Thanksgiving

Hello Braden,

I can't believe that it has been another week already. I hope that you are doing well. Was the turkey we saw in one of your pictures, your Thanksgiving dinner? Good to see that you still get to do American traditions.  How was your Thanksgiving, by the way?

We went to Teri's and Mike's this year. There were about 26 of us. Grandparent R's made it. Rob and Chris were both there. Which was a miracle in itself. They usually have to work or just don't show up. There was also Cody and his family, Pat and Tina with the 2 youngest boys and Teri's kids and her grandkids. Oh ya, Aaron and Rikki and their baby came also.  All the men watched ball downstairs-the kids played and the women finished the food and worked on our service project for the year. I know Dad mentioned it to you earlier.  So here is what we are doing.  We are making dresses for the girls in Africa. WE are also collecting dress clothes for the boys.  I thought it would be nice for your investigators or new baptized families to have something to wear to church.  If you don't think that is a good idea, you can give them to the bishop or Branch President  to give to people that may be in need. I won't be sending them until January sometime.  We need time to finish everything up first.

The kids had 3 days off of school, plus the weekend so getting everyone up and out the door will be a challenge tomorrow. Hope probably won't know what to do being the only kid home again.

Dad got switches installed in all of the bedrooms and has programmed them to turn on automatically in each room when the kids should be getting up each morning.(Aren't you glad you aren't here...hehe). Tomorrow is the first trial. We'll see what happens and what the kids all have to say about it. I'm sure Dad will tell you all about it.

Dad and Zach put up Christmas lights. I know, kind of a miracle in it's self to get them up so early.  And it was even warm weather.

I'm finished with all of the ward conferences now. I can take it easy for a few weeks which will be nice. Preschool is going good. The kids make me laugh aver day about something silly or some strange thing they come up with. Like one girl is only afraid of LIVE dinosaurs. Guess we need a lesson on them next.

How are things going? Are you getting along with your new companion? Any baptisms? How is the finding going?

Prayers and HUGS coming your way.

Love you, MOM

Sounds like you had a fun time at teri's and mikes. The picture was just a meal that my old companion and i made. so its wasnt anything really special. the thanksgiving dinner was great we had to help the couple missionaries make a lot of the food because there was about 30 people coming and the kitchen is just not big enough to cook for that many people. but we have 3 kitchens (the couples, ZL house, our house) so it made it easier. it was still a lot of cooking. the food turned out really good and we got a lot to eat, i dont think i have eaten so well here before and that turkey made me extremely tired so i went to bed about a hour and a half early which i have no problem with at all :) Dad sent me a picture of the Christmas lights on the house looks like there is still a lot more to put up. Yes i am glad that i am not home with those lights coming on at 6 in the morning, i think if i was still home i would be sleeping under my blanket so i don't know when the lights come on haha :) im sure dad is going to get a yelling at from the others though. Little kids are really fun to be around and they are extremely funny. Things are going well here, I think i ate something that was bad so my stomach is a little upset with me today but hopefully i will be better tomorrow.  My companion and i are getting along well, he is really quiet and does not talk much at all so i end up doing most of the talking. Unless i stop talking and turn and look at him he won't say a thing until the very end. i guess this is what it would be like training, i guess, but he is not a trainy he is about 10 months on mission, so i think he hit his wall of im tired of this, but who knows. we did have one baptism 2 weeks ago but that was it. we are hoping to have 2 with in the next week or so. Finding is IMPOSSIBLE!!! we went looking and didn't find anyone for 4 hours so we went and got a few less active lessons in since it would be bad if we came home with 0 lessons.

Dear Elder,

Well, we had thanksgiving dinner (actually lunch) at Teri's house this week.  There were a little less than 30 people there.  We got to see some of my cousins that we haven't seen in a while.  Chris was there.  It always strikes me how similar the two of you look to each other.  I think everyone got plenty to eat and most everyone slept on the way home.  

I put the Christmas lights up right after Thanksgiving for once.  It's not much but it's all I had the energy for.  I am attaching a picture, so I hope it comes through for you. As far as the internal lights go, so far I have replaced about 15 switches with the fancy ones from work.  I've programmed the porch lights to come on at sunset and turn off at sunrise.  The Christmas lights come on at sunset too and turn off at midnight.  I also programmed the kids bedroom lights to gradually come up to full brightness over 10 minutes starting at 6am for the older kids.  We'll see how they like that!  :)

I'm glad you got your Christmas box.  There's another one coming I think with some of the other stuff you requested.  I hope you don't binge all that american food down at once!  Please let us (and Grandma E) know when you get her box as well.  There might be some more treats in there for you (and she spent a small fortune sending it)!  :)

I hope this finds you in good spirits.  I am looking forward to the holidays, but I will miss having you around.  Work hard, be obedient and prayerful and you will find rich blessings this holiday season.  Sorry this is short, but it's late.  I love you and am so proud of you.  

Love, 

Dad

That sounds like you had a lot of fun, Chris and i look a like huh i never thought about that maybe we do i dont know i havent seen him a in a long time. I got the picture you sent looks like there is still more to do :) Thats cool about the inside lights though, it really does sound like a toy to play with haha. So whats your next toy you get to bring home? There is no way i could eat all that food at once, no matter how much i wanted to i just cant. I know i need to take my time eating it so it lasts long. the food here is alright but its starting to taste all the same to me now. I would like to eat some of the local food but due to some events here that have recently taken place i dont think that i will be eating anything like that for a few weeks or so. So i got a new companion he is a cool guy he is from south africa, he is really quiet i end up doing most of the talking but i dont really mind. 

I will let you and Grandma/pa know when the other packages get here, but i dont think i will be getting them for some few weeks because we just had transfers and thats almost the only time the ZL's go down to Kampala to get stuff.

This week has been normal for the most part not much really happend but thats normal for the first week of every transfer.