December 15, 2014

We passed the 3-month mark since Mason left last week.  Other than being freezing cold he seems to be doing great!  So here is today's e-mail . . .

I am staying in Ayr. The moves (they call transfers "moves" in this mission) call was last night and my new companion is the tall skinny one from the Christmas choir picture I sent so that will be a lot of fun! (He sent the picture last week and I saw the picture when I checked the e-mail on my phone, but then when I got on the computer to put the picture on the blog it had disappeared - Mason didn't tell us his name but I think it is Elder Scheuermann and they were "temporary companions while they were on the choir tour a couple of weeks ago.) And Elder Barton (one of the boys that went to Cottonwood and has been in the area next to Mason) is getting moved to Edinburgh and Elder Campbell (the other boy that went to Cottonwood) is moving in his place. It is crazy half the district is changing - there are three companionships in the district and three of them are moving. One of the sisters from my group who is here and just finished her training is getting a new sister to train.

I have been wearing the thermals you sent every day!!! It is cold here I thought that once winter came I could just be like Elsa from Frozen and just go "the cold never bothered me anyway" but I was so wrong! The cold does bother me and the thermals are great thanks again for that. But this week the weather has been cold and windy and wet.

I decorated the Christmas tree with the ornaments you sent. Elders Barton and Stringer came up on Monday night and had a sleepover because we have district meetings on Tuesday mornings and we all decorated the tree.  I have pictures but left my bag and camera back at the flat.  But now that we know who will be here on Christmas we can start to really make plans. I don't know when the zone leaders will be bringing the Christmas packages it will probably be just a few days before Christmas or I think the earliest they will give them out is next Monday since they don't really trust us not to open the presents early. But opening the cards is my favorite part of the day (I sent Mason a bunch of Christmas cards from family and friends and there is one for him to open every day in December). I just opened the one signed by the guys from Cottonwood and that was awesome! Did you guys get them to sign it at Shrek (yes - Sydney did)? The cards are great.

This week has been pretty interesting we found two people we will be meeting with this week and one of them seems really solid so hopefully that will be good. But we tried by an excommunicated member who is trying to come back to Church and that guy has just completely fried his brain on drugs. He comes up with some weird story every time we are over there and this last time was the craziest. He thinks that the guy who lives above him is a murderer who cooks people alive with some kind of microwave device thing and that he got told be MI 5 to just keep harassing him to get him to confess. So while we were there he just kept yelling at the guy to go and confess - it's really crazy. Then there was a less active guy we have been trying to see for a while but just finally saw him this week. It started off normally saying that he got offended by someone and left and that we was going to go into the army and then it took a nose dive into crazy town. The guy thinks he is an angel who took over a human body as a vessel and that he didn't remember who he was until the archangel Gabriel came and unblocked his mind and he said he had been possessed by demons twice but managed to get in control again and he said he can hear and see angels and all this other stuff like that he has died several times but God has kept bringing him back so that was the weirdest thing of my life and we are never going back to that guy again!!!!!!!! So yea, interesting stuff.

I can't wait to talk to you on Christmas love you guys!

Here is the short message he sent to Dru - 

Hey Dad so moves call was last night and I'll be staying in Ayr but my trainer is moving so now we can really plan what we will be doing for Christmas, so next week we should have the details for you guys. I feel lucky that I haven't died from hypothermia yet that is with the thermals that mom sent me my white shirt the black sweater both layers of the coat my hat and gloves so its pretty cold here. The Christmas concert was tons of fun and I can't wait until Christmas. It is crazy that it is less than a fortnight away and if you are wondering . . . yes everyone here still says fortnight. 

And dad something else really quick you guys are not allowed to watch the 3rd Hobbit movie until September 2016!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!