never challenge latinos to enchilada making contests

12/26/17

ah man merry christmas!!! seriously the awesomest time of the year!! its been fun here out on the mission to be able to focus all of it on everyone else and totally lose yourself in the work. too many awesome experiences with that!!

got to go on exchanges again in the mandarin area and learn some more mandarin and get a feel for how it was the first few weeks of the mission. not understanding a word anyone is saying and just nodding like you know at least something going on. and praying they didnt do anything craaazy and like ask you a question or something. like that could ever happen. but it was an awesome time! we taught some ladies the plan of salvation and that was awesome! i love getting to see people learn these things for the first time, realizing where they came from why theyre here and where theyre going. its always an incredible experience. haha and then at the end we got asked out by our investigators to go on a "very exciting christmas double date" and we had to explain that we couldnt do that. and that we're like a decade younger than them... everyone thinks im like 28 here no idea what thats about. but super sweet ladies and an awesome lesson! 

heard sister Garcia talking about her enchiladas and may have accidentally challenged her to see who could make the best. it got a little too serious and scary but it ended well and my enchiladas are "mexican approved" so all is well. hers are pretty good too...

we went out knocking doors the other day and had some cool experiences! we knocked this lady's door and right away she was like holy get the heck inside you guys are gonna die out there haha so that was super nice cause yeah its freaking like cold and we were walking knee deep in snow and we got talking to this lady and her sister had actually died just a few days prior so we talked about that, asked if there was anything we could do for her and her family and she asked us to come back after the holiday and we said a prayer together and left her with a message on peace and it was sweet to see how the Lord's timing works! i love that so much about the mission. the Lord's timing is SO awesome!!

we got to spend christmas eve and christmas with a bunch of different families and seriously had the best time! such sweet families here that take care of us. they gave us presents full of candy and treats and giftcards and buck knives for some reason haha but ah man i felt so much love from these wonderful families. and we tried to visit all of them delivering cookies and each family invited us in to talk and have hot chocolate and ah i just love it here so much. totally worth the cold haha. 

christmas was too awesome!!! ah i loved it. talking to my family was incredible. weird getting ready to do it i dont know if its like that for everyone but i dont think ive ever had so much anxiety going in to talk to anyone before haha. i was shaking i dont know it was just weird to imagine legit talking to my family. but man i couldnt ask for a greater christmas present than for that opportunity to talk to them. i love this mission so much!!! this season is so incredible and we are SO lucky to have our Savior Jesus Christ. and i feel incredibly lucky to have this opportunity to help other find that same gratitude after finding Christ for themselves. i love this gospel so much and i love you all so much!! i cant thank you all enough for the things youve sent me and for writing me and everything!! i have so much love for all of you and seriously owe you all so much for helping me so much!! i hope you all have an awesome christmas and an awesome new year!!! love you all so much!!-Elder Halliday  

Whoa, so you’re feeling pretty confident about your enchiladas now?  I’m so proud of you!!! Your future family will be so impressed to have a dad/husband that can cook!!!hahahha yeah i was pretty overconfident. they ended up pretty soupy but they turned out SO good and everyone said they were incredible. i put some other things in them and they turned out quite nice. of course sister garcia's were very good too...