November gone December here

First snow of the year

November has fled, we are well into December and the Holiday rush is upon us.  This last month has been wonderful as we were able to complete another semester of Institute.  Sister Mikkelsen taught The Gospel and the Productive Life. I taught The Doctrine and Teachings of the Book of Mormon. Together we taught Introduction to Family History. We had a wonderful semester. We had over 60 students registered and about 70% attendance.  That is the best that this area has seen for over 5 years.

Our youth on a temple trip

Relief Society activity! These are great sisters

Family Home Evening is always lots of fun

Reverse Charades 

Ginger Bread (gram cracker) house building

Here are two of our sisters with one of their friends they are teaching

We are so blessed to be able to serve where the youth are so strong in the gospel and seek for more wisdom and knowledge.  I wish that I could invite each of you into my class to observe these youth. I spend lots of hours preparing and seeking for guidance in what to teach.  When I get to the class I'll ask a few questions and before I know it the 1 1/2 is over and we have hardly gone through half of the lesson.  These youth are so in tune and inspired. They, along with the assistance of the Holy Ghost, teach each other.  I'm basically there to pick on the next person who raises their hand. Oh what a blessing it is to work with these wonderful youth. The future of the church is in good hands.
Pathway is a program where we work with members of our stake to develop their skills to be successful in university studies.  We have a great group. They are a blessing to us each week.  We facilitate an EnglishConnect1 group on Tuesday night. The missionaries are the teachers and we have added a lot of friends to their teaching pool as they bring them to class to teach them English.

Our Pathway class. Some of the best in our stake

Our district just before transfers.  These young people are blessing
lots of lives.

Those are little blobs of ice that froze to the moss strings hanging
in the water it was an interesting photo

This was our final tomato harvest before the frost hit
Since this picture all of those tomatoes ripened and we have feasted on them

Sunrise from our window.

The first part of November came in with a wintery blast and we thought we were going to be socked in for the winter.  But since that first big snow storm things warmed back up and most of the snow is gone again.  I'm sure we have lots to look forward to the rest of the winter but we are content to let it come later.

Love this site

This bench has appeared many times in different
seasons look forward to more pictures of this bench

In Canada, as we talked about last month, they have their Thanksgiving in the middle of October, but that didn't stop us from celebrating our American traditions at our USA appointed time.  We were blessed to have Daniel, Sonina, and our little Granddaughter Aria come and spend a few days with us.  They are so wonderful to make that 14 hour road warrior drive. I don't know how they do it.  We had a wonderful time. We sent mom and dad off on a day long date and we had little Aria all to ourselves the entire day.  Grandkids are the best!

Notice dads mouth as Aria Eats- automatic reflex

Let's go Grandpa

I love my Grandma

Parting is hard this was taken as they left

Happy Thanksgiving 

We have had lots of Pre-Christmas activities and parties.  We started off the month of December with the Light the World Campaign.  Our youth in the ward decided that we needed to hand out service ornaments. So we purchased 500 silicone bracelets and produced cards that had a service printed on the back. They then placed them on a Christmas tree and went to different locations to hand them out.  We have placed over 300 cards so far this month and have 4 more dates for sharing.  They have found several really wonderful Friends to teach the gospel to.  We hope each of you are also participating in this wonderful activity.

Here is the brackets and the cards we made 10 per sheet and then
just cut them apart  We will do over 600 by end of the month

Other service opportunities to do- gift wrapping 

Sister Mikkelsen demonstrating her wrapping skills

We enjoyed a stake Christmas concert two weeks ago and last Sunday the First Presidency Devotional and our Stake reception.  The stake president has a reception before the Devotional and we had about two hundred people in attendance.  It doesn't hurt that they have some amazing refreshments prior to the devotional, including Shrimp Cocktail.
This last week we had our Ward Christmas party. It was a big success with over 60 in attendance.  We had a talent show as part of the activities.  We have a very talented ward.  We had native cultural Mexican dancing, solos, Guitars and singing and even a duet that played the drums and an electric guitar.  He played the Guitar with a cello bow.  It was a mesmerizing sound.  These youth never stop amazing me.

The ward Christmas party

Handing out brackets and cards downtown Ottawa

Well that takes us to the really big news for this posting.  That's right!  Sister Mikkelsen and I are Grandparents again. Natalie and Jacob had a little baby boy, Grayson Jep Mikkelsen, on Friday December 6th at 10:30 MST.  He was 8 LBS 5 oz.  He and mom are doing great. Dad has been amazing! This blessing forces me to testify of the blessings of a mission.  3 of our 4 grandchildren were born while we were serving missions and the 4th one came after we had already received our call.

