Counting Blessings

Linda stands in a vine tunnel at Hampton Court on a mild winter day.

11 January was a momentous day as we welcomed our 9th grandchild, Solon, to the earth! We are very grateful for his safe arrival and Stacie’s health also. We have enjoyed the updates and pictures of him and hearing about the adventures of his parents. Here are some of our adventures since that day:)

Solon in a crocheted blanket Grandma Linda made

11 Solon Pascal Furia Neeley Born! Talk to Matthew and Stacie! Facetime Mom and Dad Neeley
12 Preparation Day: Sky Garden, talk to Suzy recovering from knee replacement, Hangout Dan and crew, FT Mia and Hazel.
13 Skype Mother and Daddy and Louise
14 Piano Students Anna and Luigi
15 Cardalls depart! Pat put together book with letters from all the sisters and seniors and pictures of their two years.
The Lorax Musical at Old Vic Theatre, Southbank

Linda stands in the Old Vic Theater waiting for the Lorax to begin

The Old Vic Theater

 16  "Hot Cross Buns" for Training Breakfast, enjoy Cheesecake made by J. Paul to celebrate Alessandra’s Birthday!

Do It Yourself shop with a great motto on the way to JPaul and Alessandra's

17 Ward Conference, super meetings! FT Maria, 5-9 shift
18 Talk to Matthew and Stacie and Solon! His eyes were open the whole 30 minutes!
19 Hulets arrive! make Welcome bunting (banner), buy lots of groceries and walk home in the rain, FT Jess and Cedar.

20 Worldwide missionary training broadcast 75,000 missionaries, awesome! Watched on shift with Pat’s ipad. Elder Hulet and Pres Anatsui give Pat blessing

Missionaries near the Hyde Park Chapel watch the broadcast downstairs

Senior couples were thrilled to watch the missionary broadcast

21 Preparation Day: Pat had wisdom tooth extracted from 10 to 11 a.m. Walked one mile to dentist office and back after the procedure. Rested, walked over to Museum of Natural History, the exhibit was opening the next day:) Wishes that he took a picture of the tooth, big part broken off and great big cavity. Piano students Linda
22 Natural History Museum “Other World’s Exhibit”, 3 to 9 p.m. shift, met Rae from Taiwan doing RCA Illustration, help on way home.

Otherworlds at the Natural History Museum

23 Porridge by Kaspar from Denmark after 8 am training breakfast, Skype Mother and Daddy.

Breakfast after Saturday morning training

Chef Kasper

24 Play organ, blowers are again working and up to pressure. 1-5pm shift, give several tours, meet Hayley Zilles from USU Huntsman scholars, farewell to April Chen who is going back to China this week.

with Hayley Zilles

with April Chen

One week is 9-3pm shift, second week was 3-9 pm shift. Sundays are 4 hour shifts after regular meetings.

Today in Relief Society we discussed the talk by President Uchtdorf, “It Works Wonderfully.” It is such a great talk! He suggests two things to help the church work wonderfully in our lives, one was to simplify and the other to start where we are. We had a great example of “simplify" by our Relief Society teacher. She was tall and wanted to use a stand to keep her notes up where she could read them and keep her hands free. There was not a podium in the room or a music stand to be found. She gathered some hymnbooks and lesson manuals from a nearby cabinet and made a stack about two feet high to rest her papers on. She was able to see them and gave a beautiful, inspiring lesson:)!

Original sized Mini. The new ones are much larger.

Linda is dwarfed by the roof beams at the Sky Garden