From the Mouth of Babes

Hosanna! Hosanna!

December 16. 2013

Dear Parents, Mom and Dad/Dad and Mom,

Well, congratulations on making it to school board president, even though it was not your intentions, Dad! That is quite odd, how it all worked out. I know it is a lot on your plate and that seems crazy of how much you have to do. Why is it always this season particular that life pushes everything at you? It makes it hard to remember the spirit of Christmas, sometimes. All I can say is to put God first and miraculously, for God is a God of miracles, things will work out.

So for Skyping, I gave my ward mission leader the telephone number of home and your cells. Hopefully, soon, you will get a call. I should let you know my schedule for that day, so if you want to do another time, it does not get hectic on my schedule and your schedule, thus causing even more frustration. So, Christmas, at 10 to 12, I will be at a recent convert's house. 12 to 3, I will be at the ward mission leader's house, the Hairs. (Which reminds me, I forgot to tell my ward mission leader, your names. Haha, oops.) 3 to 5, I will be at another recent convert family. 5 to 7:30, I will be a member's house. 7:30 until 9, I will be with Santa, also known as my landlord, having dessert. If you get a call from him, my ward mission leader, please ask about calling Grandma and Bria as well, because I forgot to mention that as well, more particularly Grandma, seeing as I knew I was going to be calling her. I did not know about Bria until now. And thanks for getting me a card to use to pay for calls.

I am excited to get the Christmas package, though I will wait until Christmas to open it. I am working really hard to get something out to people for this Christmas holiday. I am not getting anything, but I am writing something and then, hopefully, I will type it all up, or just kill my hand and write it out tenfold. Just like those of old. And yes, I did share with my companion goodies of the last package.

And with the ice storm, yeah, we did lose power, but only for a few hours. Our landlord woke us up to inform us of that, but I was fine, despite not having an electric blanket warming me up. I had bought another blanket, so that it can go on top of the electric blanket and keep the heat by, in theory, pushing it back. I was warm for the last three hours of sleep I had. 

I am seriously losing the time. Things are going by way too fast. We had some great lessons and a lot happened this week. We helped move a lady out of the ward, in the cold. I had no idea how expensive moving trucks were until now. Sheesh. Plus, moving is a lot like a game of Tetris and it is insane. I felt bad, because you could tell how stressed she was. 

One investigator, who we might be going over to Christmas, who is a husband of a recent convert, just opened up to us completely. We also have been asked a lot of questions lately, but, gratefully, the Spirit is on our side. I talked to the part member family, where the husband is deployed and the wife is Jewish, as in we were talking to the daughter about heroes from the Book of Mormon. The reason why is that the parents made an agreement to have their children exposed to both religions. 

We had the ward Christmas party, which was fun. I sat with an investigator and talked to him and other members. All they served was ham, though (Seth does not like ham). They did have other side dishes, thankfully. There was no Santa, because that is the way the bishop wanted it. 

The Primary children sang, but most of them did not sing. So, you heard hardly anything, but it was great. They had a great performance on Sunday, because one kid was extremely excited. Part of their song they had to loudly say, Hosanna, so that kid took it to heart and shouted loudly, "HOSANNA! HOSANNA!" I love little children. I remember knocking on a door and there was a mother and a kid. The mother said, "Oh, we are not interested." The kid piped up, "Why are we not interested?" And most recently, someone told us, "Oh, we are Protestants." Their kid piped up, "But, we haven't been to church in a while." 

But, back to the ward Christmas party. There were other performances and they were all good. There was even a sing along where people could also come up. Not many people in the crowd wanted to sing along. I joined and it was fun.

In our district meeting, I gave a training on goal setting and accountability. I talked and then the time came to do the role play, which involved my district in building marshmallow towers and accounting "why" for their success or failure, in not reaching the goal of how tall they wanted the tower they had set.

