Elder Parker Albertson- California Santa Rosa Mission: December 23, 2013

Hola Familia/Amigos

Holy Cow! I cannot believe Wednesday is Christmas! This just seems unreal! It doesn't even seem like Christmas because its still 60 degrees here during the day but is pretty cold when the sun goes down! I cannot believe I am going to be Face-timing with the family for the first time on my mission! I remember leaving the airport and thinking, Oh Shoot I won't talk to them until Christmas!" That seems like for eternity however its just right around the corner now! Not going to lie, I'm a little nervous! Ha ha not quite sure what were going to talk about!

This week has been absolutely amazing, we are not teaching the most amount of lessons so far, however, we are doing our very best to get this area back into shape and continuing to strive to get it to where it needs to be!

So, last week for P-day I went mountain biking with the assistants to the President, Elder Carrillo and Elder Eaton, and their bishop! It was absolutely crazy! We hit some hard core down hill trails and my bike handled it like a champ! I still haven't had any problems with it so far! However, I am in a bike area now and don't ride it as often as I used to! Ha Ha. The other day when we were mountain biking though I hit a huge jump and when I came down I lost control, didn't have my feet on my pedals so I landed straight on my BUTT and when I did so, my seat fell down! Kinda like a Jason Petersen's move, however I still had a seat rather than a Seat Post up my rear end! ha ha If you know what I mean! It was a pretty fun experience!

Thursday, we had our wonderful all mission conference! I will be sending home some crazy funny videos from some skits and things that happened on that day, so hopefully my Mom will be able to help you all out, and upload them on the Blog to see! They are quite Hilarious! I had such a wonderful time getting to feel such an amazing spirit the entire time during the Christmas Devotional! Hopefully there will some pictures uploaded on our Mission Blog! Not quite sure what that is! Ha Ha.(www.santarosamissionaries.blogspot.com)

Sorry, I'm not including much of the things going on with my investigators! We have a ton of investigators and a few with baptismal dates, however, I just don't know them to well! I just haven't seen them more than 1 or maybe 2 times sense I been here in Santa Rosa! We are doing a ton of finding which is good! We are really focusing on our Area Book for right now, and seeing all the Former investigators that we have to check up on!

We do have a few investigators who have Baptismal dates if you guys are up for helping with missionary work during your prayers...

1) Ana Chavez- Pray that she will receive work off on Sundays so that she can Enter into the Waters of Baptism!

2) La Familia Martinez- Please Pray that they will begin to receive and Answer about the Importance of Keeping the Sabbath day, come to church, and that Baptism is the first step!

3) Agustin Lopez- That he will begin to give himself Sundays off so he can Attend Sacrament meeting!

I am absolutely loving it here in Santa Rosa! I am going to be sad to leave this place when the time comes! I hope it never ends! I feel my relationship with the Spanish Branch members is already increasing!

Well I am so excited to Skype this Wednesday! It will be amazing!

Love you all!

Love, Elder Albertson

Merry Christmas!