Well, I guess this speaks to finishing the blog entry when one starts it. This is the third time I have set about to update our blog. I have found that "saving it" to finish it later doesn't truly save it.

So we have lots to update since the Christmas blog. We have daily increased our knowledge and understanding of our office duties. Kathy is busy preparing handouts and other items for upcoming leadership conferences which will be held this week and in the near weeks to come for our missionaries, and she has been busy with Pres. and Sis. Miles' schedule - reserving church buildings around the mission and places for Pres. and Sis. Miles to stay as they make they way around much of Alberta and eastern British Columbia.

My duties of course, concern the 84 cars in the mission fleet. Cars and cold weather are not necessarily a good mix unless one is sitting in a warm car, gazing out on a beautiful winter scene, and not having to drive anywhere, but that is not what it is about. Slick roads, cars that won't start, batteries that are run down due to cranking a car engine, and missionaries practicing their winter driving skills in church parking lots (read, turning donuts in snowy parking lots and sliding into sidewalks and light poles) all made for a lively Christmastime period. This week begins my first exposure to having to deal with all the gas card receipts and car logs and where each vehicle stacks up against the mileage (excuse me, kilometer) limits. All of this information is entered into a data base. This data base also involves entering expense data for each car to account for tires, batteries, oil changes, and body and fender work. Once I have entered the invoices for work done, I am happy to hand them over to the office finance guru, Elder Peppinger.

We are now settled into our small but nice apartment. We bought a couple of bookcases from Ikea and now have adequate shelves for the stuff we brought. We are on the 12th floor of our building looking south so we benefit from the brief but pleasant sun exposure. As we look to the southwest we have a nice view of the mountains as well. Our apartment is warm, sometimes too warm. We pretty much don't have to set our thermostat as it remains in the mid-70s no matter what we set on the thermostat. Even the 4-level parking terrace is heated, and, as previously mentioned, we can walk through the parking terrace to a nice supermarket. The office is only 10 minutes away so even when it is cold outside, we are exposed only briefly.

We had a lovely New Year's Eve. We joined the other office couples and the couple who does the periodic inspections of the missionary apartments. We enjoyed a potluck dinner together and then played games until "late". We didn't last until midnight local MST; the picture below shows us celebrating midnight CST style. As we are such party animals, we went home about 11:15.

The picture which follows shows a wonderfully decorated holiday spot called Spruce Meadows. The site is a famous equestrian spot here in Canada. The grounds are made up of different equestrian venue sites, horse stables, and manicured gardens (not evident under the snow of course) but even in winter are beautiful. We look forward to seeing it in summer and attending some of the events.

   On Saturday Kathy and I were able to go to the Calgary Temple. We had visited the grounds before when we were here in July of 2013, but is was nice to see what a beautiful building it is inside as well. We have brought along a number of names of our kindred dead and look forward to doing proxy work for them while we are here. A picture follows.

Our very best to you for a happy and prosperous New Year!