e-mail of December 11, 2009

Hey Everyone, How is everyone? Thanks for the christmas tree and all of the ornaments, but I could still use some more for my tree. They finally fixed the picture printer so I just printed off some pictures today and I should get them tomorrow so I will hopefully be sending some home by next week. To tell you how my week has been going, last Saturday in the TRC I called a guy and talked to him about life and it was really cool because he opened up to me and he told me all this stuff that has been hard in his life. For instance he just got divorced and he has been really struggling with that. I am really excited because I sent the missionaries over to his house with a BOM and I get to call him back tomorrow and see if he got it and has read out of it. I found out some other things, we will be here for christmas and so I wont be calling home. We turned in our background check papers but haven't heard anything about our VISAS. We did find out though if our visas are not here by the 21st which is when we are supposed to leave, they will only keep us for 2 weeks after that which would be 4th of January and then they would send us somewhere else, most likely stateside. We are doing just fine in the winter weather considering that we dont have anything for winter but yeah it gets cold. We had our first SKYPE session this past Tuesday and it was awesome we taught her the first lesson in Portuguese and she is basically a continueing investigator for us, we get to teach her this next week where we left off. As far as the language goes, it is really fun because there are quite a few spanish speaking elders in our building and they come and talk to us in spanish and we can pick up most of what they are saying, but when we talk back to them in Portuguese they dont understand anything and they have to have us translate. So we have fun messing around with them. I think that I only need a few things for christmas. I definitely could use more ties, I am getting sick of the same ones already. But I would love some christmas treats, like some homemade caramel, or toffee, But I would really LOVE some of your cheesecake MOM, that is one thing that I miss already. I don't know how you would send it but that would be awesome. But if you do make some for me, make enough for 14 people in my district if not more. That is all if you would like to send me more christmas treats that you can think of like peanut butter bars or stuff like that, it would be awesome. I love you all so very much and keep the letters coming and may the Lord Bless you all. I will keep praying for all of you. Talk to you next week. Love Elder Crittenden P.S. Dad could you send me some news paper clippings or tell me about all of the stuff that has been happening in the world of politics. Like what has been going on the Glenn Beck show. If you could let me know I would love to hear. Thanks love you all!!!!