HAPPY NEW YEAR

MERRY CHRISTMAS! I am sorry that this E-mail is a day late but because of the
Bank Holiday on Monday I’ve had to E-mail on Tuesday. I hope everyone had a
good Christmas and enjoyed a lot of good food and family time! It would even
seem that the Holiday spirit was strong enough to get Chelsey to write me an
E-mail! And it would seem that dad hasn’t been forwarding my E-mails to Chelsey
since October which makes me wonder which is worse the fact that Chelsey hasn’t
been getting my E-mails or the fact that she just barley figured it out :P. Any
who Christmas sounded amazing back in the US/Hawaii (St. George McKenna’s)/Rome
(Ma and Pa) and it was wonderful here in Britain!

The St. George McKenna’s have been celebrating their Christmas Holiday in Hawaii
enjoying sunsets and crab chases, Mom and dad are still enjoying their cruise,
Chelsey went to the Huston McKenna’s for some delicious turkey, and over here in
England for Christmas Eve we got together with Elder Curgenven & Sharrard and
made a delicious turkey with some vegetables, Yorkshire puddings, roasties, and
of course gravy :). After dinner we watched the Lion King and Finding Nemo on a
projector in the relief society room! It was a wonderful Christmas Eve and to
top it all off we wore matching PJ’s :)! (Everyone’s parents use to give them
PJ’s for Christmas Eve and so we decided to keep the tradition going).
Christmas day we started off with an American breakfast at the Nowells house and
then for the evening went to Stu Pattendons house who is a YSA in the ward;
during Christmas day we watched the Polar Express and Prince Caspian. For New
Years Eve we are planning to hang out with Phil, Rachel, and the Sumner’s for
some food and board games and then off to Louis for some X-Box 360 racing games
:). On New Years day we are going to the Chapel to watch as many movies as we
can and then in the evening we’re going to the Padrove family for some Uno and a
New Years Day feast. It should make for a pretty fun New Year. But despite the
festivities of the holiday missionary work presses on!

We had something amazing happen this past week… Louise Moyo wants to get
baptized! We never thought that she would be strong enough to make that step
(she was the one who had the horrible accident as a child which has made her
terrified to go under water) but she has! We had a wonderful lesson with her on
Wednesday in which the Spirit was very strong! The topic of our lesson was
obedience. We discussed Abraham, Nephi, and focused on the promise that there
is no commandment that God gives us that we can’t accomplish. It was a
painlessly plain lesson; the Spirit was defiantly there, and at the end Louise
told us that she wanted to take the steps necessary for baptism! IT IS SO
AMAZING! I love being a part of this work so much! Because I absolutely know
that there is nothing that could have persuaded her to make that choice, then
the power of the Holy Ghost! I love my Heavenly Father so much and I love
seeing the change that is wrought upon the hearts of the people! I will miss
this work… but I know that I still have a few weeks to make a difference and I
am determined to do so! The Church is true, Joseph Smith was a prophet, the
Book of Mormon is the word of God, Christ lives! And I will do all that I can
to help people understand that!

With all of my love,
Elder McKenna

P.S. The baptism is for Louise is planned for January 23rd (the last weekend
before I go home)