Glad to leave January behind...

Another week has flown by, and here we are at the first of February!  Last week our youngest grandbaby turned one without us, fortunately Julie sent a short video of her eating her birthday cake!  We got a little snow last week and had some very cold temperatures, but were spared the huge storm that hit to the north and east of us.  Today again we are on storm watch, but again it looks like we will just be on the edge - we'll see.  Last week's storm really iced up the trees and it was so beautiful,  Wayne took some lovely pictures.

Monday Wayne spent most of the day in Moorefield getting brake work done on the van.  While it was being worked on he was able to borrow a car and go out to Johnny's to practice music for an upcoming ward activity.  Tuesday we had District Meeting in the morning, then in the afternoon we made several visits and worked at the nursing home.  We picked up some groceries for a family that is in crisis, they were very appreciative.   One of the visits was to an older widow, Irene, a special friend of ours.  Outside her living room window she has a bird feeder and we had fun watching the birds while we visited.  Especially loved seeing the bright cardinals (quite striking against the snow).

Wednesday Wayne took off with Baxter and drove far out to our High Priest Group Leader Paul's home.

Wayne said he saw a pretty little church on his drive way out in the country,
but only managed to take a picture of this beautiful (?) snow-covered truck!

They had a presidency meeting, then tried to make a couple visits in the area, but both homes were up lanes that were too snowy and icy to drive up.  But on the way home Wayne and Baxter were able to make a good visit with a man who has drifted away from the church and needed some fellowship and encouragement.  I worked on genealogy,  even helped someone (not a member) who came to the church to wait for a ward member for some kind of a meeting.  I found the visitor some information on ancestry.com that she was thrilled with about her grandmother and gave her my phone number so we could get together again...   Thursday I spent the morning helping Sheila with her genealogy,  Sheila has just returned to activity and is very excited with family history.  She is the one who just reunited with her sister over genealogy.  In the afternoon Wayne and I did a lot of driving around, trying to make contact with elusive members who sadly were not home.

Friday after our meeting with our ward mission leader we drove to Moorefield and had a good visit with George and Bonita at their new second-hand/auction store.  Interesting place and they are very excited about their new business.  Then we drove quite a ways to visit our friend Jane, who has battled MRSA for months and has been pretty isolated.  She looks forward to our visits.  Then way out in the woods to see Joy and Forest - he is pretty sickly and their car is not reliable so they haven't ventured out for two weeks. We enjoyed seeing them, they were happy for the company.  (And gave us some delicious pumpkin roll!) On the way back through Moorefield we stopped at our favorite Mexican restaurant and had a good meal. Saturday - lots of visits and we drove up to Smoke Hole to check out a cute log cabin resort where our daughter Angie and her family might stay when they come to visit us in April.  It looked like a fun place, the trout pond is amazing!  And yes, there are golden trout in it.  We are really looking forward to the Acor visit!

Today we had wonderful meetings and lessons. Ashley and I started a new family history class, including Sonja our recent convert from Germany.  Should be fun.  The Elders had a new investigator at church, Harold, who we first met when we were trying to find someone else.  We visited with him instead, talked to him a little about the church, then sent the Elders to find and teach him.  He is really progressing.  And I am so excited - one of the daughters of the woman who recently passed away is meeting me this week to work on genealogy.  She hasn't been to church for years,  hopefully coming to the family history room will be a first step toward returning to activity.

Next week should be awesome - we get to go up to Romney for District Meeting and will see our friend Woneda who is in the nursing home there.  I have several appointments to help people with genealogy and we have a baptism scheduled for Saturday!  Plus numerous other fun things...

Happy 8th Birthday tomorrow to our cute, sunshiney, best-hug-giver granddaughter Krista!  And on Friday Happy 11th Birthday to the lovely, talented, way-smarter-than-me Miss Ellie Rose.  We sure miss you.

“No, God does not need us to love Him.
But oh, how we need to love God.
For what we love determines what we seek.
What we seek determines what we think and do.
What we think and do determines who we are –
and who we will become.”
– Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Irene gave me this African violet over a year ago,
I am so glad it is thriving.  It's beautiful.