Welcome home Grayson Jep Mikkelsen

Happy Birhday mom and son

Jacob makes a good-looking Daddy

 Yes we miss being with them now but they are safe and healthy and that is a wonderful mission blessing.  Here in this mission we have like 20 couples serving and we meet with them over Zoom each week.  It is unbelievable the miracles they are seeing and being a part of.  This is a wonderful opportunity plan now to allow yourselves to be blessed as full-time missionaries.  We love each of you and wish you a Merry Christmas and Blessed New Year.
Elder and Sister Mikkelsen

Other blessings of serving a mission- the family photos!

October How We Loved You

Wonder Fall Time

Morning mist on Mooney's Bay

Breakfast time

Line up Boys it's time to Head south!

Fall path

Don't feed the Ducks

What a glorious time of the year.  It has been a wonderful month. The Fall Fashion Show has just been spectacular.  We were blessed with some wonderful warm weather and crisp days to help the leaves put on their show.  Sister Mikkelsen has been collecting some beautiful leaves the past few weeks and now we need to develop some type of way to display them.  We are thinking of creating placemats.  This is a project for another day.

The above pictures were taken on a walk
at this place. Those of you that don't speak
French thats blue sea.  But really it is a Bog.
The second Largest one in Ontario. There is a board
walk that takes you out across ponds and the bog
area.  You can't go off the walk or you sink.
It is one of the most amazing areas we have found!

This is the Experimental farm just down the road
from our apartment. The pictures below were taken there.
Over 1700 different trees. Some are very interesting.

We truly enjoyed General Conference at the first of the month.  What a blessing it was to listen to those inspired messages.  We had a double treat this year because two weeks later Elder Ballard and Elder Christofferson came out to the North America North East Area (NENA) and presented two days of discussions and firesides. On a Saturday morning from Sharon Vermont, the birth place of Joseph Smith, they did a training for all missionaries in our NENA area. They provided great insight and motivation for all of us missionaries as they discussed how we can better serve in our areas.  That Evening we had a YSA dinner and then attended a fireside for the Area Young Adults. To top off the weekend they provided another family Fireside on Sunday Evening.  Elder Ballard encouraged all of us to pray for our Nation. It is very evident that we need to pray and seek for divine guidance that those who are leading our nation might be inspired to make those decision that will bless us and keep us free so that we may continue to worship God. So in you daily prayers please add that petition to our Heavenly Father that we might receive the blessings that are needed.

We had Thanksgiving at the mission home it was Oct 15 here in Canada
there were about 40 people there for dinner.  President and Sister Low are the best.

Some of the senior missionaries

President Low bottom right Sister Low sanding in back

Last district meeting for this transfer.  We have a big district of 15
there was a triple this transfer.

Things have really picked up here in our area.  We are going full blast with our Pathway group we are almost half way through the semester.  We have 15 Wonderful people that we are privileged to work with each week.  We also launched our new EnglishConnects 1 class.  We have just completed the first three lessons and have had 8 people attend so far. More than half of them are not members of the church. We are using the missionaries as the instructors for this class.  They are amazing as they teach the English Language and share their testimonies at the same time.  We just finished an 8 week transfer so we have been with this group a little longer than normal.  We are blessed to get to know these wonderful youth.

Hogs Back Falls

Moony's Bay on cloudy day

Loved the mist covered web

Dew on the leaves

These are actually berries on the tree there are no leaves left on this tree

Wedding reception of Julie lots of our youth

Carloyn's wedding reception

We had another two of our YSA get married this past month and another one got engaged.  It is so fun to be involved with them as they are moving through their lives.  We have lots of opportunities to mix and mingle with them each week.  They are a delight to work with.  We have Family Home Evenings each week and this last Monday we did a Halloween activity.  We had a good group out and the games were fun.

The winning spaghetti mini marshmelow tower 24 Inches tall

lots of fun kids in our ward

Well this past month the weather has been great. The tomatoes on our deck have been producing quite well.  We had to cover them two nights to avoid the frost but they have been a blessing in our food preparation.  Last night the wind started to blow and a cold front has moved in and snow is in the forecast so the growing season has now ended and we are preparing for our long winter experience.
In closing we just want to tell all of you how much we love and miss you.  What a blessing it is to be on a mission.  So many blessings.  Our grandchildren are growing we celebrated two of their birthdays the past couple of months and they actually had a chance to meet each other for the first time. Riley and jonathan made it up so all three cousins have now met each other.

Happy birthday Mads

Mads and Aria meeting in Chicago for the first time

The fun French class at institute

 Our Jacob and his little wife had a baby shower last week and they are anxiously awaiting the arrive of their new little one.  He is due the first part of December.  So being on a mission brings the blessing of grandchildren.  We do miss them some but we constantly visit with them on FaceTime.

Our daughter-in-law Erika at the shower jacob and Mads in the background

My sister and Niece at the shower with Jacob and Natalie

Oh what a marvelous invention it is to have video messaging.  We hope each of you are well and as we move into this Holiday season we wish you all the best.  You need to get excited about this years "Light the World "Campaign that the church is sponsoring it will bless your life as you serve people this season "One by One".  We love you and wish you the best all of our love Elder and Sister Mikkelsen.