It has been a great week. I am particularly loving my studies at this time. I am reading "Jesus the Christ" and, soon, I will start the New Testament. I am realizing a lot. I even been watching the Bible Videos that recently came out. (I wish they would make more, but that is just me). But, also, I felt as though I should do a topical guide study on law, order, justice, and mercy. I had been thinking about law, order, justice, and mercy for quite some time, because that is something I realized I really love; which is considerably odd, having a creative mindset as well, which is free flowing. But, that is besides the point (there is a balance to it). In this study of which will take a lot of time, I have subtopics, which may or may not have sub-subtopics as well. It is quite fascinating, because this study encompasses a lot more that I also wanted to learn, which surprised me. I am really, really excited. A lot more growth is coming, which is considerably good, despite all the storms that may also encompass.

All is well.

Love,

Elder S. Todd 

Ice Cancels Church And the Dog Ate The Brush

Ice Cancels Church And the Dog Ate The Brush



December 9. 2013

Dear Parents, Mom and Dad/Dad and Mom,

I LIVE! So, we had an ice storm this past Sunday, of which was yesterday. At first, it was like, "Storm? There is going to be a storm?" Many of the wards cancelled church and their meetings, but there was nothing in the morning. It was all fine and dandy. The bishop of my ward here had the meetings and was planning on having church. He was from Utah and he said it will not be that bad. It had rained a bit, rained ice a bit, but nothing really bad. (The only thing you have to worry about in rain, snow and ice in Virginia are the drivers. And so they say.) Well, we have our morning meetings and my companion and I go home. By the hour, the roads freeze and it is raining ice and freezing rain. Church was cancelled. And it got worse. A lot worse. The roads were frozen, the plants froze. It was awesome. (Our "sunny" California born son couldn't wait to get to Virginia because of the seasons and storms.) We still were able to watch the Christmas devotional (broadcast from Salt Lake City commemorating the birth of the Savior), which was awesome. It was certainly different as well. But, during the night, our landlord woke us up to inform us the power had indeed gone out. So, no heat, no warm water, and we could not use our water downstairs. Later on, near eleven in the morning, the power came back on. So, indeed I do live. (I mean obviously, seeing as that I am communicating this to you. And this is in case you were concerned about my life during said ice storm.) (We don't pay much attention to the news and we were having our own unseasonably cold weather here. But we're glad he's okay since his heat was electric and he sleeps with an electric blanket.)

About your brush (His dog and one of our other dogs destroyed and ate some of the pieces to a laundry brush) , well, at least it was not a television remote, again.  (the dog had previously shredded to pieces the remote to our sound system).You still have to love my dog and take care of her.

More on the week. So, thank you for everything (It was his birthday the December 7th and he received a package from

the family). (I do plan on sending thank you cards.) I am grateful to obtain a beanie and two more ties and cards and such. I also will have to find the nearest Bank of America or go to my local Wawa, which does not surcharge on using their ATM. Thank you so much. We have one person on date for January (to be baptized) and she is really, really close. We are opening new doors to help our investigators. Some are really getting close to baptism. Oh, and we had a very, very long, tiring zone conference. I went on exchanges this week and helped a greenie out (new missionary), which was a lot of fun.

For Saturday, I helped people out. I got to watch a live Nativity, 10 times, because I had to help out with that as well. And it was outside in the cold. Then, I went to a member's house for dinner, which was awesome. My companion told her that it was my birthday and she got me an ice cream cake. It was nice. My companion promised me that he would not tell anyone besides her, but he ended up telling a youth, who put on Facebook. So, people knew. The sister missionaries baked me a cake and one of them is Filipino, so she made lumpia. It was delicious. And the ward mission leader's wife baked a muffin and put a candle in it.

I should tell you I love the downtown library here in Fredericksburg. You get to see a lot of interesting people. One time, there was a crossdresser that came in and I was like, "Oh." My poor companion had some interesting experiences as well. One time, there was this hippie man who was being kicked out, who had crazy hair. He asked my companion, "How are you?" My companion said, "Good." The man replied, "Good. Good good." When asked to leave now, the man replied, "Now? Now as in now? Now as in now now?" And just recently, there was a woman who was forced to leave and she started screaming about how the library is owned by the government and just ranted. You can only love this library.

