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!