December 23, 2009

Dearest Family Ever,

Mother dear, thank you so much for the package. I love the pajama bottoms, the toffee, and oh my goodness, the gingerbread houses!!! That is such a great idea, and I think that we are going to bring them over to Ronny and Gina´s house for Christmas dinner.

I am having a great week. I am just on a rocket heading straight up. I am improving more and more in contacts and lessons, and Elder Dawson and I are great friends.

One exciting experience this week was yesterday when we had our Christmas combined Zone conference. All 4 Zones combined and we had a mission conference, zone conference, Christmas lunch with tons of ham, and Christmas talent show. They said that they caught the whole talent show on film so maybe in the future I could snag a copy for you. During the mission conference in the beginning, which lasted about an hour and a half, they had some time in the end that they wanted to call a few companionships up to talk about missionary principles.

Even before they called my name, I knew I was going to be called. I just had a feeling that the call had come. I was number three of the first group of three. They had about 3 groups of 3 go up. I think. My topic was, how to help investigators keep commitments that will help lead them to baptism. I don´t remember what I said, but without any time to prepare, let´s just say that it was a good experience. It would not have been a big deal, normally, but since President Watkins has been Mission President, we have had rule that we have all meeting in Spanish. That means district, zone meetings, etc. So I can basically understand perfectly all most everyone in Spanish, but thinking clearly and communicated my thoughts perfectly is still a little rough. I think we did well, but it was weird as Elder Dawson has a different teaching style than Elder Carr and we have only been together about 2 weeks or so.

The talent show was fun. I played the guitar to an Enrique Inglesias song called Hero. It was a little rough as I have played the guitar 3 times I think as I have been on the mission. Two times at a members house for 5 minutes and once at Ronny and Gina´s. All of them amounting up to no practice at all. It was a shot in the dark but we worked it out. Elder Carr and I had planned on doing this but when he was transferred I was a little unsure if it was still on. I was excited to get the call that he wanted to move forward and we welcomed 3 more members to the lonesome band.

We sang the hero song, Kiss the Girl, and the Lion King in the Jungle song. We changed to words to missionary appropriate lyrics, making the choruses hysterical. It was a lot of fun. Just so you don´t worry the Kiss the girl song was switched to ¨Go on and Contact her.¨ Don´t worry, I am doing just fine. Our mission is very talented. I am very impressed.

Well I have to sign off. Elder Dawson is waiting. I love you all very much, and I will talk to you Friday at 9:00 your time. I love you.


Love ,

Rob