Christmas Preparations

This week was good, but we had a ton of meetings.

Tuesday was the whole mission conference for Christmas. So for almost
the whole day we were in Independence receiving trainings and watching
skits from each zone. That combined with the hour and a half each way
of driving to and from the event took up most of the day.

Wednesday, we were on exchanges with the Elders in Warrensburg. I was
with Elder Ynchausti in Sedalia. We went and visited with two less
active members the first was super sick and so we have her a blessing.
The other is a man we've been working with for a while and we talked
about the importance of tithing. After that we tried contacting people
then had dinner. After dinner we visited with a few families and
showed them the new Christmas video the church came out with, which is
great, and the second video on Christmas.mormon.org is amazing, it
discussed what the world would be like without a Savior. Well after
that we had dinner and we tried contacting a bunch of people, we
talked with one family and showed them the Christmas video as well and
invited them to share it.

Thursday, we exchanged back and we had a funeral for a lady in our
ward. She was a 26 year old Hispanic and passed away of cancer leaving
behind a husband and two kids. Extremely sad, but the family was strong 
at the funeral, definitely tears but not an over dramatic showing of
emotion. I guess they weren't sad because the lady who passed away
told the family not to be sad and that she wasn't sad because she knew
where she was going; what an amazing example of faith! Well, we had to
leave and go to an appointment when everyone left for the funeral.
Then after our appointment we went and ate dinner with some
investigators.

Friday we had another meeting in Independence for the training of
Elder Howell. That meeting took a while so we were there for a while
again. After the meeting we had to grab a temporary gas card from the
mission office because we couldn't find ours and we had to go through a
process to check one out and report it lost. Well, we got back and
went to dinner then went and tried to visit some people.

Saturday we did a bunch of service and visited with a few less
actives. In the morning though, there was a big parade in Sedalia
where we passed out a ton of pass along cards then ended up watching
the parade anyways, it was pretty cool. So, yea, Saturday was filled
with service and visiting a couple less actives.

Sunday we translated sacrament meeting in Spanish. Sunday school
ended being about Christmas. Elders quorum was about service. After
church we tried contacting a few people. After that we had a quick
lesson with a Hispanic investigator then we took the Hispanic member
that we had with us and visited a few other members. Then went to
dinner. After dinner watched the Christmas devotional but the members
had it recorded and so we were watching it late and it turned out that
we didn't see after President Uchtdorf's talk because the devotional
went late but we had to go anyways.

This week was good. Thanks for all the love and support! Everyone
should check out the new church video on Christmas.mormon.org. Share
it on social media and do some easy missionary work!! Hope everyone is
doing good! Take care!

With love,
Elder Hinrichsen