Hello!
First off I just wanted to thank every single person that made my last Christmas on the mission something extremely special! Everybody says that Christmas on the mission is usually so much better than Christmas at home. Last year I didn't feel that way. While Christmas was good, I still wished to be at home. This Christmas was amazing, mostly because I really, truly felt that I had gotten the true spirit of Christmas. I didn't want to go home! I wanted to be out here on the mission celebrating with the people that I love out here! I still want to thank each and everyone of you that sent me emails, letters, packages, or even just a "Merry Christmas!" That made my Christmas that much more special :).
This week was super busy, but because it was busy with Christmas stuff we weren't able to get too much done. We did however pick up a new investigator and two potentials! The new investigator is Abebe Chewaka, (or aka: "A baby Chewbacca")! He wanted a Bible, but we still haven't been able to get him one. We did however set up an appointment where we went over and just talked to him about 10-15 minutes. Since we didn't have a Bible we decided we would give him a Book of Mormon until we could get a Bible. As we talked about the book of Mormon he was thumbing through the pages looking at the names and what was inside. He asked many great questions, such as, what it was about, if the names in the book were prophets. He also asked what separates the Book of Mormon from the Bible and what separates our church from others. We told him that as missionaries we share messages of Jesus Christ and in those messages we can answer those questions. We told him however that it would take longer than 10 or 15 minutes, which is how long he originally wanted us to be there for. I told him if he had the time we would love to, but if not, we would love to come back another time and answer his questions. He asked us "Can you not just give me a general answer?". So we told him that we believe that we have the same Authority that Christ had when he established his church and we believe the Christ's true church needs to be ran by that authority. We also told him that we believe that we are the only church on the earth today that has it. We told him that we understand that that it is a pretty bold statement, but that the lessons we teach will explain that in more detail. He is Seventh-day Adventist, so he seemed kind of hesitant to meet with us. When we invited him to meet with us he said, "Okay.", but you could see the hesitation. We gave him the Book of Mormon and invited him to read it and to pray about it. We told him that we would return another day with the Bible that he had requested and also on that day we would be able to teach him the lessons that would answer his questions. We will have to see how that holds up and if we really do end up getting to teach him.
The two potentials we got.....(Now that I think about it actually think it was three potentials...) One of them was a referral that we had received from a member. They told us to drop by and tell them we want to talk to them about Jesus Christ. We had the opportunity to drop by, but they were busy so we told them we would return this coming Saturday at 3:30 pm. The other two referrals we received while we were checking on other referrals and/or less-actives. Each referral was outside doing yard work when we met them. We offered to help them. They graciously declined, but when we asked them if we could share messages of Jesus Christ with them, especially during this Christmas season, they told us,"it wouldn't hurt". So were going to give them a call this week and set up some appointments with them :).
Now, to tell you about what we did Christmas Eve and Christmas Day! Christmas Eve we spent most of the morning cleaning. Our mission leaders told us that we needed to stop proselyting at about 4:00 pm. At about 3:30 pm a member came to pick us up to take us to their home for a Christmas Eve dinner. Brother C. and his family are wonderful! We arrived early so we could help make the dinner. It was a fantastic meal! We had ham, green beans, rolls, "Extra Sweet, Sweet Potatoes", an egg-potato vegetable melody casserole (I can't remember what it's called, but it's basically it's slices of potato with cheese all over them). It was absolutely wonderful meal, and we were able to play games before dinner, so we all had a lot of fun!
After that we headed to my old area, Chevy Chase, MD. There is a member there who was throwing another party that they had invited all of the missionaries to. We decided to go so that we didn't have a boring rest of the night. It was really cool because the people throwing the second party were actually the members that I had my very first Easter dinner with on the mission. They have a very large house, so there was probably 50-80 people there at the party. It was really fun seeing all of the old members from Chevy Chase and seeing how everyone was doing. I was able to reconnect with Brother Allen who, when I was just a brand-new missionary to the area, was just put in as first counselor in the bishopric. It was like we started a whole new chapter in our lives together and we began to learn and grow together in our callings. He caught me up on everything that had happened in the ward! Stuff like who moved in, who moved away, who has gone less active, and who had died. One of the ward members had bought ties and candy for the missions.
