Hello my dear and incredible family!!! Well this week was pretty much as awesome as ever! That really sums it all up! Hehe! Calling you was so AMAZING! I am so excited to tell you all about my week! Even though I just talked to you a few days ago, it will still be really fun to give you the details! I hope you all enjoy! Today for p-day, we get to do something really fun towards the end of the day! We are enjoying emailing and doing our laundry and shopping and then Elder Rocha and Elder Staker got us a free tour of the United Nations building! They have a member in their ward who works there and so we get to tour it for free! It will be really fun!
Last P-Day was really great! We had such a fun time and I had a blast emailing everyone and hearing all about your week! I was so excited to set up our Skype call! We did our morning grocery shopping trip and laundry and then we decided to go get haircuts from Jay at the 87ths Street chapel for our Skype call. It was great to get a fresh haircut so I looked sharp for the call! Then by the time we were done, it was about noon and so we decided to go take a tour of the NBC Studio since we each got some spending money for Christmas. We got to the main entrance and they told us that they were sold out until mid January. We actually had figured that because it was so busy for Christmas and New Years so we weren't too disappointed. There was still so much to see and do! We went to the NBC Store and I bought a Late Night Jimmy Fallon lapel pin and an NBC magnet. I can't wait for you to see them! I wanted to get some official thank you notes with the actual pen that he writes them with but it was close to $50.00. They had a ton of NFL gear but no little trinkets for under $20.00. It was such a cool place and especially to know that Jimmy Fallon and so many other famous people have been right there. Then we came back to the apartment for the last hour or 2 of P-Day. It was so excited to know that Christmas and our Skype call was so close and the next time I talked to you would be face to face! After our awesome P-Day ended, we went to go visit Andy but he wasn't home. The busses were running a little slow and so we walked everywhere the whole evening and it was a really nice walk and we enjoyed seeing the many incredible sights! Then we had a great lesson with Charles and Monae! We showed them the Nativity video about Jesus Christ's birth and then asked them what their favorite part about Christmas is. It was really sad because Charles says that he doesn't even like Christmas because he used to love Christmas and they used to be really great but now they are pretty sad and hard for him. Once we showed them the video, the spirit filled the room and they felt the spirit of Christmas so much! It was such a great day and I loved seeing your pictures and reading your emails! It was a really awesome P-Day and we had a ton of fun! I appreciate all of your love and prayers that you always send my way!
Thursday was a really amazing day as well! We had a conference call first thing in the morning and also our interviews with President Smith over Skype! We woke up, exercised, got ready for the day, and then enjoyed the conference call. President Smith talked about our Skype calls and that he is so excited for us to Skype and be able to talk to you! He shared some cool stories like how missionaries wrap presents out in front of the temple. Then we did our companionship study and then had lunch before heading to the Church for weekly planning and to pick up mail. President Smith said that he got some calls from random people all over the United States wanting to help out with some missionaries that feel lonely or just people that wanted to send a package to random missionaries and so we were really excited to go pick up mail because we were wondering if we got any mail from random members. So after the conference call and our companionship study, we had some lunch and then traveled up to the Manhattan Temple Chapel to pick up mail, do our Skype interviews with President Smith, and then weekly planning. It was really busy but we ended up not being able to do our interviews because President Smith was just so swamped from doing so many interviews. So we ended up doing tons of weekly planning and then we took the mail to our chapel. I was so excited because I got 4 letters! Thank you so much for sending your awesome Christmas card! It hit me when I realized that I wasn't even around for most of this last year. It was a crazy thought! I also got a Christmas card from the Dunns and the Jensens. Then I got a nice card from the young women in our Ward and from Brother and Sister Reese. After we got mail, we had dinner and then headed back up to the Temple for our free gift wrapping activities! I held the sign again and as always, I met some really cool people! We met a family who had all just gone through the temple and another couple from Canada. I saw a ton of Steelers and Patriots gear and so I yelled "Go Steelers, or Go Patriots." I always love to see College and NFL teams. We had tons and tons of people stop with lots of gifts. The Top store right now that we are wrapping from is from Best Buy. We have had tons of electronics like cell phones, tv's, and Kindle Fires. It has been so fun to have people ask, "Is this really free?" It was a great experience as usual and I was hoping Ang and Grandma Evans made it safe and sound to Ruston and sure enough, I got a text from you telling me that they did and I was so excited to see that Karl Malone was there!!! How cool is that? We headed back to the apartment after a really awesome and fun day! 1 day closer to Skyping!
