Christmas Haul

I hope y'all had an awesome Christmas. I sure did! First off, missionary work.

"This past week has been pretty crazy. We prepped Ronni and Hunter for their baptismal interviews, which they both passed. It was truly awesome to have 2 baptisms on my last Sunday here. I love both of their families. One of our investigators had quite an ordeal this week. We've been teaching a man, Eric, who has been having some family problems. He stayed at home to move their possessions from their old house to their new one, and his wife and stepson took off to Georgia for Christmas to supposedly see her relatives. On Christmas Eve he got a call from a woman in Georgia whose husband was having an affair with Regina. He took it very hard. He should have known, she's cheated on him a couple of times before and she has refused to let him see her cell phone, but I still feel sorry for the poor guy. He seems to be mentally unstable, which explains some of his actions and his delusions that everything was OK. We saw him a lot over this week, we even helped him move all their stuff from the old house to the new one. He finally committed to come to church because it was my last Sunday here (for some reason he's very fond of me). We came out of PEC and he was right there in his normal street clothes. He told us he couldn't come to church because she was coming back (possibly with her new boyfriend), and it looked like he was going to get his stuff, go check into the hospital, and after that just take off and start a new life. I hope he can get the help he needs and experiences the healing power of the Atonement."

Poor guy. Like I said, he's a little unstable. But he has a good heart. I hope everything turns out OK for him and he finds the church wherever he ends up.

Getting off of that sad subject, the ward here is great!. The members of the ward love us and do so much for us. I do believe that what I will miss most about Harker's Island is not the ocean or the heritage (although those are pretty neat), but the members of the ward. We got a ton of Christmas presents from the members. I was pretty amazed. I don't ever recall buying the missionaries Christmas presents. We were definitely taken care of. I loved talking to you guys on the phone. It was definitely hard to get off on time, but it was worth it. It would have been easy to stay on for another 15 - 30 minutes. I still don't think I have an accent, ha ha. I'm not sure I would believe you if I hadn't heard all of you laugh at the same time. It was probably my best Christmas ever.

So guess what? I got to try raw oysters a couple days after I talked to y'all on the phone. They actually were pretty good, they tasted almost the same. The only difference was the texture was a little more gross. Yum.

Well, I've got a lot of thoughts running through my mind. I'm actually a little nervous to leave here, I know I'll miss the members. I'm just very glad I got to serve here. Dad, Sister N told me she's your friend on Facebook, ha ha. That's cool, she's an awesome lady and her husband (Bishop N) is the man.

I don't really know what else to say. I am looking forward to finding out what my new area is tomorrow. We have a transfer meeting in Raleigh (4 hours away, I am pretty much as out in the middle of nowhere as you can get) tomorrow at 1:30, where I will find out where I'm going. If you're lucky, you'll find out my next area before next Monday. If not, I'll tell you all about it next week. I love you all, and I'll talk to you then.

Love,
Elder Casper