New Year's Eve Lockdown

2011 is here. I cannot believe it. Time is running, and man, it's fast... freak.

Everything is great here. We had such a great Christmas and new years. I enjoyed it so much. This holiday season has truly been "the bomb"... now I have so much candy I don't know what to do with myself.

Thank you all for the Christmas gifts. Grandma and Grandpa Goomis thank you for the note. Hatch’s.... you picked the best, thank you. Ben and Me and the boys - the notes were so funny. I, too, wanted Lego Atlantis... must not have been good this year (can't imagine being better than I ever have been.... but I guess there is always room for improvement). Molly thanks for the note - I LOVED the pic. Graham’s huge.... and has teeth. Auntie Mary I got the package. Best gift. State Fair nuts... you know me too well. And everyone else... I got many a note and gift this year. Thanks to everyone!!! And thanks for all the prayers and love as well. I notice and appreciate it.

Christmas - I schooled in ping pong. Then we ate dinner at a part member’s home. Very good food. Non member husband - pretty cool guy. We're going to teach him this week. Later that night we went caroling. SO fun. We made the rounds in a huge white van with 12 missionaries. hahaha We'd get out like a mob and swarm a home and sing. After singing we'd leave them with a movie. It was the best. A good time. Christmas day was just an over all great day.

I listened to this sweet talk - The Mortal Christ by Jack R. Christianson. So good. It talks about a lot of really cool stuff - one in particular - coming to know Christ to help us overcome anything.... and not just know about Him, but know Him. We can accomplish that by becoming like Him... one of my new year’s resolutions is to study Chirstlike attributes again from PMG. I’m pumped. Good talk - very inspiring.

Zone leader council was last week. I forwarded pics. There are a lot of new zone leaders. I’m one of the older ones now. At the end of this transfer I will have been a zone leader for half of my time in the field. We had a good time and discussed some important things and made plans for the new month and year coming up.

So the M girls, S and D, are doing well. They came back to church with their dad... who we are now teaching. We put him on baptismal date for the 29th. He is really cool and really likes the church... he just has some commandments to get used to... But it's all good... we have finally built a decent teaching pool.

There is this other cool guy we have been working with - L. He is SO great. He speaks decent English and has long curly hair and is very smart. He is also on date for the 29th.... keep them in your prayers.

New years eve lockdown was pretty cool. We went in at 6 and did our weekly planning. Then we had the zone set baptismal goals and new year’s resolutions as part of it.... then a member brought us pizza and ice cream. We even threw some of those snaps and blew a mini air horn. Then I went to bed at 10:30..... I know I know.... Elder Stoneman partied a little too hard this year. I’ll be sure to tone it down for next year.

That’s it. Love you guys.

Elder Stoneman