Jan 1 2014 Email

Wow, what a past couple of weeks. We have been super crazy so I haven’t had time to send an email since the beginning of December, but boy a lot has happened. 

So before Christmas was great. We had a Temple Conference with a few zones of missionaries and the mission president. There was a lot of missionaries who sang and played the piano. and a few people gave talks on Christmas. I played the piano for an Elder who sang The First Noel. Not gonna lie, it is pretty scary playing in front of 75 missionaries, the President and his wife, and everyone from the Office. It went well though and I really enjoyed the meeting. After, we walked over and went to the Temple with about 40 missionaries and the mission president. It was so amazing and very spiritual. I love going to the temple!

We went to our ward Christmas party which was a lot of fun. The members are so great to us and the primary kids LOVE us! When they see us they might as well be seeing Justin Beiber or something. They always come running up to us screaming our name, wanting high 5's n stuff. It may be one of my favorite parts of being a missionary. I love kids! We brought Desiree who is our 10 yr old investigator who I’ve mentioned in the past and will talk more about in a second. She made a lot of friends which was so good to see. it made her want to come to church the next day.

Christmas Sunday was so awesome. There were so many people there it was crazy. People who I have been trying to get to church for 5 months came like it was what they always did. Non-member spouses of part member families came, and we had an excellent Christmas program. The Spirit was so strong, and as I sat there, I spent much of the time thinking of how much I love being a missioary, how much my testimony has changed and grown in the past 5 months, and how grateful I am for this gospel. It truly is the most amazing thing God could have given us, and I was lucky enough to be born with it in my life!

Christmas day was such a fun day. In the morning we went to a members house for breakfast. We watched their kids rip their presents open. It was a lot of fun seeing their excitement and all the fun they were having! We opened our presents right there with them which was much better than all alone at the apartment. After, we went to another member's house for lunch, and then went to the Giordano's for dinner. We spent the rest of the night with them which was great. We were able to use their Ipads to Skype home (it was so amazing being able to see everyone and actually hear your voices!). After skyping we ate some dinner and played games until it was time to go home. It was a great day!

New Year’s Eve was pretty good too. We worked until dinner time, then all the missionaries in the zone met at the stake center and we played basketball, volleyball, drank sparkling cider and ate a bunch of random stuff. We went home and fell asleep at 10. We woke up today and all the sudden it is 2014... So that was cool I guess. I love thinking that I am able to dedicate all of 2014 to serving the Lord!

Now Desiree... She has been a miracle! We worked really hard to teach her and get her to come to church for the last 3 weeks of the year because investigators are required to come 3 times before they are baptized. After a lot of prayers and hard work, we got her interviewed last week and on Sunday she was Baptized! It was a great baptismal service and I was able to baptize her! That was such a cool experience actually being down in the font! It is awesome to see the gospel change a 10 year old’s life so much. One of the members in our ward help out at the school that Desi goes too and at the beginning of the year Desi wasn't really trying and just had the "I don't care attitude". After a while she started really trying and doing her homework and just seemed totally different at school and then the member found out the missionaries were teaching her and she was really surprised to see that big of a change.

We another awesome experience this past week. So a few weeks ago we tracted into this lady and both Elder Johnson and I felt the spirit when we met this lady and so we felt like she was elect and ready to hear the gospel. As we bore testimony of the restoration and offered her a B.O.M she said she didn't want one. We testified again and we ended up leaving, we both felt like she was prepared. She has been on our minds this week so we decided to stop by again on Monday. We talked to her and asked if she had a chance to go to Moromon.org since we left her a card of that last time. We told her that God is our Loving Heavenly Father and as we talked to her she began to really open up and told us how she has just recently found that out for herself when she tried to commit suicide two years ago but she felt that God saved her. We ended up leaving her a copy of the B.O.M and she invited us to come back next week.

We continue to see miracle after miracle, and we are so grateful for all the Lord has blessed us with. I am really grateful for all the love and support I have had from everyone at home, especially during this holiday season. I will never forget all that has happened the past few weeks, and I am excited to experience many more things throughout my mission. I love all of you and hope you have an amazing week! When in doubt, Pray!

Love, Elder Gage Black :)

We also received this email from a member with pictures! 

Hello:

My name is Sister K.  Your sons are currently serving my ward.  We had the privilege of having them at our home on Christmas Eve.  Our son is currently serving a mission in Edmonton, Canada.  My 16 year old son loves spending time with your sons going on splits and to appointments with them.  He misses his older brother a lot and your sons have been very inspired to let him help them with their missionary work.  It helps my son feel connected to his brother.

Your sons are an absolute joy and wonderful missionaries and good examples to the YM of our ward.  You have done a great job in preparing them for their missions.

I hope you enjoyed your Christmas “chats” with them and I hope you enjoy these photos of them on Christmas.  We made sure they had a great dinner and some traditional Christmas joy then sent them home with a bunch of homemade cookies, a gift, and some Christmas music to enjoy.

Merry Christmas.