Hello and good morning to my dear and amazing Family!
Tuesday was so very amazing!
Happy 1st day of Thanksgiving break! I hope you had a great day off of school and enjoyed getting ready for Thanksgiving! Wednesday was so awesome too! I woke up and was SO HAPPY to see an email from you!!! It made my whole day and I was really glad to hear from you! Thanks so much for thinking of me! Thanks for the question about the mail! When I was in my interview with President Hess, Sister Hess and Elder Solomon went outside because they decided to bring all of the mail that had arrived to the mission office in and so whatever mail had gotten there by that point, could be distributed to the missionaries since they would be in Morristown for their interviews anyway. Sister Hess told me that a lot of missionaries don't get their Christmas packages on time because they have so many to distribute. There were actually a lot of Christmas packages and most of them had labels that said "open now", or "open on Christmas day." Sister Hess told me that there will be more coming for the rest of the missionaries when zone conference rolled around. She said that missionaries that get their packages now during interviews are extra lucky because we didn't have to wait until zone conference! So there were lots of Christmas packages already there and so they decided to bring them. Elder Solomon didn't get his yet but he says that it should come next week and be ready to pick up for zone conference. So I was extra excited to get it yesterday!!!!! The treats were so yummy and it was fun to think that you made them just last Friday! They are so fresh! I can tell that so much thought went into it and I thank you for the time that you spent to gather the goodies, treats, and fun missionary items! I will have so much fun using the gift cards and the best part is that I will be with you when I use them! We had a great district meeting and we talked about the spirit and how we can more effectively follow the spirit during the day. Then we drove back to Newton and went out with Daniel for a few hours! We are going to switch off each week with the other Sparta Elders and so this was our week to go out with him! It was so crazy to think that after this trip with Daniel, we only get to go out 1 more time with him since he picks us up every other week. I hung up the New Jersey flag that you gave me next to my New York flag and it is so fun to have them both! I enjoyed your treats so much and Elder Solomon was so impressed with the peanut clusters and million dollar fudge! I love you homemade treats so much and It was great to taste some home baked treats! It's been a whole year since I've had your fudge and peanut clusters!
P.S: I'm crossing my fingers that the Cooks will send you a Thanksgiving picture tomorrow!!!
P.P.S: I have some exciting news! Found out that Elder Williams is training a new missionary right now in Jamaica Queens, New York! It's so exciting!
HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!!!! Gobble, Gobble! I hope you all had a very amazing and fun day and had lots of yummy food because we sure did! I woke up and was so happy to see an email from you and I was very excited for the video! Thanks so much for the Thanksgiving wishes! It was the coldest day that we've had here so far this winter and it was supposed to get down to 8 degrees. We were really excited for our dinner with Bishop Cook and his Family! I was thinking about you all day and hoping you were all having a great time in Farmington! I hope that you had a fun time watching the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade as well! It sure was a cold day today and the weather said it felt like 2 degrees outside! Brrrrrrr! I remember how nice Thanksgiving was last year and how we did the activity in Central Park with the big board and we had people right what they were thankful for on a piece of paper. Such great memories! We decided to go out and help people unload their groceries in the parking lot of Walmart and Shop-rite for a little while and it was actually really fun and successful! There were quite a few shoppers and we help this Hispanic lady and her Mom load up their trunk with tons of different home decor items. They really appreciated our help and were so that kful for the quick trip so they could get in their warm car. We also got to go inside Walmart and we helped a few people out and they had all of their Black Friday stuff out and it was really crazy to see how much preparation goes into Black Friday. I was excited to hear if you found any amazing deals! We offered to help people