Letter #41

Believe it or not, we are already a week away from transfers.  This transfer is only 5 weeks long for us, so it came faster than normal, but it still felt super short anyway.  President Weaver is trying to keep as many companionships in the same area as possible for the Christmas season, so I'm planning on staying in Gig Harbor, but I might end up moving somewhere else next week.  We'll find out on Saturday.

This week was really cool, because we had our baptism!  It was super exciting for our ward, because it is the first one we've had since October of last year.  And he's a super cool guy.  He had the patriarch from Lakewood come up and baptize him, because he had been to China on a mission (the guy getting baptized was from Hong Kong).  The baptism was like an hour and a half long, which was pretty long, but it was still way good.  Curtis (the guy getting baptized) got a chance to get up and share his story, which was super good.  He's going back to Hong Kong for his dad's funeral this week, so we confirmed him and got him the priesthood on Sunday.  Our ward is super excited about him though, so hopefully they take good care of him when he gets back.

We also had a super awesome nativity festival this last week.  It was a really cool event.  The people putting it on did a super good job with it.  There were a ton of different nativities from around the world, as well as pictures of Jesus and angels and other different displays.  And then there was a kids room with a bunch of hands-on stuff that they could actually touch and play with.  And then there was a video of the Christmas story going on in one of the side rooms, and it was our job as missionaries to direct people to that.  We all took shifts standing in front of this door, and telling people that there was a movie inside.  I think we scared more people off than we invited in, but whatever.  It was fun.  They had live music the entire time, and we even got to perform as missionaries at one point.  That was nice.  The Weavers came out to hear us sing, so that was cool. 

Church on Sunday was only an hour long for us on account of the Nativity Festival still going on.  And we got to go watch the Christmas Devotional when that was broadcasting, so that was awesome.  I actually only got to see half of it, because we got out of something else late, and it took us a while to drive over.  My favorite part was when they showed the creepy video of all the kids singing around Elder Nelson.  So great.  Anyway, after that, our stake choir had a super cool Christmas program that we stayed and listened to, since our appointment that evening cancelled on us.  It was one of the best stake choirs I've ever heard, so that was super good.

Well, the Christmas season is definitely coming up, because it's getting harder to stay busy, since everyone else is so busy, and it is getting way colder.  But our mission Christmas party is tomorrow, so I'm pretty excited about that.  Hope everyone is doing well!