Dec. 10, 2012

Hey everyone, I hope everything is going great for all yall in the outside world. Things are still going good here. I learn more and more each week. I feel like I've been doing alot better in my lessons because I can understand and speak french a little past the memorised gospel phrases like "we are all children of God". So now I can actually say things that I didn't already plan on saying beforehand. There are a bunch of new elders and sisters coming into our branch next week. It will be weird being one of the older missionaries. When you first come to the mtc, you feel like the others have been there so long and know so much, then after a few weeks you realise that they actually aren't that far ahead of you. I think it will be funny having the new missionaries thinking that we know so much more than they do. Any way nothing all that eventful happened this past week. All the days just kind of blend together. On sunday, instead of having a speaker at the fireside, we had the BYU mens choir sing. It was pretty good but there were some really weird songs. Like this weird chanting one that sounded like something I would here on a Jake and the Neverland Pirates Christmas Special. But hey it's music so i'll take what I can get. Thanks for all of the letters and packages. My desk is now filled with a mountain of junk food, and a bunch of pictures. I sent mom and dad a letter with my memory card in it so you can update the blog with some pictures. It was fun seeing all the missionaries reactions to their first time seeing snow. Elder Gonzalez was like a kid on Christmas. Today when we were in the temple there was this odd girl who kept shooting me and Elder Williams all these strange looks throughout the session. We looked behid us to see if she was looking at someone else. But no, it was definately us. It creeped us out. Then after her and her husband came and ask us if we were missionaries and where we were going. It was pretty awkward. It was super weird getting the googly eyes in the temple. Anyway that was our last temple trip for december because it will be closed for the next few weeks. Which is sad because we missed last week to go to California. Any way I can't think of anything else exciting to tell you. I love you all and hope everything is going well. Till next week.

Elder Swenson