Friday was incredible and awesome! We had a very busy day ahead of us and we couldn't wait to get started! We bought some cookie dough to wish Monae a happy birthday and then went to deliver them to her but she wasn't home. So then we went out to eat lunch with our investigator Neal! He took us to a really nice restaurant called Follia! It was so good and I got a lamb burger, soda, and truffle fries. We had a really nice talk with him about our missions and how excited we were to Skype home. He loved seeing my pictures of the Empire State Building that we took when we went to the Top of the Rockefeller Center. He played around with a few of them and then told us to make Christmas cards using our pictures that we took. The food was so delicious and we had a really fun time! Then we headed over to our gift wrapping activity at the Temple for our 2:00-4:00 shift. We were really excited for it and I saw someone with a Colorado beanie on and so as he walked past I said, "Go Buffs!" So we started our gift wrapping activity and it was the perfect temperature. I checked the weather in Nibley and it was 9 degrees. Brrrrrr! Cold! We had a really great turnout for our activity and had tons and tons of people show up again. Then a family with 4 teenage girls came out from doing a session in the temple! They are from Orem but they just recently moved from.....American Fork. All of their girls graduated from American Fork and it just made me think of you Mom since all of your siblings graduated from there! They only had 4 girls and so you beat them! They were really nice and even sent a picture to you! Pretty amazing to think that a family from American Fork is all the way over here sending pictures to someone from American Fork! Pretty cool! They talked a lot about our Skype call and how fun it will be to talk to you! Then after our gift wrapping activity, we headed back to the apartment because Elder Brown had to pack his overnight bag because we were going on a split. I was thinking about Jay the whole day since it was his funeral. I couldn't help but think how it was going. I was also thinking about Wyoming and how fun it would be to be there at the Idaho Potato Bowl! I was hoping that they won! After Elder Brown packed his bag, we headed over to our dinner appointment with the Welch family! They signed up the Sunday prior to have us over and we always love going to eat with them because they usually take us to somewhere really yummy and plus it is right by the One World Trade Center and so the sights are just incredible! Especially at night! Hehe!
So we went and had dinner with them at 6:30 and then headed back over to the Temple to split. Elder Macedo came with me to our apartment and Elder Brown went to Elder Lusk's apartment, who is our District Leader. I have just loved how friendly everyone has been during the holidays! When we did our activities, people were just in such great moods and they couldn't believe that we were out there doing it for free. Sometimes, New Yorkers can be pretty grumpy but offer to wrap their presents.........??? They are all smiles!!! It makes their day and most of them have really great smiles, they just don't smile very often! Hehe! I will never forget these last few weeks leading up to Christmas and just how special they were. I will never forget the amazing experiences I've had! So we went over to Brother and Sister Welch's apartment right across the street from the New York Stock Exchange and Brother and Sister Ward and their 10 month old daughter, Mia was over there as well. We had some really good chicken, salad, and rice for dinner and got to know them really well! After that, it was time to head up for our split and then we came back to the apartment for the day. It was a really awesome day! Elder Staker and Elder Rocha were also on a split and so Elder Rocha came back with the new missionary who has only been out for 3 weeks, Elder Falls. It amazes me how far I've come in a year! He has only been on his mission for 3 weeks! It was a really awesome and fun day of missionary work!
Saturday was so awesome as well! We were really excited for our split and since we were so close to Christmas, we did another gift wrapping activity with the whole zone at the temple! The sister training leaders always do such a nice job with putting them together because the are always so nicely decorated! We headed out the door after doing our studies and it started to rain a little bit but it wasn't bad at all. We had a full day planned with 3 lessons! We were really excited because I always love when we have a full day on a split! We did a few lookups but all 4 of them weren't home. So then we ate lunch at a $1.00 slice pizza place near where we were and then headed off to our appointment with Godson. He told us prior that he was really short on time and that he only had about a half an hour but he talked for a while and so it stretched our visit to over an hour. He is such a nice, humble man and even fed us some really good chicken and rice that he made! We were able to teach him the Restoration and told him a little bit more about our church. He has come to Church 6 times now and so it was really nice to finally be able to sit down with him! He will get baptized one day but right now, he wants to progress slowly toward that goal. He just wants to make sure that this is the right church for him. After our awesome visit, we dropped the leftovers at our apartment and then Elder Macedo packed his bag because we weren't coming home for the rest of the day since we had our gift wrapping activity and lots to do far away from our apartment. We had a great lesson with Brother Eades and Brother Forbes and showed them the video for that day and then read the scriptures. Then we went over to our gift wrapping activity and it was so awesome! What made it so much better was the fact that it stopped raining! I looked out at all of the people buying gifts inviting them over to have their gifts wrapped and it just hit me and I just couldn't believe that it was almost Christmas Eve! This Christmas has felt so different and quite weird to be honest because I haven't been a part of the holiday festivities. Christmas really came quick and it hit me that it was already here! We went upstairs to the gym to get our mail and I got Lonna and Shannon's Christmas card and a box of Ghirardelli chocolates from the Dunns! Thank you!!!! There has been a family from Keller Texas that has sent out a ton of Christmas packages to different missionaries and I was lucky enough to get one! It had some socks, starbursts, and a card that told me what family it was that sent it to me. There were tons of different families that sent packages to random missionaries! It was so fun to get! We were kind of sad because our gift wrapping activity came to a close that night and we had to pack up until next year. We had tons of people stop again just beyond baffled that we were wrapping gifts for free. It felt so cool to be in such a cool place doing service like that! It made it really fun and I was thinking about you all back at home counting down the hours to our Skype call! It really was such a special time and I loved being out there talking to so many friendly people! We grabbed our mail and met Elder Brown and Elder Lusk at the 59th street train station and unsplit before heading back to the apartment! It was an amazing day and I had such a fun time doing the activity. I'm a little sad that it's over because I really got into the spirit of helping people! It was a fun activity and I'm so glad that I could be a part of it! Love you all so much!
