Counting Our Blessings

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Merry Christmas everyone!!! The year is drawing to a close, and I've been thinking about the many blessings we have received just in the last month.

Steven finally found a new job!!! It's with a company called IMA that has something to do with insurance. He wanted to start as soon as possible, but the person who will be his manager is on vacation so Steven won't start until January 4th. Due to COVID, it sounds like he will still primarily work from home, but when he can go to the office, it is right next door to Union Station downtown so the commute is far shorter than when he worked at MDC, and he can take public transportation (the company will pay for it) and be dropped essentially right on his doorstep. We have also been blessed these last three months that Steven has been unemployed to have had enough money in savings and food stored up that we've been able to pay our bills, have food to eat, and even have a nice Christmas. (It will still be a huge relief to have money coming in again!)

Hannah was able to come home for Christmas! She had gotten a flight home out of an airport in Provo, (who knew that Provo even had its own airport?!) but after a couple delays due to weather, her flight was cancelled at the last minute and the next flight to Denver from that airport wasn't scheduled for a few days. We scrambled to find her a flight out of Salt Lake, and she was blessed to be able to spend a bit more time with friends that evening and stay the night with her grandparents in Orem before flying home the next day. In this year of chaos, it is really nice to finish the year with our whole family together at home again.

Hannah and I were able to perform a musical number in church last Sunday. She played "O Holy Night" on her viola and I accompanied her on the piano. We didn't have much time to practice since she didn't get home until the Friday before the Sunday we performed. The musical number preceding ours was a piano solo, and the lid of the piano was up all the way, but I wanted to lower it before our performance, and in the process of lowering it, I managed to drop the whole piano lid on my hand. However, in spite of these unfortunate events, we were blessed that the musical number went really well, and my hand was only slightly bruised. Steven got to give a talk that Sunday as well, and that was really good too.

We have been blessed with good friends, good health and good weather. We have had opportunities to serve, from helping friends with re-landscaping their front yard to helping a grandmother sew doll clothes for her granddaughters. It was just announced that we can return to attending church every week rather than only on alternating Sundays as we have been the last few months. By some miracle, both of our high school students were able to pass all their classes this last semester (if only barely), in spite of the miseries and distractions of remote learning.

So while this year has had its struggles, through it all our family has truly been blessed. We end this year in a good place, and we continue in the hope that next year will be even better.

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