Merry Christmas y'all,
It's been an exciting and busy week. I've been on a million exchanges because of various things the dinner lady has been trynna fix in the district. Dinner lady is code for District leader, one of my companions.
Monday night, a member friend took us to Kobe's, a Japanese sushi restaurant. I ate a ton of food, we sat at a sushi bar and there was also a buffet dinner side in the back. I'm only in Modesto, but I ate soft shell crab, octopus, salmon, yellowtail, tuna, eel, ahi, it was insane.
We've visited a ton of members and also found a bunch of new friends to start teaching. A lot of them came to church yesterday too! I ate at olive garden on one exchange with a Spanish missionary who is in training right now, he likes their breadsticks, so we biked over there before we went finding that night.
One night this week, we were visiting a family and while we were there, a pizza guy showed up and we got a bunch of pizza to take home. But while we were visiting, I was impressed to share a scripture from my personal study that morning. It was an obscure scripture that seemed out of context, but the family started crying and talking about their meaning of Christmas since they had a child who passed away a couple years ago. It was very emotional, and the spirit was strong. I was blown away by their openess. Heavenly Father loves all his children, and this season is the time to remember the sacrifice he made, that of his Son, Jesus Christ. Though we have trials and struggles in our life, he knows how we feel, and we can place all our guilt, regret, and pain in him. He can carry our burdens if we carry our cross and follow him.
At another part member home, a nonmember husband of a lady in our ward had some intense questions about the hereafter, and about the various perspectives of different religions. He used to be very involved in the Catholic faith until a mentor of his insulted him, and other doctrine that he didn't agree with made it a little easier for him to distance himself. It was awesome talking to him and communicating our perspectives to help him build his faith and to encourage his search for truth.
We had dinner with a family on the weekend, they are very musically talented, so they had a bunch of instruments. Including guitars, so I got to play a few songs again, we'll have to go over on a preparation day to play again. They all showed off their skill at our Christmas service here in the Modesto second ward, it was awesome to here them sing and play various instruments.
We also had the privilege to attend a Christmas zone conference, we had present exchanges and fun games. I dressed like a Christmas tree and got a Lego set. We also went to the temple Saturday, we did baptisms with a recent convert from my training area. He was taught by a lot of missionaries so a lot of us were there, including my trainer, so we took a multi-generation pic. It was sweet to do baptisms again.
Overall, it's been a busy week, lots of teaching, lots of eating, lots of biking in the rain, I wish I had more time and more space for detail. Have a merry Christmas and enjoy some pictures of me and the companions enjoying each other's company.
Love,
Elder Gneiting
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