It was so great to see all of you on Christmas, I wasn't expecting how it was set up but whatever works for you works for me. I had a lot of questions but forgot them for some reason. I'm so glad Taylor and Aaron were able to be there as well. I missed seeing Grandma and Grandpa Smith, but I know Christmas is a busy day for most people. I sent Christmas cards out to everyone but the pictures are kind of hard to see so I can send them through email if you want them.  I'm sorry Dad and Jordan are sick, but someone always has to get sick for the holidays it seems like. And Mom I guess Bruce is right on me having the Las Vegas bug.  It's different down here and there's many rich places, but I was joking about wanting expensive things, I've been blessed beyond measure with where I am. For some reason the Lord keeps blessing me with so many things that I definitely don't think I deserve. I'm so well taken care of here. The members would do anything for us even though there wasn't much member trust before I got to the area. We are building that trust back and trying to  become better missionaries. I'm so happy for Ryan having so many baptisms, and even though I haven't had one yet, I know I've planted many seeds in peoples hearts and pray for the best for them.  Thank you so much for all the gifts and letters I received, I couldn't have asked for a better Christmas this year and I hope it was the same for all of you.
This week we have been running low on our allotted miles in our car so we have been riding our bikes and it's been awesome, I've loved it!  Mom, I'm glad you got the picture that Sister Urban sent of us and glad you figured out how to work the phone haha.  They're the family that let us Skype at their house and they are so cool!  Feel free to text her anytime because she loves doing that for missionary's Moms, she was texting Elder Pennington's Mom that night as we were eating dinner at their house haha. It's been a fun week on the bikes, we were having a contest on who could do the best stoppie and Elder Pennington flipped over his handle bars twice, so I guess I won cause I didn't end up on the ground!  Then one day I was in front of him riding and ducked under a tree branch, well he didn't see it and slammed his head right into it, funniest thing ever!  To answer your question about the singles ward, it's different of course but I like it a lot. We won't have it next transfer though because they are getting a lot more missionaire's and trying to get one set per ward. They raised the goal to 250 missionaire's per mission and we are at about 160-170 now, compared to 90-100 when I got here in August. But there's never a dull moment in the singles ward it seems like, yesterday someone was talking in sacrament and just turned around to the second councilor and said "I'm sorry Brother Edwards but I'm going to pass out". Then bishop caught him as he was falling backwards! It was a first seeing that in sacrament meeting haha!
I hope all is well this week and I hope everyone drives safe in their traveling. I'm excited to hear how the baby blessing will go. Thanks again for the great Christmas and have a great new year!
Love Elder Smith