Week 80: Tuesday December 16, 2014

Dear Family,

   As Christmas time approaches, my schedule and responsibilities only seem speed up! This past Monday we traveled to Dumagete for our annual Christmas conference. What a special time! It was so great to see so many missionaries gathered together in one building. I especially enjoyed speaking to previous companions and building new relationships with others as we discussed Christmas and participated in the mission talent show. We arrived back in Escalante yesterday after many hours of traveling. When we arrived back to our apartment, I dropped my bag and fell onto my bed. For the past 3 weeks me and Elder Villamater have not been able to hardly work at all in our area. We have had transfers, the storm, our meetings in Cebu, our trip to Dumagete...so much traveling! As exhausting as it has been, it has also been an adventure! Every second has been exciting and I have learned so much along the way.

   Okay, let's move on to the important stuff. We get to see each other next week! I'm so excited and I know that you all are too. I will give you an outline of what I am hoping is able to happen. Please keep in mind that because I am in an area that does not have much and is so far away, you may have to be patient and we may have to improvise a little bit. I am hoping that we will be able to do Google Hangout once again. We are hoping to go to a members home on Christmas day. She has agreed to let us use her I-pad so that the connection will hopefully be better and it will be more private. We will go over there tonight and I will take a look at it. I'm hoping that she has Google Chrome so that it will work. If I absolutely cannot get it to work, we may have to settle for a Skype call. I know that it is not ideal, but we will just have to see what happens. If this is the case, I am going to have to know all of your Skype names. I have not created a Skype, so if I need to I will create one the day of. I will do my best to call around 10:00 am on December 25(Philippines) which I believe will be 7:00 pm on December 24 in America. If there are any questions or concerns, please e-mail me today so that I can have a plan!

   That's about it for this week. Oh, by the way, I have conjunctivitis (pink eye). I've had it for about a week. It hurts, but is starting to go down. I'm hoping that it goes away by next week so that you can't make fun of me. Thank you all sooo much for the awesome letters and pictures! If anyone is on right now, feel free to write me so we can chat for a bit. I love you all!

Elder Staheli.