Letter #5

Hey everyone! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! I only have 30 mins again.

I'm glad you liked the pictures!

National day sounds fun!

Congrats to Andrew Fryer on his mission call to Madagascar, and Lauren Filichia on her call to England!

And congrats to Alicia and Brian Mathias on their new Baby! Claire Elizabeth, that is so adorable. I have a friend Claire who just got married a couple of days ago I think. Congrats Claire and Dave. and also Congrats to Devin and Autumn!!! Email me pictures- dannielle.tibbitts@myldsmail.net

I always look forward to mondays because that's when I get my dear elder from you guys!

Tanner- I'm glad you have a good attitude about moving. I think you will find ACS to be good for you. Have a good break.

Wyatt- way to go with the dance off! And the percussion concert! I hope you get what you want for christmas.

Boone- I hope you get night vision goggles, that sounds way cool! I hope you like your new school, and I miss you too. Thanks for writing me every week, keep it up.

Mom/Dad- So for Christmas, unfortunately I won't be able to call you. Sorry! It is an MTC rule and they don't have enough phones here anyways. I will miss you guys and I really wish I could call. Eat lots of fish and that hot bread stuff for me. You both said the same thing about gifts for each other, that was pretty funny "I can't wrap that up and put it under the tree". We are doing a gift exchange as sisters in the zone, it should be fun! Also the rumour is that someone very big and important is coming on Christmas day! I know who but I won't say!!! We are excited though!!!

So you are having the movers come on the 27th? When are you going over to AD? Did someone say the 2nd? So what is happening between then? I really want to call you from the airport but will I be able to call the voip phone if I call between the 27-2? Let me know what you are gonna do. Also can you send me a few addresses: g&g hindman, g&g tibbitts, and any others you think i could use. What is your address gonna be in AD? Will it be the same just Exxonmobil UAE or Abu Dhabi? How long are you gonna keep your Qatar cell phone numbers? I didn't realize you had such valuable plants! I hope you can get the boat sold!

My visa hasn't come yet. I hope it comes soon! It should. I have been praying for it a lot, and if you call could that would be great. One of the counselors in the district presidency (like stake presidency here) called me into his office to find out what was going on with it. He said that his assistant talked to my mission president on the phone (because my president only speaks spanish), and he's really anxious to have me there! That was good feeling. The status is that it has been sent here but I guess the mail is really slow or who knows they could have lied about that. Pres. Hacking told me to get a blessing from the elders in my district and have them bless the people working on my visa so that it can get here ASAP. So I did get it and it was good. Pray for me!

So last week I told you that I had 2 new companions. Hna Wirth from Philadelphia going to serve in San Jose, CA is one of them, but yesterday she got a new companion so now it is just Hna. Ordonez and I. Her name is with the ~ on top of the n. She was born in Colombia, and moved to Canada when she was 7. She lived in Toronto at first and now lives in Vancouver. She is going to serve in Resistencia, Argentina. She is a convert and joined when she was 15. There are so many convert sisters here! It's awesome. Every week in relief society they have a sister share her conversion story. With Hna Ordonez I have a whole new district of elders, and E. Reyes joined too. Also we have new teachers and I thought that would be weird, but I really like them. There is one other white elder, and there is a brazilian elder, dad! He talks way funny, because when he speaks spanish half of it comes out portuguese! He's from sao paulo. I told him you served there. He speaks good english though because he has lived here in utah for about 2 years. He is so funny, when he came here to the states the only english he said he knew was "shut up, I have a knife!" hahaha.

The temple is closed so we are sad but we have actually been having a pretty relaxing P-day. Got some errands done, laundry, took a nap because I was feeling sick. life is good. I love being a missionary! This is an opportunity that I would not miss for anything.

Last tuesday the devotional speaker was Paul B. Pieper of the 70. He talked about agency and it was great. I wish I had more time to write about it but I just don't. But basically Christ gave up his agency so we could have ours. Deep huh!

Our service project was washing the walls in the main building. Pretty funny. they are brick walls and they gave us big brushes to scrub, that was our job, they were hardly even dirty, then they had other sisters rinse off the chemical and then others dry. People kept asking us if we were being punished.

Sunday for church I was 99% sure I was going to speak. I had a really good talk prepared. BUT- they called on Hna. Wirth! We were so surprised b/c she is going to be here til February. She did well. They limit us to 5 mins and since Hna. Fernandez went for about 10 last week and that messed up the schedule of things, they tapped her ont he soulder at 5 mins, and as soon as they did, she said "en el nombre de Jesucristo, amen". It was pretty funny, but she was embarassed about it. I jsut told her she was exactly obedient! Did anyone watch music and the spoken word this week? It was intense. There were pioneer dancers and ballerinas and David archuleta and some british actor took part. There were a lot of excited sisters about David Archuleta. hahah!

On sunday our devotional was done by an actor who did a storytelling thing he acted as Willard Richard and told the story of Joseph's smith's martyrdom from his point of view, as well as some stuff leading up to it. It was pretty interesting.

I got my hair cut yesterday here! They actually did a good job. It's back above my shoulders now.

Well I better wrap this up. Even thought it looks like I will be here 6 or so weeks instead of the planned 3, I am happy here, and I"m learning so much. Being a missionary is such and blessing and privelege. Every day is a great day. Every day my testimony grows and I learn how to be a better and more obedient missionary. I'm so excited to get out to the field, so please pray for my visa. That's my christmas wish! But I didn't think that a mission would be half this great. Please share my blog address with anyone you want to. Merry christmas! Remember that the real gift of christmas is Jesus Christ.

Love, Dannielle