Suspicious Guys in Black Hoodies

Good Morning!! I hope that you all had a great Christmas. I know that I was truly blessed as I took the time to reflect on the true meaning of Christmas and focus on the birth of our Savior.

This week was kind of a weird week... Monday we went to Fredrick Meijer Garden! I will include a few pictures. Tuesday we had our half-mission training and Christmas party. It was a lot of fun and we got to just hang out and play games for a few hours. We even played a huge game of scripture jeopardy! It was great to be able to take a break from working all day everyday and just spend some time with a whole lot of missionaries. Wednesday, since most people we usually meet with were busy with their families, we got to do quite a bit of door knocking in the afternoon. We were sharing with people a Christmas message and really focusing on the true meaning of Christmas with people. Most people were really nice but were not interested in hearing our message. It was raining a little bit and so both me and Elder Brown had the hoods of our coats on. About halfway through door knocking we noticed a cop car that was parked on the corner and was kinda of watching us. He drove up to us and asked us, "Are you the two suspicious guys in black hoodies that are loose in the neighborhood?" We laughed and told him yes we were terrorizing the neighborhood with the message of Jesus Christ. He laughed and said that he had gotten a call from someone across the street and once he saw us he knew that we were just "sharing the word with people." and that he wasn't concerned that we were any type of criminals. It was really funny that someone would think that two little Mormon missionaries would cause any type of trouble and really made us laugh. Wednesday night we went over to a member of the wards and had Christmas Eve dinner with them and a few other families from the ward that they invited over. Thursday we spent most of our day at the Banners. They are an amazing family that does so much for us missionaries! I got to call home and talk with my family for about 45 mins. It was really weird to have both my home life and mission life collide but it was really good to be able to talk to my family even if it didn't seem long enough. My Christmas out here in the mission really didn’t feel much like Christmas since I am not with my family but being able to call them really helped to make it a very special day. Christmas night we had another dinner with another family and needless to say I weighed myself at the end of the day and I had gained 7 pounds! But I think it was just the weight of the food and I am back to my usual weight. (Don’t worry I promise I am not getting fat out here on my mission.) The rest of the week was pretty normal I was on trade-offs with Elder Elmer this week who is the district leader. I was able to learn a lot from him and able to learn things that I can apply to my own missionary work. I also continued to receive letters and packages from all over the county wishing me a Merry Christmas! It was truly humbling to receive love and support in close to 100 letters and several packages. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints really do love and care for their missionaries and they helped make this Christmas special! It is confirmed to me everyday that I made the right decision in coming on a mission and seeing so many people support me from all over the country really inspires me to continue to give the Lord my best! 

That is about it for the week. Today we are doing our usual P-day stuff and I will get to show the other missionaries how to really play basketball this afternoon at the Stake Center. I hope that you had a wonderful Christmas! I am so blessed to have so much love and support back home!

Have a great week!

Elder Bloskas

P.S. Here are the pictures of the big horse at Fredrick Meijer Garden and the other picture is of the families that we got to eat with on Christmas Eve!