Season’s greetings everyone!!!                                                                December 30, 2013

I hope your Christmas was all well and that you have some fun plans for the New Year.

My Christmas was great. We were well fed all day, we played a few games with the Sun Prairie Elders and Skyping with my family was a lot of fun (it helps to have a good internet connection. J  We ate breakfast with a recent convert family and they gave us a few gifts, then our day was mostly spent with the SP Elders just having a fun time. Then we went and ate dinner with a great family who has a missionary of their own serving in Oregon. The dinner was a full five coarse meal and we four Elders enjoyed a filling meal that was made fit for a king. The same family gave each Elder a stocking that had huge chocolate bars in them, body wash, paper airplanes, wool socks, and more. They really treated us like royalty, I felt spoiled after opening up the stocking.

Giant PB Cups - Fit for a king!!!!

Sun Prairie Missionaries

 Since last Sunday (the one before Christmas) was canceled because of a snow storm, this past Sunday (yesterday) was my first Sunday meeting the ward and seeing everybody. The ward here is mostly young families who have seemingly 3-8 kids per family, all of them. It’s a young ward, with very few older couples, the primary is huge and the youth groups are decently large. The Choir Christmas program was yesterday as well and due to a lack of attendance, all six missionaries were kind of forced into doing it. So I sang on Sunday :) it wasn't too bad, I made sure though that everybody present was aware that I’m tone deaf. One thing that's really fun about this ward is that we have three sets of missionaries. So we sometimes compete on little things such as: who can get the most dinner appointments in a month. I am pleased to announce that for the month of January, the DeForest Elders have twice as many dinner appointments as the Sisters do (which has never ever happened) Its fun and its great having an enthusiastic Bishopric who in anxious to get the work here rolling.

I met our top investigator on Thursday, He lives outside DeForest and has a baptismal date set for April 5th. He is currently on parole right now but his testimony is on fire. He has already read the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price, cover to cover. He is super excited to get baptized in April, and when the rest of the family gets off parole in 2016, he will be able to baptize all four of his family members, and maybe even his mom (which would make five) He is awesome, and we have some really great lessons with him.

Festive décor in town

Scripture for the week: 1 Nephi 1:1

1 I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father; and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days; yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God, therefore I make a record of my proceedings in my days.

Thank you all for your love and Christmas wishes, have a happy New Year.

Elder Luymes