A Very Merry Christmas, Indeed

Dear family,

It was so nice to see your bright shining faces through an online Skype session on Christmas Day. I am glad to see that little has changed. The dog is still alive (my greatest fear is that she dies on the mission and you wait to tell me when I go home) and you all look wonderful.

I won't bore you with too much, you got to talk to me two days ago, but the work continues to go well. This week has been weird because of the holiday. No one really wants to meet because they are either out of town or have family visiting. We have been using a lot of our downtime to visit and teach members. It looks like we are close to some pretty golden referrals, if we can continue to encourage the members to invite their friends. The peppermint bark we gave as Christmas gifts helped immensely. The way to any ones heart is through their stomach (don't believe what they tell you in BYU anatomy).

I am working on getting out thank you cards. They should be going in a few batches. The first three hit the mailbox today. I was very grateful to receive all of your letters, cards, and gifts. All chose wisely; I love subway, do my p-day shopping at target, and can always use more stamps. The mission waited to hand out gifts until Christmas Eve. I was surprised to receive 14 letters and two packages. It made for a very fun night. I enjoyed reading them by our enviro-log fire.

I was a little sad this morning when I realized that I can't listen to Christmas music until... at least August. As much as I like Christmas, it is kind of a weird time for a missionary. I had never spent a Christmas away from home and realized that everything Christmas made me think of our house with its Christmas tree and all the decorations. Christmas Eve was the most interesting, but we had a good time as we reenacted the Christmas Story with the Nelson family. I had never seen Mary, Joseph, and the angel ride the donkey to Bethlehem. The sheep wanted a ride to, but the shepherds (us) wouldn't let them.

Until Next Year.

Love,

Elder Christopher Badger