out to their cars and unload their groceries and and first, people thought we were a little wierd but then they accepted our offer and it felt so nice to help everyone out! We were getting very excited for our Thanksgiving feast with the Cook Family and I was hoping you were having a great time! I was SO excited to get your video and it was so nice of you to think of me! You all look so great and happy! Our Thanksgiving dinner was so yummy and we had such a great time! It's always so much fun as a missionary to be in a member's home, especially for the Holidays! I wasn't able to get a picture because we kind of ate in shifts and so everyone wasn't all at the table at the same time and there was a lot of people! We had all of the Thanksgiving fixings like turkey, ham, potatoes, gravy, brusselsprouts, green bean cabbage, and stuffing! We also had Martinelli's Apple cider and tons of different kinds of pies! Their kids sure are funny and love the missionaries! Bishop and Sister Cook have 5 kids ranging in age from 13 to 8 months! They had a few relatives over and then they had Sister Harriott and Brother Nay come over as well! I ate way too much as usual and was "stuffed to the rafters!" Hehe! Their little 8 month old son named Carson is the funniest little guy! Hehe! He is the calmest and most content baby I have ever seen. He just looks around and patiently waited for his food. If his Mom left his sight, he would just sit there and wait patiently! Hehe! It was the funniest thing! Sister Cook told us that he does that all the time and hardly ever cries or pitches a fit. She says that he will wait patiently to be put to sleep and won't cry if he is tired. It was so great to spend the evening with everyone and I sure was thinking about you the whole time and I had fun talking about you while we ate! They would ask us questions and so I mentioned you individually and told them a little bit about you! We left their house very full and so happy and grateful we were able to have Thanksgiving dinner with them! I do have something funny to tell you! So their oldest son's name is Tanner and he was their helper for bringing the food to the table and every time they would call his name, I would look around the room and look for you. I would think, "who is calling me?" and then I realized that I haven't been called Tanner in 2 years! 
Then they invited us over for Christmas dinner because they wanted to make sure they did it early enough so the other Families in the ward couldn't do it before they did and then I realized, "Hey, I won't even be here for that." Crazy thought! What a fun day today was and it was filled with fun! I hope you all had a great rest of your Thanksgiving and I hope you find some great deals at Black Friday! Happy Thanksgiving!!! LOVE & MISS YOU ALL SO VERY MUCH DEAR LOVED ONES!!!!!!!!!
Happy Black Friday Everyone! I hope you got some really good deals and had a great day! Thanks so much for the email this morning! I really appreciated it so much and it was so fun to hear from you! I was really happy to hear that you had such a great day! We woke up this morning and it was 8 degrees with a wind chill of below freezing. Needless to say.....it was COLD!! I have been enjoying the treats that you sent me so much and It sure was such a fun surprise! The homemade treats were so delicious and I love the new cinnamon almonds! That recipe is definitely a keeper! The temperature warmed up to about 30 degrees and so it ended up not being too bad and so we stayed nice and warm! We heard from one of the members that they are having a huge event on Saturday and they said that Newton gets really crazy and almost 50,000 people come in from all over the East coast. She said that it is a Harry Potter themed event and so we were excited that so many people would be here for us to talk to! So we are coordinating with the other Elders in our ward to set up a table that people can come and ask us questions. I was looking at a calendar today and realized that I only have 3 full weeks left and it made me so excited to see you! I will definitely miss the mission field but I feel ready to come home and ready to see you! I am so excited to finish strong and keep working as hard as I can!!! I'm so excited to see you and give you a big hug and spend time with you! I'm so excited that I come home during the holidays and that will make it even more memorable and fun! I feel the days counting down and they are going by so fast! You are probably just as excited as I am for December 19th to get here! It's so amazing how quickly November has passed so far and how quickly these