We are going to Niue. web photo  Just before the Christmas and the "New" Year, on December 24, we got a call from President Walker with a "new" temporary transfer...to serve on the Island of of Niue ("New-ay").  We have some time until our next semester at Uni begins in late February, and with Elder Sessions' accident on Niue and their release to go home, they need a couple to serve there until a "new" senior couple is called.  Niue (means "behold the coconut") is one of the smallest (around 1500 people on the island) independent nations in the world and one of the largest raised coral atolls on earth.      We think we will be there about 6 weeks.   We are not sure if we will be able to send a BLOG for a month or two from Niue because of the small and pricey internet there.  I guess we will all find out but if you don't hear from us in awhile we are still here...just quiet for a time. We leave tomorrow mornin...

josephbrickey  lds.org web photo At Christmas we find it’s an adventure in inspiration to imagine yourself in the story of the nativity.  As you travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem …. web photos lds.org ...two of the places you might find yourself are the Inn and Stable. In the setting of the story, one had room for the family, one did not, so nativities are pretty much set "inn" the "stable". We share a few photos of a bit of NZ Christmas, along with a few of  the nativities we've seen.  At a get-together of senior sister missionaries at the home of Pacific Area Attorney Doug and Michi Matsumori (not a bad view) we found some of these:    Australian Stable and Nativity  NZ fan-shell-for-the-stable Nativity  MAORI Nativity from Kauri wood with a marae stable Fijian Nativity The great women missionaries (mostly from the area office of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) here...

Our lifetimes are made up of DAYS.    We start with our birthDAY. Meet Emma Godfrey.    This week (December 13) she started her lifetime with her birthDAY.  Number 7 grand baby. Lots of undeniable THOTL in timing for this little angel's birth.  So blessed! Every 365 DAYS we get to celebrate our birthDAY, like Adi did for the 5th time on December 12. (Niece Wendy celebrated one too, but more than just 5 times) flickr web image In the Book of Genesis we read about how DAYS began.  The scriptures tell us God made DAYS by organizing light and dark and time and seasons.  But DAYS are not just irrelevant marks of time. Each DAY counts. Each DAY is important.  We all get our own amount of them.  Enough for our PLAN, our lifetime on earth.   Kinds of DAYS Everybody we know gets all kinds of DAYS, some rainy and cloudy DAYS  ...full of tests and trials,  some DAYS that are hard an...