December 28, 2015 - Elder Biehn's Weekly Update

First off I want to wish everybody Merry Christmas for the last time until 2016, and I hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas as well! I sure did and pretty much this entire week. It has been interesting to say the least. Not only were there a ton of meeting and parties and what not (which means little proselyting time), but all of our investigators and less actives left for vacations. So we got practically nothing done in that sense. However, we did manage to visit a lot of members which was well needed. We spent a lot of time at member’s homes this week visiting them and basically trying to get to know them better.

Now some of the REALLY cool things I did this week happened on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day. First, Christmas Eve. Like I said in my last letter, my mission was performing in a choir for the Washington DC Temple Visitor center. The show turned out great! However I ended up not singing. Not because I was being lazy, or had stage fright, nothing like that. That is because I opted out of singing in order to record the whole thing. Yep, I know, that's typical of me. I prefer to be behind the camera anyways. But that's what I needed to be doing because the senior couple in charge of putting the whole thing together hadn't planned to record any of it. At least not until I went and talked to them, which ended up putting me in charge of the whole tech part of the show. (I was not complaining about that, by the way). So I wrangled together what few cameras that were available and I tried my best to record the whole thing. Now I have some footage and these upcoming few weeks will be spent editing the recordings. (Still not complaining). I'm hoping that I can deliver on what everyone is expecting to be a great performance.

Now for Christmas... Oh man, best part was talking to my family, hands down. Of course opening presents was nice because I got some stuff I needed, some fun stuff, and candy... Lots and lots of candy. Christmas Day was spent visiting members for practically the whole day. Them feeding us as well, not as much as Thanksgiving but still a good amount that I was sufficiently full. It's funny to think how Christmas just came and is gone once again. It honestly didn't feel much like Christmas, being a missionary and all really separates you from the world and all the gift shopping and craziness of the holidays, and really helps to focus on the Savior. So in a sense, every day is Christmas for me, just without the presents and talking to my family.

My family did something really cool for me. They went to friends and family and asked to donate a tie so that my family can put together a 12 ties of Christmas. It was great to be able to open one present every morning and see the new tie, who it came from, and their story behind it. Thanks to everybody who helped make my Christmas great even here in Virginia. Now with the New Year, it's time to get back to work in serving the Lord.

Elder Biehn

December 21, 2015 - Elder Biehn's Weekly Update

Hey everybody!

So this is my last Pday before Christmas which means lots to do. We have our last choir practice before our performance in the temple visitor center this Christmas Eve. Speaking of Christmas, we had our Christmas parties this week as well. Both for the mission and for my ward. The mission Christmas conference was awesome because we got to listen to President Huntsman speak about the Savior, had a lunch provided for us, and then had a talent show! It was so funny to watch the talent show. There were a lot of cool acts, especially ours. The Spanish program did an act where we sang and danced to Feliz Navidad. We were all dressed up in traditional Hispanic clothing and it was awesome. I'll include a picture. Then our ward Christmas party was great. Lots of people, lots of food, and then dancing. But I'm not allowed to dance so I didn't do any of that. But still, it was fun! After being in a ward for more than 3 months, the members become great friends.

Merry Christmas! And remember what is the purpose of Christmas, it is our Savior!

Love Elder Biehn

December 14, 2015 - Elder Biehn's Weekly Update

Hey guys!

So not really all that much to report on for this week, nothing too crazy happened. Although, I did have transfers on Thursday. But don't worry, I didn't get transferred. Neither did Elder Castillo so we are still together. Neither did the other two elders in my district. In fact the only change that happened was one of the hermanas finished her mission and went home. So now Hermana Craner is in my district again! I'm super excited because we were in the CCM together and now we are finally serving together again. It'll be just like old times, haha. It only took 9 months to happen. Now if only I could get to serve with Elder Everett again, that would be cool!

But other than that, nothing too interesting. This past week was honestly kind of boring. But the upcoming week... Should be fun. We have plans to go to the temple with some of our investigators, there is the mission Christmas party, our ward Christmas party. Lots of cool stuff going on. So next week should be a pretty good email, unlike this one.

Love you guys and you'll hear from me next week!

Love Elder Biehn

December 7, 2015 - Elder Biehn's Weekly Update

Hello!

So this letter is going to be a bit short because we have choir practice today and I still need to go and do shopping, etc. P-Day things. We only have about 2 more weeks before we (as a mission) perform in the Washington D.C. Temple Visitor Center on Christmas Eve for the Festival of Lights. I think we sound great and it should be an awesome experience. It will be my first time being in a choir, and it'll be my first time singing in front of people.

But I had a really cool experience this past week. Recently, we found a less active member and have been trying to teach her and get her active again. She is really cool, from Nicaragua (don't see that too much here) and acts a lot like a grandma with us. Anyways, we had a lesson with her on Friday and we had Obispo (Bishop) with us. It's a good thing because otherwise we wouldn't have been able to go in. I haven't even seen her husband because he works all the time. So, not only was she home, but also her sister, her friend, and a much younger girl as well. We had already planned on talking about Joseph Smith and the Restoration, so this was perfect! We were able to get them interested by talking about the temple and inviting them to the Festival of Lights, then about other church activities as well. Then we get to the lesson. We were able to talk solely on the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. The spirit was SO strong and it was exactly what I was looking for. I was able to testify of the Restored Gospel so strongly that I even surprised myself! It seemed like they were starting to drift (fall asleep) but once I started talking and testifying, they were wide awake and paying attention. At the end, they were even asking where the church is and what time it starts (but they didn't come yesterday ). We got everyone's contact info and a plan to meet again this upcoming Friday. It was a great lesson and exactly what I needed.

Love you guys and you'll hear from me next week!

Elder Biehn

P.S. Merry Christmas! It's coming up fast!