12/19/2011

Feliz Navidad! Or something like that! :)

I hope all of you are doing well. I am fighting off a cold I caught last Tuesday. No bueno. It seems like everyone is sick. The "Mississippi Crud" as they call it. Warm weather, then cold, warm, cold, warm, cold, etc etc etc! I can probably name off 10 other people in the Philly area that have been sick. Oh well. Life goes on.

It's been a bummer week this past week as far as work goes. Our meetings and everything were great! Elder Cardon talked about justice and mercy in a way that made it easier to understand and gave me another way to help explain it. And Wednesday, President Tucker went over doctrines, principles, and applications, which totally help switched my way of thinking. Kind of neat. In fact, yesterday in church, someone gave a talk on tithing (well part on tithing) and as he was talking, my brain was think about the WHY behind tithing, and the WHYS being the Doctrines. The three doctrines being the GODHEAD, the PLAN OF SALVATION, and the ATONEMENT. Anyway... pretty cool stuff. Tuesday night we stayed in Brandon (oh! I finally saw Elder Redmon again!! He's our zone leader now) and went caroling in the Brandon area. I got to see a lot of missionaries over the course of those two days and that is always fun. To see missionaries you already know and are friends with and then to meet new ones.

One such new missionary I met is Elder Nielson. He is a spanish speaking missionary who came out this last transfer. He is being trained in Shreveport, LA by Elder Price (who I served around in Gulfport.) The cool thing about Elder Nielson is that he lives two doors down from Grandma Shelton in Spanish Fork. He served as co-seminary class president with Ashley Phelps and played basketball with Josh. He is in their same ward and his dad used to be the Bishop. He said the Phelps are like his second family. Pretty small world! I call him cousin now. :D He is the third missionary I met out here that graduated with one of my cousins. Elder Bolander from Firth, ID graduated with Ryan, Elder Hosea from Holladay, UT graduate/played football with Tim, and now Elder Nielson who graduated with Ashley. **starts whistling "It's A Small World"...**

Anyway, the work is tough right now. Artnez and Nathaniel both no longer have baptism dates, though Scoot does now for Jan. 15th. Hopefully that all works out. We haven't seen Artnez in over a week. Man... Oh well. We are doing our best. I am going to Greenwood on exchanges until Wednesday (I am going to be with Elder Bolander! My Cousin! Hahaha. We figure since he is from Firth, he is related to the Jolley's somehow...) and going fishing later today. Life goes on. Hahahaha.

Well, I love you all! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! Since I wont say so before hand. I hope all goes well for y'all! :)

Love,
Elder Dwight Mendenhall