Dec 21, 2015

Elder Verdoni versus the Christmas Party

NOTE: sorry this is long, I know.

I know I say this Every week, and I'm sure I'm going to continue to say it, but this week was incredible, and it went by so fast.
I've had to just to do so much this week that it just *poof!* flew by.

Elder Treadway and I were in charge of planning/organizing/preparing/executing a Christmas Party-Devotional for the mission. We have known for a few weeks but this was the week (it happened today). I can tell ya it was a lot of work, more than I thought, but it was fun. NOTE: I now know that my fiance will definitely be in charge of planning the wedding, cus shoot planning a five hour party was rough. 

Anyway we did a lot of running around and phone calls and office work, but it was quite fun. The Office Couples really helped out with the whole thing, it would have been impossible without them. But we did go without two very important people; President and Sister Carlson. They are stateside for another week for some things, but will return quite soon. 

We did the party at The Mission Home and it was awesome, it went really well! One thing I learned was "success comes from the preparation, not the execution."
There was a lot of socializing and fun and food but I really wanted to highlight my favorite:

The Carnival of Life.
So this little game was to represent the Plan of Salvation. We had set up 10 various little stations to do around the compound, stuff like minute to win it games and soccer penalty kicks, to watching Nativity videos and scripture mastery. Each rewarded tickets if they completed the activity. The catch is though, the spiritual stations (like the nativity and scrip mastery, ect) gave out different tickets than the fun ones. Elder Treadway spent his time trying to get people away from the spiritual ones and stay at the fun ones, while I did just the opposite. At the end, they were gathered one by one until all were together again.
Now, none of the missionaries knew what was going on, until I said "Elders and Sisters, I'm glad you all had fun, but welcome to judgement day." I then proceeded to have them count their tickets. The ones from the fun games meant nothing, but the ones from the spiritual activites were the ones that mattered, so who ever had the most tickets from the spiritual activities was the winner. I explained my role (Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost) and Elder Treadways (Satan) and how we tried to get them to the certain activities, and how those activities determined their eventual outcome. They got a kick out of it and thought it was really cool, as Did I. Elder Allen (office couple) then gave a talk about the plan of Salvation and the Birth of Christ. It was a really fun and cool experience.

We then called President and Sister Carlson and sung Christmas Carols to them, wishing them a Merry Christmas, they loved it and sang to us back, I love those two so much.
So the Christmas party was a kick and I'm exhausted. 

We have had some good things happen at Doe Community this week. We went their a couple times and we now have some Branch Missionaries who also come and help teach, loved it! The investigators are progressing really well and love us, and I love them. Crazy how you can develop a love for a people so fast, but I've done it. 

Sorry I don't have like super cool spiritual experiences to share this week, I've been busy.
Love you all and I GET TO TALK TO MY FAMILY ON CHRISTMAS YES! MAN SO STOKED!!
Elder Verdoni