Christmas e-mail, December 26, 2009

We waited all day Christmas Day to get an e-mail from James. Friday is his normal prep day, so we expected one. We had to wait until the next morning to get the explanation as to why he was late. Read the letter. Merry Christmas (even though I am late) I was supposed to email yesterday but when I tried it said that it wasn't my p-day and it wouldn't let us so I was able to get some time today. Well Christmas in the MTC was good. On Thursday we had a Christmas eve Devotional that was amazing, it was by our MTC presidency, and they had musical numbers and all kinds of things. They even re-wrote the lyrics to the 12 days of Christmas to MTC style it. Then on Christmas Day we had a morning devotional and Elder L. Tom Perry showed up and spoke to us. He gave a good talk on Christ and the stories in the scriptures. Then we had our Christmas dinner which was turkey and potatoes and Broccolli and other good food. Then we had the first ever MTC talent show and that was amazing!Oh at the Christmas eve devo. Sister Elizabeth Smart played her harp amazingly. She is here in the MTC going to serve in France I think. Then last night we had another devo. and Greg Olsen came and spoke to us and brought pictures of some of his paintings and they were awesome. You should go and look at some of them if you can find them. Well this week has been kinda crazy, we got kicked out of our classroom and now we are in what they call a mega district. We got moved into the main building in one of the mini chapels for sacrament on Sunday. We don’t have like a set schedule with teachers and everything now, we basically have MDT all day except for the first 3 hours of the day. We get to study what we need to and we do have teachers come in and out and they are there to help you with stuff. Which I really like because it is more of a one on one with you and the teacher and it is really helpful. I am feeling really confident with my now 10 weeks of Portuguese and it is amazing how much you learn in here. We have been teaching straight Portuguese and I can actually do it. Something else that happened this week was some of the districts that have been here for 12 or 13 weeks that didn't receive their Visas got re-assignments. Some of them are going to Georgia and Tennessee and some are going to Salt Lake City until they receive their Visas. As for the visa news the travel office is expecting more visas to come through after the New Year. So hopefully mine is in the group that comes soon. I am really ready to get to the field and start working. I wrote a letter yesterday to you and it didn't go out until today so it talks a lot about all this same stuff. Question who sent me that Envelope with the 5 dollars in it? I would like their name so that I can send them a Thank you. Jessica as for the missionaries that received their visas that you were writing, you can still send them here to the MTC and they will forward them to them in the field or wherever they are at. The next letter that you receive from them though you will need to write down the address and then write to them at that one. Jessica also all those Elders that wrote you are expecting a letter and soon so you better get to writing them, I told them that you were in Cali, but they expect one by next week. Love you all and Merry Christmas Love Elder Crittenden