2009 Edition: Getting to Know YourFamily and Friends.

2009 Edition: Getting to Know YourFamily and Friends.


1.What is your occupation right now?
Retired - Stay at home mom

2.What color are your socks right now? white

3.What are you listening to right now?
hum of the computer and humidifier

4.What was the last thing that you ate?
a bite of chocolate frosting from our Happy Birthday to Jesus cake
(that means it won't spike my sugar levels ?!? - argh)

5.Can you drive a stick shift?
OH! YEAH! That's REAL driving!!!

6.Last person you spoke to on the phone?
My sister, Rachael (jarca)

7.Do you like the person who sent this to you?
YES!! - ALL of them!!!

8.How old are you today? 61


9.What is your favorite sport to watch on TV?
lately...Tennis

10.What is your favorite drink?
milk

11.Have you ever dyed your hair?
You bet!

12.Favorite food?
Anything I don't have to cook! LOL

13.What is the last movie you watched?


14.Favorite day of the year?


15.How do you vent anger?
Vent??? Me? Vent...??? chuckle

16.What was your favorite toy as a child?
My BOOKS! and a little cook stove!

17.What is your favorite season?
Winter


18.Cherries or Blueberries?
Cherries (Chocolate covered - of course!)

19.Do you want your friends to e-mail you back?(or in this case post on their blogs)
If they like - I love to read them! smile

20.Who is the most likely to respond?


21.Who is least likely to respond?


22.Living arrangements?
At home with my DH, Carl(the Patriarch) and Titus our dog

23.When was the last time you cried?
oh gosh - I even cry at movies and books - just ask my kids (though they are good and don't tease! Thank you children)

24.What is on the floor of your closet?
Scary - would you believe: 2 gallons of green paint; 2 storage drawers of electronic parts and wires and connectors; boots; clothes that need to be donated...oh my gosh!

25.Who is the friend you have had the longest that you are sending to?


26.What did you do last night?
watched Angie and Jason play the Wii fit! FUN!

27.What are you most afraid of?
something happening to my children

28.Plain, cheese, or spicy hamburgers?
Jack-in-the-Box's Ultimate CheeseBurger - of course!

29.Favorite dog breed?
our smooth hair Collie is the best! Collie personality and gentleness without the hair!

30.Favorite day of the week?


31.How many states have you lived in?
California - Utah - Minnesota(3 months-smile)

32.Diamonds or pearls?
Pearls are gorgeous!

33.What is your favorite flower?
Carnations! love the fragrance!!!

Kellie Coffey Sings...

(don't forget to pause the playlist up above...)

Sometimes you stumble upon something that reminds you how very blessed you are
and
you just have to share...

"The 12 Days of Christmas" ~ Origins and Religious Meaning ~

(This interpretation of the origin - though apparently controversial - is really informative)





"The 12 Days of Christmas"
~ Origins and Religious Meaning ~

Caveat: there is a controversy disputing the authenticity of this interpretation.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Catholics in England during the period 1558 to 1829 were prohibited by law to practice their faith either in public or private. It was illegal to be Catholic until Parliament finally emancipated Catholics in England in 1829.

"The Twelve Days of Christmas" was written in England as one of the "catechism songs" to help young Catholics learn the basics of their faith. In short, it was a coded-message, a memory aid. Since the song sounded like rhyming nonsense, young Catholics could sing the song without fear of imprisonment. The authorities would not know that it was a religious song.

"The 12 Days of Christmas" is in a sense an allegory. Each of the items in the song represents something significant to the teachings of the Catholic faith. The hidden meaning of each gift was designed to help Catholic children learn their faith. The better acquainted one is with the Bible, the more these interpretations have significance.

The song goes, "On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me…"

The "true love" mentioned in the song doesn’t refer to an earthly suitor, but it refers to God Himself. The "me" who receives the presents refers to every baptized person. i.e. the Church.

1st Day:
The partridge in a pear tree is Christ Jesus upon the Cross. In the song, Christ is symbolically presented as a mother partridge because she would feign injury to decoy a predator away from her nestlings. She was even willing to die for them.
The tree is the symbol of the fall of the human race through the sin of Adam and Eve. It is also the symbol of its redemption by Jesus Christ on the tree of the Cross.

2nd Day:
The "two turtle doves" refers to the Old and New Testaments.

3rd Day:
The "three French hens" stand for faith, hope and charity—the three gifts of the Spirit that abide (1 Corinthians 13).

4th Day:
The "four calling birds" refers to the four evangelists who wrote the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—which sing the song of salvation through Jesus Christ.

