Letter to Aliese received December 24, 2010

Liesey,

Thanksgiving really to be honest was wonderful. A Tongan sister in the ward gave a "lunch" (we could have taken "lunch" and fed Croatia). Then we had "dinner" scheduled at 2 PM with a family who is known in the entire stake for being amazing cooks. So dinner was really built high up on a pedestal. Anyway, they totally delivered! It was amazing, SUPER fatty though we did not have a Kosher Thanksgiving in their home. Anyway, I did get a bit of weight from that, but my belly isn't much bigger, so I'm cool with it. :) Having a bike area helps burn the calories, and bring my leg muscles back. I'm proud to report that my legs are almost as big as they were in high school and for sure bigger than from before the knee surgery. I am slightly worried though 'cause like I said, I don't see my belly bigger, but nothing else is really bigger either...Yet now I weight 180 lbs. Maybe my "Freshman 15" just came late. :)

Thanksgiving at home sounds like it was loads of fun, the whole weekend sounded fun really, I wish I could have gone up and cut trees. I'm sorry the drive home was less than safe, that would have been quite the car ride. A 12 ft. tree, eh? Well with that only being $10, it sounds like you came out almost even with the broken windshield. Just for fun, Elder James and I looked at a Christmas tree lot. A 5 ft. tree cost $80, unless you wanted a crappy one; they were $60. Needless to say, we are using a 2 ft. fake tree. :)

Glad to hear you are super excited to graduate with you Master's, but even happier to hear that you will be putting the name to good use. Your decoration story sounds uber-funny. Your bunny has done quite a few interesting things it seems. I'm glad to hear you chose to rear your children in the gospel. :) We actually use the "Peanuts Christmas" thing for spiritual thought at dinners we read the scripture and then I say, "That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown," and we walk away.

Well, that's all for now...except the fact that I sang " O, Holy Night" in sacrament meeting yesterday. I made people cry...they wouldn't tell me why though. ;) I guess I sung it badly. I also got a baptismal date with an investigator last Saturday. He is scheduled for January 15, 2011, so I am excited for that.

Sorry that you don't get this 'til you go to Mom's house, I didn't know when you were going up there or coming back, so I just figured I'd send it early.

Love ya. Miss ya. Merry Christmas. 19 months.

Elder Jacob S. Chipman

Letter to Aliese--Received December 16, 2010

Aliese,

So...I got your package...took the hint...here is your letter. :) I did notice I've been lax on writing letters weekly to the sisters, so I'll work on that.

Not much has change here in San Jose. We have some investigators progressing nicely but no one has baptismal dates, people are LOADS nicer during the holidays though. I gained a bit of weight on Thanksgiving which is no beuno 'cause I know that the second I'm not in a biking area, I won't be able to work it off, HaHa! Oh well, I'll get fit again after the mission (so I can catch me a wife with my stellar swimmer's body)! :) Totally kidding, not going to even worry about that.

Well Christmas is coming, but so is the end of the transfer, so I may not get to stay here for the Christmas/New Year. But I won't find that out for another week. I hope Elder James and I get to stay here though; we are having loads of fun and getting lots of work done.

Thanks for all the snacks in the package. I ate one of the Mac & Cheeses already and went to town on the rest of the snacks. I'm also pretty excited to see what you, Darrin, Santa, and then the entire country of Belgium got me for Christmas. :)

Oddly enough, the Christmas Season has not made me feel trunky at all. Things are going well, to be honest, I thought I'd take it harder. I do miss watching Polar Express with the family and all the other Christmas movies too.

I bet as the season goes by, I'll start to miss all the traditions, I felt way bad when mom told me the hassle she went through for the three this year for her and grandma's. She had apparently really messed up her back, so that would have been nice to prevent.

So my companion and I have been asked to sing in sacrament the Sunday before Christmas...We were asked to sing "O Holy Night"...I'm a freaking bass; and I haven't sung for soooo long. I sound like garbage. Maybe I'll give one of our practices a recording for the family or something, I dunno.

Well, that's all that's new for now, hope you enjoyed this randomly scrambled together letter. Hope to hear from you soon. Love you, miss you. Don't worry, be happy. Don't eat yellow snow.

Merry Christmas,

Elder Jacob S. Chipman

Build a man a fire, keep him warm for a day...Light a man on fire, chances are he'll stay warm for the remainder of his life...GERMAN PROVERB...okay, not really. That was mean.

Letter to Aliese--Received December 9, 2010

Liesey

Hey sister how are you? I realize that it has been quite awhile since I've written. That is because of two things: 1) Not much has really gone on since I've last written and 2) I've been doing the equivalent of "busy-work" for missionary work i.e. tracting...AKA pretty useless. :) anyway, I don't know if you had heard, but I'm in a new area now and serving with an Elder I was in the MTC with. Things have gone really well so far, in fact, we are about the only area in my zone that had been consistently hitting our level of expectations so that's pretty awesome considering he and I have only been out four months.

Sounds like you have been quite busy as well. I hope things aren't too stressful for you. Making candy canes and watching Christmas movies is probably a way good stress release.

Sorry my letters seem like kind of a bummer now and then, things really are going well on the mission so far, it's just as I write. It's like my own stress release where I can just purge everything that's been on my mind, so sometimes I'll ramble on and on about the negative. But just like everything else in life, the Lord blesses us immensely more for the work we put into it. So no worries, all is well.

Once again though, there is not much to report on. We are teaching some great people and the people of the area are much nicer to us around the holidays, so that's been a plus lately.

Well, hope all is well, and that your Thanksgiving was wonderful. Happy Holidays! Have fun with it, make sure people aren't bummed on Christmas or missing me. :)

Love you lots, miss you too.

Love,

Elder Jacob S. Chipman