Email: December 31, 2012

Dear Family,

Time is flying by.  Tomorrow is already the year 2013, its crazy to think I have been here in Oregon all of the year 2012.  I like that feeling!  I love this place and its going to be very hard to leave.  This week is the good ol' 18 month mark.  It scares me to death!  I don't know what I am going to do.  But i have taken the time to make some goals for this upcoming year and things that I want to accomplish in the future.  Now I just have to figure out my plan to accomplish them. 

 

We had a good week this week.  We have several new people that we were able to meet with and got some new investigators from it!  I was able to go on exchanges out to the coast on Friday to Saturday and I decided that I definitely want to live in Lincoln city someday ha ha.  There is a good size lake that is like a quarter mile from the ocean and it has a river that empties into the ocean that is the shortest in the world.  It is called the "D" river.  People have their houses right on the lake and it kind of reminds me of Cour d' Alene.  It is very pretty, I think we should go there when you come and pick me up. 

 

I was asked on friday to give a talk in sacrament about repentance.  It was a good opportunity to evaluate myself and how I am doing with everything and make some plans to change and be better.  The focus of the talk was on the change that repentance brings and how we can share that change with others.  The way that we invite others to repent and change is by sharing the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and allowing them to make covenants with their heavenly father.  There is a cool quote in Preach My Gospel that I liked a lot.  It says "only the gospel will save the world from the calamity of is own self destruction".  We can try and deny all we want but the world is becoming a horrible place to be in and we have to stand up for what we believe and be in the world but not of it.  We watched the 3rd Narnia with some members on Christmas and we spent most of it talking about the symbolism that is in that movie and how we could apply it to ourselves.  It was cool, you should do that for a family home evening or a Sunday night activity. 

 

Well, I love you all Very much.  Thank you for all the stuff you sent me and the presents I got!!  They were all amazing and it made a good Christmas!!

Love,

Elder Erickson