Elder Kendall -World Wide Mission

Merry Christmas Friends and Family! Well this past week has definitely been a week of adventure. I guess I'll start from the beginning (a very good place to start). So Wednesday President Kurl from the Mission Presidency came down to Beatrice to interview Jackie. It was a great interview and she passed with flying colors. Thursday we went up to Lincoln for a Christmas missionary conference. We did white elephant and had a couple of trainings. It was really good. We got to watch the Bible video from the Christmas Devotional. It was really good. I love some of the videos the church puts out and I'm excited for these. Haha, my white elephant was a little canvas with a drum set on it that said, "Music is what feelings sound like." Haha! So Friday was the branch Christmas party. It was so great. Sister Saterfield made it look really nice and a lot of people showed up. It was so much fun. Elder Bell and I performed a dance I choreographed to Michael Bulble's "Let it Snow". Haha it was great and people laughed, so mission accomplished. Well Saturday was Jackie's baptism. It was hillarious. Elder Bell didn't exactly explain very well what she should bring in terms of clothing and I didn't clarify. So we gave her the jumpsuite and she came out with it over her clothes. She had a bright orange shirt on so we tried to explain to her that she just needed to wear the jumpsuite when she yelled in front of everyone "I'm not taking my clothes off!" Haha, it was awkward, but funny. Anyways, luckily Sister Garman came to the rescue and took her to the bathroom to explain how it worked. Other than that the baptism was great. The branch has been so great about fellowshipping Jackie and she fits right in to the branch. Elder Bell baptized her and he brought her down hard, basically beat the sin out of her, that's how hard she got dunked. Sunday I was able to confirm her a member of the Church and give her the Gift of the Holy Ghost. It was really cool. Anyways it's been a crazy week and I can't even begin to say everything that's happened. The reason we're having P-day on Wednesday is because this is the last week of the transfer so they move P-day to Wednesday because today is when we get our calls. So this morning we got our transfer calls. Unfortunately Elder Bell is leaving me and going back to Omaha. He is training a new missionary. And guess what? I am also training a new missionary! I'm so excited! I heard it's the best ever. His name is Elder Gonzales but I won't meet him until tomorrow. They also made me district leader which I'm not too excited about at all. But what's a guy like me to do. I will miss Elder Bell a lot though. Luckily he only goes home about a month before I do so we'll have our whole missions together.

So spiritual thought of the week. Hmmm... ok the wise men. (This is totally on the spot so don't judge me). Why were the wise men "wise"? Well they were able to see the signs of the coming of the Lord. They knew what to expect and where He would be. Then they saught Him out. They brought Him gifts and bowed and worshipped Him. Pretty basic, but are we doing the same in our lives? We know that we are living in the last days and that Christ will come soon. He has given us His word and provided us with a way to follow Him. And the greatest gift we can give the Lord is our wills. In fact it's the only thing that we truely have that we can give to Him. So this Christmas let us remember to look for the signs of His coming, let us try to follow Him, and give Him the greatest gift we can give by striving every day to follow Him and keep our covenants that we have made. I love you all and hope that you have a very Merry Christmas!

Godspeed,
Elder Chandler Kendall