1 The end is here

The end is here. No, not the end of the world. Planet Earth will still be spinning beyond whenever the Mayan calendar was supposed to have ended. But, as you may note in this issue's Final Word, we are discontinuing the Cleverly Newsletter, after 39-plus years, to go serve a mission. This is our final issue. Maybe.

While we are serving as missionaries, we will be unable to continue bringing you reports on what is happening in the family that has grown from Ivard and Dorothy's original nine children to probably a couple hundred people spread now across multiple generations. Or bringing you excerpts from Dorothy's diaries of 50 years earlier. Or sharing pieces of family history.

Some elements of the newsletter will actually still be available to you in different formats: Dorothy's diaries, for example, have already been available at the blog site Dorothy's Idaho Diaries (click on the link or go to http://dorothy-idaho.blogspot.com/). The posts there are the complete entries she wrote half a century ago, not just the excerpts I've shared in the monthly newsletter. I hope to prevail upon one of my children to continue that daily labor of love.

I have compiled a collection of my little Final Word essays from the nearly four decades I have been publishing the Cleverly Newsletter in a book, A Final Word: Messages to My Family. It is available at Lulu.com in paperback for $16.00 (order through me, and I can get it for you for $11.00). It is also available on Amazon.com for the same $16.00. You can search for it by title or its ISBN (978-1-105-88652-2).

Similarly, the collection of family histories I completed some years ago and distributed fairly widely, Batt & Lee Ancestors, is also available at Lulu.com as an eBook for $1.99. 

I do not see clearly what the future may hold. Perhaps after our two-year mission to Winter Quarters we may revive the Cleverly Newsletter in some form, although Claudia and I are hoping that this is just the first of multiple missions we might serve. 

I currently plan to send our immediate family a weekly e-mail reporting on our mission. At this point, I plan to send it as an e-mail, not publish it as a blog. If you care to be added to that mailing list, send me an e-mail saying so and giving me your current e-mail address. My e-mail address is dcleverly@gmail.com.

It's been fun. 

2 Quote of the month

There is no better time than now, this very Christmas season, for all of us to rededicate ourselves to the principles taught by Jesus Christ. . . .

Christmas is what we make of it. Despite all the distractions, we can see to it that Christ is at the center of our celebration. If we have not already done so, we can establish Christmas traditions for ourselves and for our families which will help us capture and keep the spirit of Christ.

— Thomas S. Monson

(First Presidency Christmas devotional, Dec. 4, 2011) 

3 This month in our family

Everybody!
Sun, Dec 2: Fast Sunday
Sun, Dec 2: First Presidency Christmas devotional
Fri, Dec 7: Pearl Harbor remembrance day 1941
Sat, Dec 8: Hanukkah begins at sundown
Sun, Dec 9: Joseph's missionary farewell
Mon, Dec 17: Ivard & Dorothy married 1934
Fri, Dec 21: Winter solstice (shortest day of the year)
Sun, Dec 23: Joseph Smith's birthday 1805
Mon, Dec 24: Christmas Eve
Tues, Dec 25: Christmas Day
Fri, Dec 28: Full moon (Cold moon)
Sun, Dec 30: Dean & Claudia's missionary farewell
Mon, Dec 31: New Year's Eve

Lyle's family
Mon, Dec 3: Hannah Grace Kersker's birthday
Sat, Dec 8: Aric's birthday
Sun, Dec 9: Joseph's missionary farewell
Tues, Dec 18: Shandi Cleverly-Burdett's birthday
Thurs, Dec 20: Adria Janelle Kersker's birthday
Sat, Dec 22: Doug's birthday
Sat, Dec 22: Crystal Price's birthday
Sun, Dec 23: Dakota's birthday
Tues, Dec 25: Shawn & Shandi Burdett married 2000

Gail's family
Fri, Dec 7: Brian's birthday
Sat, Dec 8: Dustin & Michelle Duay married 2002
Wed, Dec 19: Brian & Kate married 2003
Mon, Dec 24: Richard & Angie Craine married 2005
Wed, Dec 26: Jacob Robert Rankin's birthday

Kay's family
Sun, Dec 9: Chuck McAllister's birthday
Tues, Dec 11: Kinslee Higley's birthday
Wed, Dec 12: McCall's birthday
Sat, Dec 15: Chad & Melissa married 1994
Thurs, Dec 20: Brandon & Nicole married 1997
 
Gene's family
Wed, Dec 12: Ronnie's birthday
Fri, Dec 28: Terry & LaWanda Packwood married 1990

