Monday, December 14, 2015

There are some green hills far away - Green Hills, Tennessee

Hello 

This week we had a Christmas zone conference. Thanks to that we now have a little black box in our car called a Tiwi. It speaks with a soft voice and tells us to do things like wear seat belts and not speed or accelerate too fast. We named it Hal. Fortunately Elder Tolman is a pretty great driver so Hal has never actually said anything to us except "driver logged in." I doubt he'd be as silent if I was the designated driver. Hopefully when I do get the chance to drive I will finally learn to be patient and safe. Hal should do a nice job of teaching me I think.

Besides that wonderful Christmas gift from Salt Lake, we did a gift exchange and tie exchange. Someone stole Elder Tolman's present so I gave him mine. It was a fun little object lesson for the restoration. For the tie exchange I got this really really old tie that someone had bought from goodwill for a dollar. It is purple and has a bunch of floral patterns layered over each other. I decided to cut it open and resew it as a skinny tie. That was kinda fun to experiment with and I think it actually looked rather lovely in the end. Although much better than before, I still didn't want it so I wrapped it up for elder Tolman's Christmas present. So you'll have to wait for a picture. 

Besides that this week has been pretty uneventful. It is super warm weather. It was literally colder when I got here in October than it is now. So we have been enjoying it. Although it is now super windy today. It's not normally windy here so it is unusual that all of the trees are nearly falling over. One whipped our car and left a slash on it. They put up a tree in our apartment complex and elder Tolman really liked it so we went to take pictures by it:




 I'm starting to get really excited for Christmas. The members are being really nice and our ward choir is having a lot of concerts. They sang Mack Wilberg's arrangement of The Spirit of God at stake conference yesterday and it sounded so amazing. There are a lot of great musicians in Nashville. I just realized, I can say that I went to Nashville and sang :) that's pretty fun.

The message at stake conference yesterday was pretty simple and direct; every speaker covered the same thing. Read the Book of Mormon. I just want to bare my testimony of the Book of Mormon. I know that it is true, that it is the most correct of any book on earth, and that I have drawn nearer to God by abiding by its precepts than by any other book. I know that reading it every day has changed my life. I would not be the person I am today without the message it contains and the spirit it brings. I have seen this book change people's lives. Homes that were once broken and dark have been healed completely and brought to light by just a few weeks of reading the book together as a family. I can see the complete change of countenance in someone who has prayerfully studied it. I know that the Book of Mormon is true and that Moroni's promise is real and I say this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. 

I hope you all have a wonderful week and know that God loves you and so do I
- Elder Basham


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