Christmas Day

Neal and I opened our presents to each other.  I bought him a set of coins that were from his birth year.  I think he liked them.  It's always hard to tell whether he is excited about a gift or not.  I also bought him a heavy duty three in one hand truck to use hauling his patio pots back and forth.  He bought me a pink light weight jacket and a ruby ring.  The ring totally surprised me and I was thrilled.  We don't usually exchange gifts, but this year for some odd reason, we both bought each other something.

After we exchanged our gifts we drove out to Maren's to see their Christmas and from there to James home to see what River and Desmond got.  We had a very nice visit with James and his wife Mirian.  Then we headed out to Stansbury to see the Gertsons.  While we were there, Mallory called in.  Emmi had it all set up so that she came on the big screen and she could see all of us.  It was so fun to visit with her and see how very happy she is.  She is loving her mission and wishes that the church would allow the young women to stay for two years like they do the young men.

You can see by looking at her smile how very happy she is.  It was a beautiful experience to hear her share her testimony of the gospel with us.  Everyone in the room had tears in their eyes and down their cheeks.  The spirit bore witness that what she was saying was true.  We were able to talk to her for an hour and a half and then she had go.  We all just sat there and enjoyed what we had just experienced.  I wished we had recorded her thoughts.

After, we played a game and Annie fixed a delicious dinner.  We visited for a bit longer and then saw that it was starting to snow so we headed home.  It was a beautiful ending to a perfect holiday season.  Annie gave me a framed saying that she made that pretty much summed up Christmas for me:  "It's not what's under the Christmas tree that matters, it's whose around it."  Charlie Brown