"Merry Christmas to me!"

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

I GOT MY CHRISTMAS PACKAGES!!!  I have the best family ever!!  I actually got the second one first with the no-bake cookies supplies in it.  That was perfect, just what I needed!  I made them up for my district immediately, which was the night before transfers so it was amazing.  Then with transfers came my other package- unopened!!  (by the way, I loved all the stickers all over the box :P)  Every bit of it was exactly what I needed/wanted.  I have had the hardest time sharing the Milky Ways, they're so good!  And the C.S. Lewis book of selected works is amazing!  But by far my favorite part was the "С Рождеством Христом" banner.  I was beyond surprised to see all those faces holding Russian letters!  That was my absolute favorite!  Seeing family, extended family, Lauren, and everyone.  What surprised me the most was definitely seeing Wistrand!  Great job, Mom!  Those packages turned an okay holiday season into a fantastically awesome one!  Oh, and tell Bailey that I wear the Santa hat whenever possible.

So, I sent you the information on the Skype call.  Hope everything works out well!  By the way, we're supposed to keep the calls around 40 minutes.  I don't want to surprise you with that on the day of.

Well, most of what I absolutely had to tell you was about the packages.  I was very very excited to have those!  In other news this week, we spent most of our weekend at a college for disabled people.  The Humanitarian department of the Church over the Europe East area has been setting up this thing for months where they provide standardized wheelchairs for those who couldn't otherwise afford them, and this was the culmination of it with the handing out of the wheelchairs to a bunch of people.  We as missionaries were just asked to be there so that the people could associate the Church with the donation.  But we met some awesome people there, volunteers and wheelchair recipients alike.  And at the end of it we got to see a play put on by the school!  Good stuff.

Also, with the Branch Christmas Party coming up on Saturday, Solin and I have been preparing a musical number, that has eaten up just a little bit of time.  We're doing "Silent Night" in multiple languages, including German, Spanish, English, Ukrainian and Russian.  I'm soloing on German and Ukrainian, so we'll see how that goes!  The best part about it is that I got to borrow a guitar to practice on!  It feels so amazing to have a guitar in my hands again, you have no idea.  And music makes everything better, just in general, so it's pretty awesome. 

We have a couple exciting things going on, actually.  The Christmas Party is one, and then there's the ongoing Scripture Study group that we set up.  We've gotten some great gospel discussion going on in there, even without us having to "preach" the messages.  We just discuss scripture passages and the people there offer up their own insights, which almost always ties into a gospel truth!  I'm really glad that this group is having some success.  And with Elder Nielson gone, I am now the "oldest" American missionary in the district, so I am in charge of leading the discussions!  The people come partly for English practice with native speakers, so I provide that service.  The interesting thing is that most of what is said is actually spoken in Russian.  That means that often I am the only one speaking English, responding to a lot of Russian.  Funny enough, the Russian isn't actually hard to follow any more.  I guess that means that I'm improving, huh?  Weird.

Oh, I mentioned that I'm the "oldest" American missionary here.  The guy that got transferred in is Elder Groothausen, who just got finished being trained.  He's awesome, but has a bit less time in country than me, so he's still getting a grasp on the language more than I am.  It's amazing- being around someone who has less experience, suddenly my comprehension and everything skyrockets!  Or maybe it was better than I thought before and I just hadn't noticed it..  Nah, that isn't it.  Whatever the case, I can follow very nearly any conversation in Russian now.  It doesn't sound like mud anymore!  Yes!  I mean, before I could understand well enough to get by, but it was very taxing on my brain to focus on the language.  Much easier now.  Woot!  Merry Christmas to me!

Well, I hope that you all are having a fantastic Christmas in Utah!  I'm definitely missing you guys this time of year, but it makes it so much better to know that you're out having fun!  Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Love,

Elder Brandon Porter