Blacker, Dekan

     There's so much I wish I could say right now that I can't because there's a lot of interesting things happening right now that I can't talk about, but luckily for you guys there's also a lot of interesting things I can talk about, so enjoy those.        Something I neglected to say on my last email is that I legitimately accidentally ran into my cousin and got to talk with him which was so much fun because it had been over 3 years since I'd last seen him. Me and my comp had stopped at a church building to use the bathroom and I checked out the cultural hall to see what was happening and sure enough they were setting up for the return party of a missionary in my cousins mission. Then I asked the returned missionary if they knew my cousin and sure enough they did and told me he would be coming to the party, which was so exciting and crazy. I hadn't communicated with him directly in years and had no idea where in the world he was so it was crazy to a...

      It's Christmas! And it actually feels a lot more like Christmas this year opposed to the last few, maybe it's because of the snow. Speaking of, there's a LOT of snow. I've made my verdict on snow and I've determined that I am not a fan, especially when it's snowing. Snow on the ground is alright, but when it's falling from the sky I really don't like it. One of the biggest reasons for that is that the sun doesn't come out. The sky is just gray and gloomy all day and I've noticed that by the end of those days I'm just rather annoyed and susceptible to a bad thought process. Luckily, what I've been taught has helped tremendously. For me to be able to recognize and identify the lies is a game changer and in addition to that I've found it's really helpful for me to take a 15-20 minute break at a church building and just play the piano. I'm not the greatest at the piano, but I've been learning the hymn Reverently and Meek...

     I don't have a ton to say about Thanksgiving week, but I had a fantastic experience that I want to tell you guys about. I did get permission from my mission president to get lunch with my family, so that was cool to see them for an hour. It also was weird, all 3 of my brothers look very noticeably different than they did 9 months ago and I don't like it, I now understand why my parents kept telling me to stop growing up.       If you guys recall I've been feeling really spiritually powerful recently and even felt so ambitious as to wanting to essentially curse somebody and that's because of what our mission president told us recently. He said to us that he feels like there's going to be a lot of people who when they die will realize the true power of the priesthood and that they'll realize that they didn't use it. He told us to use the priesthood and the keys that we've been given for our area. We've been called to act in the place of the Savior...