Happy Birthday Lawrence!

December 27th was Lawrence's 21st birthday! Since we couldn't invite him over for a party, we all sent him our own birthday greetings. From three different states, here are the messages my family sent to him:

California:


My parents had a bunch of family over for an after-Christmas dinner on Sunday. They invited everyone to wish Lawrence a happy birthday.

Jenny (sister), Patty (aunt), Christine (aunt), Michelle (cousin), Liesel (cousin, holding baby Cade), Cody (Liesel's husband), Grant (uncle), Abuela (grandmother), Robert (cousin), Dad, Mom, and in front, Spencer and Madelyn (Michelle's kids)

Washington:

My sister Julie and her husband Dave remembered Lawrence from their cozy apartment


Utah:


Joel and I used our kids as an excuse to get out of the picture :). It was hard to keep them still and holding up the signs!

We love you, Elder Williams! Happy birthday!

Christmas and a Birthday

All of the missionaries who were at the Christmas Party who had served or are serving in Rivadavia, San Juan. It was quite the reunion.

President Jarvis showing off his accordian skills. I worked a lot with President Jarvis in the offices and it was good to see him again. Every so often he'll call me if there's a problem the offices can't fix. It's Elder Williams to the rescue.

From my surprise birthday party with the cake the Sister Missionaries made for me

Me with "Santa Claus" Elder Brown :)

Dear Family,
Thank you all so much for your love, letters, pictures, prayers, and support!!! It was so good to talk to Dad, Mom, Jennifer, and Abuela on Christmas. This was quite the Christmas week with a trip to Mendoza, some Christmas dinners, and even a birthday. Wednesday morning, bright and early, we headed on bus to Mendoza, arriving there at about 8:00 in the morning. The first thing was a getting-to-know-you game with random questions like, “What color is your toothbrush?” We then had to find someone else who had the same answer and we’d sign each other’s papers. After that was the White Elephant gift exchange. I think I got quite the gift: two ice-cube trays, a plastic juicer, and a package of alfajores, all in the same bag! My gift was two Rubik’s Cubes that I had found in the apartment from previous missionaries. The funny thing is that the previous owner of those cubes was at the party and he said, “I think I was the one who left those cubes there.” The cubes ended up going to Elder Christensen who is my great-grandson as Historian of the Mendoza Mission. He’s supposedly pretty good at Rubik’s cubes too. Soon after the chaos of the White Elephant gift exchange we played some Christmas games like the inflatable-ball relay (I don’t know what it has to do with Christmas but it was fun anyways). Each zone had prepared two skits for a mission talent show which we had afterwards. Our zone did a skit and then the New Zealand Haka (I think it’s spelled like that, but I think Joel would know better) just like the BYU Football team does before every game. Even the Sister Missionaries participated which made it even scarier :) . After scaring all of the other zones we had a nice lunch which had been prepared by the Rastelli family from Godoy Cruz. The father is the Second Counselor in the Mission Presidency and former Bishop of the Villa del Parque ward which shares the chapel with San Ignacio where I was not too long ago (ok, over a year ago actually). The table of desserts was overflowing with all kinds of goodies, every child’s dream. We all had a good time and got to meet up with old friends. We took a picture with all of the missionaries there who had served in Rivadavia before, and there was actually a good number of us there.
Christmas was spent with the Quiroga family with an unbelievably good dinner (it was really good). We were a little behind on buying everything we were going to bring so we ended up bringing sandwiches instead of empanadas but it worked out because we weren’t actually going to eat the empanadas as the main part of the meal. We didn’t exactly have Martinelli’s so we just bought some Sprite and a box of apple juice. There were tons of fireworks which makes me glad I don’t have to buy any because everyone else buys them and I can just watch them for free :) . Fortunately Hermano Eduardo Quiroga drove us home in his mom’s car so we made it home safe and sound (although there weren’t that many people on the street anyways, just in their backyards).
I’m almost out of time but I’ll tell you about my surprise birthday party. We went to church and everything and were planning on the usual Missionary Correlation meeting at 5:00 PM after lunch and everything. Afterwards it turned out that the meeting was moved to 8:00 PM since the Ward Mission Leader couldn’t be there at 5:00. We arrive at the meeting and instead of a meeting, “Surprise!” it was a birthday party :) . We watched some videos the mission had sent out to everyone on DVD for Christmas and then ate some cake that the Sister Missionaries had made. It was all quite fun.
Well, I have to go but I thank you all again for all you’ve done to wish me a happy birthday and I thank you so much for thinking of me. I hope you all have an excellent week and a Happy New Year!!! I love you all!!! Bye!!!
Love,
Elder Williams

Merry Christmas!!!

received December 21st

Pictures from Zone Conference

Dear Family,
Thank you all so much for your letters, love, support, and prayers. I can’t believe it’s already Christmas time! We’re all getting ready for Wednesday when we’ll be heading to Mendoza for the mission Christmas party. Yesterday the zone watched the rebroadcast of the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. I loved the music and the messages from the First Presidency. It would have been nice to watch it in English but it was recorded to a VHS Cassette so it could only hold one language and obviously they weren’t going to choose English. At the very least the music was in English :) . When the congregation sang it had the words at the bottom of the screen in English so everyone else pulled out a hymn book to sing in Spanish. I just read the words to sing in English but I don’t think anyone noticed. It was a wonderful fireside. I hope we can all apply what we’ve learned from those messages.
Ok, question time:

Jennifer:

“What are your plans for Christmas?”

