Week 82...Bring on the New Year 2015

December 29, 2014

 Best Christmas present ever :)

 Elder Muir Skyping on Christmas Day

 

     Wow, I can't believe the year is coming to an end and Christmas is over.  I feel like we were just welcoming in 2014.  Only 3 more days and I can say I come home this year.  I thought that day would never come but it is 3 days away.  I hope you all had a great Christmas.  It was so good to see and talk to you on Christmas.

1. How was your week? What were the highs & lows?  Well this week was kind of a slow week because of Christmas and everybody is out of town.  State College literally revolves around the school.  With no students in town this place is pretty dead.  So that has been kind of a low.  There really aren’t a lot of people to talk since they are all home for the holidays.  I am hoping that with the New Year people are starting to come back and things will get back to normal.  One of my highs has been all of the caroling that we did throughout the Christmas week.  The people we visited and sang for loved it.  So that was fun to feel the spirit of Christmas through caroling.  We went with the other missionaries in our area.  Obviously another high was talking to you…it was awesome to hear all about what’s going on.  Really the low is probably just how slow things are.  But as people start to get back in town I hope that things will start picking up again.  I just need to remember to give it some time.  
2. Tell me about the rest of your Christmas day with the B family?  It was a good day.  After we skyped we munched on leftovers from the night before.  And then we just talked with them the rest of the day.  We finished by reading Luke 2 and then went home. 
3. What else did you do on Christmas day?  Not much, we were at the B family’s house until about 7 pm and then we just went home.  It was a pretty low key day. 
4. How’s the weather?  Looks like you’re still dry and cold but not freezing.  It has been rather warm.  Friday and Saturday were sunny and in the high 40's.  It didn’t feel like it was the day after Christmas.  On Friday I felt like we went back to fall.  It felt more like October/November weather.  I thought I should be seeing fall decorations instead of Christmas. It was rather odd.  It still does not feel like a few days after Christmas.  It is sort of cold today but there is no snow on the ground.  It was quite nice actually.  Maybe we are in for a mild winter here.  I hope, at least while I am here in a walk area.  Before we know it we will be spring and it will be getting warm again. 
5. How are things with you and Elder C?  What new things have you learned about him?  Do the 2 of you work well together?  Things are going well with him.  Yes, we are working well together.  Unfortunately, we have not had a lot of lessons to practice our teaching together. 
6. What are 5 positive things from your week?  1) Obviously talking to you guys on Christmas.  2) Yesterday the talks at church were based on Elder Holland’s last conference talk and I really enjoyed that.  https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/10/are-we-not-all-beggars?lang=eng
7. How are things with your ward?  Right now a lot of them are still out of town, but overall things are going well.  We are ready to start the New Year by getting the ward mission plan out.  So hopefully as we get that out people will set some goals for their family and we will start to see success with the members and missionaries working together. 
8. How are things with your investigators?
1.  YL and family?  The husband and son leave at the end of this month permanently to go back home to China and YL goes home in February.  I have not seen them since before Christmas.  We’re hoping this week we will stop by and be able to get in and have a lesson.  
2.  L&M?  They are still the same.  We have not met with them.  We hope to meet with them at the end of the week. 
3. What about the LA lady that brought her NM investigator mother in law to church last week?  Well we have not seen her lately but we have texted back and forth a bit.  Unfortunately, there is a lot of family drama going on right now.  So it is kind of hard for them right now.  So we just continue to keep them all in our prayers and hope for the best. 
4. Any new leads?  Possibly, we tried this old contact on Saturday and hopefully we can have a lesson with him tomorrow.  So we will see where it goes. 
9. Have you done any service lately?  Any Christmas caroling etc?  Yes, we spent a lot of the week caroling.  We went on Monday and Tuesday night for the last couple hours of the day.  On Christmas Eve we went during the day after district meeting. We went to a senior center and caroled walking through the halls.  We were supposed to carol again at another senior center that night but we ended up getting there too late so we were not able to do it.  The other few days that we did it we just went around to members of the different wards in State College.  We did all of this with all of the missionaries in State College.  It was pretty fun.  
10. Any fun plans for pday?  We are going to the church to play games in the gym. 
11. Is there anything we can pray for?  Continue to pray that things will start picking up and we can start finding new people to teach and the old ones will continue to progress. 
12. Anything that you need?  When you send your New Year’s package could you please throw some hand warmers in.
13. Any spiritual experiences you’d like to share or things that you’re studying right now?  Well I am studying the New Testament right now and I just finished Mark today.  It is very interesting to read.  I love being able to read about Christ’s life and the many things that he did and how he lived his life.  I was amazed when I read Elder Holland’s talk Are We Not All Beggars and thought about what I had studied about Christ’s life.  Jesus loved the impoverished and disadvantaged in an extraordinary way.  He grew up amongst them.  It has also been interesting reading about the old Jewish law and law of Moses and to see some of the similarities in the things that we practice.   

I hope you all had a great Christmas and have a happy New Year!!!

PS…mother if you look at the camera in about an hour or so (the College and Allen camera)  you can check to see if you can see your favorite missionary getting on a bus to go back home.  Just thought I would make your day :)

Love,

Elder Muir