WEEK 23

Mom's commentary:

Joseph's birthday was the  19th.  We sent him a package for his birthday back in September.  It got lost a couple of times from the mission home.  I  heard at Christmas time that he finally got it the week before his birthday. 

Mom's Email:

On Sat, Dec 17, 2016 at 9:17 PM, LAURA BUTTERS <laurabutters@q.com> wrote:

So you're a 20 year old man...;p  When did that happen.  Happy Birthday!!Hopefully you will get your birthday present one of these days.

The next emails will have Paul Cardell Piano solos "40 Hymns for 40 Days".  2 were not in the Hymnal so I'm only sending 38 and they download in seconds but upload to email in hours so they will come in small groups over the next 2 or three weeks. HAHA.  I really like his arrangements on the piano.  Hope you will to.

Your Grandma is giving you $10 for your birthday and $20 for Christmas and expects to hear back how you spend them.

BTW..A baptism on my birthday is the best present a missionary mom could ask for.  Good Job!

Happy Birthday and may all your righteous wishes come true.

Love you exceeding abundantly,

MOM

Joseph's reply:
 Well, Thank you guys for sending me some money. I will try hard to find something to spend it on haha, I may have to wait until January when we go into town before I can get much though.

Also I Love the Music. Thank you so much!

So on my Birthday we had another set of the Elders (my Zone leader and his trainee) come down and spend the day with us. They happen to both have the Birthday of Dec 19th. It is incredible that out of the 8 elders in our Zone, 3 of them of the same birthday haha! Anyway we made some good food, Chopoti, beef stew and Col-slaw.  Then we made some French fries later. It was Delicious. We spent a good part of the day playing Pool (pretty much the only activity we can find around here haha) it cost us a whooping 60 cents to play for about 2 hours. We then went back to the Apartment and waited for the power to come back...

Anyway it was fun but I miss you guys! (and Snow, its way too hot here...)

Love - elder butters

Mom's more commentary:

I sent him another email about upcoming Christmas and his reply.

On Sat, Dec 17, 2016 at 9:27 PM, LAURA BUTTERS <laurabutters@q.com> wrote:

Heri ya Krismasi!

So you get to call home for Christmas.  You are 11 hours ahead of us.  Your dad works Christmas Day and I will still be over in Manson with Dustin, Kaylee and the Girls.  If you can give us, especially your dad a  heads up on when you are able to make that call it would help.  He isn't usually busy on Christmas but you never know.  He does get up pretty early so that might be your best bet.  Me, well I will sleep with my phone or keep it in my pocket and you can call me whenever and guarantee I will answer. I wonder if they will have reception over there....they didn't on the San Juan Islands...: p.   If you can just give us a guestamation we will figure it out. 

Merry Christmas exceeding abundantly!

MOM

Joseph's reply: 

So I should be calling between 7:00 and 8:00 pm my time if all goes well