Karen and Bob Rutledge Family

This year our family decided to change it up a little bit. Instead of doing a project for just Christmas time, we decided to work on one to two projects all year long. So for this year we picked two projects that we felt as a family, improved the community/church and brought our family closer together.

The first project we picked is filled of lots and lots of manual labor. As most of you know we help out with a horsing program at girls camp. Two years ago we had helped move the old corrals to a new area. But there has been some problems with the location that it was moved to. So long story short our family was asked to review all the locations in the camp and come up with a couple of logical areas to move it to. So in June, August and September we all headed up to camp we hiked and rode horses around camp taking video and pictures of different locations. We then in October submitted all the information and were approved to move to a new location. We went back to camp in November and started cutting a new trail which will not only be used for Horses but also for Mt. Biking and Hiking. We are hoping that as soon as the snow melts we will be able to finish the trail and flatten out areas for corrals, trailers, and learning area's. The best thing of all is that we get to go camping while we are serving.

Our second project we decided on was to make cupcakes for different individuals/families either in our ward or in the community. Katelyn has become the lead director in this project, she is our master cupcake maker. We were able to get a couple of names from our Relief Society President of people in our area to take cupcakes to. We at this point have been able to deliver one batch so far, but our true goal is to do at least one delivery a month hopefully two that are holiday themed. This really gives us a chance to get to meet people, make new friends, and share a little bit of yummy goodness with them.

We also had a chance to donate can goods to both the Elementary School and the High School this year which helped make large food baskets for those in need in our local area. The girls really enjoyed this.

Hope all of you have a great Christmas and a successful New Year.

Love the Rutledge Family

Bruce and Ann Van Horn

With Ann being Relief Society President there is some type of service project going on at all times. However, Bruce seems to be her biggest service project.

In preparation for Christmas we were involved with a couple very worth while projects. First off the Cones Family. Joe & Laura Cones and their toddler Van moved into the basement apartment of Rocky Revels' home. Rocky lives at the east end of our street. The Cones have very little in the way of money or temporal things. Prior to their marriage both had a tough go in life. We invited them to Thanksgiving Dinner along with Mark, Amy and the kids. We all had a delightful time and the Cones really enjoyed being with our family. Laura is a member but has only attended Church in the last little while. Joe was raised Catholic on the Arapaho Reservation in Wyoming. However he mentioned to me that he knew alot about the LDS Church because on the Wind Rivers Reservation most of the families were either Catholic or LDS. Joe and Laura were married by a Bishop in Rock Springs, WY.

Joe had been studying about the Church with the missionaries at Thanksgiving time. At our Thanksgiving Dinner he mentioned to me that he was interested in being baptised. The good news is that just before Christmas he was baptised. He asked me to Confirm him the Sunday after his baptism. On Sunday (Jan. 4th) Joe will be blessing his son, Van, in Sacrament Mtg.

Besides the Cones there are a couple of families in the neighborhood that have been struggling with not having adequate income to get by on. These families were asked if neighbors could help with purchasing clothes, food, etc. for them. These families provided lists of things they needed, clothes sizes, etc and the neighbors went to work making donations and purchasing the need items. Ann assisted in the organization of this and I had the opportunity to help shop. This was a great privilege to help provide a meaningful Christmas for some special neighbors.

Dad