It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

 They really do Christmas big here.  It starts as soon as Halloween is over.  They keep the tree lights off until after Thanksgiving but the Christmas radio stations are going full steam.  We are enjoying a little break from the heat.  It is comfortable inside our apartment again.  Janice has created a Christmas village out of paper in our office (she is so crafty).  We have our tree up but not decorated.  

Janice's Christmas Village.  She is going to make some more buildings.

Our $10 tree from Goodwill

We are getting back into swimming again.  Janice had a toe infection that has now healed up.  Our favorite place is temple beach.  Most of the time it is just us and we love the warm water, the feel of the waves, and the beauty of the water, sand, and trees.  Here is a picture of the little meditation garden the Church maintains just before the beach.  We stop there coming and going to change into and out of our reef shoes.  

We taught our Sunday School class today.  We love them.  They are a rambunctious lot but we enjoy teaching them so much.  They are going to grow up to be a great strength to the Church wherever they live.

We are sad that we only have a couple more institute lessons left on our mission.  We will finish up on November 30th.  We will however teach again for a few weeks after we are released until the Chamberlains get here.  It has been wonderful to see the whirlwind of life that happens in their affairs - leaving on missions, coming home from missions, engagements, marriage, finals, failures, and successes.  It gives me great hope in the future generation.  That they will take good care of us in our old age.  We had a young man come into our office this week and spent an hour just chatting with us.  When he had to go, he thanked us for providing grandparent time for him and how much it helped him.  We are certain that we are in the right place at the right time.  Why else would we be here.  We love our mission and feel so blessed!

Laie Temple at night (we attended a devotional there last Sunday night)

Tonight we are attending the baptism of one of our students.  She has attended institute all of this semester and her friends have loved her into the Church!  We are so excited for her.