Poem

When I feel discouraged
and life becomes a task
I think of sweet young Mary
riding on a donkeys back

How deep was her anguish
Oh, how great was her pain
Sheltered in a stable on the
night the Christ Child came

It took faith to see the glory
on that cold night, I suppose
When she wrapped her new born baby
lovingly in swaddling clothes

In my mind, I see our Savior
in the manger at rest
Thank you Lord, hope raings eternal
and I know I've been blessed

Sis. Betha

(Some of you may have gotten this poem in my Aunt Vels christmas card, but today would have been grandma's birthday and I don't really have any of her poems or songs, and I wanted to post something for her, so I decided to just post this poem.)

Christmas and The Weekend

On Wednesday night we had a really good meeting, even with the small amount of people who were there. Then we went home and opened one gift each and 'went to bed'.

Christmas morning we all got up and then we opened the rest of our presents. Then we cleaned up and started preparing the food for our Christmas dinner. Bro. Derek and Sis. Sheila came over and had Christmas dinner with us and stayed for a few hours to visit.

On Friday Bro. Jerry and Sis. Audrey came down and so we went over to Derek and Sheila's to visit them. Saturday we went over there for lunch and dinner and visited. The young kids played a few games and then all the little kids joined us playing rhythm (and so did Sis. Deana). It was a lot of fun. The boys came over to spend the night on Saturday.

Sunday we had meeting at our house because the pipes at the church were still having problems. It was a really good meeting. What we heard about was kind of how God has a plan for us and if we do his will the consciouses won't be bad. Then we went over to Bro. Derek and Sis. Sheila's for dinner. We had some really good visits and played some card games. The guys all went to watch a football game and then after they got back we went home and the girls all came over to spend the night.

Happy Holidays

Dear friends and family,

This past year seemed to be a full one for me. Although we didn’t realize at the time, my family went on quite a few trips, mostly to California and Washington.

During my spring break I went down and visited Amber for about a week. We went to the movies and hung out in the small town they live in. while I was there Shay came, which was great being with two of my best friends. When we weren’t watching movies or waling all over town, we spent our time scrap booking. Not having Easter with my family was really different. When I left Alturas, Amber and I rode up to Brownsville with Aunt Kim and the girls.

Like every year, or most years I guess, my family went to the Brewster camp out over Memorial weekend. Every camp out seems to be better than the last. The church meeting we had was pretty encouraging and wonderful as was the singing. Just being around the brethren was great and made leaving hard.

Dad worked up in Brewster in the beginning of the summer. We spent a week up there in July, which was fun. We visited with the brethren there and I got to hang out with Chantea and ride horses with her. At the end of the month we went down to Tulare, California for Chris and Cayla’s wedding. I thought that the wedding was really quite beautiful. That was the first time we had been down there and the brethren were real nice and hospitable. That’s one reason I love the brethren so much, they don’t even have to know you and they show you their love and compassion and invite you into their homes with hospitality.

School is going pretty good so far this year. My grades aren’t that good right now, but I plan on getting them up as soon as I can.

I’m hoping to get my license in two weeks and I have applied for a job at a few places, but haven’t gotten any calls yet. I did baby sit in the summer and have some since too.

My family is staying home for Christmas this year. We’re excited about staying home because we’ve been gone on Christmas in the past few years. We have a tree for the first time in 4 years and we’ve had the tree up for and decorated since the beginning of the month. Christmas should be nice with just the family.

We’ve had some hard times and loses through the year, but the Lord has seen us through them. Mom is expecting a new baby in January, which we are all excited about. I hope this new year is a bright one for us and all of you.

Love,
Sis. Elise Gray

Bad Day

So, we got some snow over the weekend. Personally I think that snow is pretty great, it's the getting wet and cold that I don't like and the days like yesterday when it only got up to 8 degrees and was 2 degrees when we got up this morning. But what is even worse than being cold is being sick. I woke up this morning with a terrible sore throat and couldn't hardly talk. A sore throat is bad enough, but on top of that we have a Christmas concert tonight. So, my day hasn't went too well and it's not over yet.

Rules?

I see how many younger people, like those younger young kids that I mentioned before, do not like the rules that their parents have for them and are very rebellious about it. I myself have came to think that all rules are a good thing to have. Without rules nothing would ever get done, if parents didn't have rules for their children then they would grow up thinking that they can just do whatever they want without any consequences, which is definitely not a good thing at all. I think that it is good for our parents to have rules for us because it prepares us for serving the Lord. Gods commandments are just like rules and we need to follow them just as we need to follow the rules of our parents. The rules our parents have for us are good for us and will keep us out of trouble. We need to not be braking rules because then we will get into the habit of it and think that it's okay to brake the rules of God. The rules of both the Lord and our parents are good and bring no harm to our lives (they actually prevent any harm from coming) and there is no reason for us not to follow them. Rules are a very good thing.

Thanksgiving Week

So, we went over to Brownsville on Saturday (like on the 22). I got to drive over the mountain, which made mom think that she was gonna die; I'm not sure why, it's not like I was driving bad or anything. We got there at like 4:30, Bro. Bill and his boys came over to visit and we had dinner. Then later that night Uncle Mark and Aunt Kim came to pick up Teah and I went home with them. Shay was babysitting a friend of her dads kids and when they came to pick the kids up they ended up staying for like an hour and a half cause Uncle Mark got out some photo albums and so they were all looking a pictures.

On Sunday we went to church, and I remember that meeting was pretty good I just don't really remember what we heard. After church the young kids all went to Bro. Travis and Sis. Wenona's for dinner. Then that night they had church at Bro. Loyd's, which was really good and nice.

Monday we mostly just laid around and were lazy. We did make sugar cookies that evening. Tuesday Aunt Connie was home from California, so she came over for a while at like 10:00 and then we went to her house for her to print something. Then at lunch she took Mackenzie, Tyrel and I out to the school to have lunch with the kids. And we hung out at Uncle Marshal and Aunt Connie's until it was time for grandma to come home. We cleaned up grandmas house and the made dinner when she got home. Right when we were finishing up making the dinner Uncle Mark and Aunt Kim showed up so they all ate too. Then after they left a few of us went back over to Uncle Marshal and Aunt Connie's to hang out with the kids some more.

I had to get up earlier on Wednesday cause I went with grandma to her school. I had a lot of fun with the little kids. We went to church that night, although I don't remember what we heard again I do know it was a good meeting, but then we don't hardly go to 'bad meetings'.

We got up in the morning and started cooking lots of food (duh). I made a baked chocolate swirl cheese cake, long name but it was good. Then we went to the Rec Center, where all the brethren had Thanksgiving dinner. We ate and hung out there playing ball and stuff for a few hours. When it was time to leave we went back to grandmas, but the food away and rested for like an hour or so. Then we went to Uncle Marshal and Aunt Connie's, everyone was there until about 9:00. Shay, Kara, Tyrel, Mackenzie and I all stayed the night there, so we could go shopping with Aunt Connie in the morning.

We got up at 4:00 in the morning to go shopping. Went to the mall and a bunch of different stores. We had a lot of fun other than the whole being dead tired by the time we got back. We got back to grandmas at about 10:30, ate and tried to sleep some. Then at like 2 or 3 we left to come home.