Do You See What I See?

On December 11th, we are having a special Christmas event. We hope it turns out at least ½ as well as what it looks like in our heads – hah!

Basically this will be our last opportunity to leave all these Institute kids (whom we have grown to love) with our testimony of Christ.

As full-time missionaries, we put out a special invitation to all the Institute young adults to RVSP and to bring a non-member or less active friend. We even got permission from our mission President to have the six (actually 7 due to a threesome) university area full-time “young” missionaries to help assist.

So, the word went out. Already enough young adults have RSVP’d that we actually are having to pull the event off twice. Once at 11:30 (sold out) and then an hour later at 12:30 ( ¾ sold out). We really, really hope it turns out as well as what we have hyped it up to be.

So the pressure is on and we spent the better part of our 4 day Thanksgiving weekend preparing for this “little” event.

What could we possibly be up to? Well, we have been putting together a program centered on Christ, based on 1 Nephi chapter 11, connecting His birth with the Tree of Life. (More details on the specifics on this program at a later time.)

And of course the room will be decorated up a little for Christmas. How “little” you may ask? Well, you do understand that Mike is involved right? Yah, you got it, if we actually pull it off, the room will be decorated to the hilt - Including a center piece consisting of a three-panel stained glass Nativity scene.

Each stain glass panel will be about 8 feet tall and 6 feet wide. This makes the whole Nativity scene 8 feet tall x 18 feet wide.

Of course, you might well ask, (and actually I did ask Mike): “Do we know ANYTHING about creating stained glass panes? Just how big is our budget?” Well, due to budget constraints and the fact we know NOTHING about stained glass, Mike opted for an alternate plan. Since we are EXPERTS in duct tape, Mike figured we could stretch our area of expertise a bit and try putting together “stained glass” panels, aka, scotch tape, colored cellophane and black butcher paper. Of course, when I asked Mike has anyone ever put together cellophane panels that large? I got the standard Hertz car reply, “Well, not exactly.” But when has a little “big” ever stopped Mike?

So here we are starting to put together the first of three panels:

Don’t let that half-smile fool you. If that looks like a mess, you win the prize! Mike is trying to figure out how to get that “little” shepherd boy to cooperate. Who would have known that cellophane” likes to split and tear so very, very easily when you are trying to make it look like stained glass.

Finally though, it started to cooperate and after ONLY 26 hours of cellophane “fun,” we got the three panels completed. So on to the next task, , ,

On a less-stressful front, here is a picture of some of the young adults in our West Seattle class. In the front, second from your left, is the young woman, named “Kiethly” who was baptized and confirmed last week!


Well, we hope you took some time with family and friends to talk some turkey over some pumpkin pie!

We are so thankful and grateful for all your prayers and support. Know that you are in our prayers as well!

Love,

Elder “Mike” and Sister “Jenny” Thornton

Honoring and "Catching" up

Things have been spinning pretty fast around here. First we were honored to attend the baptism of one of our students who attends our class down in west Seattle. Rats!! We forgot the camera but will get a picture of Kiethly Ispiritu at an upcoming class.

Secondly, we were privileged to be invited to attend a Veteran's Day service that honored 16 Medal of Honor recipients. A couple of students in one of our Book of Mormon classes were participating.



Dane Stevenson is an Air Force ROTC cadet and was up front with the big wigs.

Ben Wilcox is going to BYUI this winter before heading out on his mission. He's on the right in the boy scout uniform carrying the flag.

The Husky marching band was there. One of the saxophonists is an LDS student.

All in all it was a lovely tribute to those who serve our country.

THEN:

Seattle Institute of Religion's annual TURKEY BOWL was last weekend. The LDS student association rented the Husky stadium.

OK, granted they Husky's have artificial turf, but we're still flabbergasted that the university would allow 300+ kids come play under the big lights in their lovely stadium. It boggles the mind.

The kids love it and they come out in big numbers.

There were 32 teams.

One of our favorite teams was the all girls team, "The tutus". (They lost in two but weren't shut out!!)

There were three games going on at once playing the width of the field with the sidelines acting as goal lines.

Some sideline coaching going on.

Who would guess we would find an old neighbor at the Turkey Bowl? Some of you may remember Paul Barnes.

And that's a wrap.

From the missionaries assigned here at the University of Washington. (plus Sister Williams, the secretary here at the institute)

Wild Wumpus

These past few weeks have been an absolute blur.

We can’t believe we are getting down to planning our last big Hoorah in less than a month. And with Mike, well, the “Big” part of the “Hoorah” has us hopping to get everything done in time! – More on that in an upcoming later email/blog.

Aaah, but it is P-day morn! Relax a little, then SCREEEEEEECH!!!!!!
With all the heavy smokers residing in a 100+ apartment building, we had wondered just how long it would be until somebody fell asleep with a lit & smoldering cigarette:However, we will just have to keep wondering because, (fortunately for us,) it was just a prankster who pulled the alarm.

But, that was not the end of our excitement for the week!
The Institute Council sponsored a “Wild Rumpus Dance” in celebration of the recently released movie of “Where the Wild Things Are?”

Anyway, we haven’t seen the movie, but supposedly it is based on a famous children’s story book - A book that apparently I never got around to reading to our kids. I know, I know, chalk up one more reason why my kids were grossly “deprived” and neglected as youngsters!

As you can see the evening was quite fun:
And some of the “things” were quite wild:
And the games were interesting:
And, the atmosphere was, well, , , just fun and “playful”
And, what is a social gathering of young, LDS kids and their friends without missionaries?
Speaking of which, we have a baptism to go to at 7:00pm and one last round of talks to prepare - hopefully.

So until next time, we hope your celebration of “Where the Wild Things Are” was on the fun, yet tame side of life!

And if you haven’t celebrated life lately, shame on you!
The gospel is the “Good News” so start acting the part.
It is never too late to get your “Wild Wumpus” on now is it?

From the U-dub Wumpus Room (just see if you can say that fast 10 times!)

Love,
Elder “Mike” & Sister “Jenny” Thornton