Christmas at the CCM!

What an amazing week! Although I was away from home, Christmas at the CCM was fantastic!

On Christmas Eve, all 7 of us (just the girls in my district) piled into one of our apartments. We were totally kids at heart 'cause we built a huge fort out of our couch cushions and mattresses! Then we told stories and ate food till we passed out around the early hour of 10:45pm ;) Of course I was the first to fall asleep, and in the morning everyone commented on my loud snoring! haha

Christmas Day was the best! In the morning there was a talent show which was incredible. When you have a ton of kids from all over the world in one place for the holidays - there is some serious talent! My favorite act was a magician who did some really neat tricks. He just kept pulling out umbrellas and handkerchiefs from thin air!! Then we ate lunch in the main campus MTC cafeteria. Let me just say, that although west campus has more space in the living quarters...the food on main campus is a 100 times better! We feasted until we were on the verge of exploding! Then we weighed ourselves in the main campus gym (since west campus doesn't have any scales). All the guys have packed on the pounds here! In just 2 weeks one of the elders has gained 10 pounds already! I have lost 1 pound so far.

After lunch, we had the opportunity of hearing from an Apostle of the Lord! David A. Bednar and his wife came and carried out a Q&A session with us. He said what we did had never been done before: they passed out 200 cell phones to people in the audience and had them text a question to his iPad that was with him on the stand! And it wasn't just our MTC, 17 other MTCs around the world texted or emailed in questions that Elder Bednar answered throughout the devotional! So many questions that I had were answered!  My favorite quote from him was, "If you sincerely seek to understand the enabling power of the Savior's atonement, you will have the assurance that you will be able to accomplish all that you need to accomplish in the place where you were assigned to work."

Right after the devotional we had some free time to take pictures and hang out with the people in our zone. I seriously have been blessed with the coolest zone ever. There are about 25 people total, and boy do we have fun! I am always laughing- sometimes to the point of tears around them! 

We walked around the main campus and admired all of the amazing paintings and pictures they have that cover every wall. I fell in love with this painting of Christ standing on the water and calming the storm.

Then we attended a Jazz concert put on by Ray Smith (a famous saxaphone player). I really enjoyed it, but it might have been too relaxing because everyone else started dozing off!

The final thing we did to end the night, was watch the Tabernacle Choir. They passed out popcorn to all the missionaries

  and the best part of the choir performance was when the broadway singer who plays Jean Val Jean from Les Miserables sang "Bring Him Home!" I was dying!! It was awesome! I was exhausted by the time we got bussed back to west campus, but it certainly was a very spiritual and memorable Christmas.

I love my Savior and I am so grateful to be a representative of Him during this time as a missionary. I love this church and know with all my hear that it is true!

Some other events that happened later this week include: saying goodbye to Hermana Edwards who finally left for Mexico :) And I also got called as our new district leader because the older leaders left this week for Argentina. Being a district leader means I'm in charge of running our meetings, picking up the mail, interviewing the other girls in my district each week, and setting/helping us achieve our goals of coming closer to Christ and becoming better missionaries.

I love you all and hope you had a wonderful Christmas and enjoy a Happy New Year this week!

Hermana Eliason