Monday, December 14, 2009

E-mail from Dec. 14th

Hello!

So-Forgotten Carols+Music and the Spoken Word+Mini concert afterwards+Stake Night of Music+Laurent singing O Holy Night=Christmas music overload? Is there such a thing? Probably not. Did you sing in the Choir?

I still don't understand why they didn't go hunting. (Note from Patty: I explained to Matt that there were no swans in the area and they decided not to go hunting for that reason. Even though that usually doesn't stop them.)

We've gotten a little snot - whoops, I mean snow - here. Luckily we haven't got anything like a real utah snowstorm yet. We did get some snow and it is still on the ground, but nothing much. What I didn't expect is the wind. It is very wet and cold and cold and wet. Not very nice at all. We have to bundle up before venturing outside on windy days, which occur quite frequently.

Good job, Dad, for getting four patents this year. That is pretty cool. Bonuses are nice too. Now I can tell Elder Pickett that my dad is smarter than his school-teacher dad. Bwahaha!

Sorry you have to listen to Cody practicing his drums. Ask him if playing Rock Band prepared him at all for drumming. Does it sound like it did?

What's inside of Delaney's bottle-truck-drivey thing that makes it go? Tell me how that works, it sounds cool. If anything is wrong with it, you can probably fix it by using enough duct tape. "What do you MEAN duct tape doesn't count as a simple machine, teacher?"

OK, I will look forward with bated breath to receiving your Christmas box. Soooo...what's in it? Anything I need? No, not really, the church takes pretty good care of us. Anything I want? many things, but nothing in particular. Maybe a family to teach and baptize.

Anything you can tell people they could send? Letters, cards, or packages, I guess. Sorry, I'm not being much help, am I? More thermals would be nice-it's colder than I anticipated. Maybe a CD/MP3 player with some churchy music? (it would have to be in the hymnbook if you do this) candy? money? OH! One thing I do want! - Could you get me the addresses of all my peeps currently serving missions or who will soon be serving missions? Even if you can just tell me in which mission they are serving, I could probably find their addresses from the mission office.

I'm not sure if we get to email next Monday since P-day will probably be Christmas, and there will be transfers going on Tuesday or Wednesday. I'll send the SD card as soon as I get the box that has the other one in it.

Yeah-I haven't had many things I really needed and those things I have needed to get I've been putting off, so I haven't used the debit card yet. I probably will soon. By the way, does somebody need to buy a pack of gum or a tank of gas or something with my credit card? Does it need to be used every six months or something? Any rules like that for my debit card?

No, we're not singing a song by ourselves-we are just singing in the hastily thrown together ward choir that was convened for the first time yesterday. It consists of the 4 elders, 3 other men, and I think 6 women. We are singing "with wondering awe" and "while shepherds watched their flocks by night"

Yes we already had mission conference at the Kirtland Temple. That was pretty cool, and I guess it was fulfillment of a prophecy in DC 109, which is pretty cool also. I already wrote and sent a well written, eloquent, ambient, articulate, affluent, etc. letter about that. It may have even been a little superfluous. I think I sent it thursday or friday so you should probably get it soon. How long does it take for mail to get from here to there?

As for investigators, we are still teaching Tim & Barbara and Destiny. We set a baptismal date with Tim and Barbara for January 23rd, but Tim still needs to quit smoking. Unfortunately none of them could come to church yesterday. Tim is having a surgery today and Destiny was pretty sick. That was disappointing. Maybe if all of our investigators didn't smoke they would feel better more often. We did get a referral from the assistants in the next ward over who has apparently come to church a few times but recently moved into our area. I am looking forward to meeting her later today; hopefully there will be more to talk about later with her.

Love,
Elder Smith