December 21, 2015

Dear Mom and family!

Thank you so much-- you guys are all incredible! I love that music video as well! It’s so good! I love this Christmas time! Thanks for all your letters they mean so much to me and I always love them!  But your week sounds crazy, I’m sorry to hear you're not feelin to good. That’s no fun! You’ll be in my prayers, especially around Christmas! You’ve got to sing the 12 days all in one breath and you can’t do that with a sore throat! hahaha I love you guys—I’ll sing it and teach it to our apartment! hahahaha

So first-- thank you so much for everything! You guys are too nice to me! The Thanksgiving package was incredible and made me cry just when I thought I got out of that! hahahaha  The 12 days have been awesome, Thank you so much (those thermals have saved my life!) it has snowed close to a foot now! I love it!!!! It just keeps coming! We are going to have a white Christmas!!!!!

To answer some questions,  I’ll probably call Christmas Eve  between 4and 5 to figure everything out... with the Skype or face time.  It’s going to be crazy because Christmas morning we have to go up to Coulee Dam from 10 - 1 and it takes an hour to get back and the family has a missionary out as well.  So we are trying to be courteous to them-- but we will know for sure by Christmas Eve! I’ll try my hardest to do it as early as possible!

So as for this week it has been crazy! I’m a professional snow driver now! hahahaha It’s been super icy and snowy all week and its actually snowing right now! I love it so much! There has been like a foot so far! It’s incredible and so pretty! So we've seen some super incredible miracles this week! One of my favorites is the M family  (from Moses lake) He baptized his son and daughter this weekend and we got to see it!! It was amazing! They told me that Sister M’s dad had passed away on Monday and it was the strongest spirit I’ve felt in a long time. I just started crying! I felt His love for me. It was amazing! I felt like He was super grateful for the things that have happened with that family! And honestly, none of it was even me!! God just blessed me to be a part! It was amazing! Oh another sweet thing that happened this week was,  the Spanish group went caroling and there are some pretty crazy boys but we went to a nursing home and all these crazy boys started to cry.  The Spirit was so strong and they are just the best!! They were saying "when they cry it makes me cry" and it just reminded me of me! hahahaha I remember just always cryin’ -- I still do cry all the time, who am I kiddin’ hahahaha! This week has just been incredible! I’ve truly seen God's hand in everything! He’s blessed us so much and comforted us so much! This is truly the best season to be a missionary and it's sad to think that’s it’s going to be my last time. Time is flying by way too fast! I love you guys so much! You mean the world to me and I can’t wait to see you guys on Christmas! I hope you have the best week ever! Can’t wait!

Love Elder Oliver