Christmas 2013

To say this was a 'different' Christmas would be an understatement. Different than last year, different than previous years, well really, different from any year EVER in Sheffield/Watson history!

We opened our Christmas box from the kids Christmas Eve night. The gifts brought smiles as we unwrapped Lee's sugar pops, noodle soup envelopes, personalized I LOVE MY MISSIONARY pillow cases, razors, mentos, Oh Henry Bars, cash for dinners out, hand colored pictures, Red Robin seasoning, onion soup envelopes, almond joys, pot holders, perfumes, down east shirts, knee high nylons, notecards, spiral notebook, good and plenty candy, instant breakfasts, Carmel corn, and grape nuts for Mimi. THANK YOU FOR THE THOUGHTFUL GIFTS! We spoke to our children by FaceTime early Christmas morning and again after THEIR Christmas morning. Also called my dad Freddie and Lee's sister Debbie.

Most missionaries were invited to members homes for breakfast and to Skype home to their families. Since we have wi-fi at our flat, there were 4 sisters here for breakfast and they used our Ipad, the laptop, and one mom called on her cell phone to talk all at the same time. We had some difficulty getting Skype hooked up correctly to the family in Tahiti, but it eventually worked! There were happy tears all around from the girls, their families, AND from us as we listened to their joyful conversations with Provo, Utah, Sydney Australia, Tahiti, and Layton Utah.

By 11:00 am Christmas morning, senior missionaries were at the church kitchen to wash grapes and apples and slice 20 loaves of lemon, ginger, banana, and carrot bread for the missionaries lunch upon their arrival at noon.

After brunch, the talent show began! Elder Flood was the MC and he introduced each zone skit, musical number, and the seniors even performed as a singing Christmas Tree. I'll include the original words to the chopsticks tune later. President Carter sang a couple of Christmas songs and accompanied himself on the guitar.

When the young missionaries moved into the chapel to watch the 2013 DVD Sister Salazar made, the seniors prepared green salads, mixed veggies, baked potatoes with sour cream, cheese, chives and butter, baked ham, and rolls for 5:30 pm dinner for 120 people. Dessert was ice cream and toppings. 

The Smiths from Mount Gambier, the Larsens from Mildura, plus the Whites, Goodrichs, Sheffields, and Salazar from the office all worked together to prepare, serve, and clean up lunch and dinner, as well as zone conference lunch the next day. There were a million trips to and from the mission home across the church parking lot, and thank goodness for the senior men who hauled supplies back and forth! What a team!

After Christmas dinner, Sister Carter distributed gifts (assembled by the seniors earlier in the week) which included the 2013 DVD, a CD recording from the Christmas Missionary Fireside (both burned by Sis Salazar) a card from the first presidency, a red felt Christmas stocking sewed by Sis Goodrich that contained a scroll, candy cane, temple recommend holder, candy, etc, along with a yellow helping hands tshirt for each missionary.

Seniors had presorted all of the missionaries Christmas gifts from home by zone in different corners of the office so they were easily distributed after dinner. Missionaries filled Christmas fruit baskets to take to investigators on the way home Christmas night.

We came home tired but joyful for having celebrated our Savior's birth in this far place with people from all over the globe. It is a treasured entry in our mental memory book.