I will Skype on Christmas; the rule is, even with calls and such, I have 30 to 40 minutes. If you think I am making this up, ask your local missionaries. I will be going to my ward mission leader's house for lunch and Skype then. You will have to set up your own account, because I have no idea what the password to mine is. My companion said that I will be using the leader's account, so I am okay, hopefully. I will ask about Grandma (WHICH, by the way, can you send the week to her this week) and get a card to call her (one of those phone card things).(We did.)

All is well.

Love,

Elder S. Todd

Thanksgiving

December 2nd, 2013

Dear Parents, Mom and Dad/Dad and Mom,

It sounds like you had a good Dead Bird Day (a reference to what Seth's grandfather called Thanksgiving). I had a fun day, going from one members house to my landlord to an investigator. It was a lot of fun and a lot of food. By the third meal, I had a very small portion, because I knew my stomach was not that hungry. And I had deep fried turkey, which is a lot crunchier and juicier than regular turkey.

And wow Mom! I saw a picture of you, thanks to the courtesy of Joy! You look different! I had noticed it with the other picture. (His mother has a short, different style haircut) I was happy that Joy sent me pictures of the family and Bria helped out on that as well (especially with a picture of my dog). I hope you got my letter. I know I sent it out late, but it should arrive soon, hopefully. I will definitely keep an eye out for the packages. (We sent him a package for his birthday that should arrive a couple days early.)

It sounds like you had fun with Bria! That must have been really exciting to see her! I am glad that you were able to help Grandma with her puzzles. Those were a lot of fun and I loved doing puzzles with Grandma.

It has been a good week. Things are definitely looking up, even though this week looks the same as last week. We were able to have a good amount of investigators come to church and they are progressing. I am really excited for these people and I hope they continue to progress. We had a major crunch on our miles(missionaries are given an allowance on their mileage); we had to walk a couple of days to preserve what extra miles we had left. 

And our car does not seem to get a break either. So, we have additional scratches on our car; this time of our own make. We just got done with potluck and everybody left. My companion and I were the last ones to leave the member's house. I got a call from the ward mission leader and I was focused on the call, what he was saying. As I was doing this, my companion, who I was not paying attention to, started backing up. Next thing I knew, the car was right in view and I started to tell him to stop.

He cannot see me, because I do not have any light on me and I am wearing black (coat, pants, shoes, beanie). Well, there was a small stone wall with slate that the car went over and scratched the car. My companion rolled down the window as I was talking to the leader. I said, "I told you to stop!" He replied, "I cannot see you unless you are behind me!" The poor mission leader said, "Well, I will talk to so and so and I, uh, will call you back." We told the member, which he did not seem too upset about the wall, just wanted to laugh at us. As we left and started to talk to someone else, the "maintenance required" light came on. Our car cannot get a break.

But, like I said with Thanksgiving, I had fun. The one member's house was a lot of fun; we played 20 Questions, only different. My companion knew me too well to figure out what I was thinking. (Javert, from Les Miserables). Then, with our landlord and his family, it was real nice. And the investigator was fun. We were able to gain another new investigator by teaching the Plan of Salvation. Plus, the investigator shot off fireworks! Nobody, thankfully, called the cops.                                                 

And the Lord works in mysterious ways. The investigator where we went to Thanksgiving finally came to church here. I hope he enjoyed it. He has been investigating for a few years now and it took him to go to Arizona and be stranded there. Why? Because, he went to church there and received assistance from the bishop there and bishop here spoke highly of the investigator. The only bad part of his Arizona trip is that he got in a car accident and the airbag shattered his radius bone. His arm will not be the same, but I know a great scripture that can help (the investigator is pretty depressed about his arm)! 

Are you sending this to my siblings?

All is well!

Love,

Elder S. Todd

P.S. Congratulations also mother for bearing your testimony! (She bore her testimony in church. Members are given   the opportunity the first Sunday of each month to bear testimony of their Heavenly Father, His Son Jesus Christ and the amazing grace poured out upon those who choose to come unto Christ Jesus.                                                                     
P.P.S Also, someone made deviled eggs and they did not add paprika, but pickle relish. I started laughing, because I thought of Grandma and her deviled eggs.