28 December 2020

 This week has been pretty exciting. My companion`s mom sent out some filled Christmas stockings and we both got our Christmas packages in time. Before Christmas, members have been known to mispronounce my name, but one member topped it off with "Elder Batman". We got Christmas dinner provided for us, since we aren`t allowed to eat with members, which included ham, potatoes, vegetables, rolls, and apple pie. Also in the package was a Christmas brownie in a jar, which just had the dry ingredients, where we would add other ingredients and bake it. Funny story with the ham, when we were trying to bake it, we put it in the oven and took it out to find out it still wasn`t very warm. After putting it in the oven twice, we found out we didn`t notice the plastic sleeve around it. It didn`t burn the plastic much, and we heard as long as we cut the edge off the ham, we should be fine.

Christmas day was also pretty good. I got to call in the morning, and we got a present from some Sister missionaries that had two ties, with a request to wear it to a meeting we were having that day. We went to the meeting later, and had training and played a few games. We found out the ties the Sisters gave us matched their dresses and masks. We had our Christmas dinner that day, and later, had a devotional over Zoom with our mission, where we heard a few quick announcements and some spiritual thoughts, and then my Mission President put on It`s A Wonderful Life. The whole Christmas time was nice. We reached out to a member and he took our bike to a shop and got it fixed.

Despite the cold, I haven`t felt too cold when going outside while on a bike. The hills here feel really steep, so when biking uphill, it really can get difficult. When I see my trainer easily biking up hills, and me struggling and breathing hard over them, it reminds me that I got some things to improve on.

Another little surprise came yesterday. My companion is getting transferred. I wasn`t sure if he would, he`s been in the area for a while, but I am getting trained. We have a lot of missionaries coming in, so I think I heard more transfers are happening. I am going to get a new companion soon, who will do follow up training. The transfers should be happening tomorrow.

We got pictures of the matching ties with the Sister`s dresses and masks.

Well, that`s most of what happened this week. Bye!