Christmas!

Dear Family

This week while I was studying the Book of Mormon, I started making a list of ways that faith is strengthened - my own, and my investigators. The list is still in progress so I'm not going to share it. Also, in reading the scriptures, I've tried to apply them to myself so that I can know how to become a better missionary. Some of the things I've noticed are that we need to teach with meekness; and in D&C there's a scripture that asks something along the lines of "why will you continue to be blind guides" that I found by accident. I have scripture references that were meaningful written down, but they are not with me at the moment.

Yesterday, during companionship study we were studying chapter 11 and we both had a very revelatory experience. We both realized that PMG says pretty clearly that we should leave almost no conversations with anybody without inviting them to do something to come unto Christ. So we have committed ourselves for this week to do that with everybody we talk to, with the exception of other missionaries. We feel like this commitment was inspired of God and that he was guiding our studies through the spirit. It was a very meaningful study all in all. My relationship with my companion is getting much better. (Not that it was ever bad, it was just not as good.) I feel that that is the main reason the study was so great.

Thanks for the 12 days of Christmas gifts! We were able to guess all of them so far except for the pictures of Nathan and Mom and Dad, the hot chocolate, the jam/jelly, and the nativity set.

We used bikes a ton today. It was fun, I'm getting much more used to it, but it was also very physically exhausting. But we got back on track with our miles, so that means this week we'll be able to use our car more.

I don't have much time to email today so that's where I'll end.

Thanks,

Elder Slade