For Christmas my companions mostly received a ton of food. Elder Haltli got a lot of Japanese foods because he lived there for a short time and one of his brothers served his mission there as well. I think we may have gotten a couple of games, but it was mostly clothes and food, except for my legos of course. I used them in my training at DDM today. There are lots of parallels between Star Wars and the gospel.
The Light the World campaign this year was a little more user friendly for the members I think. They were able to participate in it more than last year. All members could really do last year was show it to their friends and invite them to learn about the gospel. Which was still the main goal for this year, but the service aspect made it a little less threatening for people. I liked this video a little more too. It involved traditional Christmas elements, but it was still very gospel oriented.
This past week we met with another referral from the Spanish Sisters. We talked with her and taught her the Restoration and she accepted a baptismal date for January 29th. She loves Jesus and as long as we talk about Jesus she's willing to learn more. We met with her on Christmas Eve for the first time, so we haven't been able to meet with her again yet, but we're hoping to meet with her a couple more times this week. She shared her testimony with us, so we plan on inviting her to come to church and share her testimony with everyone on Fast Sunday. I've never had an investigator bear their testimony so it should be an interesting experience.
It was pretty busy on the weekend. Saturday we had a proselyting day, and then we had the Zone activity that night. So we went down to the Stake Center and we got to watch Scrooge which was pretty fun. Then we went home and Elder Brown and Elder Hale and their mini missionary came over for some hot cocoa. Then we went to bed, and woke up at 6 on Christmas to open our presents. After we cleaned up a bit, we ran over to the other Elders' apartment to pick them up and then started cooking beakfast by 7. I cooked the eggs and the pancakes, Elder Spencer made bacon and sausage, Elder Herald made hash browns, and Trevor (mini missionary) made biscuits and gravy. It was super good! I think it was even better than last year's breakfast, though we didn't have any cinnamon rolls. By the time we finished eating it was around 9, so everybody got showered and ready for church pretty quickly and we headed over to the Mildred building. The program was really good, there were some really awesome musical numbers, and it was interesting because all the speaking parts were translated between English and Spanish. Then we went over to the bishop's and Skyped, after which we went and grabbed the other Elders, had dinner, and then got ready for caroling. Caroling was fun, though there were a couple people that tried to be party poopers that night. We were able to visit members all over Perris, some from each ward, and it was a lot of fun. Then we all headed home and conked out. The P-Day after was pretty tame because everybody was tired and had used a bunch of miles for the caroling so we pretty much just shopped and stayed around the apartment because without e-mailing, there's not much excitement to P-Day.
Overall, it was a ton of fun. I'm still debating how it compares to last year; they both had their moments that were great. For New Year's Eve we're having another Zone activity, I think it's just going to be sort of a hangout night (assuming we have miles to get down there). It's supposed to be required, but it's the last day of the month and we might literally be out of miles by then, so the ZL's said it would be a day of decision based on that.
Hope you guys had an awesome Christmas and a great New Year's. One of my friends up in Minnesota said that it was -29 on Christmas for her, so just be glad it wasn't that cold for you. Did you get any snow or are you expecting any soon? I know we normally get at least one good ice storm during the year.
From the West Side . . . .
Elder Cornaby
This past week we met with another referral from the Spanish Sisters. We talked with her and taught her the Restoration and she accepted a baptismal date for January 29th. She loves Jesus and as long as we talk about Jesus she's willing to learn more. We met with her on Christmas Eve for the first time, so we haven't been able to meet with her again yet, but we're hoping to meet with her a couple more times this week. She shared her testimony with us, so we plan on inviting her to come to church and share her testimony with everyone on Fast Sunday. I've never had an investigator bear their testimony so it should be an interesting experience.
It was pretty busy on the weekend. Saturday we had a proselyting day, and then we had the Zone activity that night. So we went down to the Stake Center and we got to watch Scrooge which was pretty fun. Then we went home and Elder Brown and Elder Hale and their mini missionary came over for some hot cocoa. Then we went to bed, and woke up at 6 on Christmas to open our presents. After we cleaned up a bit, we ran over to the other Elders' apartment to pick them up and then started cooking beakfast by 7. I cooked the eggs and the pancakes, Elder Spencer made bacon and sausage, Elder Herald made hash browns, and Trevor (mini missionary) made biscuits and gravy. It was super good! I think it was even better than last year's breakfast, though we didn't have any cinnamon rolls. By the time we finished eating it was around 9, so everybody got showered and ready for church pretty quickly and we headed over to the Mildred building. The program was really good, there were some really awesome musical numbers, and it was interesting because all the speaking parts were translated between English and Spanish. Then we went over to the bishop's and Skyped, after which we went and grabbed the other Elders, had dinner, and then got ready for caroling. Caroling was fun, though there were a couple people that tried to be party poopers that night. We were able to visit members all over Perris, some from each ward, and it was a lot of fun. Then we all headed home and conked out. The P-Day after was pretty tame because everybody was tired and had used a bunch of miles for the caroling so we pretty much just shopped and stayed around the apartment because without e-mailing, there's not much excitement to P-Day.
Overall, it was a ton of fun. I'm still debating how it compares to last year; they both had their moments that were great. For New Year's Eve we're having another Zone activity, I think it's just going to be sort of a hangout night (assuming we have miles to get down there). It's supposed to be required, but it's the last day of the month and we might literally be out of miles by then, so the ZL's said it would be a day of decision based on that.
Hope you guys had an awesome Christmas and a great New Year's. One of my friends up in Minnesota said that it was -29 on Christmas for her, so just be glad it wasn't that cold for you. Did you get any snow or are you expecting any soon? I know we normally get at least one good ice storm during the year.
From the West Side . . . .
Elder Cornaby