Week 22: Merry Christmas!!! [December 25, 2017]

This week has been pretty good so far. It's still a little strange being in a new area but I can tell I'll like it here! I don't have my journal with me as I'm writing this today so I'm not 100% when everything happened and in what order (The days sometimes blend together). 

We met with a referral from church headquarters named James. It turned out really well! He has had a rough past and has some regrets, but as he's gotten older his perspective has changed and he's come closer to God. He shows a lot of promise and we have an appointment with him Wednesday.

We met with a less active family right as they were heading out of town for the holidays. They were super friendly and said that we could talk with them again once they get back from their trip.

I got to meet one of the recent converts about my second day here. His name is Art and he was baptized at 92 years old! 

Christmas has been a little weird out here, but it's been good. Christmas Eve and Christmas were pretty much days off (since not many people besides members would want to see us). 

Christmas Eve we went to sacrement meeting. It was mostly just music which was pretty good. Afterwards we went to a Christmas brunch with the Dunn family. My companion, Elder Richards (yes, it is confusing) made his call home there so I got to talk with them as he did that. Once he was done with his call we left for our dinner appointment with the Wren family. We had homemade pizza which was fun for me because my family always has pizza on Christmas.

Christmas (today) was awesome. We walked out by the beach (not on the beach) which was cool. After that I got to make my Skype call home which was easily the highlight of my day. It was so much fun to see everyone's faces and get to talk with them face to face. The only problem is that we don't get enough time☹. Once that was over we hung out with the missionaries in our district for a while. One thing that was cool was I found the entrance to the roof of the church so we got to walk on that. For our Christmas dinner we went to the Dunns again. They gave us Christmas presents and my companion and I got matching ties! We had steak and potatoes and their son - who served his mission in France - made some French potatoes and escargot which as strange as it sounds isn't that bad (but is a little weird).

This Christmas season out here has been very different from what I'm used to, but has also been one of the more rewarding Christmases I've had. This year I really was able to focus more on the true meaning of Christmas, and the blessing we have that Christ came to earth to show us the way and suffer the atonement for us all. Even though Christmas is over, I encourage all of you to watch the Mormon Message "The Christmas Spirit" and remember that we we should have the spirit of Christ with us always.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas season!

Elder Jason Riches