Anyway, back to the party. The party was completely catered. They had ham, turkey, salad, sauteed asparagus tied together with a piece of green onion. They also had more of those potatoes I had mentioned earlier. There were many different flavors of Soda Pop. Then in the basement, they had a ping-pong table, an air hockey table, and Foosball table. We had tons of fun! Before we left the party, our ZL's gave us a ton of packages and letters from the mission office. I got a box, Elder Stevenson got a gift bag, Elder Crandall got a bag and Elder Humphrey got some letters and a huge box. When we got home we opened up all of our stuff. The box that I had received had two sets of ear warmers, some gloves that were a little too small, two or three ties (one of which was a Brooks Brother tie), some BIC razors, a subway card for $15, and some candy. On the subway card there was a sticker that said all of it had come from members of the church. It wasn't any specific Ward or Stake, just members of the church. That was our Christmas Eve!
Christmas morning we woke up at 6:30 am, the regular time. Haha. Elder Humphrey and Elder Crandall wanted to get up at 6 o'clock, but when push came to shove neither one of them wanted to get up any earlier, so they slept in until 6:30pm. After we all got up we opened up our presents! I had opened up most of my main presents (one every day, until Christmas). I got a slinky, a tie, my favorite kind of sunflower seeds, candy, socks, and other stuff I can't remember off the top of my head. When I opened stuff from my stocking on Christmas morning, it was mostly toiletries, which I'm actually very grateful for because I was running out of a couple of them. I also got Q-tips! I really needed those! Ha.
After we were done with our presents we all got ready to go to the Visitors' Center for the mission Christmas Devotional, lunch, and movie!
The Christmas devotional consisted of Pres. and Sister Cooke basically having a "family Christmas" with all of us. We basically did everything that they would've done as a family for Christmas. Sister Cooke said that normally they would read the Christmas Story in Luke as a family before opening Christmas presents, with each one person reading a verse. However, since there were so many of us, we wouldn't be able to do that. Instead we watched the new nativity movie that the church put out. Afterwords the Cooke's had their four kids got up and gave a small talk on how they feel about Christmas. It was really a wonderful devotional.
When we were done with the devotional and had said the closing prayer, the APs took over and presented the mission gift to the Cookes. We had gotten them a jersey from the Washington Wizards and the APs had taken it around the mission to have every missionary sign it. Then, they had it framed. Also, we gave them both sports wear T-shirts which say on the back "Charlie Mike" (a military phrase that means, "Stay strong to the end". This is our mission's motto. After presenting the presents to the Cookes we then watched a movie for Christmas! The movie was "How to Train Your Dragon 2"! It was actually a really awesome movie.
When the movie was done we headed straight over to the stake center, which is literally next-door to the temple. There we had our Christmas lunch/talent show. There were some pretty funny talents shown this year. One Elder did a pretty cool dance. The sisters did a hula dance from a song from Lilo and Stitch, Other elders did some fake "synchronized swimming" to the song of the Sugarplum Fairy.
After the talent show they gave us lunch! Lunch consisted of turkey, ham, rolls, green beans, salad, stuffing, cranberry Jell-O (with little bits of nuts and apples), and mashed potatoes. It was a super good lunch! Then for dessert they gave us either brownies or pumpkin pie. I wasn't feeling like pumpkin pie so I got a brownie. After the talent show and after everybody was done eating, The Cookes presented their Christmas gift to the missionaries. Each person got a shirt and a water bottle. On the front of the shirt there was a small DC mission logo and it said the "Greatest Mission in the History of Life". On the back, in bright bold green letters it said "Charlie Mike". The water bottle had the same logo that was on the front of the shirt.
After the lunch, talent show and gift-giving, we were finally able to Skype with our families! Don't get me wrong, I loved the devotional and the lunch that they put on for Christmas, but they never stop when they say they're going to stop. It was supposed to end at about 1:30 and didn't get over until about 3:30. They never start or end on time for anything! Even so I finally was able to Skype with my family, but we ran into a few bumps in the road. We tried to have two screens going so I could Skype my parents and my sister and brother-in-law at the same time, but my iPad was stupid and wouldn't pull up two screens. Luckily a very wonderful member (the member who had us over for Christmas eve dinner), came over and opened up the family history center at the Stake Center so I could use their computers. It was super awesome being able to talk to all of my family at the same time. I remember the past years I had to split the hour in half so I could talk to both parts of my family. It would be half an hour to my parents and little sister, and then a half an hour to my older sister and brother-in-law. This year though I was able to do it on a more high-tech computer so I was able to have everybody there to talk to. I'm so greatful for the family I have :) They are the best!
Once we finished with Skype we went over to the Visitor's Center to help with parking! We were about an hour late getting there though because I had gotten such a late start on Skyping. I didn't really mind because I wanted to spend time with my family!
Well this has been our super busy week! Ha. We had tons of fun and I hope you all did as well! I love you all and hope you have a great week. Until next time!
Love,
Elder Gold
| One of Elder Gold's Christmas Boxes |
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