Christmas in Abilene, Week 28

I got a picture with you guys too. Who doesn't like a picture of themselves every once in a while?

It was definitely my favorite Christmas present to get to talk with you too! I am surprised how fast those 45 minutes went. I thought it would last a lot longer than that. I am glad you all liked my presents. Just you wait to see some pictures of me already using your presents too. Patience.

 But for now I will start from the beginning of the week. Last P-day I bought some playing cards, and Monday evening you can see Elder Banks and I enjoying a nice game of golf.

 And here I am Christmas eve, with my advents calendar completely eaten! Christmas eve is just a normal day. Well, no one wants to talk to us that day, but I guess that isn't too out of the normal right? Haha

After skyping Elder Banks and I both talked about how there were 100 things that we didn't get to say that we would have liked to. Oh well. When I get home we will definitely have to spend lots of time catching up where I can tell you all the things I just don't have time normally. But I think you guys did a great job of making that list of questions. We used our time on skype to the best of our abilities I believe.

Well, we did get home at 6:00 Christmas eve, so I guess it was a few hours short of a normal day. We also had the opportunity to go to the church and play some volleyball. That was fun. Elder Smith was there playing with his remote control car that he got... because he opened all of his presents before Christmas. How sad.

Christmas morning was loads of fun. We woke up and opened all our letters. Then we showered, got dressed and headed off to breakfast at a members house. It was good. It was fun. They gave both Elder Banks and I a tie, which was very nice of them. After breakfast we rushed back home and then we were able to open up all our presents before skyping. We wanted to be sure to know what we got before we talked, so we could say thanks for everything! Thanks again! I did love the journal with all the pictures on it btw, that was too legit to quit.

Courtney, I will have you know that we use those nerf guns daily. Here I am opening it up Christmas morning and immediately putting it to use! We later on drew a target on our window and  during lunch time have fun shooting at it... or each other. Just depends. Good choice.  

Christmas evening we went to play games at the church again with the other missionaries. After that night, the zone leaders actually told us to not take the nerf guns out of the apartment, so now we just use them at home. But it was fun the one night it lasted.

Christmas night I assembled my pull up bar. While doing so, I realized it is slightly longer that my suitcase, so I am not sure how I will move that bad boy, but we'll burn that bridge when we get there. It has already been put to good use, that is for sure.

Meagan, nice choice on the ring. I don't think I have ever had one before, but the one you chose is legit looking, so good work. Very manly.

Well, I didn't have an absolute need of using my new apron for making a smoothie, but any excuse to wear that thing, I'll take it.

Dad, I didn't get a picture using the razor. That didn't seem too exciting, but I will have you know that I now use it every day. It is faster than my normal razor, that is for sure. It's a real nice one.

Here we are, back to the grind. We had to re-haul our area book. We made a color coded map of the city of Abilene and organized all our former and current investigators into little zones. Now it should be much easier to find people for not only us, but especially future missionaries who do now know the area or the people.

Now, as for the progress of our investigators this week:

Nancy and Gricelda: We were not able to meet up with Gricelda this week because she was not feeling well. But we did have a really good lesson with Nancy where we went over the 7 day stop smoking program the church has. As of today she should be 5 days smoke free, so tonight we will see how she's doing. We told her that after 7 days of living the word of wisdom that God has said she is ready for baptism. She told us how over Christmas she was thinking a lot about baptism and she wants to be baptized. We told her she could be this Saturday, the 4th. She said yes. She wasn't at church yesterday, but we'll just have to see how this week goes.

Damian and Sofia: Guess who we got to see 3 times this week?! I know, more than a month of nothing and now 3 times in one week. We actually focused more on Damian, the father, in all our lessons this week. Sofia still seems disinterested, but Damian was all over it. We talked about the plan of salvation and how baptism is the gate to the celestial kingdom where God dwells and families can be together forever. He told us how he had already been baptized. We told him about how the right authority of the priesthood is like the key to that door, and he accepted to be baptized on the 18th of January! He works on Sundays, and we talked about it, but he said that hopefully he will be able to come the next 2 Sundays to be baptized on the 18th!

Paul: After not seeing Paul for a month we were able to catch up with him. We re-went over the restoration with him, and he loved it again. He said he wants to be baptized, but he needs to talk to his wife about it and get her on board first. We totally agree.

Well, that's about it for the week of Christmas. Not too many people were here, but we did our best. Keep up that missionary work at home too! You're doing a great job of it! I love you mom! I love you dad! I love you Meagan! I love you Courtney!