Merry Christmas Eve everybody!!! I was thinking about my dear family back at home a lot and wondering what you were doing! I was even more excited to Skype and I was so excited for Christmas and to open my presents! We woke up and did our planning and we had a really great day of serving and sharing the Christmas story with those that may be lonely! We planned our day and then headed off to Christmas Eve Church! It seems like it was yesterday that it was Christmas and here we are again. I can't believe it! Next year, I will be so close to coming home and I know how fast it will fly by. I was so excited for Chruch and I couldn't wait to hear the music. It was weird because our Church was only an hour and so we had such a fun time talking with members. The weather didn't seem like Christmas at all. There hasn't been any snow on the ground for a week and the temperature was in the mid 40s. It felt like mid November! Weird! We headed off to Church so excited and looking forward to Sacrament meeting! We had a huge turnout and almost 200 people came! It was so awesome and felt just like a Utah ward! There were so many visitors and most of them were from Salt Lake! I had so much fun talking to them! Then I got talking to a visitor from Virginia and she asked where I was from. When I said Nibley she told me that she grew up in Malad and her Dad was born there as well. I mean come on!!! How small can this world get??? She knew exactly where Nibley was and told me what an amazing place it was. Let me tell you how amazing the music in this ward is. Brother and Sister Vogelmann are the organist and music director and Brother Vogelmann plays the organ loud and proud! It was so loud and amazing that by the end of the opening hymn. Most of the congregation was in tears. I kid you not. Most, of not all of the visitors were all in tears just because of how amazing the music is. Everyone was singing in unison and it really was a cool experience! We had the 2nd branch sign language congregation join us and then we had 6 or 7 members get up and each read a part of the Christmas story from the Bible. We sang 3 or 4 hymns in between the scriptures and it just made it so cool! I couldn't help but think how your day in Church went and I was hoping you'd were having a big feast and lots of great food! After our meeting ended, it felt really weird to just go back to the apartment after only 1 hour of Church. We got to schedule a Christmas dinner with the Smith/Smock family and we had a Christmas Eve feast with Brother and Sister Vogelmann! So we headed back to the apartment to change out of our suits and then we made some cookies to take around to investigators! We called and texted lots of people! We didn't have any investigators in Church and so we were a little sad about that especially because Godson told us that he would be there and since we had just seen him the day before. But we understood because it was Christmas Eve and lots of people are out of town. Also after Church I was able to get my Skype to work!!! So lots of missionaries have been having the exact same problem and so it has been a headache for lots of missionaries. Mine was so easy to fix. So after I changed my password on myldsmail.net account, I wasn't able to get in and so I just created a whole new account with my personal gmail account from back at home and was able to sign in to get the code and then I added you as a contact! Pretty simple fix and I'm so glad everything worked out so smoothly! So we made our cookies and then we went over for our Christmas Eve dinner and we were so excited because the Vogelmanns are really awesome! Brother Vogelmann actually really reminds me on Grandma Lindberg. He is just such a great guy and loves everyone around him. Just like Grandpa Lindberg does! We headed down to the One World Trade Center and had an amazing dinner with them! It was buffet style Hawaiian haystack since they were having company over all evening. Brother Caron and Brother Knox were over there as well and we had a great talk about Christmas and then shared the video on the Nativity. Brother Vogelmann said that they were really excited because of of their traditions is to watch It's a Wonderful Life every Christmas Eve and I told them how much we love that movie! Then the 5 of us reminisced about Christmas and how many fun traditions we all have! Then we said goodbye and then went over to visit the Mishler Family. So we took the train in the beautiful and amazing Fulton Center and took it down to 23rd street near the Empire State Building and I looked up at the sky in awe that it was Christmas Eve! Then we went over to Brother and Sister Mishler's house to help them set up one of their Christmas presents for their daughter Lillie. So we went over and we read some Christmas and talked about our favorite Christmas memories. Then after their kids went to bed, we helped Brother Mishler assemble a huge dollhouse that they bought. It would have taken him hours to put it together because it was this huge wooden dollhouse with screw and lots of assembly required. We got it done in about an hour and he was beyond grateful! Then they gave us each a present and it had some yummy treats! We were very grateful for it! Then we were able to be a part of one of their long time running Christmas Eve traditions where they eat a summer sausage with cheese and crackers. It was such a great time and we headed back to the apartment after an incredible day! It was raining a bit but it slowly turned to a little bit of snow and I was so excited to see it because I love it when it snows on Christmas and Christmas Eve! I love you all tons and tons and I hope you had an amazing day!
