Christmas together with a little bit, maybe a lot, of Covid - December 2021
Just a week after Abby got home, it was transfer time again for the mission. Because so many missionaries come to transfers anyway, and we'd had zone conferences back at the end of November, it felt like we needed to do something closer to Christmas to celebrate with the missionaries. So we thought it would be a great idea to have a mission gathering around transfers. We welcomed the new missionaries as usual Monday night, trained them the next morning, and had everyone else come in and finish their transfers in time to start a mission wide Christmas devotional around 12:30. There was such a special, strong spirit in that chapel. Wow! When we gather the missionaries, speak about the Savior, and bear testimony it is powerful. We heard from the 8 stake presidents in a special Christmas video to the missionaries, we heard from the Hiltons and Gibbses, we had several really amazing special musical numbers from the missionaries, I read my annual Christmas story (this year "The Legend of the Candy Cane"), and Mark gave a Christmas message about spiritual gifts and the gift of charity. It is always so interesting to see how the next thing we're supposed to focus on as a mission becomes clear to him in the process of acting and working and figuring out what's next. It doesn't seem entirely clear ever until he's delivering his message and then it's powerfully clear. I don't know if that makes sense, but it's been such an interesting process to experience and observe up close.
Anyway, it was great that Abby could be there with us, too, and it was a special meeting. I loved being there. Following that, we had a catered turkey and ham lunch with the mission, then broke into zones for games, and finished up with presents. There were so many moving parts to this gathering as you might imagine, and it mostly went well. We ran out of a few sides for the lunch, a couple of the zones forgot they were planning their games, and the presents got a little chaotic, but all was well. The missionaries gave us the most thoughtful gift - signed Atlanta Braves jerseys by all the missionaries. It would have been awesome any year, but it was extra special this year since the Braves won the world series! Such a great gift. We decided to give them all a journaling Book of Mormon since we've had such a focus on the Book of Mormon this year, and I've loved studying from mine that Emilee got me for my birthday this year!
We left the party just a little early to go hike Stone Mountain with our departing missionaries. Abby was able to join us for that, too, then she went home to be with Suse and Goose, while Mark and I finished up dinner, our farewell meeting, and final interviews with the departing missionaries. If it sounds like a long and tiring day, it was!! An amazing mission life day, but an exhausting one. I sometimes can't believe what we can do in a day. I know I say this a lot, but we are so sustained and blessed with the energy and capacity we need to do this. It's incredible, and I'm grateful for that every day.
On Friday, our BYU kids came into town and we were together for the first time in a year and a half!!! Zelle and Adam, and Tuggy were able to reunite with Abs, and it just felt like heaven. We enjoyed that feeling for a few hours, and then got the news that one of the sisters at the mission gathering had tested positive for Covid. What?? We hadn't had any covid in months in the mission and thought it was mainly behind us - maybe an isolated case here and there, but the vast majority of the missionaries were vaccinated and we were fine, so we thought. We then started getting report after report of missionaries with covid, and it soon became clear that these were vaccinated missionaries - one of our senior missionaries with covid was even boosted with the 3rd vaccine. Anyway, luckily this new variant isn't super severe for most young people or vaccinated people, but it still meant lots of them were quarantined for Christmas and couldn't go to members' homes for dinner, or to ward parties. We felt terrible for them, and Mark did a great job keeping them motivated and in good spirits with nightly calls for a while. Happily most of them weren't too sick, and everyone now is fully recovered.
Abby, Mark, and I thought we might have covid since we'd been at the party and I definitely had a cold. We all got tested and were all negative, so I don't know how that worked, but it was great. As a family, we went to the lights at the Botanical Gardens, dinner at the Melting Pot one night, and to Helen - the cute little German town in northern Georgia. We watched movies, played games, and baked. We played tennis and went to church, and just loved being together. It was so fun to have big kids here to help plan and make the food, shop, and wrap with. We had a wonderful Christmas eve together with music, games, and our gift to the Savior. Adam even joined in on the annual sister sleepover - he's a very good sport! And Christmas morning was magical. I loved seeing what everyone got for each other. It was so good to catch up and reconnect, see what's on everyone's minds, and of course, it was over too quickly.
Before we knew it, we were taking Abby, Zelle, and Adam to the airport so they could get back for Lizzie's wedding. We got Tuggy for a few more days, but that also ended quickly. We absolutely loved our time together and we're grateful for every moment.
Comments
Post a Comment