Happy New Year!

Hello Utahns. How was everyone's New Year's 2012? According to the Mayans, this year is blah dee blah dee whatever. No man knoweth the Second Coming. Even if it does happen, I'll be in the best place doing the best thing. I feel pretty safe.

Scratch one item off my Southern bucket list. Last Night I had GUMBO. It was ok. A bit too much sausage for me. Apparently, there's a thing down here about cooking only instant rice. The only place I've seen a rice cooker is at the Asian buffet we've got here. 

It's been a week of service and the members pulling our arms to get us over for holiday wishes and stuff. We finished constructing Caleb's barbed wire fence, putting a large gate on the final opening. It was fun putting it all together.

On Thursday, we went down to Mississippi with Bro. Pennington, as usual. We gave four Priesthood blessings to the sick and afflicted. Four in one day. It was crazy, but it was cool to do. That was the first time I had given a blessing. It was short, I guess... I'm just hoping I said what needed to be said. There are lots of good people down in Mississippi. A good chunk of them are members, but they don't come to church. It's been a large project for the ward to try and bring them back to church. The missionaries, home teachers and ward mission leader are all in it. It's working, slowly but surely.

With the slowing holidays, we're hoping and praying for better luck with our potential investigators, too. They've been busy running around too much. A lot more of the missionary work can come through members introducing us to their friends. We've been working the last couple months with getting a ward member team-up routine going, and we're finally getting the final steps in for the program to start. We're very excited for it, and we know a lot of good will come of it.

Hope you guys are doing well! I love you all, and Happy New Year!

-Elder Staib

PIctures from the Christmas-New Year Week

Merry Christmas!

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Kind of a shorter post. On the 22nd, our mission had a zone conference consisting of all the missionaries on this side of the river. We had a few lessons, ate lunch, watched "Dolphin Tale" and played a strange live-action version of the board game Battleship. The whole event took 8 hours. We were all beat when it was over. We spent a lot of Christmas Eve helping Caleb Byrd put up more barbed-wire fencing. That project is finally done. It was fun to do! Very different.

On Christmas day, we attended two 1-hour-long sacrament meetings. Many less-active members came, which was nice. Of course, they're the people that would go to church on any given Christmas, so we just need to teach them that coming back is important. The programs were very musical. The Michaelis family had us over for the rest of the day, and we had an awesome barbecue brisket dinner. I got to Skype with my family, and they were all looking happy and healthy. I'm excited for the new year coming! Lots of miracles will happen. Thank you, everyone, for all you've done for me this past year. I love you all.

-Elder Staib

Pictures from the week before Christmas

Christmas is Coming

I hope you guys get a white Christmas. I'll introduce you guys to the family having us over for Christmas dinner - The Michaelis family. I'll talk more on Sunday, I guess. See you guys!

-------------------------------

Heeeeeeeeeey everyone.

While it's on my mind, the football stadium from the last batch of pictures with the banner that says "Home of the Saints" was the exact high school Michael Oher went to in real life. We pass it every time we go to our district meetings every week. Pretty crazy, huh?

Michael Oher's High School
(He was the subject of the movie "The Blind Side")

We've had lots of good times with members this past week, serving others and attending the ward Christmas party. Elder Fry and I got our first Christmas present a couple days ago: Playing cards. The plastic matte stuff. We both got our own set. To be honest, I was surprised to get any presents here at all. I didn't know missionaries got anything from members! I don't really want or need anything for Christmas this year.

We also finally lit up our tree. A family gave us these special glasses that make small snowmen appear around a light, so I took that picture through the lens of the glasses. Pretty cool, huh? In another one of those pictures, you can see a bunch of decorations on top of a P.T. Cruiser. The train on top of the car actually runs. It's the craziest thing I've ever seen.

School is out this week, so we (hopefully) have the chance to teach a lot more this week. It's been hard on our bike week, with the weather changing every day, it seems. My back tire popped on Thursday from another missionary riding it, but we patched it up. Taking a hybrid on a curb? Really?

Anyway... I gotta get going. I'll update you guys on my Christmas experience next week. Have a Merry Christmas, everyone! Love y'all!