Week 10: Gemma's Baptism and Christmas

Hello everyone! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I hope you all enjoyed your Christmas season in your respective states, and I hope you spent it in warm weather! (if not, dont worry. I'm feeling for you!) SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED in the past week! First of all, I have to apologize for not emailing on my normal day, which is Monday. It was a bank holiday here in England, which meant we cant email. So I thank you for your patience :) Also, pictures! From last week and this week! I will likely be sending them in two emails, mainly because I cannot send them all in a single email. The sencond one will likely be just last week's missing pictures. But I hope you all enjoy seeing them as much as I enjoyed actually living them ;)

First of all...

BAPTISM!

Thats right!!! Elder Spencer has finally had his first baptism! On December 22nd, 2010, Gemma Boyes was baptised and washed completely clean! It was such a memorable experience (see first and second picture) and she really really enjoyed it! Gemma is 26 years old and has two beautiful children, Jaden (9) and Mia (3). Our next goal is to begin teaching Jaden and have him baptised as well!

On December 23rd, 2010, the Southern Portion of the England Leeds mission traveled to the Harrogate US Millitary Base! It was so nice to be surrounded by Americans again, and to read the prices as $$$ instead of £££. It felt like home :) We started off with some bowling (see third picture) and I had a nice juicy texas burger, followed by going to the rec center and playing some sports! I spent two hours playing raquetball (which I havent played in literally over 10 years, unfortunately) and I loved it! I definately have a sport I want to get back into when I get back to BYU :) After that, we watched Scrooge with President and Sister Lindley (our mision president and his wife) and acted out the nativity (I played a wise man). We then had dinner, and passed out post and packages from our friends and family that had arrived at the mission office. It was so much fun! I cant wait til next Christmas ;)

So, also, Christmas happened!!! I got presents! (See fourth picture) I was quite excited :) Elder Pass and I shared Christmas morning with Leeds 2 Elders (Elder Parham and Elder Young) where we had a HUGE English breakfast (that we cooked ourselves) and opened presents, followed by a heated game of monopoly (in which I won, I might add; see fifth picture) Afterward Elder Pass and I had tea (dinner in America, remember?) with the McCan family, and went to the Glynn family's home to skype and call our own families :) Which was also a great experience! I loved Christmas! And I hope you all did as well :)

This week is sure to see many miracles, so I will continue to write them to you and take pictures! I hope you are still enjoying them! Dont forget to write me! Remember, ANYONE can write me an email :) I just cant write them back... lol

Love you all!

Elder Gabriel Spencer

P.S. It gets really foggy in England sometimes... Like yesterday. (See epic sixth picture)

P.P.S. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

P.P.P.S. We didnt technically have a P-day last week, so I was unable to write letters to ANYONE. Sorry :-/ But I tried my best to make up for it over this past p-day, I promise!