Whew, this week has flown by. . . . . .

        Sunday the 15th was a special day.. Sister Brown and I had asked the members of 1st ward to fast for Bishop Martin.  He is suffering from degenerative disk disease in his neck and is in great pain 24/7. The spirit was so strong during church service & I could feel the love we all have for our Bishop.  He has been cleared for a titanium joint replacement in his neck and they are waiting for the insurance and the doctors to work it out.. We are hoping it can be resolved soon so he can be relieved of his pain.  We visited sister Eileen Zimmer that evening.. with all the people in 2 wards to get to know we really don't always know who every sister is until they open their door for our visit. Such was the case with Eileen. We saw her at church, but didn't know her name.  We had a great visit & got to know her a little better.       On Monday we helped the Gillisen family pack to get ready to move.  Sister Brown, Janice Gardener & I loaded, books, and books and books.. and lots of craft things and then helped Jennifer pack up her office.. Jennifer is an event planner and works out of her home.. So we now know who to go to when we want a party!



     On Tuesday, we put together the recipe books for our relief society presentation on Thursday evening.  Sister Brown and I are in charge of coming up with tastings each month.  This month we decided to use two things from the cannery & help the sisters learn how to use these foods from their food storage.. We chose re-fried beans and powdered milk.  We asked Terry Prater in our ward to help by presenting things that can be made with powdered milk and she was excited to help out.  We put together several recipes using each of the products we were going to spotlight.. We will add recipes each month using the food items that we choose to spotlight, such as after school snacks, fruit in season, comfort foods, soups, and etc. By the end of the year they will each have a full recipe book of great ideas..

 Elder & Sister Noel, Sister Wege, Sister Larsen, Sister Brown & Me

       Wednesday was our day to work at the temple.. and it was a beautiful sunny day for a change, to drive up.  We had our District meeting at the visitors center prior to our temple shift. Our district is composed of the 4 of us that are the Auxiliary Specialists and the Noels who are our district leaders.  We got to meet the 4th member of our team who just arrived, Sister Larsen from Blackfoot, Idaho.  We meet each month and discuss our progress in our areas.

     Sister Wege is putting together a White House tour for the 6 of us.. We should be able to go sometime in April..

     At the temple I was given a new assignment.. I am now the initiatory director.. I really do love that assignment. I served in that position at the Mesa temple for a year so I sort of know the procedures, but each temple is different so I was trained on Weds..
       As we were leaving the temple I saw someone I thought I knew.. I said "Jodi", she turned around and said "Jean.. what are you doing here".. I have known Jodi for a long time thru the scrapbook industry and haven't seen here in several years, because she moved to Boston.  She moved to DC in July and just happened to be attending the temple on Weds. evening.. It was so much fun to see her and catch up, and we promised we will get together and do some fun things while I am in DC.  She will be going to California next week and will see my daughter Kristan, so she is giving her a hug from me.. what a treat to see an old friend. 

 From left: Mollyanne Margolis, Sister Brown, Me, Mary Smith, Elaine Bowie, Nicole Cusic, Kristi Hoefferle

     Thursday we met with 5 sisters from the 2nd ward for a visiting teaching luncheon at Panera. It was the one way we could all get together.. It really was fun to be with them, we were all different ages and different stages in our lives, but we had so much to talk about and enjoy each others company. We decided to do it monthly..

     Thursday evening was the 2nd ward's relief society.  The theme was "Organization".. we have a really cute sister Melody Lusk, that comes as "Mrs. Bunch-a-hints", she is decked out to look like mama in the Carol Burnett show and she is a hoot.. she shared hints on organization and then we had another presentation from Deanna VanSlyke on her secrets for home organization.. Then it was our turn to share our new "tasting" program.. It went great and everyone love the samples.. For our tastings we did "Hot Chili Queso Dip", using refried beans, Queso is a Harper family favorite and I thought it would be good for a Super Bowl party.. Terry  fixed yogurt with strawberries, sour cream with carrot's to dip, and cream cheese on a cracker, all from powdered milk. Everyone loved the tastings and we felt so good to have completed our first night with a bang.. We then all went into the gym to cover composition notebooks into "joy Journals". what a fun day..
     On Friday we were asked to take a sister Shirley Blake to her Dr. appointment.. We had been trying to get a hold of Shirley for several weeks and we were told she wouldn't answer her phone if she didn't recognize the phone number.. So we were happy to finally get to meet her. She lives in a retirement apartment complex and she said for us to meet her at the front door.  When she walked out, we saw this darling little lady about 5 feet tall.. so cute and perky.  What a joy it is to be of help, and be so appreciated by those we help.  After her Dr. appointment she asked if we could stop at Safeway and we said "no problem".. She took her little cart and zipped around the store.. she really knew what she wanted and where she was going. She promised to put our phone number in her phone, so when we call she will know it is us and will answer. And we are going to visit her next week. 
      Friday evening was our 2nd ward temple night in conjunction with our ward conference on Sunday.  Sister Brown and I rode up to DC with Bonnie and Gary Ramon.. We left early in the afternoon so we could go to the bookstore and then out to dinner before going to the temple.  The restaurant that they took us to was the place they had their first date.  It was a fantastic Chinese restaurant called " Hong Kong Cafe".. the meal was so good.. we shared, chicken chow mien, shrimp fried rice & crispy shredded chicken with carrots and broccoli.  They have a fun tradition when the fortune cookies come.. each one reads their fortune followed by the statement "in the bathtub".. we had a good laugh as the fortunes were read.. The temple session was wonderful, we had a over 40 people from the ward attend..
      We were warned on the news that a severe winter storm was expected on Friday evening.. So we didn't know what to expect when we left the temple to go home, but the storm hadn't hit yet.  The Ramon's dropped us off at our car and by the time we drove the 10 minutes to our place it was starting to spit snow.. when I went to bed about 1 1/2 later I looked out the window and saw that everything was covered in a layer of "white".. I had missed the snow.. It was below freezing so as the mist continued to fall all night, everything is covered in a layer of ice.. the roads were salted so they were ok, but the parking lot of our apartment and the cars are covered in a layer of ice.. We are staying in all day today and will have to go out really early tomorrow morning to make sure we can get into our car and clear it off to get to church.