First things first. Here's the google+ plans for Christmas day.
I will be calling at 3:00 here which is 8:00am in Utah. Let me know if that won't work, cause it's pretty flexible. Any of you that want to go can.
We had the ward Christmas social on Saturday and it was really nice. They did a nativity play and we all sang Christmas carols together. Plus, Neil came and so did a less active woman named Gail that we've been teaching. They also both came to church on Sunday. Pretty dang neat considering Gail hasn't been to church in over 30 years. I will tell you how this so called Christmas Social took a turn for the worse.
After we sang carols, we all gathered in the cultural hall to eat some soup and watch some dancing. The dancers were these Spanish girls, but one of them wasn't a member. One of them is in our ward though and she volunteered to do it. The first dance was a nice, family friendly, cultural dance. But, then the second dancer got on stage wearing a pretty inappropriate outfit and started doing some even more inappropriate dancing. Right in front of the whole ward! ha! The song she was dancing too had tons of bass and nobody knew where to look. Elder Stringer and I were just staring at our tables, not knowing where to look, but eventually we got up and left. It was probably the most awkward situation ever because everyone was staring at us, laughing their heads off cause they knew that we had no idea what to do. Then, Bishop Moffett had this disgusted look on his face while she was dancing, but he didn't know what to do either. The girl was a non member, so it was just a normal dance to her. hahah. All the old guys in the ward were mind blown.
Saturday night was the worst night of my mission and I will tell you why. Earlier on in the day, all the electricity in the flat shut off in the middle of Elder Stringers shower. We thought we must have run out of credit because we have pay as you go electricity. So, we went to the shops to buy more electricity, but it still wouldn't turn back on. We called our landlord over and he brought an electrician over, but they couldn't figure it out either. So, we had absolutely no power that day and most of Sunday. That would have been fine with me, except little did we know that our security system goes haywire without electricity. So, we went to bed and we were fast asleep by 10:30. At about 11:30 we were rudely awakened by our burglar alarm going off full bore all throughout the flat. It was so dang loud and it nearly shattered all my nerves. Me and Elder Stringer both shot out of bed and started running around the flat, but we both had no idea where we were or how we got out of bed because it was so startling. Anyway after we got our bearings again and checked for burglars, we got it turned off and went back to bed thinking all was well. Then at about 1:15 the same thing happened and it blew our minds again. But, this time, we couldn't shut off the alarm because the keypad was out of battery. So we just sat on the couch staring at the wall while our alarm was blaring in our ears. We couldn't do anything about it because our landlords phone was out of battery and all the electricians were closed for the night. It finally turned itself off after about 20 minutes. Then, the same thing happened at 3:30 and it blew our minds yet again and went off for about 20 more minutes before it stopped. Then I got a bad stomach cramp because of a spicy burrito I ate the day before and that kept me away from my bed for a solid hour. Well, that stupid alarm was still going off when we left for church. What was awful is that I had to give a talk in church after all that. I was so tired. haha!
Neil is still hanging in there. It's been really amazing to watch him make all these changes in his life and it's so obvious to see the person he is becoming. We have a great friendship with him and he has really learned how to rely on prayers. We asked him to pray about a date to be baptised and he chose the 12th of January because that is his birthday. And it also happens to be one day after my birthday! We are excited and we really have faith that he will make it.
We saw an amazing miracle this week. We've been teaching a guy named Mark lately. He never let's us come into his house, but we've had 3 different 30 minute lessons on his doorstep. We gave him a Book of Mormon about a month ago and he's been reading it ever since. At first, he was always just reading it to gain information because he was curious, but it's changed. We usually go try by his house on Saturdays, but we didn't have time this past Saturday, so we were just going to leave it until next week. We didn't think he would mind because he usually doesn't seem too interested. But, on Saturday night we got this text from him.
"I'm out delivering presents tonight to friends and family in case your thinking of calling, but I would like to arrange to meet up for an hour or so just to go over what I have read so far, some good reading mate, very spiritual can't seem to put it down at the minute even downloaded it on my phone so I can read it on the move."
We were so happy to get that text that we stopped walking and said a prayer of gratitude to thank our Father in Heaven for that miracle. He is probably one of my favourite people to teach on my whole mission. He's a construction worker and he loves weight lifting so we talk about that sometimes. But, he really loves his family. He's got a wife and some young children.
Well, I love you all so much. I would send you some pictures, but my camera is out of battery and I forgot to charge it. I'm excited to see your faces at Christmas! Remember the Saviour in everything!
Elder Goodwin
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