12.29.2010

December 29, 2010

Christmas Eve with Steven and his family!
Hey look! I can go running in Antarctica! Great presents from Mom & Dad!
More presents! Check it out! I am ready for battle!
My Christmas Morning...

What's up? I loved it here on Christmas. It was really different than I thought it would be but it was like 150 percent better. I envisioned being home sick with freezing cold miserable nights, but it was not like that at all. I just loved every second of it. I will do a brief run down of Christmas Eve and Christmas and why it was soooo great! Christmas Eve and Christmas we worked a little and we also had lots of fun. We watched a church movie and did all the fun stuff that we should do to celebrate the holidays. We did some visits to some people. Christmas Eve we went to visit Steven de La Cruz, my buddy and recent baptism. He is doing super good and we ate and played wii. Then I got to call my parents and that was super super good. It was super short, only 40 minutes. I think I might have gone a few seconds over, but I have since repented for my 30 seconds of sin! Ha Ha! Then we stayed up late talking. That is the first time I have done that on my mission. I am usually too tired and just go to bed on time every night. It was good to get to know the other elders better. Then we woke up and opened presents, read letters and watched the videos my parents sent me. It was really really good. The best part was after. I studied the stories of the gospel that talk about the birth of Jesus. It was amazing! The best thing I have ever done! It was so great to really focus not on gifts or anything. I was just alone in my own little world just pondering and praying about it. It was just sacred and spiritual and really amazing. Plus, I got sooooo many gifts from everyone. Thanks to everyone! It was just great and I loved them all. We are playing with all the toys that all the elders received on their mission. It was great. We went to see some members during the day and then at night we went over to Bill Malone's (recent baptism). His two kids came from Ireland and he gets to see them for the holidays. It was great! We played with them a ton on Christmas day and played Trouble and that was fun. I will never forget it. It was great and then they took us home.

Christmas continues...I was doing so good not eating sweets, then guess what? My mother's package got here yesterday and I just loved it all. She sent all the homemade candy and cookies that she makes at Christmas. I ate them all in like one day! I have been in a food coma since Christmas Eve!

Sunday, we went to church and I was ready to translate and then all of a sudden the Bishop says that due to the storm we are only going to have Sacrament Meeting. Pretty much the whole city of Boston shut down for 24 hours! We got a "red dot" which means we couldn't leave our house for basically 2 days! That was P-day so that is why I didn't write on Monday and am writing on Wednesday. We spent our night Sunday playing this awesome board game and played for like two days and we renovated our house with a deep cleaning. Gosh I hate elders they are soooo sick! I cleaned the stove for like an hour straight and the walls and stuff. We tried to take advantage of the time we had to spend inside.

On a more serious note, we have been visiting 2 sets of people. One is a family of all members except for one woman and the other is a set of investigators. They both have cancer. I gave both of them a blessing and after the blessings, Elder Still and I both felt as if they were going to die. It has been really hard and so sad. I know that God is with them and we have had some spiritual blessings for being part of their lives.

I know my Savior lives and we have been sent to bless the lives of these people! My scripture of the week is in Isaiah 9:6. I love the wording! Yes, my Savior is Wonderful and that is His name!

Peace and Blessings!
Elder Phillips

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