Happy Black Friday!!!

Hola Familia!

How was Thanksgiving??? I'm sure it was a complete mad house at Grandmas with everyone. Did you all go watch a movie last night?

My Thanksgiving was actually pretty good. My companions and I woke up that morning and had breakfast out of a vending machine because we had to get in line for the morning devotional. YES...I stood outside for 2 hours in the freezing cold to get a seat(just like you gys stood outside in the freezing cold on black friday!). Because there are so many missionaries here they do not have room for everyone in the gym so there is an overflow of like 700 missionaries in another building. I didn't want ot be in there because our Branch President told me Elder Holland was coming!!! His devotional was probably the best talk I have ever heard from him(better than his at conference)! I cried through most of it. He talked about 3 main things he was Thankful for: his family, his mission, and Heavenly Fathers love. I want to share a few things about what he said concerning family. "It is beyond my ability to say how grateful I am for my family. I would join the church if the only doctrine I knew of was eternal families. I could not concieve heaven without my family. It would not be heaven without them. Many of you may feel homesick today. Good! I want you to be homesick. Because it now that you are gone that you have a greater appriciation for them. There is an empty seat today at your families Thanksgiving table. Make sure that you get everyone "home". Make sure that there are no empty chairs in the celestial kingdom. This homesickness you feel is only a portion of the homsesickness Heavenly Father has for His children." He closed his talk with my favorite quote: "I am NOT devoting my life to a fairy tale! This is God's truth!" His talk was so powerful! I could barely read what I was writting through my tears. It made my Thanksgiving.

For thanksgiving dinner(lunch-I ate at 12:30) we had turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, roll, pumpkin and apple pie, yams, brocoli salad thing, jello salad, etc. It wasnt bad. For dinner we jsut had a sack dinner thing. OH! We did a bunch of cool service projects though. I colored some book things for kids and we put together first aid kits. It was really fun! One of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving I set up. In my district I thought it would be a good itdea for everyone to bring some pictures of their family and tell about them. We called it "family share". It was so cool to see pics of the Elders families. My district feels like my family here. I love them all so much! Overall, my Thanksgiving was really good!

Thank you so much for the cards and packages. Dad & Kolette-my district basically loves you for all the candy, bread, etc. Thank you so much!

Funny story-so I was trying to fix my companions necklace and I thought I woudl use a tiny bit of super glue to get the job done. Well, all the sudden a ton came out on my hands. Well it has been 3 days and I still have glue on my hands. I tried nail filing it down, rubbing alcohol, hot water, etc. HAHA! never again!

One thing that my disrtict does every other day is called English Fasts. It is basically where we do not speak any English. It is SO hard! haha...Como se dice??(HOw do you say...) is my favorite phrase. It has been fun though.

I have a new nickname with my district. I am now called 'MOM'. I taught Elder Fernelius how to sew on a button 3 days ago. And another elder has a cold so I agve him meds. It was funny cause he was like "Mom how much do I take" I then had to show him the line he had to pour it to. Those are only af ew examples of how I am the district 'mom'. HAHA

I am doing really good here a the MTC. I only have 2.5 weeks left! It is so crazy! I get my travel plans on Wed. So next imte I email I will give you the info. So I was thinking about somethings you could send me for Christmas. Not that I am asking for anything but I know you will send stuff so I figured I would give you ideas. Address labels(like of my address in Houston). It takes so long to write out my address. Another idea is some more proactive step #1. I'm good on all the other steps.

Thanks for everything! I leave for Texas on Dec. 14th! I am so excited. Have a wonderful week. I am praying for all of you!

Love,
Hermana Richards