MERRY CHRISTMAS - Week 22

Guess what - we had an awesome lesson with Sh___ this past week. She is really getting baptized on the 5th of January!!! We are so excited. We went over there and taught her a simple lesson about obeying the civil law (its a required lesson) and once we wrapped that up we had planned to talk a little about baptism with her. We have been teaching her for about 2 and a half months now and she is so ready to be baptized but we didn't want to force her into it. I mean we have asked her many times before to be baptized but she was still living with Ch___ at the time. But now he is gone so she is ready so we decided to bring baptism up again. (Baptisms are precious here, didnt want her to get scared and drop us.) We planned to just ask her one simple question: What do you think about the whole baptism thing now? And guess what? She said that she WANTS to get baptized and that she knows its true with all her heart. The coolest thing. We felt the Spirit so strong. So we set asked her what day and we all decided on two weeks. So yeah thats going to be happening on January 5th. So pumped for her.

We have had to drop some of our other baptismal dates because its so hard to see some people. Its unreal how terrible people's jobs are here. Like 12 hour work days plus transportation. We knocked on this investigator's door Cl___ yesterday. And he opened the door just shirtless because he had been sleeping. He said why did you guys come so late? Ha it was like 7:15 when we came. Late for him because he probably has work at like 3 in the morning.  One of our investigators L__M__ headed back to Columbia to see her family. L___, the 12 year old, is doing well but she is still feeling pressured but super active in the Young Womens program. We have been teaching N___ a lot too, he is just a little lazy. Ha. We have a few more too that we have been seeing.

We had my first all mission conference on Friday up in Morristown chapel. All 240 of us there. Man, I just love this mission so much. We have the coolest happiest mission in the world. President Jeppson has done some work to whip this mission to shape the last three years. We have a super obedient mission which creates many miracles here in Jersey and many super happy missionaries. Honestly, I could not have asked for a more perfect mission. We are just living the life here in NJ. I feel so blessed. I know that this was the exact place I needed to be called. Well mission conference was awesome. Super fun and social and we had some great speakers. Ha mainly just Alex Boye though!!! He was the best and sang like a champion. He is a super good performer and very funny as well. It was a miracle he got out here though. I heard Utah had some rough weather and they shut down the airport for a few hours. But he sang for us and then gave us this super good talk about having BIG visions for the future. Expect great things to happen. Make crazy big goals and then pray and ask God for help and He will help!!! Then he read us this thing about being a confident person and confident missionary. It was honestly the most mind opening talk I have probably ever heard. Ridiculously good. So blessed to hear it. Then the Morristown ward gave us this delicious Christmas dinner.

We all got our Christmas gifts at the end of the conference. It was like the happiest thing in the world. Kind of like our missionary Christmas. Every single missionary got their Christmas Presents in boxes from home, and letters, and stockings that somebody made for us all. Everybody was just so happy. Thanks for sending me my package. Cant wait to open it.

So I decided that our mission is pretty much the just the Hispanic hood of New York City. It is a crazy place. But I am so pumped to be here. We have some dirty places like Newark and pretty much everything up North but then there are places like Morristown which is super rich. Nice mixture of everything. Aw its so perfect here. I love it.

Huge heat wave yesterday. I think it was about 65-70 yesterday. Ha some weird weather here.

We had a ward Christmas party on Saturday night. All the kids did a Nativity and the missionaries sang. It was the cutest thing. Ha ill see if I can send the video.

Merry Christmas family!!! So happy to be here in Jersey. I am so pumped to call on Wednesday.

I love you tons, Sorry Sam I cant be there at home with you for Christmas. Just you mom and dad this year but it will be so fun. No worries. I love you bud. 

Elder Sumsion

Shoutouts!

Okay I dont know if these were all Christmas presents or not but I stocked them up and going to open them on Christmas. Thank you: Family, Aldens, Peers, Williams, Bishop and Rose Gay, Quinns, and Alders for the packages and presents. Cant wait to open them.

I have also received tons of letters too which I am planning to open Christmas

Thank you all so much, I can feel your love and support. Thank you!!

Elder Sumsion, Alex Boye, Elder Brimley
Bro. Boye is Pres. Jeppson's son-in-law