This week has been something special to say the least. I feel blessed beyond measure for several reasons-

Sweet Family of mine -It is so good to be sitting once again in this library and typing to you the weekly update. I had a nightmare last night that I only had 10 minutes to e-mail and it was MTC stlye, with the counter on the upper right hand corner- and for some reason, my time ran out without me every writing or reading one thing, and It was TERRIBLE!!! But it was only a dream :) And I have a very happy, satisfied grin on my face as I write to you :) The Christmas spirit lives on in Murrieta. I love hearing about it so much; it makes me feel like I'm there for a little bit. HA I love how there are christmas lights on the house!!! It's the best. Ha, it's been a while poppa- i would tell you it was only two years...but you know I'm a missionary and I can't tell those kind of white lies ;) The tree looks so good, and you all look so good. Those pictures were AWESOME! I loved them :) Every body looked so good- the Rushtons, the Stratfords (from what I saw), Rachel and Gram and everybody! Mmmmm I love just thinking about you all in that house that I love so much- it's a lot of love there. That is for sure :)I recieved your package this week, and I'm sorry but I opened them!! I couldn't resist. It was too happy for me not to open them. And we put them to good use- we made the best chocolate cookes in the world and gave some to the Hermans and to the Zone Leaders. And people love us. Cos we cook like women. It's the best ha. The package made us both SO HAPPY though. We went to sleep with dreams of sugar plum fairies and dove chocolate and Cheez-itz. True signs of Love. ANd my Christmas CD is so good too. Thank you family :)I wish I could have been there to here the rockin Battle of the Bands and the Christmas choir concerts, but another year, I will hear them. Those are good times. Enjoy them :) I'm so proud of you, siblings, for all your doing. With everything. I just showed everyone sitting around me your pictures, and said "These are my siblings, aren't they awesome!!!" And everyone agreed. :)This week has been something special to say the least. I feel blessed beyond measure for several reasons- there were just some crazy amazing highlights that I would love to recall for you, that have brought me some serious Christmas Joy.First of all- last week we started off the week with zero's as our numbers for two days straight. We felt like dog doo doo cos we knew we could do much better than that, in spite of the fact that we still got District Standard of Excellence status numbers. So this week we decided those days of Zero's would NOT happen. And they did not. We DESTROYED! the first three days of the week as a district and a companionship and after just three days, we had achieved the numbers for the Standard. And we were ecstatic. In one day we had a Lesson with a member present, 2 other lessons taught, 2 referals contacted and 3 new investigators. Which was SUPERB for us! Ha I can imagine that may not seem like a lot compared to my cousin who is rockin it in Chile, but it was pure bliss for us and we were and are still ecstatic. We plan on getting the district numbers for this entire month. And we are well on our way. :) I have now doubt that the Lord is leading us along as we have this desire to work hard and find the elect. To teach lessons and find those to teach is an amazing thing, and with the Lord's help, it is actually amazingly fun work. True story ;) On the day mentioned above, we met with Edyta. We taught the Word of Wisdom, because we discovered last meeting that she smokes and drinks coffee. So we taught her the Word of Wisdom with an amazing Member on the lesson. She committed to living it and said that she would first tackle not drinking coffee and then not smoking, because she didn't know how she felt about stopping smoking. The lesson was powerful and the spirit was so strong. On Saturday, there was the ward Christmas party for Warsaw II Branch. AND IT WAS LIFE-CHANGING!! We as missionaries...Elder McRae and I actually lol...came up with a Presentation for the spiritual ascpect of the meeting and were scrambling at first to get it done. As the Party started, people kept coming through the door. Elder Bulkley (the Branch President) and the Relief Society ahd excpeted 60 people to come. More than 100 showed up! And miractulously we had enough food. 9...I repeat, 9 of our investigators were there and we talked to all of them, and they all enjoyed the party so much. The Presentation we put on consisted of reading out of 3 Nephi and Luke 2 with sinigng interspersed. Elder Gonzalves and i sang "Do You Hear What I Hear?" as a duet to an arrangment I had created for us to sing at the Christmas Party at the Mission home ( which I will get to lol ). It was amazing/butt-pucker terrifying to look out and see 100 people, several of which were here to experience the Church for the First time or were investigators. I felt so happy and blessed to be able to play and sing and share that with them. I can't tell you how much music has been blessing my life here. It's amazing :) I feel more and more surely that the Lord put me here for a reason. The Party, needless to say, was a success. We met with Irina again and finished teaching her all she needed to know. It was an amazing meeting and all went very well. She is an amazing woman with such an intense desire to make sure her son has a good life that she runs around and busies herself to death. But we finally found a chance to meet last night after the Christmas Fireside broadcast. It was a great meeting! She is hilarious too lol she accidentally said the Lord's name in vain a couple times and didn't even think twice about it, and that worried us, so a few minutes later on the Tramwaj back towards Praga Elder McRae asked "So how's saying 'O my goodness!' going for you?" And she replied "O it's going so good! I only just say O my goodness, or O gosh! That's a good one...."and going on lol. I think it's one of those things that people don't even realize they are doing. They don't realize what they're really saying. It's like if someone told you that cracking your knuckles or flexing in the mirror *spencer cough cough* was a sin. Sometimes it might just happen, cos it's a habit ya know ? ;) Her Baptism wil be on the 23rd of December, so I can tell you all about it 2 days later!!!! The Christmas Party at President's was amazing. So much good food and games and it was just amazing it be in a home like that. We went running in the morning and performed a little skit. We wrote new lyrics to the song "Sadie Hawkins Dance" the Chorus went
"Christmas Party's here,
Favorite time of year,
Merry Christmas - HO HO HO!
Time to re-energize
Our missionary lives
There's nothing better
Did my girl get her letter?" :P
We got second place ha. Must be a seasonal Rushton disease ha jk. Not that funny lol. I think we;re going to be having Christmas at Richard and Asia's house- we don't know exactly what will be going on, but we;ll find out. I don't know when you'll be able to call! But i will find out! I'll have specific details next week for sure. I am SOOO excited to actually talk with you all!! it'll be so so nice! Goodness I love you family. I can't think of too much else. I got really nice e-mails from Grandma and Grandpa Rushton and Grandma and Grandpa Diane and Buck and from Uncle John. I look forward to speaking with you in a little over a week. I have to go now, but hopefully this weekly update has been sufficient. Life is so good here. Elder McRae and I still get along so well. He was thrilllllled with his Stocking :) He loved how you wrote it McRae and not Mcrae. "THEY EVEN PUT MY R BIG!!! DID YOU TELL THEM TO DO THAT?" :PI Love you and look forward to our next conversation. Enjoy your week Spence, Sarah and Annie. I think about you all the time and love you more than anything. Annie I will tell you alllll about Christmas here in the next e-mail! It's pretty crazy! :) But they do have it :)I love you once more. Talk to you in a week. Your red headed son is thinking about you.- Starszy Michael j. Rushton. :)