next 19 days of December will go! Your countdown chain is probably really small! We got a call from Sister Harriott and she asked if we could come and help her and Brother and Sister Boyle move some heavy pieces of furniture out of their store into a moving truck. So we helped them move a couple cupboards and cabinets and then went to do some tracting. We prayed to find someone to teach and the very first door we knocked on, a man answered and told us to come right in! His name is Chris and his parents were there for Thanksgiving and we got to teach them about the Book of Mormon! They are Roman Catholic and they asked us some questions about our Church and the Dad, Bernie, told us that he didn't agree with any of our teaching and said that he used to work in Salt Lake and so he had been to Salt Lake! He told us that the Roman Catholic Church was the true Church of Jesus Christ but we were able to testify to him that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints IS Christ's original Church. It was interesting to me how he thought that the Roman Catholic Church is Jesus Christ's Church even though it doesn't even have "Jesus Christ" in the name. We talked for about 45 minutes and it was so great to be able to share our beliefs with them. We invited them each to read and pray about the Book of Mormon and so we will see what happens!!! Then we went to an appointment with Brother Averyt to visit a lady that we found while we were tracting. We showed up to their house and pulled up and a man came out of the house and wondered what we were doing. We could tell that he was totally drunk and couldn't comprehend much but we told him we were looking for Jessica and he wouldn’t let us go inside to teach her. We will try again because Jessica was interested to learn more and so we hope to teach her again! Then Brother Averyt invited us to go to a really cool diner to get some ice cream milkshakes! It is called "Jefferson Diner" and I have some cool news about it! It was on the tv show Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives and so they had pictures of Guy Fieri all over the place! I wonder if you would be able to go back and watch that episode! It was a really cool diner and the milkshakes were so tasty!.......even though it was 20 degrees outside! Hehe! It was such a great day and I hope you all had an amazing day! Happy trip to Washington D.C Abby! LOVE & MISS YOU ALL SO VERY MUCH!!!!!
Wow! Saturday was so amazing! I hope you all had such a great and fun day! I was thinking about Abby a lot and wishing her a great trip to Washington D.C! It was fun to think that she was so close to me! It is only about 250 miles and so she was really close! She could have taken a "detour" and spent the day with me if she wanted! Hehe! I had a fun thought! So I was wondering when you will set up the Christmas trees because I'm going to put mine up too within the next few days! By the way, Happy 1 Month until Christmas Eve!!!! I can't wait to decorate my tree that you gave me and put my Christmas nut on it! We headed over to the Church to do our final planning for our table stand that we were going to do for the big parade and carnival that is on main street in Newton and so we met the other Elders at the Church to finalize our plans! We handed out a ton of pass along cards and there were tons of people to talk to! We talked to tons of people and got about 6 different phone numbers and so we were really excited about that! The parade and carnival on Spring Street lasted a few hours and so we enjoyed talking to people! It sure was cold today but we all stayed warm and bundled up! For some reason, while we were out doing our table stand, it hit me "I only have 25 days left!" It was so crazy to think about and really made me so excited to see you! I look at pictures of you and I think "I get to see you in a few days!!!" The rest of our day was really great! It started pouring rain and we didn't bring our umbrellas because it came out of nowhere and so needless to say....we got soaked! Hehe! It was just above freezing and so it wasn't quite snow but it was really cold rain and there was a wind that cut right to the core. We knocked on door after door, after door and nobody let us in but we were able to pass out a few copies of the Book of Mormon and pass along cards! We are really excited about the names that we got during the table stand activity! I hope you all had a very amazing and fun Saturday! I hope Abby made it to D.C safe and sound! It's fun to think that 2 of the 4 siblings are over here on the East Coast! LOVE & MISS YOU ALWAYS & FOREVER!!!!!
