Exchanges and Other Craziness (Week 62 In The Field)

This week, and last week as well, have been really awesome weeks! Probably because during this time of year there are a bunch of activities that the church puts on. We have literally had some type of activity every week so far.

A couple weeks ago we had something called a Christmas Creche. It lasted from Friday 5 to 9 and Saturday from 2 to 9. Basically what it is, is thousands of different nativity scenes from different countries, depicted in different ways. All the nativity scenes were set up in the gym and there were signs hanging, categorizing where the different nativity scenes came from. Like some were from Africa, South America, Pacific Islands, Asia, etc. They also had musical performances in the chapel during the evening times, and a live nativity outside in the back of the church. It was very well done and there were more non-members than members that attended! It was a great missionary tool. They actually had all the missionaries in the zone help work the creche. I mainly helped pouring and passing out hot chocolate, and greeted people at the entrance. It was so much fun, I didnt want it to end haha. I thought it was such a great idea, I wanted to recommend to my home stake to do it when I get home, but it turns out they just started doing it haha. Well, for next year's Ill have a few suggestions to help make it better. :)

Anyways, this past week was kept pretty interesting. We started out the week with going on exchanges with our zone leaders who have become pretty much our best friends, we hangout every p-day and do service together during the week. The exchanges went great! I stayed here in my area and was with Elder Conrad, who actually served here 2 months ago haha, He enjoyed seeing some of the members again. We worked really hard. We talked to everyone that was outside and managed to pass out 10 He Is The Gift pass-along cards to people. I dont know what it is, you always manage to have really good things happen when you go on exchanges. We may not have found any investigators but by the end of the day we both felt that we did really good that night.

Later that week we had the ward Christmas party, which was awesome. Apparently our ward has a jazz band, and they did such a good job!

And on Sunday, this is where things got interesting. We attended our regular church meetings, and after we had our missionary coordination meeting. During that meeting one of the ward missionaries told us that he has a friend that agreed to take the missionary discussions. I got super excited when I heard this, because that's the first time a member got us an investigator. We should be setting up a time to teach him this week. We are super excited! Please pray that all goes well with that.

Anyways after we went to our dinner, here is the crazy part, we had just a normal nice dinner. then she brings out the dessert, which is just some cookies. Anyways, I take a couple bites of the cookie and I start feeling a tingling on my tongue and the roof of my mouth, so I decided to stop eating the cookie at that point. Then I could start feeling my tongue and throat swell a little bit. At this point I'm freaked out, because I've never had an allergic reaction before. I asked her what was in the cookies, and apparently it was like a raspberry filling cookie. I already knew I was mildly allergic to some fruits, usually it just makes my ears itch, but this reaction was worse, still not too bad though because I could still breath. So I took some medicine and asked for a blessing. By the end of the night the swelling went down. Had to end up cancelling one of our appointments because I just wasn't up for teaching that night after that.

So instead, we went to our stake Christmas devotional which was very nice and relaxing. The music was beautiful, and I also got to see a few members from my last ward which was nice. Anyways, I feel perfectly back to normal today and ready to go have some fun. I'll keep you posted about our new investigator, his name is Peter by the way.

I hope you all have a great week! I love and miss you all!

Elder Greer

**Darren: You'll recall Andrew told us he was asked to sing a solo several weeks ago. We were finally able to get a copy of it, and you can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVe6A43Ev60&feature=youtu.be