First of all I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! This week elder Brown and I have been working a lot on our area book. This area used to have both sisters and elders, so we had to combine a lot of information. We have also been working on putting together a binder called "The Ultimate Source". This binder contains all of the potential investigators and former investigators in our area. It is a lot of work, but when it is done it will be so worth it! This area has been kind of dead for a while, so elder Brown and I area going to bring this area back to life! We plan on trackting the whole area and asking referrals from everyone:)

     Christmas was wonderful in Southlake. We started off by going over to this really cool family named the Sheehans. They have a family of all boys, so I felt right at home. They gave both of us a gift (a tie) and then we played a really fun board game and had this amazing caramel and banana french toast! Following that we had our district meeting. Both elder Brown and I gave training. It was a wonderful meeting and both training went great. After that we came back to our apartment and got to call home! It was so fun to hear how everyone was doing and the hour they gave us to talk went by so fast:) It sounded like everyone had lots of fun and got some super fun presents. After the phone calls we went over to the Pelazo's house and had a traditional Jewish meal. It was pretty cool and very delicious. After dinner they gave us both a stocking full of presents:) After dinner are whole zone went caroling. We got to use the big mission vans, so it was pretty fun. It was a great first Christmas on the mission and I am glad that even though I can't be with all of you I was able to spend it with wonderful missionaries and ward members.

     This Friday I was able to go on exchange with our district leader elder Grig. He is an awesome missionary and is not afraid to work hard. This is actually his last transfer before he is done with his mission! For our exchange we started out in the morning trackting. We were able to teach most of the restoration to this one guy. The message was going very well and the spirit was present, but then we mentioned the Book of Mormon and I guess he didn't realize we were Mormons:) He was done after that, but at least he felt the spirit and knows what we believe now. After lunch we went and tried to visit all of the potential in this certain area. Not very many of them were home, but we did get some to answer and say we could come back. After that we decided to tract again. During the tracting we meet this really nice guy named Jeff. He is a pretty religious guy, and he said that he and his girlfriend have made a goal to go to church each week next year. We talked to him briefly about the restoration and what we believe. He also accepted a Book of Mormon and lesson 1 pamphlet! He also said we could come back and teach him more in January:) It will be fun to start teaching him. Also that night we had dinner at this really nice family named the Paces. They are a really nice younger couple and they have the cutest kids:) For the lesson with them we watched this cute video about this old shoe maker, and then we talked about service. It was a wonderful visit, and made me super grateful for solid members!

    We also had a wonderful Sunday. Elder Brown and I were able to teach our gospel principal class. Since we had just had Christmas we decided to talk about the life of Christ. The lesson was really good and the spirit was strong. We attend the priest quorum, and one of the priest gave a great lesson on hasting the work, it was fun to be able to make comments and answer some of the questions that were brought up. After church this nice couple took us to one of there family parties to have Sunday dinner. The party was being held for a missionary that just barley got home. It was really fun to talk to him and discuss all about his mission. He was a really cool guy.  

      Have a good last week off of school and do lots of skiing and sledding:)!!

Love,

Elder Griffin