Happy New Year!!

Dear family and friends,

It was a really good week last.  It was packed with Christmas activies and fun.  It was very special.  We went to a church member's house for Christmas Eve.  It was a blast.  We had a traditional Vietnamese meal on the ground with the gas burners keeping the food warm.  I was surprised, but we even had the New Crackers that have done every year since I can remember.  It was fun to carry on this Christmas and New Year tradition on the mission.  

For Christmas, we spent basically the whole day at the church.  We opened up present after taking a brisk walk outside for exercise.  I admit we were all excited.  Haha.  At the church, we had a Christmas lunch with heaps of food.  There was turkey, stuffing, spring rolls, bread rolls, candies, cakes, and basically anything any 20-year-old male would want to eat on Christmas day.  Haha.  Mom, I do admit though I missed your cooking.  No one else can cook like you.  I can't remember the last time, I had an apple pie.  Life is good though.  It is very good.  

After everyone was eatting, I thought maybe we could all play a game, but then of the members recommended to sing Christmas songs.  I lead the singing of Christmas songs for about 2 hours.  That was definitely a total blast.  There were about 20 of us.  We went through essentially of the Christmas songs in the hymn book and then sang even more songs.  I wore a Santa Hat for the entire time.  It was just so much to celebrate Christmas and see the love that others have this season and for Jesus Christ--many of which were celebrating Christmas for the first time.  Seeing the members also the rendition of the Luke reading was also very memorable as well.  I love Christmas and this season.  I probably said Merry Christmas several hundred times last week.  

I am really excited for this new year.  I have been thinking a lot of making new goals and trying to continue to push myself and challenge to continue to try to become.  The gospel of Jesus Christ and this life is truly a time of becoming and learning about ourselves and our relationship with God.  As Christ teaches us in Matthew 5:48 to become perfect even as He is mean I guess I have a very long way to go.  I have seen my trust in God and the Spirit and my recognition of the many ways God is involved in my life grow, but I look forward to this next year.  There are perhaps many things to learn and things we want to do, but I know through patience and dilligence, we will be able to achieve great things.  I know we also rely on Christ and the way He has prepared for for every single one of us.  His enabling power and grace will allow us to do things that are otherwise impossible.  I see this again and again on the mission.  One very apparent blessing to me so far on the mission is health.  We walk a lot, and talk a lot, but don't necessarily get a lot of sleep.  My health on this mission so far surprises me actually.  I would think I would be more tired and have fatigue, but I never felt stronger or more energetic than on this mission.  It is incredible.  This is just one small example of God's enabling power to me.  

I love the mission.  There are some things that are certainly unique to the mission.  For instance, a person who I had talked to a couple weeks prior, saw me from a distance, and yelled for me to come to him.  He wanted a say a prayer with me to ask God for safety.  We said a prayer together.  He then gave me this great hug.  It is a really sweet experience for me.  These are times I feel happiest.

It was fun to talk to you all.  I really enjoyed seeing your faces.  I admit I wish I could've been longer, but I feel that I was able to convey and the share the things that were the most important.  Know, I am doing well.  I really enjoyed talking to you all.  I love you all so much.  Thank you for the kind letters and notes. I loved reading them. 

Elder Shumway