CHRISTMAS EVE/CHRISTMAS DAY

Dear Family,
It has been an exciting day. I will tell you about last nights events and then go on from there.
It started off with a devotional from Presidents Clegg and Breinhold and their wives. They spoke on the gifts God gave us like music, writing, acting and sports etc; They also spoke of gifts of the spirit and of tongues. (Thanks mom for having me study the gifts of the spirit.) Sister Clegg spoke on the gift of service and what good and bad service for missionaries is. We all said "Yep" if we thought it was good and "ugh" if we thought it was bad. Some service is dangerous and should not be done by missionaries. President Clegg showed a video. He was part of the conversion story of Thurl Bailey in Italy. Cool, huh? After, President Breinhold told some cool mission stories and Sister Clegg read the Christmas Story in Luke 2.

Then, on the way to the residence hall we went. A super hero came at 10:00. I will send a picture of him and me. After singing The Lion Sleeps Tonight in the Zone leaders room and some hymns it was time for bed. Christmas Morning Waking at 6 a.m. I lay in my bed to see if my comp would get up to his alarm. He didn't so I waited till 6:15 and started opening presents. I loved all of them. I ate a can of spaghetti rings for b-fast with the spoon thing Dad gave me. I had too, it was just so cool and shiny. The pictures were awesome. It was cool my teachers were in there. The picture of Megan and me was a surprise. That fish is huge. (a photo of his grandparents in Alaska with his uncle and a big fish they caught.)The picture of Jordan and me was awesome. I put it on the front of my journal along with the crazy picture of the family. After playing with the little bug and busting some tricks on the brain?(we don't know what this is) it was time for Breakfast.
I didn't eat, we left at about 8:15 and headed to the gym for the talent show!!! We needed to be in our seats an hour early. The show started early at 9:15 with President Smith jamming out on the harmonica. And then. . . . . we were up. DJ Chadwick" I heard. "The Ragland Band" They announced our names and that we were doing an MTC tribute. (you will have my new sd card by the end of the week. The video will most likely be up on Youtube under "The greatest MtC song in the World.) Elder Oswald started playing the intro . . . . This is the greatest MTC song in the world,"" The crowd went nuts and when I say nuts I mean it. All the MTC presidency was laughing and cheering too. We were only the second act and we received a standing ovation. (See YouTube video below. We don't know who put it on but it's there) Anyway, we will get a video of it to you some how. So we then watched a lot of talented people and some not so but it was still good. It lasted two hours or more.
At lunch this girl flipped out and her face went redder than her hair. It was very interesting. My comp thought the same thing.
After the turkey lunch thing and shaking a lot of peoples hands, we went to get good seats at the afternoon devotional. Guess Who came? Elder Russell M. Nelson and his wife. His wife talked about signs and had a couple good quotes. The only thing bad about it is that she told every one that Santa is not real. The presidents of the MTC's grand children were on the first row and they began to cry. I felt really bad. Everyone said she shouldn't have done that. I agree.
Elder Nelson spoke of things we should do as misisonaries and told a couple of stories of his own. I will write them down later. He read us the Crhistmas story and read to us the Living Crhist. He testified and blessed us that if were good and focused on the task at hand we would be successful.
We have three new sisters in our Zone. One was sick so they all missed the talent show. We received special permission to check out a guitar one more time and play for them. We went over to the main building and looked for the sisters. When we found them, Elder Nelson came through the front door. He had 5 BYU police around him at all times. I was ten feet away from him at one point, never got to shake his hand.
So we played for the sisters and the one that was sick. Sister Cubaias, played the ukulele. She is from Hawaii. After a sack dinner and a nap, (I love naps on P-days, only thirty minutes is allowed) we went to the gym once more and there were two men that acted out a Christmas Carol. Elder Nelson spoke again and we left to our residence hall with an assignment to read some scriptures as a room. So we did as directed and learned more about the Christ child and His early life. I know Jesus is the Christ and he lives and loves us. Love, E. Chadwick