December 16, 2014 (Providence, RI)

Tis the season to be jolly and to make things like pretty, yummy smelling pine wreaths at the 50th annual Cambridge Ward wreath making event!  It's huge!  People from the church as well as from the community come to make beautiful wreaths for their home and for their friends.  It was my first attempt at it, but I think mine turned out pretty good and it sure smells piney and fresh when we come up to our apartment door.

Some of the lovely wreath makers from our ward!

Our cute sister elves!

My humble hand-crafted wreath!

 On Wednesday, December 10, we had a wonderful event that happens every 3 months in our mission.  All the senior missionary couples and President and Sister Packard go to a temple session and then meet back at the mission home for lunch.  It is a very special time when we get to know each other better and receive love and encouragement from the mission president and his wife. 

 

 
We love being a part of the Massachusetts Boston Mission.  It has changed our lives for the better in ways we hope will stay a part of us forever.  We are closer to each other for one thing.  Being together pretty much 24/7 either makes you stronger or drives you crazy.  We have become stronger and better. We have also become better at praying together and studying our scriptures both together and separately.  We are better planners and organizers of our time.  We appreciate our family and friends more.  We love our Father in Heaven and our Savior more than ever as well.  We love being missionaries!  We hope that when we return home that things won't change too much.  We probably won't be together quite as much, but we hope to keep things pretty close to how they are now and we can always be missionaries whether at home or on a mission!

We had our Zone Meeting on Friday.  Here are our crazy zone leaders trying to get us "pumped up" to get more exercise.  It's easy to be lazy about exercising when it's cold and the days are short, but the missionaries are all being encouraged to try to get some form of exercise 6 days a week!  

After our exercise pep talk, we had a "Moore" spiritual moment when Elder Moore played the role of King Benjamin from the Book of Mormon and encouraged the missionaries to bring their recent converts to the temple!  He's becoming quite the actor in our zone--first Noah and now this!

Friday night was our ward Christmas party.  The Bishopric was in charge and our sisters volunteered to help them.  The sisters ended up being pretty much in charge and they did a great job.  They cooked the ham and potatoes and they set up, decorated, and made a cute video of the Primary children.  The Chinese group Elder's helped with the setting up and hanging lights!  They did a great job! The Bishopric was very happy and relieved to have had the sister's help!

These are two of the sweet friends we have made in the Cambridge 1st Ward, Courtney Toiaivao, and Stephanie Leishman

Santa with the darling little Berkey twins!

Some of the missionaries and members from the Chinese group.

Another dear friend, Del Hamilton

Simple, but cute table decorations!

Santa (Paul Malone)

Jared Berkey

At the end of the evening, Bishop Orgill stood up and presented Mike and I with a photo book of Boston that had been signed by many members of the ward.  It came as such a surprise to us.  We were not expecting anything.  He said so many kind things about our service and we were very touched!

On Saturday night, the 13th, (12/13/14), we celebrated Sister Cruz' birthday.  She's our darling missionary from our zone who is from Brazil.  We have adopted her and she has adopted us!  We had Brazilian Feijoada and cheese bread with brownies and ice cream for dessert.  Sister Jones helped me with some of the food.  She is so helpful to us!  Sister Moss came with Sister Cruz because her companion, Sister Fernando and Sister Moss's companion, Sister Platt were both sick.  They live in the same house, so it all worked out. Although we missed the two sick ones, we were grateful they didn't bring their germs to us!

Mike and I are singing in church next Sunday, so we were practicing for a few minutes after church was over.  Little Jared wanted to be part of the fun!  I love this picture!  We feel like we have become part of the "fabric of this ward."  A goal that is encouraged by our mission president.  We are going to miss it here!

For our P-day, we finally got to go to Providence, Rhode Island.  Mike has been wanting to go for a while now and something always comes up.  Last week it was our car troubles and weather.  This time we got lucky.  It was a beautiful day.  Cold, but clear and it wasn't windy, so it was perfect for walking around and exploring this great place. There's a lot of interesting history here.

We picked up the B's and got to Providence just in time to grab a hot dog at the NY System diner.  It was featured on Triple D with Guy Fieri so we pretty much had to try it.  It really was a typical diner and we got the "two weiner" special.

 It reminded us a lot of Texas Hot in Wellsville, NY, except this place didn't have nearly as much character.

After lunch, we drove to downtown Providence, found a free holiday parking spot, and headed out to explore this beautiful city!

 Historic City Hall

 We love cities that have outdoor skating rinks with Christmas music playing over the loud speakers.

 The Arcade.  It's the oldest indoor shopping mall in the country!

 This is a beautiful church on College Hill.  Brown University, one of the seven Ivy League Universities, is located here.  We wandered around the streets and saw several homes belonging to the Brown families as well as the beautiful buildings of Brown University and Rhode Island School of Art and Design.

 One of our favorite places was this library--the 4th oldest in the country.

 I thought these two buildings belonged in Harry Potter!

 The Rhode Island State Capital-- it is made of marble.  The dome is one of the largest self-supported domes in the world.

 There were a couple of charming gingerbread houses in one of the rooms of the capital.  It smelled so good--like fresh gingerbread right out of the oven!

This is a shopping mall built over the train tracks which are built over the water.

 We ended our walking tour in the Providence Biltmore Hotel.  It has the prime lodging location in the city and is decorated in the style of the 1920's.

 Mike was thrilled to have explored Providence and felt that we had seen everything he wished to see.  It was really a great adventure and we got to see yet another part of New England before heading west.

After walking around for a few hours, we decided we needed to go to the much talked about (by the missionaries who had served in Providence) Newport Creamery and have an Awful Awful!

 It's a drink that is like a milk shake, but instead of being made with ice cream, it is made with frozen milk.  They were quite delicious and we were happy we tried them!

This cup pretty much sums it up!

We only have one Moore p-day before we head home!  How can six months be over so soon?  This has been an incredible journey in every possible way.

For a spiritual treat this week, please visit http://www.mormon.org/christmas?cid=HPFR112814529 to watch a video about the true meaning of Christmas. This is another amazing Christmas video you will probably not want to miss, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrLoWt2tfqg

We love you!  Have a wonderful week!