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!! LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!!! WOW!! What an awesome and amazing day! I can't thank you all enough for making it such a special day! It was so incredible to Skype and see you! I am truly grateful for each one of you and love you so much! It was an amazing experience and it was so cool to be here in the big Apple for Christmas! It was so good to talk to you and I hope you had as much fun as I did! The time surly flew by quick but I felt like we talked about a ton! It was such a great chat as always and really made my Christmas so special! Thanks again for your incredible package that you put together and sent! I enjoyed my presents so much and loved every single present so much! Thank you tons! We woke up so excited that it was Christmas and I couldn't wait to Skype you and open my awesome presents! Wow! You totally spoiled me and I can't thank you enough! I loved all of the Utah State gear so much and the awesome ties and calendar! You are the best and you made my Christmas so special! I loved every single present so much and I really appreciate them! I loved all of the cool pictures that you put on my 2018 calendar! I can't believe that by the time this calender is done, I will be coming home?? What!?!? The Aggies shirt, tie, and socks are so awesome! Thank you all again for the wonderful Christmas presents! It was a really special day! We got ready for the day and I just could hardly wait to go to the Church and Skype! I wore my new tie and socks and then we did our studies until about 9:45 so we could make sure that we got a bus to get there by 11:00. I looked at the clock at about 8:30 and realized that you were probably up opening presents and having a blast like it was! Elder Rocha headed over to their Church to Skype his family in Brazil at 9:00 which is noon in Brazil. So Elder Brown enjoyed our morning and listened to Christmas music and I had some delicious fudge and lots of treats! Then......we headed over to SKYPE!!!!!!! I was really excited and just wanted to talk to you so bad! We got to the Church and set up for our calls in our separate rooms and then had some time to wait before we called. I just couldn't wait and so I said to myself "Just do it, the waiting is the worst part!!!!" Then I texted you and I called a few minutes early because I was so anxious to see you all! First off, the Skype call was amazing and I loved you all in your matching shirts! It made me smile ear to ear! Also, thank you so very much for the amazing poem! It brought tears to my eyes and I loved it so much! I felt like you wrote it Mom because it was SOOO good! I am sending a separate email expressing how much I love and miss you and about our special Skype call that we had! Let me just say that it was so great to talk to you!!!! After our call ended, it was so hard to say goodbye again but I was so satisfied with what we were able to talk about and how well it went! I left the Church on cloud 9 just feeling so happy and grateful that everything went so well! It truly was an amazing time that I will never forget! Then we changed into some clothes to play football in and we had such a fun game of 2 hand touch football! We showed up and Brother Mishler and Brother Ward were there and then there were 2 other people there that we didn't recognize. Then they introduced themselves and we found out that they were just playing there and decided to play with us. They were a 19 year old from France and a 13 year old from Iceland. They were both really good in football even though we had to teach them the rules before we started but they really got the hang of it! It was fun to have 3 on 3 and I even got 3 or 4 interceptions and threw a couple of touchdown passes! Then we played some soccer and I felt bad because I totally forgot to get some pictures. My camera was put away so I'm really sorry for that. Then we tried to visit Brother Eades and Brother Forbes and we did get to see Brother Eades but he was just about to head up for his Christmas dinner. Brother Forbes was with the Mishler Family and so we were happy that they were having a good time! Our job was to make sure that they were taken care of for the holiday because they have gotten pretty lonely at times so we were there to cheer them up! So then we took our gear back to the apartment and then went to our dinner appointment with the Smith/Smock family and it was a really great time! On the way, we saw something crazy! We saw tons of lights and heard sirens and as we walked down the street, it smelled like smoke and burning electrical wires. It was quite the sight and I even got a video of it. A building had smoke and flames coming from out of the top of it and they were trying to out it out and it was really crazy. Our dinner was so good and I'm so glad that you were able to get a couple of pictures of it! I completely forgot Dad's phone number and I thought that 760-7465 was Grandma and Grandpa's number but then I realized all along that it was Dad's number. I have been meaning to ask for a while but it slipped my mind! So now you will both get a text whenever someone sends you a picture! Really cool! We had a really good tender loin, salad, rolls, asparagus, and Martinelli's! I got the thought that we were probably eating at the same time! We had a great talk and then Brother Smith's Dad read a Christmas story and then we headed off to our next appointment. We had Alexsander and the McClain family but they both cancelled because they were out of town so we decided to take some leftovers to Isaac Sorden who felt pretty lonely that day. He spent the day mostly alone and we really cheered him up! He is from Brooklyn and is in his mid 30s. We brought him the leftovers and read the Christmas story from Luke 2 and he really enjoyed it. Then we watched the Nativity video and it really brought the spirit in! I couldn't beleive how fast the day went. It seems like holidays always go by so quick. I was sad that my 1st Christmas in the mission was over but I looked back on the day and smiled! It was truly amazing and the highlight by far was being able to talk to each one of you!
Tuesday was a really awesome day! I wish I could have talked to you some more so bad. I woke up and just thought about how awesome Christmas was! We got ready for the day and then went to the Temple to have our interviews with President Smith! He rescheduled for a Tuesdaymorning at 9:50 and so afterwards, we just walked right into District Meeting. I was so excited to see your pictures and I couldn't wait to talk to you again and see how the rest of your Christmas was! We talked about Godson and the awesome visit that We had with him in District Meeting. We said goodbye to a few missionaries that will be going home this next Monday and then headed out for some lunch. We got some dollar slice pizza and then went back out for some more great work! I couldn't wait to talk to you again and read your awesome email and see your pictures! After we stopped by the apartment to get some ties that Elder Brown had to give to Brother Eades and Brother Forbes. So we went over to their apartment and helped Brother Forbes fix part of his wheelchair that has been breaking a lot and so we helped fix that since he has limited mobility. It was so great to help him out! They have been doing great but have been very lonely during the holiday season. It just gives me so much comfort knowing I have a loving family back at home that supports me every moment of every day and prays for me! I'm so fortunate to have that because Brother Eades and Brother Forbes don't have any family and so we are like brothers to them. I found out that Brother Forbes was born in March of 1975 and so he is almost the same age as you. It was great to share a message with them and be able to help them out. After that, we headed back to the apartment for a late dinner since it took us some extra time to fix Brother Forbes' wheelchair. Then we did a few lookups but neither of them were home. Overall, it was a really great day and I was so anxious to read your awesome email and see your amazing pictures! I love and miss you all so much!!!