5th Day:
The "five golden rings" represents the first five books of the Bible, also called the Jewish Torah: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

6th Day:
The "six geese a-laying" is the six days of creation.

7th Day:
The "seven swans a-swimming" refers to the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord.

8th Day:
The "eight maids a milking " reminded children of the eight beatitudes listed in the Sermon on the Mount.

9th Day:
The "nine ladies dancing" were the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit found in Galatians 5:22-23: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.

10th Day:
The "ten lords a-leaping" represents the Ten Commandments

11th Day:
The "eleven pipers piping" refers to the eleven faithful apostles.

12th Day:

The ‘twelve drummers drumming" were the twelve points of belief expressed in their "Apostles’ Creed": belief in God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, that Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, made man, crucified, died and arose on the third day, that he sits at the right hand of the father and will come again, the resurrection of the dead and life everlasting.

So the next time we hear "the Twelve Days of Christmas" consider how this otherwise non-religious sounding song had its origins in keeping alive the teaching of their faith.

adapted from email messages,from "How To Decode the Twelve Days of Christmas,"by Hugh D. McKellar,U.S. Catholic, 12/1979,and from "‘12 Days of Christmas’ is no nonsense, but a serious riddle"by David CrowderEl Paso Times, 12/19/1993.Also, Origin of "The Twelve Days of Christmas"An Underground Catechismby Fr. Hal Stockert 12/17/95 http://www.cin.org/twelvday.html

...she dropped the bomb: "There is no Santa Claus," she jeered.

A good Christmas message...
author ~ unknown

"I remember my first Christmas adventure with Grandma. I was just a kid. I remember tearing across town on my bike to visit her on the day my big sister dropped the bomb: 'There is no Santa Claus,' she jeered. 'Even dummies know that!'
My Grandma was not the gushy kind, never had been. I fled to her that day because I knew she would be straight with me. I knew Grandma always told the truth, and I knew that the truth always went down a whole lot easier when swallowed with one of her world-famous cinnamon buns. I knew they were world-famous, because Grandma said so. It had to be true.
Grandma was home, and the buns were still warm. Between bites, I told her everything. She was ready for me. 'No Santa Claus!' she snorted. 'Ridiculous! Don't believe it. That rumor has been going around for years, and it makes me mad, plain mad. Now, put on your coat, and let's go.'
'Go? Go where, Grandma?' I asked. I hadn't even finished my second world-famous, cinnamon bun. 'Where' turned out to be Kerby's General Store, the one store in town that had a little bit of just about everything.
As we walked through its doors, Grandma handed me ten dollars. That was a bundle in those days. 'Take this money,' she said, 'and buy something for someone who needs it. I'll wait for you in the car.' Then she turned and walked out of Kerby's.
I was only eight years old. I'd often gone shopping with my mother, but never had I shopped for anything all by myself. The store seemed big and crowded, full of people scrambling to finish their Christmas shopping. For a few moments I just stood there, confused, clutching that ten-dollar bill, wondering what to buy, and who on earth to buy it for. I thought of everybody I knew: my family, my friends, my neighbors, the kids at school, the people who went to my church. I was just about thought out, when I suddenly thought of Bobby Decker. He was a kid with bad breath and messy hair, and he sat right behind me in Mrs. Pollock's second-grade class. Bobby Decker didn't have a coat. I knew that because he never went out for recess during the winter. His mother always wrote a note, telling the teacher that he had a cough, but all we kids knew that Bobby Decker didn't have a cough, and he didn't have a coat. I fingered the ten-dollar bill with growing excitement. I would buy Bobby Decker a coat! I settled on a red corduroy one that had a hood to it. It looked real warm, and he would like that. 'Is this a Christmas present for someone?' the lady behind the counter asked kindly, as I laid my ten dollars down.


'Yes,' I replied shyly. 'It's for Bobby.' The nice lady smiled at me. I didn't get any change, but she put the coat in a bag and wished me a Merry
Christmas. That evening, Grandma helped me wrap the coat in Christmas paper and ribbons (a little tag fell out of the coat, and Grandma tucked
it in her Bible) and wrote, 'To Bobby, From Santa Claus' on it --
Grandma said, 'Santa always insists on secrecy.' Then she drove me over to Bobby Decker's house, explaining as we went that I was now and forever officially one of Santa's helpers. Grandma parked down the street from Bobby's house, and she and I crept noiselessly and hid in the bushes by his front walk. Then Grandma gave me a nudge. 'All right, Santa Claus,' she whispered, 'get going.'


