Christmas Week!

Family and friends,

     This week has been pretty fantastic. Obviously Christmas was a
highlight, getting to skype your family after not seeing them for
nearly 6 months is always a good thing. I really appreciated letters
that were sent, kind notes and candy haha! I have lots of candy now :)
and not much else happened this week.

     On Tuesday we had our Moorcroft Christmas party and that was a
huge success! We were at the church waiting for people to show up and
the first 3 groups of people were all less actives, and they were all
ones we had never met before as well! Throughout the night so many
different families kept showing up. The members did really good at
missionary work and had brought lots of non member or less active
friends and family! We went caroling and some of the less active
members came with us and they had a blast! President Jones drove
around with a giant flat bed trailer on the back of his truck and we
all sat on hay bale benches on the trailer! It was so much fun and it
really helped me get in the mood for Christmas! I got to sit on
Santa's lap again that night as well! My 3 picture with Santa this
year, I think that's the most I've ever gotten pretty much. It was
grand.

     On Wednesday we had another great district meeting! We acted out
the nativity and because our district is made up of only Elders I had
the privilege of being Mary! Haha it was grand and Elder Perez was
Joseph. We used wrapped up scarves as the baby and put it in a little
manger we found in the church. All of us were just switching off
different parts and it was quite the experience.

     Thursday was Christmas Eve...obviously. We had an appointment
with an investigator that is really hard to get a hold of so that was
awesome! After that we had A WEDDING! SURPRISE! It was quite the
surprise to us as well. We found out about it on Tuesday at the
Christmas party. It was a wedding for a less active member and her non
member boyfriend. It was a really great surprise and we were able to
go and support them! There will definitely be pictures coming. That
night we had dinner at President Booths house. He taught us how to
play marbles and then we acted out the nativity again with some of his
daughter's non member friends when they showed up unexpectedly. Don't
worry, I wasn't Mary this time.

     CHRISTMAS! It was a great day. We had lunch at the Haskells
house. Their daughter is super adorable and 3 times during lunch she
exclaimed "This is the best Christmas ever!" And when we asked her
why, each time she responded, "because the missionaries are here. We
never get to eat with the missionaries." That's a super rad family. We
had dinner at the Gerstner's house and played lots of fun Christmas
games and shared Christmas stories.

     And lastly Sunday was my birthday! Just in case you all didn't
know haha! Not saying you have to or anything...buuuuut...if people
were to coincidentally send me happy birthday email I wouldn't mind
even if they're a couple days late haha! Anyways, it was a good
birthday. We spoke in church and Elder Bills spoke first and spoke
from 9:20 to 9:24. There was a special musical number that went until
9:27 and then I had filled the rest of the time from 9:27 to 10:02. It
was really funny and on my way up a member stopped me and asked if I
had enough prepared. I just shrugged and laughed and went for it and I
apparently prepared enough. I joked around with Elder Bills about it
afterwards but I honestly really enjoy talking in church. Well...just
talking in general. And when people have to sit there and can't
interrupt you it's even better!

I love you all and hope your Christmases went grandly!

Elder Tippetts