Ray's family
Tues, Dec 4: Curtis's birthday

Dean's family
Sun, Dec 2: Talmage & Louise married 2006
Sat, Dec 8: Aaron Marvin Challis's birthday
Wed, Dec 12: Tanner Hoff born and died 1995
Fri, Dec 14: James died 1999
Sun, Dec 30: Dean & Claudia's missionary farewell

Dale's family
Sun, Dec 16: Kira's birthday

Jackie's family
Sun, Dec 30: Rex Sayer's birthday

4 Bits and Tidbits

Lyle's family
As we reported last month, Joseph Card (Lyle's great-grandson and Terry and Becky's grandson) has received a mission call to the California Roseville Mission. He speaks in sacrament meeting on Sunday, December 9, with an open house that evening, before he reports to the Provo MTC on Wednesday, December 19.

Jerry
We spoke with Jerry on the phone on Friday, November 30. We were down visiting Kay and Karen in Hurricane and had made contact with Nancy Shahan (who as Nancy Blades joined the Church in 1964 in Nampa, and Jerry and I were her first home teachers). She now lives in Hurricane, and we looked her up and invited her over to visit. She walked in Kay and Karen's front door as I was on the phone with Jerry, so I handed the phone to Nancy, and she talked briefly with Jerry. We had a nice visit with Nancy catching up on nearly half a century. I had probably last seen her in the mid-1960s.

Kay's family
On Thursday, November 15, Kay celebrated his birthday. On Friday, November 16, he had surgery for an esophageal diverticulectomy. The doctor found a hiatal hernia while in there, so he fixed it also. Karen posted on Saturday, November 17, "Kay's surgery went well. This morning I get to take him home. For Thanksgiving dinner he gets only soft foods. He has not had to take any pain meds at all. We are so grateful for the priesthood and the blessings they administer . . . and the power of prayers. Thank you everyone." 

Claudia and I drove down to Hurricane on Wednesday, November 28, to visit Kay and Karen before we leave on our mission. We arrived there that evening, not long before Kay had to go off to tithing settlement. The delicious meal of soup and salad was Kay's first eating of solid food since his surgery. Karen works all day in the St. George Temple on Thursdays, so that afternoon Kay, Claudia, and I went through an endowment session, which ended just as it was time for Karen to be through. On Friday we visited with Nancy (as reported above under Jerry) and then went exploring: to Pine Valley up behind Pine Mountain, to the site of the Mountain Meadows Massacre in 1857, and back to Tuhacan, where in the evening we watched a live enactment (with live animals, a donkey, some sheep, and a camel) of the Nativity. We concluded the evening driving around looking at Christmas lights in St. George and Hurricane. And then Saturday morning, December 1, Claudia and I got in the car and headed home to Bountiful. It was a wonderful few days together.

Chad and Melissa's girls did well at the North American Western Regionals Oireahtas on Saturday, November 17. Danielle place third and Mckenna placed fourth. Melissa posted, "SOOOOOO proud of them. We love you girls."

Dean's family
With our visit these past few days to Kay and Karen in southern Utah (as reported above under Kay's family), we have now had an opportunity to see all our family before we take off for two years to serve at the Mormon Trail Center at Historic Winter Quarters (in Omaha, Nebraska). We visited our daughter Rachael and her family in Harrisburg, Illinois, for a week in September; the family in the Nampa and Boise area (Lyle and Nina, Jerry, Gene and Cheryl, Dale and LeAnn, and Rex and Jackie) in mid-October; and our daughter Eliza and her family in Atlanta, Georgia, right after that October trip to Idaho. And then Kay and Karen. Our travels are now through.

We are excited, however, that both Rachael's and Eliza's family are coming to see us at Christmastime for a week each: Eliza arriving on Christmas Eve and flying home on New Year's Day, and Rachael arriving on the night of Christmas Day and flying home on January 2. They will be here for when Claudia and I speak in sacrament meeting on Sunday morning, December 30, before we enter the Provo MTC on Monday, January 14.

Our son-in-law Cade Hoff has accepted a new job in southern California, a contract position working for the military at Camp Pendleton, which he begins on January 2. (He had been doing a similar job, something to do with computers, for the military at Hill Field here in Utah.) So, the family will be moving from Layton to California just before we take off for our mission.

Dale's family
Dylan and Sarah are expecting their second child this coming summer—at least that's what their Christmas card announced. Exciting!