It’s a little past 9 p.m. on the first day of December, which is also a Sunday and is further the first Sunday of the month. Nina is watching one of the made-for-TV Christmas Movies in the other room. I’m, as usual, fussing with computers. The first Sunday of each month is generally a Fast Sunday — a day when we abstain from food and drink for two meals in a 24-hour period. The money we would have spent on food is donated to the Church for charitable purposes. We then gather together in our worship service where we take the sacrament and bear testimony. This is the last Fast Sunday for this year and in this time slot. Starting in January we switch meeting times with the other Ward in our building. They will have their block of meetings from 9:00 a.m. to noon and we will have our block of meetings from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. All in all, I prefer the afternoon meeting schedule.

This Sunday is also the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. Now that we have satellite TV, we get KBYU on the satellite and can watch these things from the comfort of our living room. We invited Duane and Bobby Slocum to come up and watch the devotional with us. The music by the Orchestra at Temple Square and the Tabernacle Choir was outstanding. It was a lovely meeting and we enjoyed the time together.

It’s also a tired day — I took a nap this afternoon and am still right ready to head for bed. I got a call about 10:30 last night that a woman in the ward, a single mother, had gone into the emergency room and needed a blessing. I rousted out one of my assistant group leaders and we drove over to the hospital to give the blessing. We were gone about an hour and a half. Then it was up a 6 a.m. to get ready for church and meetings starting at 7:00. Taking a nap is rather unusual for me these days, but it was welcomed this afternoon!