Email December 23, 2018

Email December 23, 2018 – Elder Jackson Kunzler Burton

Merry Christmas Everyone!

            Sorry nobody got my group email last week, my Gmail was being way weird and instead of sending it just deleted it and wouldn't let me send or receive anything for a few days. But it's back now(I think). There's been so much awesome stuff happening in the last couple weeks, we had a ward Christmas party, temple P-day, then a special Christmas Zone Conference with two zones, and my companion keeps getting enormous Christmas packages full of food and candy! And he's awesome so he shares it with me so we've been having a sweet Christmas. At the Christmas party we had a ton of nonmembers come, some Eikaiwa students, friends of members, and a family we had just met and invited a few days before. There were so many kids there! They made little pizzas with gyoza (dumpling) dough it was awesome. I also sung and played the violin at the Christmas party. At zone conference there were a bunch of musical numbers, my companion and I performed "Away in a Manger" with my companion on the guitar and us both singing. I love Christmas music so much! Also, the day before zone conference we went caroling as a zone in Odori Park and after went to Jacksonville, a restaurant that serves gourmet American hamburgers, it was delicious. Our zone reserved the whole restaurant for an hour and it was so packed!

            As for the work, we've been having pretty good success lately finding people, but we haven't really had anyone progressing much. But as we start meeting with the people we've found I'm sure some of them will start progressing, a lot of them seem to have a lot of potential. We also had a returning member we've been working with come to church for the second time last week, that was pretty exciting. Christmas really brings people together and provides so many opportunities to feel God's love. He loves us so much that He sent His only begotten Son to suffer and die for us. There's a lot of good, fun things at Christmas time, but Jesus Christ is the reason we have anything to celebrate at all. I'm so grateful for all He did for us and for the chance we have to think about Him even more during Christmas. I hope you all put Him as the center of your Christmas this year and the center of your lives always. I love you all! Have a great Christmas!

Love,

Elder Burton