Breakfast with Santa

The special guest at the annual Hilltop Ward breakfast on December 17, 2023, was Santa.  For me, though, the special guests were my dear neighbors, many of whom I have known since 1978, when Dave and I moved into the Ensign 5th Ward.  While we have lived in the same house for all those years, we have been in two different stakes and three different wards!  The Christmas breakfast was one of many events which Dave supervises, as bishop.
 

Julie and Dave Monson are good friends.  Julie is an expansive, warm-hearted, very creative person who has spent most of her Church service in Young Women.  She is someone whom young people spontaneously love, and whom I love, as well.

Greg and Nancy Monson have been our next-door neighbors for nearly 45 years.  They are both strong leaders.  Greg was our bishop and Nancy has organized everything from annual homemade ice cream parties at her house for the whole neighborhood, to Relief Society and ward projects and events.  Nancy was my sorority sister so many years ago at the University of Utah.

These are three of my favorite people.  The first Sunday we visited the ward, Karen Derrick offered to tend our two grade school daughters, Lisa and Camille, because she didn't think the day care we had chosen was good enough.  The Derricks are devout, capable, good-hearted, and just back from a mission running "Everyday Branches" in Hong Kong.  The Everyday Branches host a different group of LDS members each day of the week for Church and activities.  Many of the members are Filipino nannies who get just one day a week off work, and who choose to spend it at Church.  Robyn Petty is the friend I ask, with great humility, to check on my community gardens when I take a vacation in the spring.  Only someone who loves me would haul water halfway across town to nourish my seedlings until the City turns on the drip system.  The only payment she will accept is jam.  Robyn is as unconventional as I am, and I admire that in her.  She collects "antiques" and is not above checking out my garbage can, once in a while, to see if there is a usable item!  Wayne Petty was one of our bishops, and he and Robyn are "salt of the earth", as my mother would say.

Elliott Brinton is our ward Elder's Quorum President, and the right hand man of Dave, as bishop.  Elliott has already blessed sick people in our ward and cared for grieving ones before Dave even hears about those needs--and Dave, as bishop, is one of the first ones to know.

I have always admired and loved Pam Johnson, ever since we both had houses filled with little children.  "Do it!" must be Pam's motto.  She has not only had a successful career as a real estate agent,, but she has kept her faith and raised an impressive family despite her talented husband, Wynn, being caught in a corporate scandal that resulted in him, rightly or wrongly, spending time in federal prison.  Pam spent the time Wynn was gone as our stake Young Women president.   Pam is brave, practical, capable, and always reaches out to help the people on the fringes.  Pam took off her stylish red sweater to show me the outrageous Christmas sweater she has collected for just such occasions as the ward breakfast!

Janie Brown is another of my heroines.  Years ago, when Jonny and Michael were little, I became a "Picture Lady" at their grade school, teaching lessons on art each month.  It was a program Janie created, and it spurred the love of art that I have today.  After Janie's grandchild died in a crash caused by a drunk driver, Janie made "MADD" (Mother's Against Drunk Drivers) a political force in Utah.  Her latest project is a parent training program which educators and governments have adopted around the world.  Janie has been a bishop's wife and mission mother, and I look forward to each time that she speaks in Church or shares her testimony.  Her good works are propelled by personal revelation, and I marvel at how close she seems to be to heaven.

Tracy Cannon is another friend with great talent and ambition.  She is one of Utah's few women real estate developers.  Tracy also owns a condo in San Diego, at which I have spent many fun and inspiring "retreats" with other women in the ward.  Peggy Spute is a sweet, humble woman with great faith and many talents.  Although she never married or had her own children, Peggy has nurtured thousands of young people as an aunt, junior high school science teacher, missionary, and Primary and Relief Society president.  She is presently my Sunday School teacher, and she is excellent.