Week 72 - Christmas Week 2017

  Christmas Day was a wonderful day for our family. We enjoyed opening gifts and being with our girls in the morning, then cooked our traditional Christmas brunch. In the afternoon, we were able to Skype with Elder Schaff for about 45 minutes and it was great to be able to see and speak to him. I have a few photos from our Skype session, and he sent about 50 photos and two videos from Christmas week, I won't upload all of them, but I will try to share ones that he mentions in his email from December 30th.

Christmas Day Skype Session with Elder Schaff

  "Alright, so I have given you everything that happened during Christmas, plus the interior of the Surf-thru car wash from today, because why not? We also took pictures in the phone booth that is right next to our apartment complex. All these months and I finally got over to it! If a picture is worth a thousand words, I gave you a 50,000 word essay.

Car Wash

Elder Schaff in phone booth near his apartment

Elder Noyes and Elder Schaff 

Looking cool in the phone booth

  The pictures tell most of the story, but there is one in the dark from the movie night that is a bit odd. You see, the Sisters used their flashes on their cameras to blind me, so I fired back and caught Sister P dealing gummy frogs...anyway.

Watching Moana on Christmas Day

Sister missionaries with their gummy frogs

  So, Elder Noyes and I enjoyed our Christmas together. We went over to President's house as is documented, and then we joined Brother B to call you and have Christmas dinner with their family. Elder Noyes made some home-made egg-nog that was right on point and tasted like regular egg-nog. However, it was not featured here. It would be economical if cream wasn't so darn expensive!

Elder Schaff opened a CFM tee shirt on Christmas morning

Some of the items from their stockings

Elder Noyes opens his Nerf gun

Christmas breakfast at President Mackay's

The Ward Mission Leader hosted Elders Schaff and Noyes so they could Skype on Christmas- thank you!!

  Then we had a white-elephant as a Zone. You'll see some of the photos of us in a ring playing it. The Assistants brought all their junk food as their gifts, so they could get rid of it. Because of the stealing aspect of the game, they almost ended up with it again, which was super funny. (The Assistants are on a "low-carb [snax]" diet.) I ended up with a box that said, bean-bag toss desk game, but the Zone Leaders had actually put two Nerf guns inside, which was a pleasant surprise, since Elder Noyes got a Nerf gun Christmas morning and I was defenseless.

Zone White Elephant Gift Exchange, Elder Schaff got a Nerf gun

  So, the whole deal about Moana was...well, the Zone Leaders got us all together to watch it, but the member they got it from had actually pirated it. *Facepalm.* There were some technical difficulties. Anyway, the member was watching it with us and realized he had a Netflix account and that we could watch the non-pirated version. So we did that and made it to the part right after they escape the crab, but couldn't finish the movie. Biggest cliff hanger of my life! I'll have to wait 'til I finish my mission to resolve it!!! That was the only non-ideal part of Christmas, but I'm over it at this point.

  Also pictured is Elder Nate and the whole group at President Witt's house for a breakfast this morning, since the Fresno North Zone had the most December baptisms. President Witt taught us at the end of it all to repay us for our teaching, and taught about personal 1-on-1 ministering and how we must always continue to live that purpose as the Savior did, rather than focus on baptisms. The Spirit was there and I was grateful that he understood the reason he decided to celebrate with us.

Breakfast at President Witt's with the Fresno North Zone

  Let me know if you want to hear anything else. That's what I've got for you! We're going to try to visit a bit of the Hmong New Year today, before it ends on Monday!"

--Elder Schaff