Sunday they forecast icy weather for Monday. We were supposed to host the Empty Nester’s
Family Home Evening that night. We got a
light dusting of ice early Monday morning—mostly on our deck and steps. The roads were clear. So we (read Tom)
decided to hold the Empty Nesters and surprisingly 26 people came! More than that, they all brought tasty
goodies! So it was a nice evening.
In early November I got my first job writing a win back
series for a financial newsletter. This
is the niche I want to focus in. So I studied the product and wrote 4 emails
designed to showcase the product and invite people to reorder the subscription.
I sent them off November 14th…. And didn’t hear
anything. It was fine as we were at
Jonathan’s and Kristy’s and having fun.
But no news. Did she like them? Hate them? I send a few gentle nudges. Nothing. After we got back from Iowa, I gave
it another few days. Then, I thought, I
gotta call. So I pulled up the emails to
have them fresh in my mind, and also pulled up some edits a friend send me
after I’d already submitted the emails.
She’d made some great suggestions. So I changed the emails. Then I send them saying, “I was planning on
calling you today, but when I pulled up the emails to review them, I found
things I could improve on. So here are the
revised emails, and I’ll call you tomorrow morning to discuss the status.” I called late morning, her time. She said, “I was thinking about you and
waiting for your call.” Bottom line—I needed
to make 3 easy changes. She liked my
writing, and offered another assignment.
I had also followed up with some other newsletters and got
responses back from three others—all expressing interest. So I’m hopeful.
While we were gone, more leaves fell! Imagine that! And we still have a few on the trees. Tom did some blowing of them out of the
flower gardens and some raking, but the big lawn is still covered in leaves.
As bishop, Tom has tithing settlement in December. This is a chance for every member to declare
their tithing status to the Lord. Did
they pay a full tithe, are they exempt or non-tithe payers. They get to come and visit with Tom. It’s basically a simple yes/no question, but
Tom like it because he gets a chance to visit with so many people and see how
they are doing. However, he’s gone Tues, Wed, Thurs evenings and also Sunday
afternoons.
Tom has also been the main Santa this year. He’s ordered presents, wrapped them and
mailed them off. It’s a little crazy
with us mailing things to Andy and Kera and Kristy mailing Deborah’s things to
us. And us mailing our gifts here… and some of Kera’s mailed directly to them…
and Adam mailing to us… and…
Friday we went to Branson to finish Christmas shopping and
to go to Silver Dollar City. For some
reason, this was an especially nice day at SDC.
It was raining and foggy and a bit chilly so there were not many people
there. We watched the musicals of “A Christmas
Carol,” “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and saw
the living nativity which was really the Christmas story. We listened to some Cajun Christmas music—not
exactly our style—and a silly Western Christmas folly at the saloon.
It’s always fun to see the beautiful lights and the musical
Christmas tree.
We stopped at IHOP for a Denny’s like dinner. Pretty good
food. Slow service. And got home about
10pm.
The ward decided to forgo the traditional Christmas dinner
in favor of a service project. So
Saturday at 8am we went to the North West Arkansas Food bank. There were about
60 members that showed up—from ages 6-80. We had someone with only one
hand. The other was in a cast from
recent surgery, and one with heart condition and an elderly widow with a
cane. All were able to help out.
Some of us took puffed wheat cereal from a 4’x5’ box and
bagged it into one or two gallon Ziploc bags.
Some took cases of #10 cans and put labels on them—sliced peaches, diced
peaches and fruit cocktail. They had an
assembly line- open the box, remove the
cans, tape on the labels, re-pack them in the boxes, tape the boxes closed, and
put them on a new pallet. It was fun to
see people working happily together and doing something valuable. Some
organized Christmas toys, some cleaned up and stacked cardboard for recycling.
He said that our 150 man hours saved him $1500 and was
enough to free up money for 10,000 meals for people. A nice morning’s work. Then Tom went to help someone move some
things, and I went to clean the church.
Fortunately the carpets and floors had been professionally cleaned on
Monday so we got to do what Nana called “a lick and a promise” cleaning. That evening we had a baptism.
Today was Fast Sunday.
I’ve been reading about the promises of the fast and wanted to have a
more meaningful fast. I think it went
better. We did some home teaching and
watched the First Presidency Christmas Devotional.
All in all a good week.
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