I took a deep breath, dashed for his front door, threw the present down on his step, pounded his doorbell and flew back to the safety of the bushes and Grandma. Together we waited breathlessly in the darkness for the front door to open. Finally it did, and there stood Bobby.
Fifty years haven't dimmed the thrill of those moments spent shivering, beside my Grandma, in Bobby Decker's bushes. That night, I realized that those awful rumors about Santa Claus were just what Grandma said they were: ridiculous. Santa was alive and well, and we were on his team.


I still have the Bible, with the tag tucked inside: $19.95."

author - unknown
===============================

He who has no Christmas in his heart will never find Christmas under a tree.

YOUNG WOMEN THEME - Virtue

The Young Women's theme is a wonderful guideline for each of us to live by:


YOUNG WOMEN THEME

We are daughters of our Heavenly Father, who loves us, and we love Him. We will "stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places" (Mosiah 18:9) as we strive to live the Young Women values, which are:

Faith

Divine Nature

Individual Worth

Knowledge

Choice and Accountability

Good Works

Integrity

and Virtue.

We believe as we come to accept and act upon these values, we will be prepared to strengthen home and family, make and keep sacred covenants, receive the ordinances of the temple, and enjoy the blessings of exaltation.

Oh! No! - Not Disco!

(scroll down and pause the Playlist before starting)

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Elder Steven Tolboe has been in the field for 53 days

(Visit his website at: http://www.missionsite.net/eldertolboe/main )

Elder Steven Tolboe
Assigned to the Everett Washington Mission
as an ASL Missionary

Mission: Washington Everett
Entered the MTC on: October 15, 2008
Expected Release Date: October 15, 2010
Favorite scripture: D&C 78:17-18

Latest News:
November 4 - Assigned to Lake Forest Park, Washington, Companion Elder Moss, Assigned to learn ASL
November 4 - Elder Steven Tolboe left MTC and flew up to Everett Washington, arriving at 9:34a.m.
October 15 - Elder Steven Tolboe entered the Provo MTC, 1:00 p.m.

Gail - Steven - Richard Tolboe

South Africa Durban Mission link, ACTIVATED

Just a quick update to let you know that Arlo and Sandy Mickelsen's Mission Blog has it's first post!!!

http://arlosandy.blogspot.com/

A reminder:

"Postage is expensive to and from South Africa, so we hope you will send us your Christmas greetings via internet! Our e-mail is arlosandy@aol.com and we will have a blog (http://arlosandy.blogspot.com) "

----- Original Message -----
From: Arlosandy
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 8:03 AM
Subject: Christmas Greetings from South Africa



Christmas Greetings from South Africa


From home to home, and heart to heart.
From one place to another,
The warmth and joy of Christmas,
Brings us closer to each other.

Emily Matthews


The words in the above poem say it all and how wonderful it is to have a season that allows us to renew the warmth and joy we find in our friendships! The holidays are truly upon us, and it just doesn't seem possible. The usual comment is, “Where has the year gone?” and we concur with that. Especially this year, as our holiday greetings need to come early for a special reason!


The Mickelsen's have received a mission call to serve in the South Africa Durban Mission for the next 18 months as Perpetual Education Fund missionaries. Our call came the middle of July and we have been busy since with all the preparations that a foreign call brings, but now we are ready and anxious to go. For those of you who don't know what the PEF is, we refer you to the Ensign, August 2008, page 76. Our entry date for the MTC is November 17th, where we will be for 10 days. Thanksgiving will be celebrated with lots of family and then on the 29th we will begin a very long plane ride (Salt Lake City – Chicago – London – Johannesburg – Durban) -- somewhere around 36 hours!!

There are 11 fantastic grandchildren in our family who keep their fantastic parents busy with all their school, church, music and sports activities.

Arlo served on the High Council and as our Homeowners Association President this past year and Sandy has coordinated the Humanitarian Projects for our branch.

As we bring this letter to a close, we send our love and friendship to you all. At this time of year, we are mindful of the birth of Jesus Christ and the sacrifices He made for us. Our past missionary service brought and continues to bring tremendous blessings to us and our family, and we are looking forward to this new opportunity to be of use to our Savior . Our prayers are for a wonderful Christmas season for each of you.

P.S. Some of you will receive this letter via e-mail and others by snail mail since we don't have e-mail addresses for everyone. If you have one, please let us know. Postage is expensive to and from South Africa, so we hope you will send us your Christmas greetings via internet! Our e-mail is arlosandy@aol.com and we will have a blog (http://arlosandy.blogspot.com/) as soon as we officially begin our mission, if anyone is interested. We'll be back in St. George sometime in May, 2010

P.P.S. This letter was written and to have gone out before entering the MTC and it just didn't happen. This is being sent from Johannesburg, South Africa where we are having additional training in this truly inspired Perpetual Education Fund program, before going on to Durban.

