2014 has certainly been an extraordinary year for us. It is amazing that we are starting a new year. The year ended with a calm Christmas Day, a party with the other Senior missionaries, and going to sleep early on New Years Eve.
Christmas Day we had dinner with Sister Manson, Sister Bennett and Stephanie from our ward. It was nice to have someone to fix a Christmas dinner for.
On the 29th we went to the Mission Home for a party with the other Senior Missionaries. It is about 20 minutes drive west of our home in Philly.
It was a pot luck dinner with lots of good food to go with the great company.
After dinner we got together for some caroling with chimes. It took a few practices for us to get our chiming in just the right time.
It was fun! I want to make some chimes when we get home.
We had a gift exchange with a little competition of 'stealing' a gift we like better.
We got lucky and got a picture of the Philadelphia temple that one of the senior sister missionary made.
Then President and Sister Anderson was presented with a special picture of Joseph Smith that was painted using the death mask as a model.
They were also given a picture of the rebuilt home of Joseph Smith in Susquehanna (Harmony) PA with a piece of stone foundation from the original home.
President Anderson gave a special message of inspiration and encouragement.
It is so good to spend time with the other seniors. I get a real boost. They are so amazing!
Anyone who knows me knows that I love sunsets and clouds. Here's one of the pictures I took on the on the way to the party
The library was closed most of the days over the holidays. We only worked 1 1/2 days. We took advantage of the time off to work on our own family histories.
I was able to find 5 more people to add to my tree.
Last Friday we took a walk around the block for some exercise.
The temple is coming along with the granite about 1/3 the way up in some areas.
There are a lot of windows and most are covered with plywood while they put the granite around them. Some on east side aren't covered and you can see the stained glass. I couldn't get a good picture of them, they were up too high. It's going to be a gorgeous temple!
Across the street they have moved out the visitor center trailer and a lot of the construction trailers in preparation for the construction of the new stake center. This is the new sign on the fence:
Here is the artist rendition. The temple is to the left, not seen on the picture. Our apartment building is the grey 'L' shaped building on the left.
Going west past the temple is the court house and the public library. Then south across the multi-lane Ben Franklin Pkwy is the Ben Franklin Institute science museum. We decided to check it out.
The first sight inside is this:
Awesome!
What a beautiful, spacious rotunda!
It was very busy that day. Everything but the statue and the gift store required a ticket and the lines were very long. So we bought a little Ben Franklin bust at the store and decided to see more another day.
Our work at the library begins again on Monday (tomorrow) and I am really ready to go back to work. In December we scanned 105 books with a total of 17,389 images.
I can't believe how fast the numbers add up!
Since we have been here, this is the total numbers of what we have scanned and have sent to Orem:
Books: 452
Images: 64,730
Well, off we go into a new year! Here's wishing all of you, our family and friends, the very best. We love you and miss you, but are enjoying these great opportunities and blessings.
The Lord is very good to us. May He bless you too.
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