Christmas 2014

Hello Ho Ho Houghtons! And everyone else!

Thank you all so much for the Christmas cards, gifts, stockings and for the wonderful chance to see my most favorite people in this world!  It has been such a wonderful Christmas week, one that I will remember for the rest of my life!

Christmas Eve was so much fun! We had our mission Christmas party! So all of the missionaries in our mission came.  We have such great elders and sisters here! We had a talent show which was great! Missionaries sang Christmas songs, played the piano/ violin, one sister in our district danced point,(I thought about you Rach) some did some missionary raps, others sang about orange juice, and Elder Walker did a Hoop dance-I was so proud! It was so much fun! I was so happy I got to see elder Walker again because he leaves on New Year's Eve, I am going to miss him a ton! ( he was my trainer BTW) Then we had a fun white elephant gift! We had all types of things from cheap family
dollar gifts to full TV's! :) while I was there I got to see Elder Gammon!!! This made me so happy but it blew my mind, I mean I was baptized on the same day as this kid-- we even talked about serving together when we were younger so yeah a little crazy. Not to mention having Elder Tomilson there.  We graduated together, we were in seminary together,and we went to mission prep classes together! It is kind of nice having a familiar face from home here in the mission! :) just awesome!

Celebrating their 9th birthday together best friends--Sean Gammon and Todd Houghton

Elder Sean Gammon

After the incredible party we then went caroling with a bunch of families from the ward.  We had a huge caravan going around and it was super warm like over 50 degrees! So all we needed was a light jacket.  We had the windows rolled down and everyone we saw on the street we wished/yelled a Merry Christmas to them! We went to several places like an old folks home and the lobbies of apartment buildings where some members lived, and after we sang all of us missionaries just dispersed and handed out a ton of those "He is The Gift" cards! I loved it so much and we ate a lot! Then after all that we had dinner with members. It was a full day!

Christmas morning I woke up and the Santa/postman came! Bearing packages,boxes and bags. We had the ASL elders come over in the morning to open all of our packages. I got to make breakfast for them as well. Mom you would be proud my cooking, just saying. It was so much fun, then I made some cookies that we could take to some of our investigators, and because of it one lady we have been trying meet with let us in! She was really impressed that even on Christmas we went out
trying to help people. So hopefully this will let us get in next time to teach her! We did that for awhile! Then I got to talk to you guys! And that made me so happy! It made you feel a lot closer! I just loved
it!  We spent the rest of the day at the Pulleys and had dinner with them.  We also got to watch one G rated movie! So we watched Monsters University! That felt weird. It was a great Christmas!

The next day elder and sister Ray- a senior couple from Becky and Dan's Ward in Kaysville came to do deep clean of our apartment! By the way they think the world of the Bryan family! Kind of a cool
connection and I still can't believe that the Bryan's are moving to Idaho! I am super excited for all of them! Idaho is going to love them! Anyways we did a deep clean from 11 to 5 and now our apartment
is super clean! It makes me super happy!

The rest of the week was great, we have a baptism set with Luis! So I am so excited for him!

I love you all and I love this work and I am so grateful for the chance to be here in the Lord's vineyard!

Love Elder Todd Houghton

Skyping with Elder Houghton!

The best part of Christmas :)

When you are in the service of your fellow men you are in the service of your God.