Well my dear and amazing family! It was a blast to email you and especially Skype you on Christmas! You are all looking so well and happy! And that makes me happy!!! It's a feeling that I can't describe and it just made me feel so happy to see you all in your matching shirts and happy as well! I appreciated so much the time you spent to put together my awesome package and for everything that you do for me! I am so glad that you had a great week and such a fun Christmas! That is the best news anyone could ask for! Thanks again for every single thing that you have done for me! I hope you have a great rest of your Christmas break! Have tons of fun and keep being the best family ever! LOVE AND MISS YOU SO VERY MUCH MY DEAR FAMILY!!! 
Love You Always!
~Elder Lindberg
Last P-Day was really great! We had such a fun time and I had a blast emailing everyone and hearing all about your week! I was so excited to set up our Skype call! We did our morning grocery shopping trip and laundry and then we decided to go get haircuts from Jay at the 87ths Street chapel for our Skype call. It was great to get a fresh haircut so I looked sharp for the call! Then by the time we were done, it was about noon and so we decided to go take a tour of the NBC Studio since we each got some spending money for Christmas. We got to the main entrance and they told us that they were sold out until mid January. We actually had figured that because it was so busy for Christmas and New Years so we weren't too disappointed. There was still so much to see and do! We went to the NBC Store and I bought a Late Night Jimmy Fallon lapel pin and an NBC magnet. I can't wait for you to see them! I wanted to get some official thank you notes with the actual pen that he writes them with but it was close to $50.00. They had a ton of NFL gear but no little trinkets for under $20.00. It was such a cool place and especially to know that Jimmy Fallon and so many other famous people have been right there. Then we came back to the apartment for the last hour or 2 of P-Day. It was so excited to know that Christmas and our Skype call was so close and the next time I talked to you would be face to face! After our awesome P-Day ended, we went to go visit Andy but he wasn't home. The busses were running a little slow and so we walked everywhere the whole evening and it was a really nice walk and we enjoyed seeing the many incredible sights! Then we had a great lesson with Charles and Monae! We showed them the Nativity video about Jesus Christ's birth and then asked them what their favorite part about Christmas is. It was really sad because Charles says that he doesn't even like Christmas because he used to love Christmas and they used to be really great but now they are pretty sad and hard for him. Once we showed them the video, the spirit filled the room and they felt the spirit of Christmas so much! It was such a great day and I loved seeing your pictures and reading your emails! It was a really awesome P-Day and we had a ton of fun! I appreciate all of your love and prayers that you always send my way!
Thursday was a really amazing day as well! We had a conference call first thing in the morning and also our interviews with President Smith over Skype! We woke up, exercised, got ready for the day, and then enjoyed the conference call. President Smith talked about our Skype calls and that he is so excited for us to Skype and be able to talk to you! He shared some cool stories like how missionaries wrap presents out in front of the temple. Then we did our companionship study and then had lunch before heading to the Church for weekly planning and to pick up mail. President Smith said that he got some calls from random people all over the United States wanting to help out with some missionaries that feel lonely or just people that wanted to send a package to random missionaries and so we were really excited to go pick up mail because we were wondering if we got any mail from random members. So after the conference call and our companionship study, we had some lunch and then traveled up to the Manhattan Temple Chapel to pick up mail, do our Skype interviews with President Smith, and then weekly planning. It was really busy but we ended up not being able to do our interviews because President Smith was just so swamped from doing so many interviews. So we ended up doing tons of weekly planning and then we took the mail to our chapel. I was so excited because I got 4 letters! Thank you so much for sending your awesome Christmas card! It hit me when I realized that I wasn't even around for most of this last year. It was a crazy thought! I also got a Christmas card from the Dunns and the Jensens. Then I got a nice card from the young women in our Ward and from Brother and Sister Reese. After we got mail, we had dinner and then headed back up to the Temple for our free gift wrapping activities! I held the sign again and as always, I met some really cool people! We met a family who had all just gone through the temple and another couple from Canada. I saw a ton of Steelers and Patriots gear and so I yelled "Go Steelers, or Go Patriots." I always love to see College and NFL teams. We had tons and tons of people stop with lots of gifts. The Top store right now that we are wrapping from is from Best Buy. We have had tons of electronics like cell phones, tv's, and Kindle Fires. It has been so fun to have people ask, "Is this really free?" It was a great experience as usual and I was hoping Ang and Grandma Evans made it safe and sound to Ruston and sure enough, I got a text from you telling me that they did and I was so excited to see that Karl Malone was there!!! How cool is that? We headed back to the apartment after a really awesome and fun day! 1 day closer to Skyping!
