Dec. 16- Jan.5

Friday Dec. 16th

We volunteered at the Salvation Army today. Loaded lots of boxes of food for many families. We gave toys for Christmas to families too. Afterwards Elder Morrill bought us shakes and fries. As we were headed back to the ranch we took a winding road to get onto the freeway and I got super carsick and threw up. Since my house was only about 10 minutes away, we decided to stop there to clean up. My sister brought some cleaning supplies out to the van while my mom cleaned up my clothes and boots inside. She even sewed up a hole in my boots! I rested for a half hour while Elder Morrill took the rest of the Elders to get some more food. By the time he got back, I was ready for the trip back to the ranch.

Monday Dec. 19

 We did a lot of snow shoveling and I cleaned the bathrooms. I got some cool snowflake photos.

Tuesday Dec. 20th

Lots of snow at the ranch.

Dec. 24th - 25th

One of the nice things about my mission is that I can go home for the holidays. I had a great time celebrating Christmas with my family. I even went to church early Christmas morning with my Dad to help with shoveling walks in case they needed it. We all changed back into pajamas after church.

Saturday Dec. 31

Made it back to the ranch in time to celebrate the New Year. On the drive, there was some cool cloud cover over Ellensburg. We got to see it from Manashtash Ridge before we drove down into it.

All the young Elders were invited to a member's home for New Year's. The Finley family gave us pizza and we played a card game called 31. It was really fun. They had fireworks and I got to light a roman candle.

Sunday Jan. 1

I really enjoyed church today. Later I was able to go for a cold walk to the river. I like when the river cuts under the snow and makes an ice shelf. 

Monday Jan. 2

Rough day. I had a migraine and had to take some medicine and sleep a long time before it went away.

Tuesday Jan. 3

Great day! We read about Samuel the Lamanite at devotional.

In the clouds

Worked hard today! We cleaned paint from about eleven tables, and even cleaned the garbage cans. We finished a little early and I had time to cook all the chicken from my grocery shopping trip. I froze a lot of it to use later. 

Wednesday Jan. 4

I had another migraine today. 

Thursday Jan. 5

I feel great today! It's supposed to be my p-day, but I decided to work all day since I couldn't yesterday. We shoveled a path through the snow to the grease trap for the lodge kitchen. We needed to create a path so the people cleaning it could drive in. The snowplows had piled several feet of snow in that area and it had turned icy, so we had to use metal shovels to dig through it. It took all day to dig down that deep and create a path wide enough for them to drive in that far.