February 1, 2022

 

Our land line phones, generally speaking, appear to be back in working order. There were some that did nothing but blurt out the busy signal on any given phone call for a couple of weeks. We are assuming that went for the miserable robot calls as well. In this neck of the woods house phones might be land-line, internet connected or cell phones. Internet is fine as long as the internet is up and running. Cell phone connections are not reliable in our spotty areas of service, this seems to be a concept difficult for the outside world to understand.

Morgan Keller, oldest son of Jared and Hollie Keller, was ordained to the office of a teacher this month. He was ordained by his father and welcomed into the Teacher’s Quorum of the Mink Creek Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Elder Dallon Baird has now left for some time at the Mission Training Center in Provo, prior to beginning his years of service as a missionary in the Arizona, Tempe, Mission. He will be in Provo for two weeks. He is the son of Liesa and LaRon Baird. His grandmother, Lana McCracken and husband Ivan live in Mink Creek. Several of his relatives on his mother’s side of the family were able to come to hear him speak in a recent church meeting: Grandparents, LeeAnn and Terry Orton of Ogden, aunts and uncles Brent and Tanya Orton of Iona, ID, and Katie and Jeremy Lund of Herriman, UT with some sprinkling of cousins.

Claudine and LaMar McKague of Vancouver, WA, spent a few days here, sorting through some tasks that are part of their preparation for building a home here in the future. Their daughter Sage had wedding plans in Rexburg, ID, to marry Nathan Ricks, and this occasion brought family members together. Besides the extended McKague family, Bob and Claudia Erickson, grandparents of the bride attended, along with Davis Collins, currently of Mink Creek, Carla and Mark Nielsen of American Fork, UT, and the family of Laural and Jody Janke who now live in Rexburg.

The local coyotes have been doing their share of howling. Perhaps they are only singing about our beautiful sparkling landscape during the nights of moonlight.

Have you noticed how quickly those short days of Winter solstice are lengthening? Around here it was fairly dark by 5 p.m., and now there is still a bit of light about 6? And the sunsets, oh my, they are beautiful and filled with color! Dawn looks encouraging as well, the light starts up over our eastern mountains and bit by bit the white snowy slopes on the opposite side start to glow and grow, inch by inch, as the light works its way up. It helps to wake up to a “good morning!”