Wonderful Friends and Neighbors

 "Hello neighbor!"  is the cheerful greeting I regularly get from one of my next door neighbors.  How blessed my family has been through the past twenty plus years to live next door to this wonderfully kind and always helpful neighbor and his large and equally wonderful wife and family.  If this were the only wonderfully kind neighbor that we have, we would undoubtedly still be very blessed, but there are many people in our neighborhood who are equally kind and helpful and who have been good and positive influences to my children.    I love that we live in a nice comfortable home with a fairly large yard on a fairly quiet circle in a fairly diverse neighborhood for our city.  We have neighbors of varied backgrounds and beliefs and lifestyles, but right now especially I can say that everyone  gets along and respects and enjoys one another.  We get together for little pot luck or ice cream socials several times a year, and can almost always count on someone to come and help us out if we ever get in a bind.  Hopefully we are at least half as good neighbors as they are to us.

We are also very blessed to belong to a church congregation that several families on our circle and many of our more outlying neighbors also attend.   During the past eight months of COVID 19 restrictions, we have not been meeting regularly as a congregation in our neighborhood chapel, but have been worshiping as families in our own homes.   Recently the congregation has begun meeting for the weekly Sacrament Meeting worship service with masks and social distancing seating for those who are comfortable meeting in person.  Because in our family we are considerably at high risk, and one of us works in a fairly high risk job and uses public transportation  most days, we have elected to continue worshiping here in our own home.  Last week for the first time, we were blessed to listen to the Sacrament Meeting via Zoom, and today we were able to listen to the Sacrament Meeting and also to meet with others from the congregation for a Sunday School class, each of us participating or listening from our individual homes.  What a blessing to once again see and listen to our good friends and neighbors, to hear of their challenges and grief, and also to hear of the blessings and faith and testimonies many of them have experienced in the past few days and weeks.  Though we are forever grateful that we can worship at home as a family, we are also very grateful to have the blessing of once again gathering and worshiping, even though virtually, with our good friends and neighbors.