Week 81- A "White Christmas"

Dec 1, 2014

Hello Family!

I was just thinking about how holidays here are  just like normal days, but then you think about what day it is I remember the past holidays at home. It feels very weird that this was my 2nd Thanksgiving away from home. And now it's already December again! I can't wait to talk to you guys in a few weeks. The weather is really heating up here. It hasn't rained in almost 2 weeks, so I won't be surprised if it rains a lot this week. It gets really, really hot and humid in the morning and afternoon, but the evening usually feels nice as the sun goes down. 

This past week was super good. We didn't have a wedding or baptism, so we had all the time to do regular work, teaching lessons and doing contacts. We kept ourselves really busy this week with a lot of lessons,  and we still had time to do a lot of contacting on the road.  All our investigators are doing well. Right now we are focusing on two families, trying to get them baptized on the 25th, that's right, Christmas day. There's an initiative in the mission right now to try to get a family baptized on Christmas day, to make it a "white"Christmas. It's a good idea because it keeps all of us focused on this goal and on our investigators rather than thinking about home, especially at this time of the year. So we are trying to baptize on the two families we have been teaching on that day.  Both are very solid families and I'm confident they will get baptized, whether everything works out to have it on the 25th or not, they will get baptized, I'm sure of it.

Family #1, only lacks a few documents to open their marriage process. They are always coming to church as well. I really, really love this family. They are a fun couple, and we enjoy just to sit down and chat with them. 

Family #2, are a family we met at the end of October. Their progress had been a little slow until a couple weeks ago, and then they started coming to church together regularly and reading the Book of Mormon every day. They are really smart; they understand the Book of Mormon remarkably well. This week we taught them about the Law of Chastity and they accepted to get married without objections. Now we just need to rush to help them get all their documents to be married this month. We found a couple new families this week they are both nice people, and one of them came to church yesterday. We had 15 of our investigators at church.

For now our branch still has not moved out of our house, but it should be moving to its new location either by this Sunday, or the next. Elder Christiansen is doing well. We are getting along well and working hard every day. I don't know what happened to the month of November, it feels like it just started a few days ago, and now it's already gone! This year is finishing up quickly. 

I'm glad that you're doing well at home and that you put up the Christmas lights. Is there snow on the ground? You need to send me a pic of the house with the lights when there's a lot of snow on the ground, like you did last year.

I love all you soooo much and I’m always happy to read your letters. As always, I thank you for your prayers for me and for our investigators. I see the Lord's hand in every aspect of the work. It's an amazing thing!  I hope you all have another good week.  Stay healthy and do fun Christmas things without me! haha.

Until next Monday,

Josh