Eduardo and Ingrid Quiroga have invited us over to their house for Christmas Eve so we can all have a big dinner together as is Argentine tradition. The non-traditional part is that we’ll already be back in our apartments by 12:00 midnight as opposed to starting dinner at 12:00 midnight. On Christmas day we’re going to have a big Chimbas Zone breakfast with all the pancakes you can eat. I volunteered to be on the cooking team so I’m excited about that. For lunch Christmas day we’ll get together as a district and make something fun like noodles (ok, noodles might not sound like fun to you but they are). After being unbelievably stuffed with food we’ll head off to the local hospital to get our appendix removed (just kidding). Actually we’re going to sing to the patients and bring them a little Christmas cheer and maybe some treats too.

“Soooo how was your week elder? Have any fun stories?”

Not too many fun stories but an update on the Sister Missionary’s door I got to kick in: Hermano Nuñez put everything back together again and all it needs is some paint and it’ll all be good.

Mom:

“What time on Christmas day do you want us to call?”

Ok, after a little thinking, it’ll probably be best if you can call at or after 8:00 PM my time which should be about 3:00 PM your time. There’s 5 hours difference so you can call as late as 10:00 PM my time which would be 5:00 PM your time. I’ll be waiting at 8:00 PM but if you don’t call then I’ll understand that you were going to call later (I guess that goes without saying).

Lisa: ok you didn’t have any questions (unless I just forgot about them) but really quickly, don’t forget about Mormon.org.

Ok, I have to run off to a Zone “get-together” which then extends into the Zone “meeting” (I don’t get it either). I love you all!!! Have a Merry Christmas!!! Bye!!!
Love,
Elder Williams

I just thought I would tell you...

Lawrence will be home TWO MONTHS FROM TODAY!

22 down, 2 to go doesn't sound so bad, does it?

I'm excited.

That is all.

-Lisa

The Reason for the Short and Late Letter

Zone conference was on Monday. This is one of five pictures I found on Hermana Lindahl's blog of the different zones. That's a lot of missionaries in one place! Can you find Lawrence?

Really Quick

Dear Family,
Thank you so much for your love, letters, prayers, pictures, Packages, and support!!! I did get both packages from Mom yesterday at zone conference. I thought they were going to wait until Christmas but it appears that they didn't want to have to hold on to the crazy amount of packages that 200 missionaries have received. I'm kind of short on time so I'm hoping I'll be able to write again today but I have some great stories to tell.
I got to kick in a door on Sunday :D ! The Sister Missionaries had lost the keys to their apartment and the locksmiths were going to charge $120 pesos (a horribly expensive amount) and they were going to kick in the door too! We figured we might as well do it and I got to do the honors. With a few kicks the wooden door gave way and the Sisters were able to get back into their apartment. Luckily we were able to repair the door (the lock didn't break fortunately) that night and even more luckily is that the Sisters have another gate that completely seals off the entrance to their apartment (as in there's no way to jump over because it's a complete enclosure from top to bottom).
We also had Zone Conference yesterday which was amazing and I'll tell you more about it later. I love you all!!! Bye!!!
Love,
Elder Williams

So Many Pictures!

Lawrence sent us about 50 pictures this week! Not sure how he did it, but I'm glad he did! Most of them are old. Here are my favorites. I have a lot of favorites.
























Dear Family,
Thank you all so much for your love, letters, pictures, prayers, and support!!! I'm a little short on time for sending all that I sent but since a picture is worth a thousand words I must have just sent enough words until the end of the mission. Cyntia, Nahuel, and Celeste got baptized this Saturday!!! We were really happy and it was a beautiful service. It was actually one of the most peaceful baptismal services I've ever had in the mission. I was even able to make brownies for the refreshments (which turned out amazing) and then played the piano for the musical number during the service. It was indeed: "Más Cerca Dios de Ti" since that is one of the few songs I can play with both hands. It's actually a really high-pitched song but fortunately with the fancy electronic piano technology I was able to drop the pitch by no fewer than 5 notes. It was way low but we were all able to sing it and it sounded great. I baptized Cyntia and then confirmed Nahuel on Sunday. I also gave three baptismal interviews in Retiro, San Juan which is where the Zone Leaders are (I'm technically the District Leader of the Zone Leaders but since they don't actually pertain to a district I'm kind of not...I guess it only works when they need baptismal interviews).
In other news, Cristian Funes who was baptized about five months ago received the Sacerdocio de Melquisedek (I can't spell Melquisedek in English so I spelled it in Spanish but I think you all know how to translate that one). We always called him Presbitero Funes since he goes on divisions with the Missionaries a lot. Now he's an Elder so he's "part of the club" :) .
A lot of fun and exciting going-ons occurred this week but that's the gist of everything. It actually turned out to be a longer letter than I thought. I love you all so much!!! Have an excellent week!!! Bye!!!
Love,
Elder Williams