Early Christmas Celebrations

There are a lot of memes and commentaries on social media about how women do all the work for Christmas and the husband just shows up and sees what everyone got for presents. That isn't the case in our house. Allen does the bulk of the gift planning and buying and he's great at it. He also is a great help at getting our house ready for Christmas. I'm so grateful for him!

 

This year Jill and Chase are going to Ontario for Christmas so decided we would do Christmas with them the weekend before. I was not sure it was really going to be that great....but it was really a wonderful weekend! 

Jill and Chase and Peirce all came over for dinner on Saturday. We ordered a meat platter from one of our favorite restaurants, Big T's, and added some great Christmas salads. It was a great feast!

After dinner, we had a little family pranking to follow up on. There has been a long standing back and forth between us and the NAckroyds. 

Allen also had a visit to go do with the Payne's as Santa Claus. It was quite a busy night! 

Later that night, we watched a movie (or rather, turned a movie on and fell asleep). 

Sunday morning was Christmas stockings and then we went to church in Jill and Chase's ward. After church, we opened presents and had an amazing turkey dinner! 

Not a tennis racket?

Our turkey was so big it was busting out of the roaster! :) 

Those beautiful blue plates were one of my Christmas presents from my dear husband. 

On Sunday Allen also went and played Santa Claus for the Payne's. It was a lot of fun!

It was really a great weekend. It is fun to have our family all together. I love how Jill and Peirce and Chase all get along so well and have a good time together. I feel richly blessed!

Mission Reunion of Sorts

Father's Day seems like a good time to publish this post. I miss my dad. He served a mission to Denmark and always loved to tell stories of his experience there.

I came across someone connected to my dad. It was quite a surprise:

The internet can be a wild and wooly place with strange interactions. I have become more and more careful about who I connect with on the internet and so when I received a message from someone I didn't know named Tim Sondrop, I wasn't quick to respond.  

Something about it made me curious though. He asked: Is your father Gayle C Jensen who served in the Denmark mission during the mid -60s?

That was a pretty specific question. Not your average 'hey pretty lady'. LOL I finally responded. Turns out Tim is the youngest of five boys and his father and mine were companions on their mission. 

He said:

I discovered his obituary in a google search. I read that he had passed away in 2010 to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. My condolences. I have no doubt that my father and he are continuing their missionary lessons in the spirit world. 

He was my father, Daryl Sondrup's first companion in the mission field. My father passed away abruptly last month and I've been reading through his missionary journal. In it, he relates his experiences with your father including baptizing, Thanksgiving and Christmas '65 and many missionary experiences. 

This particular one stood out to me:

November 20, 1965

Today I had the scare of my life. As my companion and I were getting on the bus, my companion, Elder Jensen, turned to me and said, "This is a first lesson." We were just leaving to a cottage meeting. "I hope you're ready to give it."

I don't know why, but I got kind of sick all of a sudden. I was praying that he was kidding. but when we got to the appointment, I found out, to my dismay, that he wasn't. So, when we got to the Joseph Smith story, he said, "Now my companion will take over."

I was praying all the time. I started off quite well and even felt a little proud of myself until we got to about the middle of the lesson. Then I started to have a little trouble (every once in a while, my mind would go completely blank). Towards the end, my companion ended up giving most of the lesson. But I think it went quite well for the first time. I wish though, that I could get over getting embarrassed when I talked to people. We gave the lesson to Hr Nielsen a Ferisor.

Some other excerpts:

• He bears his testimony which is very vital in the conversion of people, he is a good teacher - He makes the lessons interesting and understandable.
• My three months I spent with Elder Gayle Jensen will be remembered for as long as I live. I will never forget the times I spent trying to struggle through the lessons. Elder Jensen's statement, "Come on, you can learn a page a day."
• Elder Jensen was a great Elder and he helped me very much in getting a good start here on my mission. He pushed hard on the lessons, but I'm glad he did. 
  
  
  

Here is my father's obituary:  https://www.lindquistmortuary.com/obituary/Daryl-Sondrup 

We hoped we would get at least ten more years with "Papa", especially for the sake of his grandkids. He was a kid at heart and we all miss him dearly, but I believe that we all have a time appointed unto death, and that your father and mine were needed to continue their missionary service to the Lord beyond the veil.

It's been a joy to read through my dad's missionary journal after all these years. I served a mission in Brazil, so I can relate to my father in a whole new missionary sense. Your father came across as a great man and I'm grateful to him for helping my dad at the onset of his mission. 

Those mission reunions can be awfully sweet!

Alma 17

1 And now it came to pass that as Alma was journeying from the land of Gideon southward, away to the land of ^aManti, behold, to his astonishment, he ^bmet with the ^csons of Mosiah journeying towards the land of Zarahemla.

2 Now these sons of Mosiah were with Alma at the time the angel ^afirst appeared unto him; therefore Alma did rejoice exceedingly to see his brethren; and what added more to his joy, they were still his brethren in the Lord; yea, and they had waxed strong in the knowledge of the truth; for they were men of a sound understanding and they had ^bsearched the scriptures diligently, that they might know the word of God.

