Londonderry Chapter 10

This week has been pure chaos! Getting everything ready for Christmas and the whole holiday season was entirely too busy.

Monday

Well I told you most of went on last Monday. We went to Branco's for supper. We were going to go caroling to Dave and give him a Book of Mormon, but when we went he wasn't there. We had a busy night so we left. Apparently right after we left he pulled up and the sisters were able to talk to him. We picked up the others from their supper. We ran around and collected the wrapped BOM's that we handed out to the YW. That was pretty much out night. Gong show. :)

Tuesday

Well we had an adventure today. We went with the other guys to deliver some gifts to the Ft. Mac missionaries. We drove up to Grasslands and met them at a gas stop. We then drove back. Along the way we stopped and took some pics for a Christmas card that we were going to make. As we came back into the city, we stopped at the Sikh temple. That was an interesting experience. We walked in and took off our shoes and stood there not knowing what to do. finally some people came in that spoke english. They took us around. It was very different than any other Christian Church. After the tour, they took us down to the cafeteria and we had some Indian food. Still not my most favorite. We then left and went to pick up some stuff. We met Claireview at the Chapel, so Elder Canfield could give them haircuts for calls home. We played some ball in the meantime. We then took off for supper. We went to Dorrey's while the other elders went to the Hunt's. I really love the Dorrey's. We have really become pretty close with them. It was awesome, we had steak and potatoes. Delicious. While we were having our lesson with them, Bro Dorrey was telling us about in all of the times we have come over he has really seen us grow and be more comfortable in lessons. It was really cool to see in less than 3 months people can really see a change. We left the Dorreys and went to the Hunts'. They wanted to do a Christmas Eve FHE with all of us. Well by the time we got there they were just finishing supper. We had the lesson with them and then left. Sis Hunt kept trying to get us to stay, but we had way too much going on that night still. I always say 'some people are persistent, missionaries are more'. We were trying to get a hold of Claireview to give them some of their mail, but they didn't answer. Instead we drove around trying to find a Catholic church for mass. We finally found the Ukrainian Orthodox church. We were a little late, but we just came in and sat down. It was interesting being there. Afterwards we were walking around looking at some of the paintings and were able to talk to quite a few people. It was a really good way to talk to people, more like for people to talk to us. It was quite a day. We didn't get home until like 10:30. By the time we got everything done for the night it was already 11:30, so we just stayed up until midnight to open the presents. We didn't know when we would be able to on Christmas day, so we thought then would be the best time. We then went to sleep

Wednesday

About 5 hours later we woke up again to start our Christmas day. Spanish and us went to Calvert's for Breakfast. It was good, but missed the baked eggs. They got all of us stockings. We opened them up. Just as we were going to leave we got a text from Ladd and Canfield saying they were on their way. So we stayed there for a little bit, until they got there and opened their stockings. We then went to Palmers. They got us some huge stockings. It was some fun stuff. We then went to Thomas'. We got there and Skyped. It was great time to be able to talk with you. It really was hard to hang up. We then had lunch with them and hung around. We then left and went to the other Palmers (ward mission leader) for supper. We weren't hungry at all. They made Brazilian food. The other Elders stayed up as well, but Canfield made the whole night and day. He was like a zombie and Bro Palmer could see it. It was like 7 and Bro Palmer said "Well we are going to put our kids to bed, looks like your pretty tired so might want to leave." Pretty funny. We then didn't really have anything else. Stebners texted and said we could come over. So we went over there and ended the night there. It was a really fun day.

Thursday

Honestly Thursday was a complete blur. We had district meeting and had a really good time there. The sisters and Spanish had leftover turkey and potatoes and let us come join them. We told them we would take care of the clean up. They only thing else that happened that day was we went back over to Thomas' for supper. We had curry fried chicken. So good. It reminded me of Bro Joseph's curry chicken. It was super good.

Friday

Well we were going to try and catch up on some of the people we weren't able to visit, but that didn't happen. Elder Bramwell ended up getting an ET to Whitecourt. Don't know the whole story, but he was leaving that morning. We ended up going to lunch with Claireview and Elder Vega, before they took off. Elder Vega's new companion was who Elder Bramwell was replacing. It was super awesome to see Elder Vega again. We then went home and cleaned up the apartment. It was a super mess from earlier in the week. We would come home put stuff down and go to bed. We needed to clean up. We cleaned and had weekly planning until supper, which was on our own. Something was going on and so Elder Ladd was also leaving that night. They picked us up and went to their place to say goodbye. Too much going on. not a fun day.

Saturday

We really did play catch up. We did mormon.org and then had lunch. We went up and shoveled Stebners walk for them. We then went to Lopez to tell them that Elder Ladd had left. He was close with them. We then went down to see Bro Guinard. He was just heading out, but we got to chat for a minute outside. We then went and the other guys picked us up for supper at Anderson's. They are a really sweet older couple. He is the stake patriarch. Mom you would be jealous of her chicken collection. The others dropped us off at Alosious, who wasn't home. We grabbed some stuff from our place and went to Bro Duckworth. That was our day. Still got a lot done.

Sunday

We went to coordination. We then came back to our place for lunch. We had some perogies. Most of the time was doing the dishes we hadn't done yet. We then went to church. It was super cool after sacrament. A little boy came up to me. "Do you know Elder McMullen?" "Yes I do. Are you his little brother because you look just like him?". I think I told you that Elder McMullen's grandparents are in Londonderry. Well the rest of his family came for Christmas and were at church. It was really cool to meet them. She took a picture of me with his little brother to send to him. The rest of church went really well. Oh Shanon came to church. She had called the Skinners the night before and asked for a ride. They were out of town, but we found a ride from Sis Brimacombe. Just out of the blue she shows back up. We had dropped her like 2 months ago. It was really awesome and she had a great time. After church we went to try by some people. We were picked up by the others and went to supper at Brimacombe's. We took them down to Graus and stopped by some others. We tried contacting a referral, but could find his address. I hate when that happens. According to the address he lives in the middle of a field. So much fun. We then picked them up and dropped them off.

It was a truly crazy week. It felt really good the last couple of days to be able to get back to regular missionary work.

Well hope you had a Merry Christmas and I wish you a Happy New Year,

Elder O'Neill

PS. I'm really bad at remembering my camera/ cord so pictures will come one day.