You can find additional information on the church website: http:lds.org
then follow through with these links:
Home and Family
Education
Perpetual Fund

Divine Connection (a little irreverent humor + a Woot shirt)

(sent to me by ... oops! I can't reveal my source! LOL)

Divine Connection
by Wootbot Wednesday December 3, 2008 12:00 AM
at: http://shirt.woot.com/Blog/



And the LORD formed the computer nerd of the dust off His keyboard, being mainly the powdered remains of heavenly Chee-tos, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, which wasn’t easy, given the computer nerd’s deviated septum; and the computer nerd became a living soul, if you can really call it living.

And the LORD set up a vast network eastward in Eden; and before it He put the computer nerd whom he had formed, saying “here, I need an admin, get thee to it.”

And the computer nerd set about exploring the many files and folders on the network, discovering various digital wonders and delights, but there was one machine the LORD forbade him to access, speaking unto him: “All of this is created for thee to use and master, My pasty-skinned, soft-bellied creation. Except stay away from the Apple, would you? I keep My personal files on it, and thou shalt poketh around in them not.

“Not that I’m going to password-protect it or anything, because I trust you.”

This shirt was designed by: Robert Gould. No, not the one David Mamet condemned to Hell; another one.

Wear this shirt: if you hear a voice in the garden, and are afraid, because you are naked, to hide yourself.

Don’t wear this shirt: in Paradise. It’s strictly topless and bottomless there. Or so we have read.

This shirt tells the world: “Hallelujah, I’m right-click-saved as”

We call this color: We Call The Light “White,” And The Darkness We Call “Black,” And This Color In The Middle, Oh, Let’s Call It Like A “Heather Gray.”

Ann Hansen - Living in Israel

----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 7:45 AM
Subject: Ann Hansen - living in Israel


This afternoon as I was sitting in the hospital, waiting to do a bone
mapping (this is a translation from Hebrew - I don't know what it's called
in English), I looked around and thought what a perfect example this was of
what it is like to live in Israel.

In the waiting room with me were a Russian, an Ethiopian couple, a soldier
from the same division as my son, a Druze man in traditional dress, a
Beduoin, Israel's version of a Yuppie couple (middle-aged Ashkenazi Jews
with high-tech toys to while away the time), and an older kibbutznik. I
grew up in the US, and the TV was set on "Viva" - a channel which features
only Spanish-language soap operas from Spain and South America. I heard
people speaking Hebrew, Arabic, Russian and Amharic.

The room where I was doing this exam sits in the basement of the Sfat
hospital's new wing, which was built mainly to house the new emergency
room(s). The wing was finished just a couple of weeks before the war with
Lebanon in 2006. It was a good thing, because as the hospital nearest the
border it treated a lot of wounded soldiers and civilians. The hospital
itself was also hit by rockets many times. The new wing is actually a huge
bomb shelter, complete with blast doors and windows.

While I was waiting I was reading the biography of a Jewish woman from
Vienna, who was writing about her life just before and during WW II. She
had been picked up in the street one day, and sent off to work on an
asparagus farm in northern Germany in conditions which were about one step
above slave labor. She was talking about the factories in that area of
Germany- Opel cars (appropriated from its Jewish owner) and Siemens
electronics - which did use slave labor, mostly Romanians and Serbs. Just
then I was called in to do the mapping. As I laid down on the bed (its
like doing a CAT scan) and the machine was put over me, I noticed that the
machine was built by Siemens!!! It was a weird feeling seeing that so soon
after reading about its slave labor 70 years ago.

As you leave the hospital and look west, you see literally layers upon
layers of hills. In the fading light they look like they were built of
separate layers of blue and gray construction paper which were glued on top
of each other. It reminded me a bit of how the Smoky Mountains looked in
the early morning. Sfat itself has been continally inhabited since medieval
times, and carries the scars of centuries of war. Onthe very top of the
city are the ruins of a castle built by the Hospitalers ( a knights' order
named after Christian knights who set up a hospital next to the Dome of the
Rock on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem) during the Crusader period. The city
also contains synagogues which are centuries old, the ruins of a mosque, an
Ottoman Turkish period building now used as a community center, a building
which was built as a hospital by Scottish missionaries in the nineteenth
century, and several buildings built by the Bristish army during the
mandate.

