Family Letter

Dear Friends and Family,

HAPPY NEW YEAR!,  We hope this letter finds you all well and happy as we go into the new year.  Our new year is has been ushered in with temperatures in the mid-to-upper 50s.The snow is pretty much gone and it feels good outside.

We are going to start by telling you of our Christmas miracle.  Our kids know about this but most of you don't know about our little Christmas miracle.  Our kids sent our Christmas gift in plenty of time to get here for Christmas. UPS said it should get here on Dec. 22, but it didn't get here that day. When Holli looked up the tracking number for the package they said they had delivered it to our door on the 22nd.  It wasn't here.  We didn't know a package was coming until Holli called us on Monday and asked if we had received the package.  Monday and Tuesday came and went and it still didn't get here. We had decided that somebody probably stole it. On Wednesday afternoon we heard some rustling in the hallway and when we checked, our package was here. To some, it may not seem like a miracle.  To us it was a real miracle.  It was the perfect gift for us and helped not feel quite so homesick.  We are so grateful for our kids' generosity and kindness.  

We were able to get some more birthday cards and candy bars delivered this week.  It's fun to see little kids' faces light up when they get candy and it also fun to see adults who haven't been to church in years regard us with a little caution and maybe even a little suspicion change their expression when all we want is to wish them a happy birthday and know they haven't been forgotten.

We were at the hospital again Thursday and had a fun encounter.  A Captain in the Sheriff's department came in for some lab work.  He looked and our missionary tags and asked us if we were some kind of missionaries.  He said when he saw Mom's tag and it said Sister Cooper, he said he was raised Catholic and Sisters are nuns and he was pretty sure Mom wasn't a nun.  We told him a little about what we were doing and how long we were going to be there.  We told him that we had different responsibilities than the young missionaries.. He said he had heard of the Church and the missionaries by watching BYU and U of U football where they always talk about the players going on missions. 

They changed our missionary district again.  Our little district got merged with the missionaries in Morgantown West Virginia.  It doubled the size of our district which actually makes it more fun to be there.  And now we have Sister missionaries which changes the dynamics a little.  It's good to have them in our district.  Another advantage of going to Morgantown is that it has a Texas Roadhouse and most other chain restaurants we like. We went to lunch at Texas Roadhouse after our meeting and it felt kind of like home except the waitresses at home still have all their teeth.

The Flannagan's had us over for New Year's Eve dinner.  They gave us homemade biscuits and gravy which were really good.  We visited for a while and went home to watch a BYU basketball game.  The game ended at a little past 11:00 and we went to bed.  Boy, are we boring.  We are going to continue our New Year's tradition and go to Denny's for breakfast tomorrow morning.  We know that's on the 2nd, but we didn't want to go out to eat on Sunday.

One last thing, we had quite a few visitors today.  We had a few families from Virginia that came to their vacation homes for  New Years. It literally doubled our attendance.  It gave us little taste of what we can expect this summer.  It was good to fill up our chapel.

Mom actually has three scriptures.  They come from Pres. Nelson's remarks about New Year's resolutions.

 Hebrews 12:1 - "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us". Have patience in your trials

Luke 2:40 - "And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him." - Persevere

Isaiah 40:31 - "But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." - Call upon God for the strength you need to make a better version of yourself.

We hope you had a happy new year. We hope you are all doing well.  We love you and pray for you daily.

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandad

Jamee and Kerry

Sister and Elder Cooper