Congrats to Xoch and Ryan! Happy New Year! Skyping was good - President hasn't said anything about it. I think he just wanted to give us the time to enjoy it. I already talked to him and told him how long I was on. He asked me how you guys were, then he asked me if it distracted me from my purpose and I said I didn't think so and he said that is what he really cares about. So it's all good. New years sounds fun. The wedding sounds like it went really well I am glad that I was able to be a part of it sort of. I thought Xochitl's Jewish friend was Merriam? Thanks for all the details, Dad. I really appreciate it.
This week:
Sounds like we had a similar new years, all the Elders in our zone came over and we played games until midnight. Sister Peihopa gave us some different board games for Christmas plus we had some cards from my package so we had enough to keep us entertained. Everyone got mad at me because I am undefeated in Dominos, Connect Four and Nertz. We did a countdown and we went to bed - I think we were all asleep by 12:07. It is pretty hard to break our sleeping schedule. I barely made it to midnight.
We had MLC again this week. It was an awesome training. President is trying to change the mission culture. It is going to have to start with the leadership so my companion and I are changing some things. We had a training on Thursday and we talked about how we wanted to change and we did a really awesome spiritual training on our purpose and what we want people to say about us after the mission. What we wanted to be able to say about ourselves. We read about Alma the Younger when he was introduced in Mosiah 27 as an enemy to the church and how he changed into a righteous person. Then we read in Alma 45 (I think) where Alma is rumored by the people to be translated because he was so righteous. It was really cool. We came down to one question that I think is good for everyone. "What would the angle that visited Alma and the sons of Mosiah tell you to change today if you had this same experience?" It definitely got me thinking. About myself, the mission, our zone, and really what President wants to happen. It should be really exciting to see what happens.
Love
Elder Summers
(Sorry no pictures. forgot my camera.)