Dec 24--Dear Elder

Dear Elder,

Ho ho ho, Meeeery Christmasssss!  How are you, young man?  Santa tells us

that you’ve been naughty and have opened your Christmas package early.

Now what are you going to do?   Well, we will make sure you get some

pictures to look at, anyway, ha ha.  Are you having a nice Christmas Eve?

What are your plans?  I hope you can get out and Christmas carol or

something.  Remember to serve others.  They’ll never care about what you

know until they know that you care.  How are things going, by the way?

Like Dad said, we fasted for you and Elder Ruiz.  What is he like?  Tell

him “hi” and “Merry Christmas” for us.

It is early Christmas Eve here, and we haven’t left the hotel yet to join

Emerson, Cassandra, and Lily for breakfast at “The Egg and I.”  Everyone

told you how long and frightful the drive was, and I quite agree.  We

probably lost an hour because of bad navigating.  I guess they’ll have to

fire me, ha ha.  Yesterday we went to church with Emerson and Cassandra.

Emerson led the choir in singing Christmas Hymns, and the primary children

sang.  Emerson plays the organ in church.  It sounded wonderful.  I got to

go to Relief Society with Cassandra where we heard a wonderful lesson on

being a good Christian based on Elder Hale’s talk in the last General

Conference.  We had such a nice day at the house yesterday.  Cassandra

cooked us delicious meals, and Lily was so fun to play with.  I don’t

think the kids realized how much fun they would have with Lily.  It was

really nice to see.   At night we watched home movies of when you guys

were little.

Jonathan called last night.  He has today and tomorrow off which would

usually be a nice thing for Christmas, but I’m actually unhappy that he’s

not working because he will be alone anyway.  He picked up his presents last night and he’d

better not open then till tomorrow or someone’s in trouble, ha ha.

Tonight we plan to have a nice Christmas Eve dinner, and then tomorrow, we

will give each other gifts from the heart.  Santa’s gift to us this year

was our trip here, so gifts from the heart will be our gift giving

this Christmas.   BTW, last week was very nice.  We went to another of

Thomas and Katrina’s choir performances and we also heard Miriam sing with

her choir at Temple Square.  What a wonderful way to celebrate Christ’s

birth!

Matt, we got you a Skype account.  I am concerned

that if you can’t get on the internet, how are you going to download

Skype?  I hope it all works out.   We can’t wait to Skype with you!!!  Can you

give us a phone number in case Skype doesn’t work for some reason.  See

you tomorrow.  On Skype.  Yay!

Love,

 Mom