Christmas Week Celebrations!

At the Christmas Conference and next to the two AP's

On a secret beach

Nice sunset while driving on the secret beach

So this week, the biggest thing was the Christmas Conference on Tuesday night.  Well on Monday we got to stay with the Morton's again. It’s classic how every time we go to Sugarland, myself and another Elder make sure we have somewhere to stay.  And Elder Steed was there too because he got really sick, so I got to spend the whole night with him.  Then the next day we went to the conference with the whole mission.  There were a few talks from missionaries, a few studies by the Ashtons, a movie, a talent show, a dinner, and I think that was about it.  We watched Ephraim's Rescue again, sickest movie ever!  Now I just say the word stodgy all the time, because the British kid said, "who wants a pair of stodgy old boats?" It is a great addition to my vocabulary.  I included a picture of the Christmas conference.  Next to me are the two AP’s.  A wise man once said, “surround yourself with the people you want to become”, so that’s what I did... 

Then on Christmas Eve we went around and gave out all of our secret Santa gifts.  It was super fun and really humbling to see families that have nothing receive Christmas gifts they never planned on.  We both enjoyed it a lot!  We then went and had tamales with a part-member family. They were so good and I ate like 6 of them!  I think I’m fat, but the scale seems to disagree so I don’t know what is going on.  I think my fat is just stored on the cloud, so I can always access it, but I never have to carry it around! 

On Christmas day, we opened up all of our gifts and then went and had lunch with Brother Jordan.  His wife just got out of the hospital that day and needed to just sleep all day, so he really enjoyed some company.  We all helped make just some simple meat and potatoes and then just got to sit and talk with him.  Then when we were about to leave, he gave us some thick socks for the cold front that came in this week.  Boy did it get cold! Down to 36 while we were out teaching!  And it rained a lot so now a big bayou surrounds our apartment.  I really hope it doesn’t get hot too soon, because if it does, the whole city will have way too much standing water and we’ll all die from mosquitoes.

Some other stuff that happened:  We found a secret beach that we could drive on.  That is one of my pictures.  And the sunset was super cool on Christmas night, I have a picture of that too. Took it while driving. #lookmomnohands #yolo #whocaresifwediewearemissionaries.  Actually scratch that last one!  Also, an investigator gave us some wild hog sausage that he made from a hog he had just killed.  So we mixed it with huevos and hot sauce and it was pretty good.  And finally, we talked with a man on the street for about an hour about the new dreamtech gaming system. It is a project he is working on in Houston where one puts on a full helmet to game. When it is on, it makes you fall asleep and then you "wake up" in the game.  It is a first person and it is almost as if you can control your own dreams.  Sick!  And he told us a bunch of other "top secret" stuff, and how he has played it a million times and it is all legit.  It is supposed to come out in late 2015.  Pretty much, all of America will be sucked in to this and ruin their lives! Unless, the only games to play were James Bond for 20 minutes, or just drive cars really fast! The way he described it, it is kind of like the blue avatars in that you go to sleep in the real world and wake up in a fake world.

Happy New Year!

Elder Lund

P.S. I am getting transferred and leaving Port on Wednesday. It will be a sad day that I never thought would come.

(On being rejected and hearing that others have been homesick)  I think its fun to talk with people and if they don’t want it, then it’s their fault. I am responsible for teaching the doctrines of the kingdom, not as much as forcing people to accept it.  I have never really felt homesick yet. Like sometimes I will think "Oh man, I wish I could go crawling (jeeping)” or "I want to go to Washington DC again" but it lasts for like 2 seconds and that’s it.  Pretty much I will be going home eventually, so what does thinking about it do for me?  That’s my thought process.