Sunday was so amazing! Your emails and pictures always make me so happy and I love reading all about your week! I woke up and was very happy to see 2 emails from you! I was so happy that Abby made it safe and sound to D.C! I was a little bit surprised that the Aggies lost. I was hoping they could pull out a huge win! Utah State did so amazing this year and I'm very excited to hear where they end up! I was looking forward to giving my talk today and it went really well! Edward wasn't able to come because he was on his cruise and so it was wierd to not have him there. My talk went so well and it was great to give it! I had something interesting happen. Hehe! So there is a member that knows I'm a huge Utah State fan and so today he came up to me and told me that Byu had done something that they've never done against Utah. He said that Utah got shut out for the first time in their rival history and so I thought that Utah had lost. Well it turns out that Utah ended up winning the game and so I'm not sure why he told me that Utah got shut out. Hehe! It was pretty funny! We didn't have a whole lot of people there since it is Thanksgiving weekend but we had some great lessons! I was hoping that you were having a really great time at Church! After we had some lunch and did our studies, we went to visit Ricky and Teresa Marquina and they ended up being home and they let us in and we had a great lesson with them! Ricky was a lot more open and told us that the Book of Mormon could be true and so that was a big step for him! He was a lot more accepting and so we were very excited that he took a big step! We talked to them about the Book of Mormon and how it testifies of the Bible and proves that Jesus is the Christ. It was such a cool way to end the day! It makes the days go by even faster when it gets dark so early! We got back to the apartment and I couldn't wait to read your email and see your pictures! I so appreciate your kind words and the time you take to right me such personal emails! I get so happy and excited to hear from you and I am always so happy to hear you are doing well! Thanks again for the wonderful email and pictures! I can't wait to talk to you tomorrow! LOVE & MISS YOU TONS & TONS MY DEAR LOVED ONES!!!!!!
Well my dear and amazing Family! It has been so much fun to type up this email and I hope you will have a very amazing day and week! I will be thinking about you a lot and sending lots of well wishes your way! I just want to thank you again for the fun and thoughtful package! I loved it so much and It was such a fun suprise and so much thought went into it! You are the greatest! I'm really excited for this upcoming week! We have Zone Conference this Thursday and they have all of the departing missionaries bear their testimonies and so I'm really looking forward to it! I might cry to be honest! Hehe! It is a bitter sweet time for me and as I reflect back, I can only smile and think of the many amazing memories and experiences I've had! Thanks so much for all that you do for me! I hope you all have another amazing and fun week! Good luck with your trip Abby and have tons of fun! See you in 3 weeks!!! LOVE & MISS YOU SO VERY MUCH DEAR FAMILY!!!!!!!
P.P.S: I have some exciting news! Found out that Elder Williams is training a new missionary right now in Jamaica Queens, New York! It's so exciting!
Happy Black Friday Everyone! I hope you got some really good deals and had a great day! Thanks so much for the email this morning! I really appreciated it so much and it was so fun to hear from you! I was really happy to hear that you had such a great day! We woke up this morning and it was 8 degrees with a wind chill of below freezing. Needless to say.....it was COLD!! I have been enjoying the treats that you sent me so much and It sure was such a fun surprise! The homemade treats were so delicious and I love the new cinnamon almonds! That recipe is definitely a keeper! The temperature warmed up to about 30 degrees and so it ended up not being too bad and so we stayed nice and warm! We heard from one of the members that they are having a huge event on Saturday and they said that Newton gets really crazy and almost 50,000 people come in from all over the East coast. She said that it is a Harry Potter themed event and so we were excited that so many people would be here for us to talk to! So we are coordinating with the other Elders in our ward to set up a table that people can come and ask us questions. I was looking at a calendar today and realized that I only have 3 full weeks left and it made me so excited to see you! I will definitely miss the mission field but I feel ready to come home and ready to see you! I am so excited to finish strong and keep working as hard as I can!!! I'm so excited to see you and give you a big hug and spend time with you! I'm so excited that I come home during the holidays and that will make it even more memorable and fun! I feel the days counting down and they are going by so fast! You are probably just as excited as I am for December 19th to get here!
