James is on his way !!!

James called around 9:30 on the morning of Dec 29th with the great news that his visa has arrived. He flies out of SL International airport on December 30th at 11:00 a.m. He flies from SL to Atlanta, Georgia. From there he heads to Sao Paulo, then to Brazilia and on to Teresina. What a wonderful adventure awaits him. Thanks to everyone for your prayers in his behalf, and for your continued prayers.

MTC photos

James finally sent some photos home from the MTC. This is his MTC District. They arrived the same day and are all going to Brazil. Three of them are going to Teresina with James. James said they had learned many things in the MTC, Including how to fly. and float

James enjoyed his turkey farm for Thanksgiving.

The district had fun after the big snowfall.

The snowman has James' nametag on.

James enjoyed the Christmas tree and the ornaments sent by the family.

He even got an ornament from Missy.

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

e-mail of December 18

Hey Everyone, This week has been crazy! First off it is my 9th week in the MTC so we are basically finishing off everything. Like we had our last SKYPE session but we can sign up for more if we want which we probably will. Also the last week in the TRC and we won't have teachers all of next week. If we don’t get our Visas by next week we will have to join a mega district, it is where they combine 2 districts into one room because they need our classroom. But going along with the visa thing, yes 31 came in yesterday and 5 people in my district got theirs yesterday. Three of them were going to Belo Horizante, and they left this morning at 6 a.m. we went and saw them off. The other 2 were my roommates and we are all going to Teresina, but they don’t leave until Monday. They are expecting a bunch more Visas to come in today but we haven't heard anything yet. If they don’t come in today then they will most likely come on Monday. It was so exciting to receive that many visas and then to hear that more would be coming in it is amazing. The past few weeks our Branch Presidency has been telling us to really start praying hard for our visas and the Lord has answered our prayers. I will ask you all to continue to pray for mine to come in because I am ready to go to Brazil. I have been getting stuff to send home that I wont need in Brazil, like my sweaters and what not. I will send some pictures also they finally got the machine fixed so I will send those. Well I am keeping you all in my prayers and I know that I am in yours but I will call you if I get my Visa because they give you 5 minutes to talk so be expecting one from me. I love you all Very Much and Have a Merry Christmas. Thank you dad for the political news and I would love to hear more about all the Obama stuff that is going on. Anyway I love you once again and my Christmas tree is amazing and missy's ornament is right in the middle you will see that in the pictures. Love Elder Crittenden

Good News from the MTC.

We began to hear good news from the MTC in Provo today, 31 visas came in. The elders will be flying out on December 21st. No word yet on a visa for James, but they were hoping more would come in tomorrow. We learned last week that there are close to 300 missionaries stacked up in the MTC in Provo, waiting for visas. In addition to all of the new Portuguese teachers they had to hire, they created two new branches. We also learned that the person in San Francisco who is in charge of signing the visas was mad at the church because of their stand on prop. 8 in California, so he has been sitting on the visa applications, rather than sign them and move them along. Perhaps the Lord has softened his heart and the work can now move forward.