Sfat sits at an altitude of 900 meters (about 3,000 feet). My house,
however, is almost 100 feet below sea level, so the drive home is all
downhill! On the way I pass a moshav built by Morrocan Jews in the late
1950s, and a kibbutz which has on its grounds an ancient well which,
according to tradition, was where Joseph's brothers put him in a pit until
he was sold to the passing caravan. The well is mentioned by travellers in
several sources written up to 500 years ago, including Mark Twain and Eliza
R. Snow. The well was notorious for having the foulest-smelling water in
all the Holy Land. Thankfully the smell is gone now! Below me is the Sea
of Galilee, but first I have to so down the "curvy road" (which roughly
parallels the ancient Roman road), past the Mount of Beatitudes and the
church at Tabgha, past the site of an ancient fortress, and finally past the
pumping station of the National Water carrier, before I reach home, which is
in the area where the biblical prophet Habbakuk is reported to have been
buried. The valley below my house is part of a natural draw which leads
from the northern part of the lake up to the route to Nazareth. I
frequently wonder if Jesus ever walked it on his way to Magdala or
Capernaum.

For as long as I have lived here, I still haven't gotten used to the
amazing diversity of topography, history, culture, religion and language to
be found in such a small geographical area. It continues to take my breath
away.

Happy Thanksgiving all!

Ann Hansen

Paradigm Shift...

A young couple moves into a new neighborhood.
The next morning while they are eating breakfast, the young
woman sees her neighbor hanging the wash outside.
"That laundry is not very clean", she said.
"She doesn't know how to wash correctly.

Perhaps she needs better laundry soap"

Her husband looked on, but remained silent.

Every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, the
young woman would make the same comments.

About one month later, the woman was surprised to see a
nice clean wash on the line and said to her husband:

"Look, she has learned how to wash correctly.

I wonder who taught her this?"

The husband said, "I got up early this morning and
cleaned our windows."

And so it is with life. What we see when watching others
depends on the purity of the window through which we look.

Christmas Greetings from South Africa - Arlo / Sandy Mickelsen

----- Original Message -----
From: Arlosandy
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 8:03 AM
Subject: Christmas Greetings from South Africa



Christmas Greetings from South Africa


From home to home, and heart to heart.
From one place to another,
The warmth and joy of Christmas,
Brings us closer to each other.

Emily Matthews


The words in the above poem say it all and how wonderful it is to have a season that allows us to renew the warmth and joy we find in our friendships! The holidays are truly upon us, and it just doesn't seem possible. The usual comment is, “Where has the year gone?” and we concur with that. Especially this year, as our holiday greetings need to come early for a special reason!


The Mickelsen's have received a mission call to serve in the South Africa Durban Mission for the next 18 months as Perpetual Education Fund missionaries. Our call came the middle of July and we have been busy since with all the preparations that a foreign call brings, but now we are ready and anxious to go. For those of you who don't know what the PEF is, we refer you to the Ensign, August 2008, page 76. Our entry date for the MTC is November 17th, where we will be for 10 days. Thanksgiving will be celebrated with lots of family and then on the 29th we will begin a very long plane ride (Salt Lake City – Chicago – London – Johannesburg – Durban) -- somewhere around 36 hours!!

There are 11 fantastic grandchildren in our family who keep their fantastic parents busy with all their school, church, music and sports activities.

Arlo served on the High Council and as our Homeowners Association President this past year and Sandy has coordinated the Humanitarian Projects for our branch.

As we bring this letter to a close, we send our love and friendship to you all. At this time of year, we are mindful of the birth of Jesus Christ and the sacrifices He made for us. Our past missionary service brought and continues to bring tremendous blessings to us and our family, and we are looking forward to this new opportunity to be of use to our Savior . Our prayers are for a wonderful Christmas season for each of you.

P.S. Some of you will receive this letter via e-mail and others by snail mail since we don't have e-mail addresses for everyone. If you have one, please let us know. Postage is expensive to and from South Africa, so we hope you will send us your Christmas greetings via internet! Our e-mail is arlosandy@aol.com and we will have a blog (http://arlosandy.blogspot.com) as soon as we officially begin our mission, if anyone is interested. We'll be back in St. George sometime in May, 2010

P.P.S. This letter was written and to have gone out before entering the MTC and it just didn't happen. This is being sent from Johannesburg, South Africa where we are having additional training in this truly inspired Perpetual Education Fund program, before going on to Durban.

You can find additional information on the church website: http:lds.org
then follow through with these links:
Home and Family
Education
Perpetual Fund