Elder Rushton and Elder Erickson Christmas Card Picture

Erik called us about 4 PM our time and what a wonderful Christmas Present!  We put him on the speaker phone and recorded the whole call with the Family.

Since Elder Erickson went home last week, Erik has been serving with Elder Gonzalez, another missionary that has been out about 4 months.  He speaks Spanish so they have been doing alot with the Spanish investigators and even had a baptism on Christmas Eve! (See Erik’s post about the details)  The font takes about 6 hours to fill all the way so they had to get to the Stake Center at 4:45 in the morning!

He has a small 3 foot Christmas tree they found in the closet and he had to so some repair work on it. He also got the small one we sent him.  He’s been eating alot of Ham at all the member’s houses and lots of yummy food they all give him.

He spend Christmas Eve with a family that spoke both English and Spanish fluently so they had tomales and ham for dinner and then went home with about 20 gifts to open on Christmas which included new socks! He also inherited a bunch of ties and white shirts from other Missionaries that have gone home.

He really liked the 12 days of Christmas stuff we sent with treats and a gift to open every day.

He is getting a new companion today and he will be the trainer!  He said there were 11 new Missionaries coming in!He was the Temporary District leader after Elder Erickson left, but he is ok with giving up that responsibility to be a trainer.  🙂

We learned from Erik that if they are teaching a family and it’s time for “Jeopardy”–the show that everyone in Michigan loves– then the visit is over!  (Pretty funny)

In his apartment building they have some really good neighbors.  Fed Ex leaves his packages with one of them and an Asian family gives them a good deal on food at their nearby restaurant.

He thinks that he will be coming home in June or July of 2013 although we are not counting the days yet–it’s just nice to know when it will be. Austin will probably leave on his mission in the Spring before Erik gets home but we knew that would happen.

All the roads except 2 in Romeo are dirt so they don’t wash the car and don’t ride bikes because the homes are all about 10 minutes away from each other out in the country.  They are going to try tracting again in town now that he is getting a new companion -they can retry some of the areas that Elder Erickson did before Erik arrived. The weather has been good, no snow and warmer than usual  like it has been in Utah.

He is healthy, sleeping well, and eating good–all the things mom’s worry about.  Matt asked him about being homesick and he said he had been a little over Christmas, but the letters really help.

We are so proud of him and that 2 hour phone call felt like 10 minutes!

Grandpa and Grandma weeks came over and got to talk to him as well.

We are thankful our missionary is safe, happy and doing so well!

Thanks for all your prayers!

Happy New Year!

It was sweet to talk to you guys on the phone yesterday! Everyone all morning has been asking us how fun it was to call our families. After I called you guys last night we went over to Emilio’s for some turkey and just hung out over there for an hour.

So yesterday I found out that I’m training! I’m pretty excited. I have to be clear out in Livonia though by 9:30 which neither I nor Elder Gonzales is happy about. Livonia is about an hour drive from our apartment. Pres. Holmes thanked me for being District Leader for a week too but he’s giving that position to someone else now so I can focus on training. But I’m ok with that.

We got to play some basketball this morning at the church which was fun. There were 12 people there so we split in to teams of 4 each and rotated teams every game. It was wild though because 4 of the guys there were from Pontiac and we played some backyard ghetto basketball. It was really fun. At one point I got stuck guarding a guy who was 6-4 and he totally schooled me—haha.

The baptism on Saturday was really awesome! When you get someone to accept to be baptized it really makes you feel like you’ve done your missionary duty.  The Rochester ward took care of everything for us this time which was sweet. The only thing Elder Gonzales and I had to do was schedule the baptism interview, and start the font at 4:45 in the morning. It was really cool to have a baptism on Christmas Eve and then have her confirmed on Christmas day. She was a little nervous because she didn’t know there was going to be so many people at church on Sunday. (Because it was Christmas) With both wards and a branch combined there was about 300 people there. But it was still a good baptism.

I don’t really know what else to write since I just talked to you guys yesterday– haha. I guess it’s been fun hanging out in Pontiac for a week. It reminded me of all the fun time I had in the Detroit Ghetto. Pontiac looks a lot like Detroit, but the crime isn’t as bad. We spent some time in Rochester Hills last week too and they had a really cool Christmas display on main st. Every single store had strands of lights all down the walls. It reminded me a lot of the house in Christmas vacation!

Well I’m pretty much out of time. Thanks for all the letters and Christmas presents! I was a little homesick during the Christmas season (which is understandable I guess) but the gifts and letters made home feel not so far away. Thanks for everything, and have a great week!

-Love Erik