6th email sent from Provo, MTC  11/28/14 Hello Family! Sorry this is a day late, but I promise it won't be a dollar short. How are you guys doing? How was your Thanksgiving? Did you stay at home? I miss you all! That's so awesome about Sammy. I want Adley to know there's absolutely no way he can win as many trophies as me. You should put Sammy to sleep in Dad's office next time. Dad would love that. This week was really awesome, mostly because of yesterday! I'll give the big Thanksgiving update and the highlights from the rest of the week and then I'll tell you guys about everyone in my district because I haven't yet.  Thanksgiving was seriously so awesome. Our Senpei came in at 5:45 and did Christmas for us. Christmas is this tradition where the older missionaries pass down all the things they have from their Senpei and all the stuff they don't want to us. It's fun but also the worst because our room is tiny and so we have like 20 boxes of random items we have to put away and we have zero room. Some of the highlights of the things we got: 4 nerf basketball hoops, a large blue suitcase, a small foosball table, a Napoleon Dynamite wig, 2 things of peanut butter, a pink rat punch balloon (those ones that you inflate and then have the handle you hold and punch as fast as you can), and sooooooo much candy. Seriously so much stuff. We can't wait to get rid of it, that's the best part. You wake up early and bang on their door and then bust in when they open it and wish them a Merry Christmas and then you go to the lounge area and we have a little Christmas tree that you put all the boxes around. Each person chooses who they want to give their stuff to and what they are going to give. One person also dresses up like Santa and puts on a shaving cream beard. We don't mess around with Christmas.  After that, we went and did laundry and had breakfast. I had one bowl of cereal so I could pound the Thanksgiving lunch we had. We then went to the devotional. The choir sang Come Thou Fount and absolutely crushed it. We weren't allowed to sing because zone leaders had to leave early which was a bummer, but it's ok. It all worked out super well! Elder Bednar came and spoke! It was awesome, he's so awesome. He brought his wife and one of his sons and his family, but it wasn't Eric! I was really hoping I would get the chance to see him or at least tell his younger brother I say hi, but I didn't get to. Can you do me a big favor and please say hi to Eric and his family for me? He really had a great influence on me and was so awesome, I miss them a lot! Elder Bednar did a cool thing with his devotional, he did a question and answer session. He passed out cell phones and you could text your questions to a number and he would choose which to reply to. We had gotten there early and had good seats right down the middle in the front. While people were typing their questions (Elder Bednar said we were rusty from not texting for a few weeks) he said we could raise our hands and he would choose one. I shot my hand up and he chose me! I asked him, "As a member of the 12, you have to be tired all the time. What do you do to fight through it?" He talked about the spiritually invigorating aspect of this work, and how that should motivate and energize us. It was awesome because I actually got to ask him, and he addressed me the whole time, as opposed to the anonymous text questions. It was a super great devotional and I learned tons.  We then had Thanksgiving lunch. It was much better than I thought it was going to be! They had cranberry sauce which was awesome. I really hope they have the leftovers today. After lunch, we went and helped set up the service project. It was exactly the same one we did in Chapel Hill a few years ago, where you make the assembly lines and make meals for children who need them. We then went to a Thanksgiving presentation. It was so weird. The first part was legit because they had a guy play the violin and he played it like a fiddle and he was a BEAST. He was killing it and everyone was getting so into it. It was one of the highlights of the day for sure. The second part was so weird. They did a skit where they tried to explain the origin of Thanksgiving to foreigners in a funny way, but it was really just awful. They had people go up and be Indians and Puritans and all the Indians were brown and it was just weird. We were watching the Nihonjin (Japanese people) the whole time and they had this wide eyed look on their face the whole time. After the awful skit, we went and did the service project. I was in charge of a line. We crushed it! We were only supposed to do 8 boxes worth of meals, but my table did 13! We did the most of any table all day. The all time record was 16, but we ran out of boxes and couldn't do anymore or we for sure would have smashed it. President Hackney, the first counselor of the MTC Presidency, even admitted it. They were so awesome, they were singing hymns and getting our whole section to sing along. After we cleaned up, we went and watched Meet the Mormons. It was really fun to watch it with a bunch of missionaries. We got popcorn and it was sweet because one of the guys is the Navy coach so we got to watch clips of football. You take what you can get in here. After the movie was over, the MTC Presidency said they had a surprise for us out in the courtyard, and they had set up Christmas lights everywhere! It was super cool. We got to chill there and talk for a while. I got to talk to Sister Kennedy for a little while, it was awesome. She's so great. We're the lone Irvine survivors now. She's also the only person I know from before the MTC now. That was my Thanksgiving! It was so different from all my previous ones and I missed a lot of good food and I probably wouldn't want to do it again but I really loved it!  Early in the week, on Tuesday, Elder Oaks came and spoke to us. It was pretty good, he gave a lot of great instruction.  He gave a really great analogy about being the Lord's instrument. He compared us to a pen. He said that a pen doesn't say, "I can't write, I'm tired. Oh, it's my P day, I don't need to work today." We need to be like a pen and work whenever and however the Lord needs us to work. I liked his talk. Plus, we got to listen to 2 members of the 12 this week, which was awesome!  Ok, the people in my district. I might not be able to finish this week, but I'll try. You already know about me and Elder Erickson, he's awesome as always.  Elder Diderickson: He looks a lot like me. He's 6'2, brown hair, athletic. He's just better at doing everything I do. He's a super good basketball player, he was on Pleasant Groves' team when they made it to the State Championship against Lone Peak. He is a good example for me of patience and keeping a good attitude and working hard. He's going to BYU after which will be super awesome. Plus, after I ate his pumpkin bread, I wrote his family apologizing and thanking them for all the packages they send him that I eat. It was funny. They said I can be adopted into their family, so we're basically brothers now. Elder Hamilton: He's the tall blonde one. He's from Mesa, but doesn't know the Richins. He's a really good guy, and is getting better and better at focusing. He wonders off a lot and Elder Diderickson has to go find him. He's a good storyteller and is really forgiving and smart, I'm liking him more and more the longer we are here. He is a very good letter writer, a much better one than me. He is also good at coming up with puns, kind of like Greg. He's a really great missionary! Elder Nielson: He's from Boise. He's really awesome. He's really good at seeing the best in people and not focusing on the worst. He is also a great leader, he was district leader and did a really good job. He also has the best laugh out of all of us. He gets this big smile on his face and gives this big hearty laugh that's awesome. He is also really nice about helping all of us with our Japanese, he took 4 years of it in high school. He's really a kind person and I really like him. Elder Mutzelburg: I'll start with him next week!  I'm running out of time and still need to send pictures. I still need to do all of the Sisters as well. They're all great. I really, really love my district. I am loving it here at the MTC and am learning so much. I love and miss you all so much! You all rock! With Love, Calhoun Choro  James's Sempai, leaving Monday will be much missed!  James with President (MTC branch president) & Sister Butler