Friday was incredible and awesome! We had a very busy day ahead of us and we couldn't wait to get started! We bought some cookie dough to wish Monae a happy birthday and then went to deliver them to her but she wasn't home. So then we went out to eat lunch with our investigator Neal! He took us to a really nice restaurant called Follia! It was so good and I got a lamb burger, soda, and truffle fries. We had a really nice talk with him about our missions and how excited we were to Skype home. He loved seeing my pictures of the Empire State Building that we took when we went to the Top of the Rockefeller Center. He played around with a few of them and then told us to make Christmas cards using our pictures that we took. The food was so delicious and we had a really fun time! Then we headed over to our gift wrapping activity at the Temple for our 2:00-4:00 shift. We were really excited for it and I saw someone with a Colorado beanie on and so as he walked past I said, "Go Buffs!" So we started our gift wrapping activity and it was the perfect temperature. I checked the weather in Nibley and it was 9 degrees. Brrrrrr! Cold! We had a really great turnout for our activity and had tons and tons of people show up again. Then a family with 4 teenage girls came out from doing a session in the temple! They are from Orem but they just recently moved from.....American Fork. All of their girls graduated from American Fork and it just made me think of you Mom since all of your siblings graduated from there! They only had 4 girls and so you beat them! They were really nice and even sent a picture to you! Pretty amazing to think that a family from American Fork is all the way over here sending pictures to someone from American Fork! Pretty cool! They talked a lot about our Skype call and how fun it will be to talk to you! Then after our gift wrapping activity, we headed back to the apartment because Elder Brown had to pack his overnight bag because we were going on a split. I was thinking about Jay the whole day since it was his funeral. I couldn't help but think how it was going. I was also thinking about Wyoming and how fun it would be to be there at the Idaho Potato Bowl! I was hoping that they won! After Elder Brown packed his bag, we headed over to our dinner appointment with the Welch family! They signed up the Sunday prior to have us over and we always love going to eat with them because they usually take us to somewhere really yummy and plus it is right by the One World Trade Center and so the sights are just incredible! Especially at night! Hehe!
Saturday was so awesome as well! We were really excited for our split and since we were so close to Christmas, we did another gift wrapping activity with the whole zone at the temple! The sister training leaders always do such a nice job with putting them together because the are always so nicely decorated! We headed out the door after doing our studies and it started to rain a little bit but it wasn't bad at all. We had a full day planned with 3 lessons! We were really excited because I always love when we have a full day on a split! We did a few lookups but all 4 of them weren't home. So then we ate lunch at a $1.00 slice pizza place near where we were and then headed off to our appointment with Godson. He told us prior that he was really short on time and that he only had about a half an hour but he talked for a while and so it stretched our visit to over an hour. He is such a nice, humble man and even fed us some really good chicken and rice that he made! We were able to teach him the Restoration and told him a little bit more about our church. He has come to Church 6 times now and so it was really nice to finally be able to sit down with him! He will get baptized one day but right now, he wants to progress slowly toward that goal. He just wants to make sure that this is the right church for him. After our awesome visit, we dropped the leftovers at our apartment and then Elder Macedo packed his bag because we weren't coming home for the rest of the day since we had our gift wrapping activity and lots to do far away from our apartment. We had a great lesson with Brother Eades and Brother Forbes and showed them the video for that day and then read the scriptures. Then we went over to our gift wrapping activity and it was so awesome! What made it so much better was the fact that it stopped raining! I looked out at all of the people buying gifts inviting them over to have their gifts wrapped and it just hit me and I just couldn't believe that it was almost Christmas Eve! This Christmas has felt so different and quite weird to be honest because I haven't been a part of the holiday festivities. Christmas really came quick and it hit me that it was already here! We went upstairs to the gym to get our mail and I got Lonna and Shannon's Christmas card and a box of Ghirardelli chocolates from the Dunns! Thank you!!!! There has been a family from Keller Texas that has sent out a ton of Christmas packages to different missionaries and I was lucky enough to get one! It had some socks, starbursts, and a card that told me what family it was that sent it to me. There were tons of different families that sent packages to random missionaries! It was so fun to get! We were kind of sad because our gift wrapping activity came to a close that night and we had to pack up until next year. We had tons of people stop again just beyond baffled that we were wrapping gifts for free. It felt so cool to be in such a cool place doing service like that! It made it really fun and I was thinking about you all back at home counting down the hours to our Skype call! It really was such a special time and I loved being out there talking to so many friendly people! We grabbed our mail and met Elder Brown and Elder Lusk at the 59th street train station and unsplit before heading back to the apartment! It was an amazing day and I had such a fun time doing the activity. I'm a little sad that it's over because I really got into the spirit of helping people! It was a fun activity and I'm so glad that I could be a part of it! Love you all so much!
