December 26, 2011

Dear family and friends,

        It was great to be able to talk to you all yesterday on Christmas. I think that was probably the first time that I've seen any of you since I left so that was cool. I definitely did get stuffed at our dinners yesterday!

We have Rex set for this Saturday so everything's good to go on that, all we have to do now is make the program. We also have Josh set for this coming Sunday on January 1st, and then we'll probably confirm him the next week on the 8th. We also saw another one of our investigators, Cynthia, and had dinner with her, but she's still set on being baptized in July when she gets married to her boyfriend. We haven't really been able to see more people this week because a lot of people were out of town or with family, so things should start to pick up more this week.

        We did a service this week where we went to Essex, CA (about 1 1/2 hours away from Needles, which is in our district) and we helped a less-active lady in their ward chop up some firewood for the winter. The house that she lives in is so old-fashioned! First off, I don't think there's anything with civilization within about a 30 mile radius. Second, she has no electricity, no heat/AC, no hot water, and the stove that she is the kind that you have to light up a fire using firewood and then cook your food. I think all of us were wondering to ourselves how she lives and goes from day to day, but at least we chopped her enough wood to go through this winter.

I told you all that I performed a musical number yesterday in the other Elders' ward called "In the Bleak Midwinter", which is an English Christmas carol. I've done quite a few musical numbers since I've been here in this area.

That's pretty much all I have to say this week. We all got a ton of stockings/gifts/food for Christmas, so I don't think we'll be needing anything for awhile.


I love you!


Elder Meiners