Christmas!!

 (Elder Slade)

To the best friends and family a person could hope for!

I hope you all had a great Christmas this week! It was a great time to relax and talk with family. On Christmas Eve and Christmas, we made about 60 cookies, and tons of cinnamon rolls. Then Elder Maunana and the Elders in our apartment, Elder Huang and Elder Holmes, and I caroled to like 30 families. If you want to check out our singing, look at my facebook! Let me tell you though, there's some good accidental harmonizing in there.

Later on we played some games. Elder Maunana played Jenga for the first time. He's a rockstar at it! Earlier in the week we had a zone Christmas party. Our mission President, President Hurley, is an auctioneer. So for the Christmas party he did an auction for us with fake money. It was pretty sweet. I snagged some chips and salsa, and Elder Maunana snagged some Reese's puffs.

I think one of the highlights though was Christmas eve evening. As an apartment we watched the new video of the nativity that the church put out, and then went outside, looked at the stars and read Luke 2 (the Christmas story) together. The spirit was super strong that evening, as it confirmed to me to importance of the Savior's birth 2000 years ago. The realization between the contrast of the Savior of the world, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Creator of all the earth, being born in a lowly stable was a humbling experience for me. I hope that I too, can be one of those wise men, who still try to seek him. I love Him, and I want to devote my whole life to Him.

Fun fact for the week: French fries are actually not made in France. They are made in Greece.

Pictures:

1. Last week we walked some their dogs for them.

2. My mom made 12 days of Christmas for someone that we were teaching that was a nativity. Every night for 12 nights before Christmas, we ding dong ditched someone we were teaching leaving something each night. This was us taking a picture on the last night.

 3. It was super cold and snowy as we walked the other day.

4. Us caroling on Christmas in our Christmas sweaters.

5. Us having a big Christmas breakfast (super delicious)

6. Making some cinnamon rolls.