Wow! Saturday was so amazing! I hope you all had such a great and fun day! I was thinking about Abby a lot and wishing her a great trip to Washington D.C! It was fun to think that she was so close to me! It is only about 250 miles and so she was really close! She could have taken a "detour" and spent the day with me if she wanted! Hehe! I had a fun thought! So I was wondering when you will set up the Christmas trees because I'm going to put mine up too within the next few days! By the way, Happy 1 Month until Christmas Eve!!!! I can't wait to decorate my tree that you gave me and put my Christmas nut on it! We headed over to the Church to do our final planning for our table stand that we were going to do for the big parade and carnival that is on main street in Newton and so we met the other Elders at the Church to finalize our plans! We handed out a ton of pass along cards and there were tons of people to talk to! We talked to tons of people and got about 6 different phone numbers and so we were really excited about that! The parade and carnival on Spring Street lasted a few hours and so we enjoyed talking to people! It sure was cold today but we all stayed warm and bundled up! For some reason, while we were out doing our table stand, it hit me "I only have 25 days left!" It was so crazy to think about and really made me so excited to see you! I look at pictures of you and I think "I get to see you in a few days!!!" The rest of our day was really great! It started pouring rain and we didn't bring our umbrellas because it came out of nowhere and so needless to say....we got soaked! Hehe! It was just above freezing and so it wasn't quite snow but it was really cold rain and there was a wind that cut right to the core. We knocked on door after door, after door and nobody let us in but we were able to pass out a few copies of the Book of Mormon and pass along cards! We are really excited about the names that we got during the table stand activity! I hope you all had a very amazing and fun Saturday! I hope Abby made it to D.C safe and sound! It's fun to think that 2 of the 4 siblings are over here on the East Coast! LOVE & MISS YOU ALWAYS & FOREVER!!!!!
Sunday was so amazing! Your emails and pictures always make me so happy and I love reading all about your week! I woke up and was very happy to see 2 emails from you! I was so happy that Abby made it safe and sound to D.C! I was a little bit surprised that the Aggies lost. I was hoping they could pull out a huge win! Utah State did so amazing this year and I'm very excited to hear where they end up! I was looking forward to giving my talk today and it went really well! Edward wasn't able to come because he was on his cruise and so it was wierd to not have him there. My talk went so well and it was great to give it! I had something interesting happen. Hehe! So there is a member that knows I'm a huge Utah State fan and so today he came up to me and told me that Byu had done something that they've never done against Utah. He said that Utah got shut out for the first time in their rival history and so I thought that Utah had lost. Well it turns out that Utah ended up winning the game and so I'm not sure why he told me that Utah got shut out. Hehe! It was pretty funny! We didn't have a whole lot of people there since it is Thanksgiving weekend but we had some great lessons! I was hoping that you were having a really great time at Church! After we had some lunch and did our studies, we went to visit Ricky and Teresa Marquina and they ended up being home and they let us in and we had a great lesson with them! Ricky was a lot more open and told us that the Book of Mormon could be true and so that was a big step for him! He was a lot more accepting and so we were very excited that he took a big step! We talked to them about the Book of Mormon and how it testifies of the Bible and proves that Jesus is the Christ. It was such a cool way to end the day! It makes the days go by even faster when it gets dark so early! We got back to the apartment and I couldn't wait to read your email and see your pictures! I so appreciate your kind words and the time you take to right me such personal emails! I get so happy and excited to hear from you and I am always so happy to hear you are doing well! Thanks again for the wonderful email and pictures! I can't wait to talk to you tomorrow! LOVE & MISS YOU TONS & TONS MY DEAR LOVED ONES!!!!!!
Well my dear and amazing Family! It has been so much fun to type up this email and I hope you will have a very amazing day and week! I will be thinking about you a lot and sending lots of well wishes your way! I just want to thank you again for the fun and thoughtful package! I loved it so much and It was such a fun suprise and so much thought went into it! You are the greatest! I'm really excited for this upcoming week! We have Zone Conference this Thursday and they have all of the departing missionaries bear their testimonies and so I'm really looking forward to it! I might cry to be honest! Hehe! It is a bitter sweet time for me and as I reflect back, I can only smile and think of the many amazing memories and experiences I've had! Thanks so much for all that you do for me! I hope you all have another amazing and fun week! Good luck with your trip Abby and have tons of fun! See you in 3 weeks!!! LOVE & MISS YOU SO VERY MUCH DEAR FAMILY!!!!!!!
Love You Always!
~Elder Lindberg
~Elder Lindberg