Merry Christmas Eve everybody!!! I was thinking about my dear family back at home a lot and wondering what you were doing! I was even more excited to Skype and I was so excited for Christmas and to open my presents! We woke up and did our planning and we had a really great day of serving and sharing the Christmas story with those that may be lonely! We planned our day and then headed off to Christmas Eve Church! It seems like it was yesterday that it was Christmas and here we are again. I can't believe it! Next year, I will be so close to coming home and I know how fast it will fly by. I was so excited for Chruch and I couldn't wait to hear the music. It was weird because our Church was only an hour and so we had such a fun time talking with members. The weather didn't seem like Christmas at all. There hasn't been any snow on the ground for a week and the temperature was in the mid 40s. It felt like mid November! Weird! We headed off to Church so excited and looking forward to Sacrament meeting! We had a huge turnout and almost 200 people came! It was so awesome and felt just like a Utah ward! There were so many visitors and most of them were from Salt Lake! I had so much fun talking to them! Then I got talking to a visitor from Virginia and she asked where I was from. When I said Nibley she told me that she grew up in Malad and her Dad was born there as well. I mean come on!!! How small can this world get??? She knew exactly where Nibley was and told me what an amazing place it was. Let me tell you how amazing the music in this ward is. Brother and Sister Vogelmann are the organist and music director and Brother Vogelmann plays the organ loud and proud! It was so loud and amazing that by the end of the opening hymn. Most of the congregation was in tears. I kid you not. Most, of not all of the visitors were all in tears just because of how amazing the music is. Everyone was singing in unison and it really was a cool experience! We had the 2nd branch sign language congregation join us and then we had 6 or 7 members get up and each read a part of the Christmas story from the Bible. We sang 3 or 4 hymns in between the scriptures and it just made it so cool! I couldn't help but think how your day in Church went and I was hoping you'd were having a big feast and lots of great food! After our meeting ended, it felt really weird to just go back to the apartment after only 1 hour of Church. We got to schedule a Christmas dinner with the Smith/Smock family and we had a Christmas Eve feast with Brother and Sister Vogelmann! So we headed back to the apartment to change out of our suits and then we made some cookies to take around to investigators! We called and texted lots of people! We didn't have any investigators in Church and so we were a little sad about that especially because Godson told us that he would be there and since we had just seen him the day before. But we understood because it was Christmas Eve and lots of people are out of town. Also after Church I was able to get my Skype to work!!! So lots of missionaries have been having the exact same problem and so it has been a headache for lots of missionaries. Mine was so easy to fix. So after I changed my password on myldsmail.net account, I wasn't able to get in and so I just created a whole new account with my personal gmail account from back at home and was able to sign in to get the code and then I added you as a contact! Pretty simple fix and I'm so glad everything worked out so smoothly! So we made our cookies and then we went over for our Christmas Eve dinner and we were so excited because the Vogelmanns are really awesome! Brother Vogelmann actually really reminds me on Grandma Lindberg. He is just such a great guy and loves everyone around him. Just like Grandpa Lindberg does! We headed down to the One World Trade Center and had an amazing dinner with them! It was buffet style Hawaiian haystack since they were having company over all evening. Brother Caron and Brother Knox were over there as well and we had a great talk about Christmas and then shared the video on the Nativity. Brother Vogelmann said that they were really excited because of of their traditions is to watch It's a Wonderful Life every Christmas Eve and I told them how much we love that movie! Then the 5 of us reminisced about Christmas and how many fun traditions we all have! Then we said goodbye and then went over to visit the Mishler Family. So we took the train in the beautiful and amazing Fulton Center and took it down to 23rd street near the Empire State Building and I looked up at the sky in awe that it was Christmas Eve! Then we went over to Brother and Sister Mishler's house to help them set up one of their Christmas presents for their daughter Lillie. So we went over and we read some Christmas and talked about our favorite Christmas memories. Then after their kids went to bed, we helped Brother Mishler assemble a huge dollhouse that they bought. It would have taken him hours to put it together because it was this huge wooden dollhouse with screw and lots of assembly required. We got it done in about an hour and he was beyond grateful! Then they gave us each a present and it had some yummy treats! We were very grateful for it! Then we were able to be a part of one of their long time running Christmas Eve traditions where they eat a summer sausage with cheese and crackers. It was such a great time and we headed back to the apartment after an incredible day! It was raining a bit but it slowly turned to a little bit of snow and I was so excited to see it because I love it when it snows on Christmas and Christmas Eve! I love you all tons and tons and I hope you had an amazing day!
