Time flies!!!

No pictures, you say??? You're right. There's been so much rain lately that picture taking isn't high on the priority list!!! And both of us have had our first New England Gomboo. It's not been pleasant. Each of us had to spend a day in bed and it's been 10 days and I'm still coughing and trying to catch that nose that runs!!!

Unfortunately, life continues, even in the rain. The humidity is playing games with my hands and ankles which I don't appreciate. So there's always ibuprofen in my purse. Our first volunteer session at the Temple a week ago Tuesday was interesting. We were assigned kitchen duty. Wellll, I stay out of the kitchen as much as possible in my senior years. And when the in charge person asked me if I'd even made rolls, I answered, "of course, I've made rolls". I neglected to tell her it was about 30 years ago. But to my astonishment , they rose all over the place and I ended up with 11 dozen beautiful rolls. Elder W was assigned veggie duty---he cut up all the veggies for the salad bar, then we made egg salad sandwiches and by the time we learned all the clean up procedures and tidied up, we were ready to that long nap that they told us in the MTC ALL senior missionaries should take. We hobbled out of there feeling like we were REALLY old. Arthur-itis is a nasty companion.

The mission wants the missionaries to do about 4 hours volunteer service a week so after investigating a couple of options, we're going to do our thing at Emerson Hospital in Concord. It's faily close and they needed volunteers. We have our orientation next Saturday but Tuesday we go for blood testing (imagine--they don't want us carrying measles or any other of those delicate diseases into the hospital) and besides that gives them time to investigate us and make sure we don't have criminal records. Don't know where they'll assign us yet. Their hospital delivers about 2000 babies a year and they just finished a big remodel so all the rooms are private!! My co-workers at IMC will appreciate that.

While Elder W was having his sick day I felt good enough to go out on my own. And guess what I did?????? Why, shop, of course!! Got a good deal of Christmas shopping for my family done and with the help of GPS I even got home!!! Friday we went out to Fitchburg to see a guy out of work--it's fun being able to go inside these old colonial homes. We stopped at a mall that my friend Ellen Jensen from work would know about-----The Mall at Whitley Field. It has all the familiar stores and fast food places. It's about 30 miles from here but a good hiway all the way. You just don't appreciate it when you live close to all the shopping like the Utahns do!! Then we headed down to south Mass to meet an employment person there.

Saturday we had a workshop in Hartford, Connecticut which required us to roll out of the sack at 5 am. You all know what a wonderful morning person I am. We worked with a guy who has a marvelous job-----he works for Disney/ESPN packaging their pay=per-view games for all the networks. Their corportate HQ is in Hartford and they get 1000 applications a week for jobs!!!! We got done early so on the way home stopped at another mall south of here---very upscale. It was a 240 mile round trip. Our poor car is going to have a hard time keeping up with all this traveling!!

Today we were with the Cambridge Stake Employment people in the Revere Ward. They have a very poor ward and we had 40 minutes to meet with 13 people. It was an info gathering meeting for us so we can then decide how to go about helping them. They have handicapped people up to 70 year olds, language problems, no transportation, homebound, you name it. It was interesting--lots of young couples--students; and then the long term people. A good number of women came in jeans or pants.

After that we dashed up to New Hampshire to teach the youth. They had a combined meeting for the adults so we took the youth and it was really fun. Our son, Dan, had some good ideas he used in his singles ward. We used the theme A Decade of Decisions but changed the ages to 14-24. We had them list all the decisions they would have to make during the next 10 years, then we had them do an activity where they had to make a coat of arms for themselves, listing their talents, accomplishments, education, family and then telling others about themselves. And we ended by having them asses their skills and then try to find ways in their lives to use those skills for what they want to accomplish.

We had some really fun encounters. We discovered the Bishop of this ward in Nashua knows Shauna Hepworth, my buddy from work of 26 or so years!!! They lived in the same ward. After the meeting a member of the bishopric that was in the youth meeting came up to us and said "as soon as you said you had 7 sons and 1 daughter, I knew it had to be the Wilson's" Turns out he was a friend of our #3 son and his wife was a cheerleader with #2 sons wife!!! His parents were in our first ward in West Valley. This big world is really a small place!!!

So now it's on to this next week. The first item??? Sleep in past 7 am tomorrow morning!!!! Tuesday we have a zone conference. With the holidays coming we expect things to be pretty slow. It was interesting to note all the traffic today. Sunday is a huge day for shopping around here and all the store parking lots were full as were the movie theaters. Many of the holiday bazaars are on Sunday. We'll take a good day and take the train into Boston. Can't do it if it's cold--altho with the rain this last week it's been in the 60's. Makes it doubly sticky!!! Somehow we don't seem to have heat in our apartment. But it's been 80 degrees during the day and even at night with the window open it's been warm. Today we left the windows open and since it was colder today it was 64 degrees when we got home. But now it's very comfortable in here and the heat hasn't come on!!!! I guess we're getting it from above, below, both sides and the hallway out the door is always hot!!!

With the leaves finally down we can see so many more houses. Just can't even tell you how cool it is drive around. Today coming home we ended upon some little road we've never been on before and the road was more like a driveway with homes on either side, in the forest. I'm still amazed at the colors of homes----bright purple, dark purple with a green door, bright colors and very interesting color combinations!! When I can stop on the side of the road I do take pictures of interesting homes--I want to have a good collection of the colored homes and the liscense plates!!! Red Sox, lighthouses, lobsters--all kinds of fun things!!

So who's coming to have Thanksgiving with us????:-)