Christmas is coming, the pig is getting fat...

Sorry, having blogger problems, can't type in between pictures for some reason...

Michael is loving the 12 days of Christmas package sent from the aunts and cousins, especially American candy!

Picture of sky

Can you guess which window belongs to the Elders?

Santa brass band outside the bloc

They are so excited about their tree!

Prietenilor!
Christmas is so close! Within a week! This is probably the biggest holiday in Romania, with maybe the exception of Easter, which is also huge. It's great to have Christmas so close and to be so close to talking with my fam on skype and everything haha the only downside is that half of our investigators will be scattered across the country with their families for Christmas. Still, it's going to be great! We've already had a brass band dressed up as santas Christmas caroling behind our bloc! Elder Lee and I are thinking of making a Christmas feast of pork and stuff on Christmas day after church.
This was a good week. We had exchanges on Wednesday and Thursday, so I was in Bucharest with Elder Johnsen, one of the Zone Leaders, for those 2 days. It was a fun exchange. We met with some cool investigators that the Zone Leaders have up there, and we managed not to die in the fog-filled drive we had to Bucharest. :) The weekend was really good, we had a great church meeting, with plenty of people there. A member of the district presidency came to give a talk during sacrament meeting, and I gave the other. Then we realized that our priesthood teacher was gone (he missed his train from Caracal, where he lives), so Elder Lee and I planned a quick lesson and gave it. It seemed like the general theme of church was figuring out what we need to do in life, developing a desire to do it, and then doing it. We had a lot of quotes from the April conference that came up, such as Elder Uchtdorf's analogy of having the best computer on earth and not using it to its fullest potential by turning it on, reading the manual, and learning how the programs run, which was related to desiring to do well, but then not doing all we can do (being baptized but ending progression there, coming to church but not listening, being a member but not reading the scriptures, listening to the prophets, etc.). It was a really good discussion we had and also a really good Sacrament meeting, despite the music ha. I played piano and played one of the traditional Romanian Christmas hymns, which I don't really know how to play, but which the members sang well to, then played the Christmas hymns I know but none of the members did. Also, at one point the electric keyboard decided it was going to help me play by giving me a nice drumset recording for me to play my songs to. Haha it was great :)
I hope all of you have a great week and a great Christmas! Until next week!

Căci un Copil ni S-a născut,
un Fiu ni S-a dat,
şi domnia va fi pe umărul Lui;
Îl vor numi:
„Minunat,
Sfetnic,
Dumnezeu tare,
Părintele veşniciilor,
Domn al păcii.”
Isaia 9:6

Vă doresc vouă un Crăciun fericit!
Elder Michael Abbott