Week #26 Happy Newbert!

Hey champs!

The ol' phone calls this week were awesome! Thanks for calling, family. I was REALLY hoping you would. Anywho, long story short, I don't have too much to update everyone on- Christmas was great and the Bennings even got us some way cool gifts. Though it couldn't even hold a CANDLE to Crimbo with the ol' family, it was still a splendid day.

Can't say a whole lot happened the rest of the week that's worth writing about. It seems California isn't quite as excited about missionaries as you'd expect during Christmas and New Year's. We did carol to some nursing homes though and that was fun. They were very appreciative. Some of them even threw out requests and applauded. Some of them slept.This is probably my last week with good ol' Elder Wheeler. It's been real. Odds are I'm definitely getting transferred this time, so the last day I will receive any mail at this address is a week from today (Monday). Any mail that comes after next Monday to the Mecca Court address will not be received by ol' Elder Balagna. So, if anyone is unsure about when a letter will get here, send it to the Mission Home address.

That would be greatly appreciated.Thanks again for all the Christmas stuff. The pictures utterly pleasant and the T-shirts are crazy awesome as well. The Great Apostasy is way way good and it has also really opened my eyes to the dangers of global warming. Thanks again for errbody who sent me letters/stuff during the season. It made life spectacular. Thanks to Lee for the Calvin and Hobbs comics!

Happy New Year!
Elder Al

A Christmas Video

Alex emailed this video for Christmas, so enjoy! He said to apologize it is sideways...

Week #25 - Merry Crimbo!

I can't wait to talk to everyone this week!

Speaking of outrageous, news for this week:

We picked up two new investigators tracting- both very cool and one was for the singles ward which is pretty awesome. He's a very cool guy and had lots of good questions. We're meeting again tomorrow afternoon.

Annie (the girl I knew from BYU) is back in town again and it's still weird. Pretty cool though. What are the odds? She has a bunch of my friends in her phone and she was texting them saying how I was in her house. Crazy.

Our host family is having us (or I guess keeping us...since we live there) for Christmas which should be way fun.

Cara's husband is softening up a TON toward the church...awesome. Pretty amazing.
Speaking of Cara, she bought us REALLY nice sweaters and ties for Christmas (not the one I'm wearing in the video- she got me a somewhat similar style that's green). The tie's awesome too.

Other than that, thanks a lot for the mail this week and thank you so much the Decatur 1st Ward and the Isons for the packages they sent!!

My presents might be a little late this year for everyone. Sorry. Hehe.

Much love all around!
Elder Al

Week #24 - yaD noitaraperP

Dearest Family and Friends,

This week was a delight. I don't know if I've mentioned it, but Cara has been taking her two eight and nine year old kids to church the past few weeks and they LOVE it (more than their other church). We're going to start teaching them both on Tuesday which is pretty awesome. It'll be pretty neat to teach kids. Also, on top of that, her husband came with her to the ward Christmas party (he drove separately in case he felt it necessary to head out early on account of not enjoying himself with those wacky Mormons) and it went VERY well. He stayed the whole time and made a bunch of friends and he's going to start golfing and hunting with some of them. In the words of Cara, "He doesn't stand a chance." Hehe. Maybe not for a while, but sooner or later he'll join the posse.

I was pretty psyched to see signs for The Day The Earth Stood Still remake. What an incredible movie.

In other news, the Oakland Temple trip is coming up and I'm way excited. President asked if I could play "Our Savior's Love" on the organ in the chapel in the temple. Given that I have had no organ experience I hesitated, but then I decided it's probably the only chance I'll ever have to play on a white organ (it's in the temple, no less). I practiced it on the organ at the church and it went really well, so it looks like it'll work out great. I'm pretty excited.

As for the ol' Christmas list, I've thought of a few things:The Great Apostasy (James E. Talmage); Any good vocal solo sheet music (I thought Jonny might know some good ones); Any good pictures of family (maybe even some with me in them); Broken Things To Mend (book by Elder Holland).

Anyway, that's about all I've got for the week. The ol' excursion remains awesome and the gospel remains even more awesome (and true).

Merry Crimbo!
Elder Al

Week #23 - A Brighter Yellow

Hey pants!

Still kickin in ol' California. I had an insane case of food poisoning up until yesterday. Pretty rough. The last couple days consisted of me blowing up out of each end. Please make sure that makes the blog.

Anywho, I'm pretty recovered now, and Cara gave me a haircut this morning, so things are looking up. I don't have a whole lot to report this week due to said sickness, but things are excellent. One of our investigators named Ann just made a major turn. She started asking about modern day prophets and why they were important and stuff- she mentioned how she'd heard a lot about Joseph Smith but not too much about a prophet today and was curious. We had a REALLY good discussion and she really started to see how everything applied to her and why this stuff is actually important which was a MAJOR breakthrough with her. We also taught Cara's best friend this week (sadly she lives out of our area, but Cara invited her to sit in on a lesson) and it went VERY well. She's golden. She kept saying how all of her questions kept getting answered throughout the lesson and she couldn't believe how perfect it all was. We told her at the end how the Lord will answer our prayers if we ask Him with faith and then mentioned a bit how the Spirit speaks, and she said "Oh trust me, I've felt it. I feel it right now- I know it's all true. It's incredible." She had a bunch of questions that led STRAIGHT into the Plan of Salvation, so basically I wish she was in our area and we could keep teaching her. Oh the ol' gospel. Too true for school.

I was asked to sing a really cool song for our Zone Developement Council called My Shepard Will Supply My Need. It went really well. Pants.

Welp, I don't really have much else. Hope you all have a splendid week and what not!

Elder Al

What am I thankful for?

In honor of Thanksgiving, I decided to make a list of the top 15 things I'm thankful for (not in any particular order):

1. The Mom and The Chief
2. The Chief's moustache
3. The rest of the fam
4. My titles in pool
5. The Gospel and all things related
6. The Priesthood
7. My magic box
8. Jesus The Christ (Amazing Book)
9. Music
10. My Bobblehead
11. Piano
12. How all my friends say "The Chief"
13. Superman and all things related
14. Support on the mission
15. BYU