3 But this is not all; they had given themselves to much prayer, and ^afasting; therefore they had the spirit of prophecy, and the spirit of revelation, and when they taught, they taught with ^bpower and authority of God.

4 And they had been teaching the word of God for the space of fourteen years among the Lamanites, having had much ^asuccess in bringing many to the ^bknowledge of the truth; yea, by the power of their words many were brought before the altar of God, to call on his name and ^cconfess their sins before him.

Wedding Days

 This weekend was Jillian and Chase's wedding and it was a wonderful celebration! They were married in Cardston. We have a temple in Calgary but it was closed for some minor renovations. Allen and I were married in the Cardston temple and it had been a lot of years since we had been there. The person who married them was Brother Ursenbach. When I met him, I said, "Oh! I have some favorite Ursenbachs: Andy, Dan, Matt, Chuck...." and he happily responded, "Those are my sons!" The lady who helped us in the bride's room was from Paris and so it was fun for her to be able to speak French with Jill and later with Chase. The ceremony was really lovely. He encouraged everyone there to apply the covenants they make in the temple to their marriage. I had never thought of temple covenants that ways before. 

After the ceremony we had some Subway trays and Allen's mom and Carmen brought some veggie trays. Then we were off to take pictures on the temple grounds.  I can't wait to see the pictures!

That afternoon we had a lunch in Lethbridge at Earl's restaurant with lots of family and friends. It was nice to be able to sit and relax and visit. I stole a cool picture from Zoe's instragram from the restaurant.

Saturday was the reception. Celebrating with lots of extended family and even more friends made our hearts swell! 

Now they're off to their honeymoon!

Bridal Shower

 We are only a few weeks away from Jill and Chase's wedding. Last night some ladies in the ward planned a shower for them. Because of the new covid restrictions, we ended up doing it on Zoom. Peirce and Zoe and I went to their new place to be part of the shower. It was so fun! I'm so grateful for my dear friends who organized the shower! We felt the love! 

Karyn was up to her usual amazingness. 

She made no-bake cheesecakes and also had macarons. 

It was delicious!

Teaching DNA?

When I think back to going to university, I marvel that I did it. At the time, there wasn't a track record for me to follow. Neither of my parents completed university. None of my aunts and uncles or grandparents did. They all were very successful people in business. Some of my cousins started university, but at that time they hadn't finished. I look back sometimes and can't believe I even considered going to school to become a teacher. I really didn't know what I was doing.  I didn't know how to select courses and maneuver the intricacies of a huge school like that. The content wasn't hard. The work wasn't that hard...the long haul of it was hard. Often when I was in the midst of my schooling, I wondered why I shouldn't just quit. I had skills I could use and places I could work and did work...but something propelled me forward.  It took me a long time to figure things out. I wasn't good at asking for help. It's a miracle I made it through. 

I certainly am grateful for all the help and support I got with my goal. University changed me. It helped me be open to thinking about and discussing things I would have never otherwise. In the end, I loved it. Still, I wondered where I ever got the hair-brained idea that I could become a teacher. 

Recently, I've been helping share family history stories my mom writes up. I felt impressed that I should help her out somehow and so I revived The Family Called Hyde blog and we share a story each day. One of the stories my mom shared was about my Great Great Grandpa Hyde. He was a teacher and was not very impressed with his son's chosen ambitions to become a blacksmith. As a result, his son decided to leave and never come back. In those days, it meant he'd never see his family again. It seems his father was okay with that and that is sad.

 After a while, it struck me that maybe a tiny part of me came from Great Great Grandpa Hyde. Maybe it was part of my internal make up. Maybe his DNA helped me through university. One thing is for sure, I love teaching. It has changed me forever.

Christmas

Her car had been in for repairs for quite a while and so it also meant we got to drive her to work. It was great because that meant lots of visiting time.

On Christmas Eve, we played games together. Jackbox is a lot of fun!

Allen always likes to take something over to his godchildren, Antonio's boys - and so he dresses up and heads out as Santa. They really love it!

Santa was very good to us this year. Lots of clothes and books and other fun things....like a pie lifter! LOL

We usually have a few extra people for Christmas dinner. I really had to keep reminding myself to make small servings of each dish. Dinner was really great!

Letourneaus gave us some sparkly pear juice! Delicious! I have to remember to guy that kind of stuff.

We also had a zoom call with Grandma (she had spent the day at Brad and Jill's) and Gaylene and Duane (they were in Kelowna with Neil, Rachelle and Jordan....different rules in BC) and Taylor and Britt in Utah as well as Sydney who was in Airdrie at her (drum roll.....) fiance's house, Nathan Muller (son of Becky and Brian Muller!) Who would have thought their kids would get engaged?! It's like a match made in heaven. 

Later in the day we had planned to watch a movie, but the truth was, everyone really just needed a little quiet time - so reading became the focus. It was a wonderful day!