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Saturday, January 2, 2016

Conferences - Letter to Mom - 01 January, 2016

Dear Mom,

How are you doing this week? How was the week after Christmas and the New Year?? Happy New Year!!! :D Have you done anything fun today or yesterday? I would love to hear all about it! The New Year is
definitely the bigger holiday here. They love to celebrate it! Haha it is really nice for missionary work. It is really fun to just talk to people about their different new year's resolutions and what they want for the rest of their lives. It is a really easy way to introduce how God is always there to help us and will lift us up. It is also an incredibly easy way to talk about the Book of Mormon, but I will probably talk about that more in my email to Dad. :)

This week has been SOOO busy! I am pretty sure that Wednesday and Thursday both had at least 48 hours in them haha. :) It was pretty crazy. We had our mission Christmas conferences on those two days, and
we were in charge of everything! So it was pretty crazy. We had to make sure that all of the assignments were made, that everything was set up, and then conduct the meeting and help with the flow throughout the entire meeting. It was pretty stressful, looking back on it. It was a good stress, though, just helping Elder Richardson and I push even harder and work harder to be better missionaries. It was so much fun. I will give you a run down of how the day went:

We woke up early to set up and make sure that all of the preparations were done. Then we had to herd everyone into the chapel and make sure that they were seated reverently studying. After the meeting started
we had some spiritual messages from various speakers (people in the mission presidency and stake presidencies and the Area Medical Advisor). It was so good. We then had a short break and then did some Christmas song singing together, in your language of choice! Haha It was definitely a cacophony of languages just ringing with Christmas Spirit. :) Then President Wada taught us all about the promised land and the Book of Mormon. He is SO good at reading the Book of Mormon, it is insane. I have definitely built such a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon because of the principles he has taught us to apply. I am so grateful for his example.

After that we went and we had lunch! It was this fantastic lunch that Sister Wada had a group of people help make. It was basically Cafe Rio style burritos and things to go along with that. So good. After that we had Santa come and direct a white elephant gift exchange. Then we had people open some stockings so that everybody could see what we got from President and Sister Wada. They got us these INCREDIBLE pins for our suits (or necklaces for the girls) that had the mission logo on it. :) It was so cool. :) I will have to send pictures soon. :) Then we had everybody help clean up and head back into the chapel for a mission slideshow (not the one that was sent to you, but a different one) and then everybody sang the mission song that an Elder Wrote a year or two ago, and then we had a testimony meeting that always went about an hour longer than scheduled (President was anticipating that, I think. :) haha)

And that was the schedule! After that we had to clean up and things like that, so it was really really busy. But it turned out so good, and Elder Richardson and I feel like we really did our part well. The Lord definitely helped everything fall into place! :D

The other biggest highlight of the week (in my opinion) was that we got to meet R!! Do you remember him?? :D He is one of the investigators that I had last time I was in Kichijoji. He is one of my best friends in Japan. I love him so much. He is completely fluent in English, but we use Japanese sometimes too. After Elder Driscoll and I left he kind of disappeared off of the face of the planet. So, now he is back! We are trying to get him going again on the path to Baptism, so that is going to be really good. :) We made a lot of new year goals with him based on the Gospel of Jesus Christ principles, and set up the expectation that we will be in contact with him daily. He is one of my best friends. Please pray that he will continue to meet with us!

This has been a good week, and my testimony has definitely been strengthened. It has blown my mind to think about this next year and everything that is going to be happening. This is a big year for me. Basically all of the biggest things that will happen in my life happen this year. Haha It is going to be an adventure. I look forward to having the Lord's help in all that happens. I love you so much, Mom. I miss you, but I am excited to see you later THIS year! ;D haha Keep working hard and taking care of the family for me, okay?? I love you!!

Love,

Elder Livingston

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