12/28/2020

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas this week. 

For me and Elder Knight, our Christmas this year was pretty good. We went to a member’s house for dinner and ate really good Turkey and ham. We also had super good pumpkin pie. We had a really good night as well. We made a couple phone calls wishing people we are teaching and members of our branch a Merry Christmas and stuff. We called our families and opened our Christmas presents as well. So it was a pretty nice and fun day. 

On Christmas Eve we had our District Christmas Party and did a white Elephant Exchange. I ended up getting a dinosaur puppet toy. It's pretty fun to play with haha. We decided to go caroling in the Seguin Park as a district finding activity and that ended up going really well. We lots of fun singing Christmas songs to people and ended up talking to more than we thought. 

On Wednesday we did a secret Santa for a family which was super fun. We brought a bunch of Christmas presents that some of the other wards around had put together to a family in our branch who basically had not a lot for Christmas. We set the presents on their porch and doorbell ditched them. When we got to our car we weren't too sure what we should do, like if we should go or wait but I'm glad we waited. We saw like 4 or 5 kids swing around the corner of their house with the biggest smiles I've ever seen and they were so happy. They kept yelling “Thank you!” and “Merry Christmas!” The mom of the family was so happy and almost overwhelmed with joy. We were so happy that we decided to do that and it's just one of my favorite memories of my mission and Christmas now. 

Me and Elder Knight have done lots of street contacting this week and on Saturday we had lots of success. We found about 5 new people to teach but mostly preferring English. We had a second lesson with one family on Sunday night and it was super amazing. We began to teach the plan of salvation and the importance and role of a family. We were teaching a father and daughter that night the Spirit was very special. We began to teach them about agency and about how our Heavenly Father loves us and knows us personally. We talked about how miracles can happen and some things happen for a reason. By the end of our lesson we gave them a copy of the Book of Mormon and invited them to church next Sunday. They seemed pretty interested in coming.

I've been reflecting a little this week about how this last year has been going and it’s been wonderful. I've thought about all the blessings and miracles I've seen from being on a mission and many more things that my Heavenly Father has done for me. This year my testimony of the church has grown so much and especially about The Book of Mormon. It’s definitely been a crazy year but I know that our Heavenly Father has been there to help us get through it. I'm so happy to be here in the mission and serving others. I hope that you all have a wonderful week and a great start to a new year. Love y'all. 

-Elder Portlock 

Pictures:

1. Our Christmas tree and presents. 

2. Me and Elder Knight decided to go to B-dubs this week. 

3. We ate Christmas Breakfast at a member’s house. On Christmas eve.

4. Me and Elder Knight delivering the presents for the secret Santa.