Happy New Year!

Dear Family,

I hope that everyone had a great Christmas.  We were very happy to be able to FaceTime with all of our kids and grandkids and Mom and Lynda and Don.  We looked forward to that more than anything else.  This was the first time that I have ever been away from family for the holidays.  I think I did okay but I really don't recommend it to anyone.  :)  I guess I have to admit that I was glad when the day was over.  Don't get me wrong, we had a nice Christmas Eve and a nice day on Christmas; I just like to be with family.  We have one more to go, but I guess I won't think about that until the next Christmas season!

On Sat. most of the senior missionaries went to see Star Wars together.  It was a lot of fun!  If you haven't seen it already, I would highly recommend that you go see it.  We loved it!  We went to a huge mall to see it and then we went to a Mexican place afterward and had lunch.  I think that it is about the only place around here where you can get Mexican food.  Dad doesn't really like Mexican food but he was a good sport and he did like what he had.

That evening one of the other couples came over and we had a really nice visit.  She is one year younger than me and she went to Rigby High School!  She grew up in Lorenzo!  While they were here we had a giant rainstorm!  I've never seen it rain like that before.  You couldn't see anything out the window.  Yesterday in church they announced that 5 families were flooded on Sat. night.  I guess that for a couple of them it was pretty bad.  It rained really hard again yesterday afternoon and it looks like it is going to rain again today.  The member of the bishopric said yesterday that water seems to be the big problem here--either not enough or too much!  They have been in a bad drought for a couple of years so I'm guessing that these rains are helping the situation.  Down in the south it is raining so much, though, that they are having major flooding.

We are hoping that we get our presentation finished up this week so we can present it next week and then hopefully we will have an assignment to go and actually do something.  It's pretty tough sitting at a desk day after day and try to make up something to do so you look busy.  One of the senior sisters said that she wants to talk to the senior missionary dept. when they get home and let them know what it is like for senior sisters down here.  She goes into the office on Monday mornings and does her report and if she drags out the time, she gets done at around 8:30 a.m. and that's all she has to do for the whole week!  She is teaching an English class one night a week and that helps.  I sure hope that things pick up for us soon.  I think that it is harder on Dad than on me.  One thing he has done that he has enjoyed is writing up some workouts for the young missionaries.  Some of them have been struggling and having too much energy built up and this is helping a ton!  The senior sister missionary who is over mental health has sent it out to all of the mission presidents throughout the entire country.  She is getting some very good feedback.  That makes Dad feel good.

Tonight we are hosting our weekly FHE.  We put together a slide presentation of the Teton Dam Flood and we are showing that and then we have dinner.  I guess it started out as having light refreshments but somehow it expanded so now it's a dinner!  That's okay.  I've kind of enjoyed being in the kitchen today.  I didn't go over to the office today because I had too much to do to get ready.  I've made Borscht and breadsticks and a Brazilian dessert (caramel flan).  They eat a lot of beets down here and we started making Borscht when Evan came home from his mission.  We really like it.  I even found dill at the store and I found out how to make a sour cream substitute and it tastes good so I think we are in business.  I hope everyone likes it.  Dad is bringing a car home to transport the food.  We eat in the apartments that we stayed in back in 1996.  There is a kitchen in the basement.

I hope that everyone has a very Happy New Year!  We love you all very much.  

Love,

Mom and Dad/Paula and Ferron