12/1/14 Godzilla Christmas Tree--World's Biggest! + Huge sword, old shoes, WWII Bomb scare & yummy cheap tortillas!

Our Thanksgiving dinner is actually going to be this week on Saturday, so I'll let you know about it then. That aside, we met with the ward council, which was good. We also got a new investigator that night! We met with a student, whose record we found in our area book, and we set a time to met again.

I have to say I just love Christmas...

 And I love it even more when there's a godzilla-sized Christmas tree in the middle of the city! Ah, 'tis the season.

Some highlights of this week were picking up Elder Awerkamp's fake visa, trying out some good new sport shoes, getting evacuated, eating tacos, meeting a guy who owns the biggest sword I've ever held in my hands ever, and experiencing the power of the Spirit when we met two strangers who invited us, two guys in suits, into their home, almost without a single word uttered from either side.

So, now for some explanation. The visa we picked up is actually fine, but there's a paper that has to be kept with it that we suspect belongs to someone else because the name written on it says "Awesum, Marvelous". Highly Suspicious. I did get those shoes I needed for sport, so, to those who expressed distress, no, my feet aren't freezing (temperatures have only just started to drop below freezing). The exciting picture I wanted to send of the dead shoes didn't go through, soo.. sorry. There is a construction site about a 5 minute bus ride away from our apartment, and I suppose as they were digging, they must've uncovered an old WWII bomb that never went off, because we were asked to evacuate the area yesterday while they disarmed it. It didn't really affect us at all though because we were at church during those hours anyway. That kind of discovery has actually occurred in a couple of my areas on the mission. Not a big deal. Then with the tacos, we found a 6-pack of tortillas for only €1 last week. I know unbelievable, right? So naturally we bought a good couple and indulged ourselves in Mexican sunshine this past week. That's all I have time for, but please know that I love being a missionary, and I know God loves his children, and wants them to be happy, so that's why I'm here, to help people be happy. Are you happy? You probably have a lot of reasons to be.

don't forget to smile!

love,

~Elder Mark Standring