12-19-11

Hello,
  Yes, Sunday is going to be a very exciting time. I might call Saturday evening to schedule what time to call on Sunday. Everything is going just superb. We had a half mission Christmas party on Thursday which was just spectacular. The spirit was so strong it had my eyes over flowing with tears and just a burning testimony of the gospel. I keep hearing about how Christmas on your mission is just the best. We'll see if that's true on Sunday. To be honest, i miss being able to bundle up in a comfortable hoodie, and sweats watching a great Christmas movie and listening to great Christmas music. But i also love being able to preach the gospel to people and not be completely bogged down on what to get people for Christmas presents and being able to focus more on the Savior and the true meaning of Christmas.
  So far i haven't noticed any difference in teaching people. Although a couple of people use it as a great excuse to put off meeting with us saying "After the holidays i will be available." That's happened a couple of times.
  We are teaching this lady named Parshel. She is a great lady really nice. She has 3 kids ages 7, 5 and 4 i believe and the 5 and 4 year old are just so funny. They had me busting up laughing yesterday. Hopefully we will be able to teach her husband Lorenzo too. We taught him the first lesson but haven't been able to catch up with him. Parshel really loved the Plan of Salvation and being able to be an eternal family. She said she will get baptized but hasn't come to church yet cause she is so active in hers. But she said she will hopefully be able to come on Christmas. We taught her about the Word of Wisdom yesterday and when we told her no more coffee and tea her face got all scrunched up with confusion but then she told us she doesn't do those things anyway.
  Ryan Jones is just a fireball. He finished the Book of Mormon the other day and he is so ready to be baptized. He is going out of town back to his family over the holidays and asked for a priesthood blessing before he leaves so he can have the strength to talk to his family about the gospel and so that they will be more accepting of his choices. So we are going to do that Friday and hopefully we'll be able to get some of the brethren in the church to participate to show him how much support he's got back here.
  Well that's neat that you guys have a new home teacher and one that just moved into the ward. I wonder if they did that because he doesn't know how rambuncios our family is and how many home teaching companions Brother Whiting had to go through ha ha. I bet it wont be a problem now though cause most of the trouble makers are out of the house.
 The Book of Mormon challenge is going great. I finished it in my personal study and I'm now starting the New Testament. But i am almost finished with 3 nephi in my readings at night. I have a little hard cover copy of the Book of Mormon that i read out of every night and I've decided I'm going to pass that on in my generation, with the mission i served and a short testimony in the book and then pass it on to my first child to go on a mission and tell him to do the same. I think that would be pretty neat to have.
Well, I'm sure you and lots of people who are reading this know how great this gospel is. It really is just so incredible. Joseph Smith couldn't have made this up. He couldn't have made up the book of Mormon. No way, it's just not possible. Based on the feelings I felt on Thursday I know that this church is true and that if we do what we are asked to do we WILL be able to return back and live with our Heavenly Father in an eternal family with those we love very most forever and ever. It's gonna be great.
Oh yeah!, I forgot to mention on Saturday we got stuck at a red light for about a half hour cause of a HUGE bike gang! It was a toys-for-tots motorcycle's ride and there were over 3000 motorcyclists participating. I wanted to hop on a motorcycle and participate too. It was so incredible awesome.
I was able to give an old lady a blessing yesterday and that was pretty neat. It made me really want to spend more time with the old people for some reason.  They really have some great stories and I could learn a lot. I think it's cause I have so much of the love for the people I'm around right now that I don't want that love to go away.That's cool that Zadok was able to join the play. I'm sad I'm gonna miss it. You'll have to record it so I can watch it in a couple of years.
On Thursday we had a half mission Christmas Party. We had to split it in half cause our mission is so big. But it was an incredible experience. But a couple of missionaries that were in the MTC with me were there and that was really neat to be able to talk to them and see how they are doing. We watched a talk by Elder Holland that he gave in the MTC in January and oh boy that was great. We then watched a movie titled 17 Miracles. I dunno if you've seen it but it was about the Willie Handcart Company. It was a fantastic movie. I felt the spirit so strongly, it had me in tears in some parts. And after that 3 missionaries bore their testimonies
because they go home at the end of the transfer and I just completely lost it. Tears were streaming down my face. I think it was the strongest I have ever felt the spirit and it just confirmed my witness that this gospel is true and that I'm doing exactly what I'm suppose to be doing at this time in my life. During the movie there was a part when a couple of elders were giving a lady a blessing before she left to cross the trail and the spirit just hit me really strongly that I have that same power. Oh man, I can't even begin to tell how great it was.
I really appreciate the letters I received from the family as well.That was a very unexpected but nice surprise.
This gospel is just so amazing, it can bring so much happiness to any one's life. I know it can cause it does to mine. I love you and I'm looking forward to calling on Christmas.
Love Elder Klingler