Our little real Christmas tree

What a great week! Definitely one to remember. Although Christmas week is super slow we had an amazing lesson with Josh Friday night!! We taught him the seconfd half of the restoration and focused mostly on the Book of Mormon and the Restoration. WELL we get near the end of the lesson and everything has gone great thus far when I invite him to be baptized.... HE SAID YES!!! Seriously it was the happiest moment of my whole entire life. Nothing can compare to the amount of pure joy and relief. I was stressing about that lesson for days because I knew that we would be trying to set a baptismal date with him and sure enough it all worked out! We set a date of January 24th for a baptism so hopefully I will still be here. He did say that when he comes to know for a surety that this is the true church and that the book of mormon is the word of God he will get baptized. I know he will get an answer and I pray for him everyday. Speaking of praying, it wouldn't hurt if you would pray for him as well  Josh also came to church yesterday and we had an awesome lesson about the Atonement. Melina came to church as well! Although she came to the Lakeville ward at 11:00am with her parents. We still came to the Gospel principles class with her and that's where I met John Gross. John apparantly has worked for the NFL network for like 23 years so could you please look him up for me to see if he is famous?! haha he said he is good friends with Barry Sanders too. So he must be right? He is retired now and the cool thing is that when Elder Shurtleff was serving in the Lakeville ward he taught him and baptized him. So yes I would say that this week was a very good week to be a missionary. Went caroling with my district, had a sleepover with my district christmas eve, got a date set for Josh, and got Melina and Josh to church!
      Also thanks for all the Christmas presents I really love the ties and socks!! Elder Shurtleff said the socks were his favorite Christmas Present.
     Also for the future, as in for the rest of my mission, please do not send candy, chocolate, or anything that has saturated fat in it! that would be great :). (I set a goal today to stay completely away from chocolate and all manner of sweets). Also in that picture Elder Shurtleff got a mustache kit in our White elephant gift exchange so thats why we have mustaches. But it seems like everything is the same back home pretty much. not surprising. I've only been away for almost 3 months. But I love you all and see ya later!

Elder Long