We had a full gas tank, batteries, flashlights, water and food. Fortunately it wasn't winter so we didn't have to worry about getting cold.  It did get hot though, without air conditioning.
     We went to Costco to print the graduation pictures on Friday and were amazed at the feeling of panic in the air as people grabbed armloads of batteries, bread, cases of water, and other provisions. I thought to myself, “Where have these people been? Haven’t they been aware of this hurricane for several days? Don’t they LIVE in a hurricane prone area?”  I heard one news reporter saying that she was in Walmart buying water and saw a lady put her hand over her ears and exclaim, “I just can’t deal with this!”                       IF YE ARE PREPARED YE SHALL NOT FEAR.
     We felt blessed during and after the hurricane.  We were a little inconvenienced by the loss of power, but knew that it could have been much worse.  We also missed meeting with the soldiers on Sunday because all services were cancelled on the base.  Our poor chapel building had some roof leaks and seriously needs repair. (They knew this long before the hurricane.) 

     We continue to pray for those up the coast who have been devastated much more than our inconvenience.

Earthquakes, Hurricanes and Snakes?

     On Tuesday we were in a Zone Conference at the Denbigh Chapel.  During the last discussion by President Perry the benches began to shake.  We looked around to see what somebody was doing to cause the benches to shake and realized that nobody was doing it.  We looked up and saw the chandeliers swinging.  We all realized together that we were in the middle of an earthquake.  About the time we began wondering if we should be worried and go outside, the shaking died down.  We didn't yet know whether the quake was local or really big somewhere else.  We later found that it was in  Virginia, closer to DC.  Some buildings had damage, including the DC Temple, but nobody was injured that I heard of.
     Now we are gearing up for Hurricane Irene.  It is supposed to come through here on Saturday and be quite severe.  We have been receiving instructions from our Zone and District Leaders in the mission.  First we were told to put a 72 hour kit with water in our car, fill the gas tank, put the phone charger in the car, and stand by for more information.  Later we were told that gas was being rationed, in fact some places were out of regular, and that the freeway was already at a standstill.  We are still more than 24 hours away from the hurricane in our area.  Fortunately we filled the tank this morning, before everyone got the same idea.
     I went outside to remove the patio furniture so it wouldn't blow around in the hurricane.  There was a snake in the corner staking out a secure place before the storm starts.  Elder Elkins said, "It's just a garter snake."  I said, "JUST a snake?  Just a snake? It's a snake and that's disgusting enough!"

     OK, he can have that corner, I won't challenge that, but when the storm is over, if he is still there, he'll have to go.  That's my patio.  I wonder if a snake would fly through the air in a hurricane.  hmmm.
    

Loaves and Fishes

We had a new record today.   20 soldiers showed up for church.  The most we've ever had before was 15.  What a great group!  It is a challenge to know how much food to fix, not knowing how many will be attending.  Every Saturday I make a new batch of bread so that it will be fresh for Sunday.  I also figure that if we run out of the main course, they can always eat bread!  Today we ate 3 1/2 of the 4 loaves that I brought.  There was one bowl of chicken stew left over.  I don't know how they missed that one.  Chocolate chip cookies filled in the other little round holes in their appetites. 

Elder S is our new "greenie", being here about 10 days.  Elder R is the District Leader and they are assigned to our Ft. Eustis group, as well as the Newport News 2nd Ward.  It is frustrating to introduce them to all of the wonderful non-member soldiers who attend and not have the ability to provide teaching opportunities very often because of the soldiers' busy schedules.  This is the building where we hold services on Sunday, and FHE on Tuesdays.  There aren't very many LDS church buildings with a neon "open" sign.

Tabernacle Choir

We were way in the Scope Arena but we could see and hear just great.

Alex Boye was magnificent.  And when he started dancing while the choir was singing, the crowd loved him even more!

Announcer for the choir, Lloyd Newell.

Of course you all know the beloved director Mack Wilberg.  Wonderful as always.

We attended the first performance of the Tabernacle Choir tour.  It was in Norfolk, which is in our mission.  What a wonderful performance and delightful night.  There were over 7,000 people in attendance and they obviously appreciated the talent.  They were all on their feet before the end of the final song, Battle Hymn of the Republic.  So we got some encores. 

The next day the choir was in Williamsburg and did a "flash mob" singing of a patriotic song at one of the historical sites.  That would have been fun to see.  You might be able to find it if you look up Deseret News online.

Dogwood Trees

This is one of my absolute favorite trees that blossoms in the East.  I wish I could keep one.

This pink Dogwood is less common, so it's a real treat!

The blossoms probably won't last long.  It seems like a new kind of tree or bush blossoms every week.

Spring in Virginia

I looked out this morning and saw these geese who are usually IN the lake, eating bugs around the apartments.  They didn't seem to mind me getting close for pictures, but kept an eye on me.

These ducks probably have a nest in the reeds around the lake.

This heron thought I couldn't see him, because he was holding very still.  I couldn't get very close, but he is such a pretty blue color.

Popcorn trees?

The trees everywhere are popping with color, leaves, and blossoms.  It is breathtaking.

I love, love, love Spring.

Set My Feet A Dancing

We attended a party last night that celebrated 24 years of the Fellowship House.  They are a group of volunteers (not unlike senior missionaries) who support the soldiers on Fort Eustis.  They are connected to the Protestant Worship Services and provide concerts, fellowshipping, and relaxation, along with promoting Jesus in the lives of those soldiers who want to participate.  We had a nice dinner then stayed to see some of the entertainment.  We were delightfully entertained.  Part way through I realized that the little camera that I had with me could take videos.  So I got a little, even though it is not very clear.  I thought y'all would enjoy some of this "rocking music" as well.  In case you can't understand the words of this fun lady, she is singing a song that she wrote. "Holy Ghost set my feet a dancin'; Holy Ghost thrilled me through and through;  Holy Ghost set my feet a dancin', and set my heart a dancing too!"   She is accompanying herself of the Autoharp.

CANCELLED CHURCH!

    The storm that flooded California, Nevada, and Arizona is now in the East in the form of snow.  I just went out and measured 12 1/4 inches so far and it is supposed to keep snowing a few more hours.  Church was cancelled, so we didn't have to get out on the road.  People do not know how to drive in weather like this so the roads are really dangerous.  It is nice to stay home where it is warm and cozy and watch the snow fall.  Next week it is supposed to be in the 50's.  This is an interesting winter.

    We just watched some people making a snowman.  They made a large mound of snow, about 3-4 feet high, then carved the snowman "ball" shape into it before adding twigs for arms.  I've never seen anyone make a snowman with that method.   Do the people out here not know how to roll balls and stack them?  Hmmm.

We made a snow lizard on our car.

Did the geese come for a nice skating spree on our lake?