Christmas Parties!

I hope all is well and you are loving the Christmas season without Sam and I haha. I got my package!!!!!! Thank you so much!!!!!! Haha the Christmas tree looks so good in the flat. We have lights on it and everything. I don't know who else sent packages. But I will open them on Christmas and find out. 

The sun hasn't come out for a while haha, maybe a week and some. It gets dark pretty early now too, around 350 the sun sets. It's strange because when the sun does come out in the morning it feels like it's already the evening because the sun stays so low in the sky. Which feels weird, people tend to be more grumpy when we talk to them because they think it's late hahaha when it's not. There's a good talk from president Erying that I love called "mountains to climb" he says, "if the foundation of faith is not embedded in our hearts, the power to endure will crumble" this has really helped me the last few months. It reminds me of that evening on August 8th when I went up to Brighton and had the special moment I had there. I remember reading Alma 32 which talks all about faith. I know that I was inspired to read that because it would help me later on and it has. The faith that I have gained in the last 4 months has helped me endure the difficult times. 

(It's suppose to be like 60 degrees this week or something though!!! So I'm stoked!!!! We will see haha) 

Friday was the mission Christmas conference. It was so good! I loved being with all the missionaries. Elder M was there so it was good to see him. We had a few trainings by Sister Stevens and President Stevens. Wow I love them so much! President got up and sang some song and killed it! He was in MOTAB so he just blew all of our minds haha. We then played some missionary games haha which were pretty boring but that's alright. We then had a scripture act out. My district acted out Moses splitting the Red Sea hahaha. I was Moses and I felt like Bruce Almighty hahaha. It was funny. We did a white elephant and exchanged some gifts and just hung out with the zones. It was a good time. 

Northhampton Zone

Saturday was the ward Christmas party and it was also a good time. Haha two parties in two days isn't so bad. Anyways it was fun to be with the ward. It's a bit weak sauce sometimes. Not a lot of people show up, they need some Matt Parkins haha, Justin godfreys, Tom Taylor's, Jeff smarts, easy Es, jepsons, Jon lees, Ken Daytons, and all the other great men in the B2 ward and Bonneville stake.  I miss it. I hope they are all doing well. 

Lords Hand

I saw the lords hand this week in the ward and stake I have back home and the wonderful examples I have. I loved every second of young men's and scouts and everything in-between. The youth activities here just aren't the same. So I am so grateful for the ward and stake family I have back home. I also saw the lord’s hand in O's baptism coming up. His father didn't want him to be baptised because he felt that all of this was out of the blue and random. So the sisters invited O's dad to the Christmas party to meet the ward and Elder A and me. We asked him about O's baptism before he was leaving and he said it would be okay and that he would support him! It was such a miracle! We are excited! It is amazing to see how much O has grown in the last two weeks. He bore his testimony last week and said that he went from being an atheist to believing that he does have a Heavenly Father. The Lord must have big plans for him because he's only 16 and he loves living the commandments, coming to church, and just living the gospel.  He may want to wait a bit longer but he is still excited. Please keep him in your prayers 

I hope you guys are doing well. I am so dang excited to Skype. It'll be the best. Love you!!  Hope Ben is healing up fast. How long is he out for skiing and lacrosse? 

So short cuts

Jacob 

FUNNY STORY FROM LAST WEEK 

Oh one quick story from today that I need to share haha. So last night

I put in some trousers and a few shorts and socks into the washing

machine. The washing machine is pretty rubbish and it's always soooo

loud and it probably wakes up everyone in the flat, but anyways, I

woke up in the morning and the machine was full of water with my

clothes inside. I needed my socks for the day but they were locked

inside the machine. So me being me and having Parkin and Howell genes,

I tried to figure out was was wrong with the thing. I unscrewed the

base boards so I could pull out the whole machine. I then tilted it

backwards to see if I could figure it out. I started unscrewing

something and was getting frustrated and I slammed my hand into the

locked door of the machine and out of no where, water just starts

shooting out of this tube. Like tons of Water!!!!! I yelled to elder

Ammermon to grab a bucket and run over, we put the bucket under but it

filled up the entire bucket and was overflowing everywhere in the

kitchen hahaha. It finally stopped and I was drenched in gross dirty

laundry water and my clothes were soapy and soaking wet, I had no

clean socks haha. But Anways. It took a while for us to clean up, and

rook some time out of our p day but that's alright. It was really

frustrating though. I was ticked to be honest. The land lord said the

washing machine was brand new just a few weeks ago. I was about to

light the thing on fire and throw it out the window to be honest. Well

thought I should tell you that haha. Mission life. Love you