Week 16

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here. Temple Square is beautiful as usual. There are devotionals and concerts all around to remind us of the season. Last Sunday night was the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. It's so wonderful to be able to just walk across the street to watch these special events. I went with Alyssa & Chad and my friend Jenna. We sat in the midst of fellow missionaries. It was a wonderful night with inspiring messages. I hope you'll all take the time to watch if you haven't already.

That's Elder Bellos peaking around in this picture. He didn't think he needed to be part of it, but he's one of my favorites and Jenna was so cute talking with him.

My days at the office have been quiet. I've finished a project of documenting the names and dates for all the full-time and young elder missionaries serving under our current mission president, who will be released in June. It's to be included in the mission history, which will be nice. Only one new missionary couple to process this week. We did get at new set of missionaries from the MTC. They've been in training all week, and I've put their pictures all on the mission intranet and their assignments sent to the zone leaders. It has been slow with all of the office missionaries, and I expect next week will be even slower. Sorry that there's not a whole lot of awesome news!

I did get my hair cut this week, and Marian came in right after me. That was fun, and Nolan took us to dinner afterward.

Last night Jenna and I went to the Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert. The guest singer was Kelly O'Hara. I hadn't heard of her, but she had one of the most magnificent voices I've ever heard. Richard Thomas, of the Waltons fame for anyone old enough to remember that TV show, was the narrator and told the sweet story of the young boy who surprised his father on Christmas morning by milking the cows. I think President Monson told the story once, and I didn't realize that the author was Pearl S. Buck. It was a really fun night!

As I go through this next week leading up to Christmas, I'm going to try my best to keep my focus on the reason we celebrate - The Savior of the World, Jesus Christ (which Elder Kearan reminded us last week). He was the greatest gift of all, "the gift that never stops giving," that Sister Jones talked about. We truly can have the peace that President Oaks reminded us of as we remember why we celebrate.

I also celebrate you and your sweet examples to me.
Love you all so much!