Christmas Day and talking with Elder Edholm

What a wonderful thing to see and talk to Palmer today!  He had told us he would call at 1:00, but didn't get through until 1:45.  We got to talk for 2 whole hours!  His companion even said hi to us, although he only speaks Spanish and couldn't understand us very well!  Palmer is doing really well.  His baptisms last Saturday went well and he and his companion are teaching a lot of people.  He said that Christmas day there  isn't a big deal for many of the Dominicans.  He said most of the people just drink all day.  They went caroling this morning and he said many people were already drunk!  He looks happy and that makes me happy!

Christmas Eve we opened our Christmas jammies from Grandma:

They are a little slap happy!

Christmas was wonderful and I'm sad to see it leave us!

Andy the basketballer and Emma the cheerleader

The Worland Warrior Cheerleading Squad.  This year there were twice as many girls who tried out so they have two squads-Varisty and JV.  Emma is on Varsity.  They have the black and orange uniforms, JV has the white and orange.

Emma is in the middle row to the left

Emma is 3rd from right

Emma's face is obscured by the girls arm in front of her!

Andy is on the front row, 6th from right.  His best friend Jaden is next to him on the left.

Andy is on the Freshmen team, but this picture is of the entire team, freshman, JV, and Varsity.

Christmas activities

Andy had his first basketball games last week.  He played against Lovell and beat them handily.  Then they played Rocky Mountain (which is the high school in Cowley) and it was a very exciting close game.  They won in overtime.  Here is a picture:

Andy shooting a free throw

Peter had his Christmas program with the 1st-3rd grades.  He got to play the drums which made him very happy.

He is in the 2nd row from the top with the whitish shirt on

Peter is on the 2nd row from the top in front of the girl with the red dress trimmed in white.  I love how he sways to the music!

Lucy as we were waiting for the concert to begin.

My mom gave me a wonderful Santa for Christmas and in a rare moment of creativity I created this for him to stand among from the sawed off branches from our Christmas trees.

Looks better in real life!

Christmas songs

Here are some videos of Lucy's choir.  Lucy is on the front row, second from the left.

When Christmas Comes To Town, from The Polar Express


Best Day of My Life
In this song the first soloist is in our ward, he does a really good job!

Worland High School Band.  Emma is on the front row in the middle next to the tallish boy.

Emma playing O Come O Come Emmanuel at our ward Christmas dinner.  I'm on the piano half hidden.  She sounded really nice!

Elder Edholm -- week 27

So the two daughters of Ana Iris were interviewed on Saturday, and this baptismal date is actually going to go through!!! I'm so excited!!! Their names are Lizbeth and Albelina, and Albelina asked me to baptize her!! It's so exciting to finally have a baptism!

Christmas time is a really cool time, especially on the mission, but in a different sense. I've never felt closer to my Savior than I have here on my mission, and for that I really am starting to understand Christmas better, and people. We've been handing out Christmas cards that say A Savior is Born, and I am really starting to understand the real meaning of Christmas. I have really started to treasure the scriptures a lot more, especially the testimonies of the prophets, they're just so strong, and I really feel the holy ghost when I read them.

But it's also really cool to see people open up to us more during this time of the year. When we give a random person a card on the street I really see a change in them. Even though they don't call us back or anything I leave knowing that I helped someone feel the spirit, and that makes it all worth it.

Anyway, I can't wait until I get to call you guys on Christmas because that is the next time I will be talking to you because their is no p-day next monday because it's changed to Christmas. Anyway, I love you all!!

-Elder Edholm

Festivity

And the decorations are up!

I just noticed how dusty this shelf is!  We are remembering Palmer!

Palmer on the tree

Our two trees are a little sparse, but we love them!

At our ward Christmas party Santa came!

It's that time of year...Christmas concerts!

It's the season to attend Christmas concerts!

Front row third from left is Lucy Lou

Lucy is on the first row third from left

Lucy's choir sang at the Festival of the Trees at the Community Center.  The director does a very fine job with these kids and they sounded great.  Lucy loves it a lot!

This is a blurry picture of Eric's first band concert.  These are all the 6th graders and there were a ton of trombones!  There were more trombones than any other instrument!  Now I've heard a lot of beginning band performances and they can be a little hard on the ears.  This band, however, sounded really good!  Brian and I were amazed at how good they sounded.  Kudos to Mr. Wright!

Emma's high school band concert is tomorrow night and then Peter's Christmas program is next week.  It's so fun to see the kids perform!

Elder Edholm -- week 26

Well we had another great, work filled week this week. I've really learned to love working hard out here on the mission. I've learned that I can't control if I have success or not, but what I can control is how hard I work, and I've learned that working hard feels a lot better than sitting inside and doing nothing.

The cool thing is that our ward has really started helping us out a lot. We've really received a lot of referrences the past couple of weeks which have turned out to be awesome people. When I was younger I didn't know that I could personally give a referrence to the missionaries, and I think that was a problem. We've really tried to get it in to the member's heads that we want to teach their friends and family that aren't members. And I really think it's working.

It's really cool to see after how hard you've worked to see that invesigator that you have come to love actually come to church, it's probably the best feeling ever! I think we will actually have some baptisms before Christmas. There is this lady named Ana Iris, and she was a less active, but she started coming to church with her two daughters who haven't been baptized, and she just had her interview to be reactivated and now her two daughters have a baptismal date for the 19th!

I know that I won't always have success, and that I need to have patience when I don't because I know people are prepared, but maybe they aren't ready right away to go to church and be baptized. Anyway, it's crazy that I've been out here for six months now! I hope Lauren has a boy, and names him after me! I also hope that the basketball thing works out ok!

-Love you all!

-Elder Edholm