"Visa Hold" Continues

The last two weeks have been full of all sorts of unrelated business. As with normal life, very little of the business would be considered earth-shaking news. Nethertheless, it is the stuff that life is made of. Diane continued to prepare delicious meals each day for the four of us at Kent and Rosemary's home. I continued to find little projects around the house that needed attention -- they had a storm door that wouldn't latch, some damaged sheet rock that needed patching, and a couple of other minor things that seemed to fill our time.

We both walk several miles each day through the nearby neighborhoods and along the man-made lakes and streams. The Temple is coming along quite nicely. This view was taken on a very cloudy day, but just as Diane took the picture a ray of sun light shown down on the temple, highlighting it from the surrounding areas.

We were invited to spend Thanksgiving day at Ger & Christy's home. There were only eight of us -- Ger & Christy (obviously), their son Doug, and his wife (Amber) and son (Asher), Diane and I, and my mother. Kent and Rosemary spent Thanksgiving week with her bother in Colorado.

The news of the week was the call that our lap-top computer could not be fixed -- it had been in the shop for over two weeks. So we had to purchase a new one -- an expenditure that I wasn't planning on. It took me almost a full week to transfer all of our files to the new computer. We were really hoping for some other kind of news -- like an update on the status of our Visa -- but nothing!

We were invited to the home of a Tongan couple, who we will be working with on our mission. They have been called to be the Country Humanitarian Service Directors for Papua New Guinea (PNG). We were fed a great Tongan dinner of fish, taro, fresh fruit, and palusami. What a fine feast! We discussed many of the PNG living conditions, such as the PNG school classroom shown here, as they share many pictures with us -- what a place!!!

The couple were are replacing (Elder and Sister Bartholomew) have worked for many months on a project to distribute wheelchairs in PNG. The project was approved and is now in the final stages. We were to have been there for their arrival and distribution. Three hundred and fifty wheelchairs were scheduled to arrive in Port Moresby on the 4th of December with another 315 wheelchairs arriving by the end of December. Hopefully, we will be there to oversee the actual distribution, as shown in this picture.

A side benefit of our long wait for our visas was the opportunity to be present at the annual Christmas lighting of Temple Square. The weather, which (thankfully) had been unseasonable moderate, turned cold the day of the lighting. We both dressed up with as many layers as we could -- but Houston winters don't prepare one for a "Northern Christmas Blast." We got there early enough to walk around and enjoy ourselves before the "dusk lighting."

As with every year, the central focus (between the Tabernacle and the North Visitors' Center) is the wonderfully-done, life-like, Nativity Scene.

Right on schedule, all of the lights came on. The crowd of thousands all cried in unison --"Ahhhh." We read that one tree has over 1500 strings of lights with 50 lights per string. A couple of Sister Missionaries, giving tours on Temple Square, offered to take our picture.

The highlight, the crowning jewel, is the Temple with the surrounding trees giving light to the world -- an ensign to the nations. Just as in our own lives, the Temple becomes the simple of hope, of faith, of covenants made and blessings received -- even blessings beyond this mortal life. We concluded the evening with our cheeks red and rosy like the lighted trees, and our hearts and spirits lifted toward Heaven, just as the spires of the Temple.