Hello everyone!! Well one Christmas down one to go. It was a unique and awesome experience. Alright so here's how the day went: We all woke up and got into our Christmas attire (the sweet new pjs you gave me) and opened up our presents. Thank you SO much for everything it was so awesome!! I love my watch and videos and all those letters it was so fun to read all of them. Please tell everybody that you can that I appreciated it a ton and wish I could write all of them back! Mom thanks for everything that you did to make the twelve days of Christmas, Im sure it was way more complicated that you would think to get all the packages in on time and in order and all that so thanks a ton it definitely made for an awesome Christmas. So then we cleaned up all of our stuff (I have some pictures that I'll send you soon) and got ready and went to the Christmas devotional where L. Tom Perry spoke. It was pretty sweet but he for a good part of the time just had his family go up there and read a part of the scriptures talking about Jesus and Christmas so we didn't even get to hear from him a ton but it was still sweet! We then went to lunch where L Tom Perry actually came and ate with us all in the cafeteria so I thought that was pretty sweet! He had like all these security guards around him and stuff it was nuts.
We then went to this talent show type thing where Elders and Sisters sang or played the piano or just whatever. They were all so good I was way impressed how much talent there was! This one sister sung a song called 14G..? I think that's what it was called. Anyways she sounded exactly like Kristin Chenowith it was sweet. But yeah there was a bagpipe and some Polynesian guys did a sweet song. There was an elder who made up a song about waiting for his visa (elders going to Brazil have been having a way tough time getting there visas so some of them have been here for like 15 weeks!) so yeah that was way funny everybody loved it. So after the fireside we just had a sack dinner in our rooms and had the semi final championship round of Rock Paper Scissors! I haven't told you but yeah we've been having some intense matched of rock papers scissors haha it's so funny how into it we get. (can you tell we're getting a little restless) but I have a video of me playing elder dennis so I'll have to send that to you!
Then later that night Greg Olson spoke to us. If you don't know who that is, he's a famous painter for the church and has a ton of really famous paintings of Christ. It was actually one of my favorite firesides that I've been to while at the MTC. He talked about some of his experiences with painting the savior and just about his life it was awesome. Look up a bunch of his work he has some incredible paintings. So yeah that was about it! It was nice not to have to worry about all the little stupid things that Christmas sometimes come with and just be able to focus on what really matters, so it was awesome. I definitely won't forget it!
Last Tuesday Neil. L Anderson came and spoke and it was also really awesome, he gave a really good talk on how all things in life that have the most value are paid for up-front, and that's what we are doing here at the MTC. It was way motivating because after you are here for a while you it's hard to really focus on what you are going to be doing in a few weeks and it feels like you are just going through the motions and you don't really get to see the results of what you are doing like through investigators and things like that so yeah it was awesome to hear that perspective. So on Christmas eve we had a big devotional thing just with the presidency of the MTC and guess what? I guess our first counselor of the MTC actually converted Thurl Bayley while he was a mission president in Italy. How sweet is that?! so he showed a video about that story. His name is president Clegg. And other missionaries who are converts got up and shared their conversion stories so yeah it was awesome. At the end of the meeting we did a way funny version to the song "12 days of Christmas". So I want you guys to sing it out loud its way funny it goes: "The MTC gave me, 12 hours of class, 11 loads of loads of laundry, 10 new commandments, 9 outbound calls (the RC), 8 hours of rest, 7 lukewarm showers, 6:30 wake up, fiiiiiiive houuuuurs of gyyyym!!!, 4 chocolate milks, 3 new companions, 2 hair cuts free, and a rock solid testimony." haha it was way funny they like had different sections of the crowd stand up and do their part and then during the rock solid testimony part everyone would stand up, so yeah it was pretty entertaining. I took a short video of that also so I'll have to send it to you sometime.
So there ya go I made it through Christmas! Can you believe I only have 20 days left in here?! And then it's baptisms and 85 degrees baby!! Im soooo ready to leave. I like it here but I'm getting very itchy to leave. We should be getting out flight plans next Friday, I can't wait! We'll have to see what route I'll be taking.. I'm guessing we'll fly into probably Dallas and have a huge layover and then to El Salvador. So yeah I'll keep you posted on that! So I taught my first lesson in Spanish last Wednesday to a lady who BARELY spoke any English, and it went pretty good! I was surprised how well it went actually it was a confidence booster that the lady could somewhat understand what I was trying to say, although it was very simple and planned out and a lot just memorized haha but it's all good. Well I think that's all I've got for this week but I'm writing you all letters today so expect those in the mail in the next few days!
Thanks for all your letters and support and make sure to tell everyone else thanks so much! Tell Grandma and Grandpa Reid I got their letter and thanks a lot.
Alright Love you all have a good week hope to hear from you soon!
Love Nick
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