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!! LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!!! WOW!! What an awesome and amazing day! I can't thank you all enough for making it such a special day! It was so incredible to Skype and see you! I am truly grateful for each one of you and love you so much! It was an amazing experience and it was so cool to be here in the big Apple for Christmas! It was so good to talk to you and I hope you had as much fun as I did! The time surly flew by quick but I felt like we talked about a ton! It was such a great chat as always and really made my Christmas so special! Thanks again for your incredible package that you put together and sent! I enjoyed my presents so much and loved every single present so much! Thank you tons! We woke up so excited that it was Christmas and I couldn't wait to Skype you and open my awesome presents! Wow! You totally spoiled me and I can't thank you enough! I loved all of the Utah State gear so much and the awesome ties and calendar! You are the best and you made my Christmas so special! I loved every single present so much and I really appreciate them! I loved all of the cool pictures that you put on my 2018 calendar! I can't believe that by the time this calender is done, I will be coming home?? What!?!? The Aggies shirt, tie, and socks are so awesome! Thank you all again for the wonderful Christmas presents! It was a really special day! We got ready for the day and I just could hardly wait to go to the Church and Skype! I wore my new tie and socks and then we did our studies until about 9:45 so we could make sure that we got a bus to get there by 11:00. I looked at the clock at about 8:30 and realized that you were probably up opening presents and having a blast like it was! Elder Rocha headed over to their Church to Skype his family in Brazil at 9:00 which is noon in Brazil. So Elder Brown enjoyed our morning and listened to Christmas music and I had some delicious fudge and lots of treats! Then......we headed over to SKYPE!!!!!!! I was really excited and just wanted to talk to you so bad! We got to the Church and set up for our calls in our separate rooms and then had some time to wait before we called. I just couldn't wait and so I said to myself "Just do it, the waiting is the worst part!!!!" Then I texted you and I called a few minutes early because I was so anxious to see you all! First off, the Skype call was amazing and I loved you all in your matching shirts! It made me smile ear to ear! Also, thank you so very much for the amazing poem! It brought tears to my eyes and I loved it so much! I felt like you wrote it Mom because it was SOOO good! I am sending a separate email expressing how much I love and miss you and about our special Skype call that we had! Let me just say that it was so great to talk to you!!!! After our call ended, it was so hard to say goodbye again but I was so satisfied with what we were able to talk about and how well it went! I left the Church on cloud 9 just feeling so happy and grateful that everything went so well! It truly was an amazing time that I will never forget! Then we changed into some clothes to play football in and we had such a fun game of 2 hand touch football! We showed up and Brother Mishler and Brother Ward were there and then there were 2 other people there that we didn't recognize. Then they introduced themselves and we found out that they were just playing there and decided to play with us. They were a 19 year old from France and a 13 year old from Iceland. They were both really good in football even though we had to teach them the rules before we started but they really got the hang of it! It was fun to have 3 on 3 and I even got 3 or 4 interceptions and threw a couple of touchdown passes! Then we played some soccer and I felt bad because I totally forgot to get some pictures. My camera was put away so I'm really sorry for that. Then we tried to visit Brother Eades and Brother Forbes and we did get to see Brother Eades but he was just about to head up for his Christmas dinner. Brother Forbes was with the Mishler Family and so we were happy that they were having a good time! Our job was to make sure that they were taken care of for the holiday because they have gotten pretty lonely at times so we were there to cheer them up! So then we took our gear back to the apartment and then went to our dinner appointment with the Smith/Smock family and it was a really great time! On the way, we saw something crazy! We saw tons of lights and heard sirens and as we walked down the street, it smelled like smoke and burning electrical wires. It was quite the sight and I even got a video of it. A building had smoke and flames coming from out of the top of it and they were trying to out it out and it was really crazy. Our dinner was so good and I'm so glad that you were able to get a couple of pictures of it! I completely forgot Dad's phone number and I thought that 760-7465 was Grandma and Grandpa's number but then I realized all along that it was Dad's number. I have been meaning to ask for a while but it slipped my mind! So now you will both get a text whenever someone sends you a picture! Really cool! We had a really good tender loin, salad, rolls, asparagus, and Martinelli's! I got the thought that we were probably eating at the same time! We had a great talk and then Brother Smith's Dad read a Christmas story and then we headed off to our next appointment. We had Alexsander and the McClain family but they both cancelled because they were out of town so we decided to take some leftovers to Isaac Sorden who felt pretty lonely that day. He spent the day mostly alone and we really cheered him up! He is from Brooklyn and is in his mid 30s. We brought him the leftovers and read the Christmas story from Luke 2 and he really enjoyed it. Then we watched the Nativity video and it really brought the spirit in! I couldn't beleive how fast the day went. It seems like holidays always go by so quick. I was sad that my 1st Christmas in the mission was over but I looked back on the day and smiled! It was truly amazing and the highlight by far was being able to talk to each one of you!
Tuesday was a really awesome day! I wish I could have talked to you some more so bad. I woke up and just thought about how awesome Christmas was! We got ready for the day and then went to the Temple to have our interviews with President Smith! He rescheduled for a Tuesdaymorning at 9:50 and so afterwards, we just walked right into District Meeting. I was so excited to see your pictures and I couldn't wait to talk to you again and see how the rest of your Christmas was! We talked about Godson and the awesome visit that We had with him in District Meeting. We said goodbye to a few missionaries that will be going home this next Monday and then headed out for some lunch. We got some dollar slice pizza and then went back out for some more great work! I couldn't wait to talk to you again and read your awesome email and see your pictures! After we stopped by the apartment to get some ties that Elder Brown had to give to Brother Eades and Brother Forbes. So we went over to their apartment and helped Brother Forbes fix part of his wheelchair that has been breaking a lot and so we helped fix that since he has limited mobility. It was so great to help him out! They have been doing great but have been very lonely during the holiday season. It just gives me so much comfort knowing I have a loving family back at home that supports me every moment of every day and prays for me! I'm so fortunate to have that because Brother Eades and Brother Forbes don't have any family and so we are like brothers to them. I found out that Brother Forbes was born in March of 1975 and so he is almost the same age as you. It was great to share a message with them and be able to help them out. After that, we headed back to the apartment for a late dinner since it took us some extra time to fix Brother Forbes' wheelchair. Then we did a few lookups but neither of them were home. Overall, it was a really great day and I was so anxious to read your awesome email and see your amazing pictures! I love and miss you all so much!!!
Well my dear and amazing family! It was a blast to email you and especially Skype you on Christmas! You are all looking so well and happy! And that makes me happy!!!
Love You Always!
~Elder Lindberg
