Weekly Email # 17 - HAPPY TURKEY DAY!

Happy Belated Thanksgiving everyone! I hope it was well spent and you all had a great time, I know I did! Even though I did feel out of place at times during the day, we were grateful to spend an amazing Thanksgiving at the Bakers on Thursday. The food was great, but the company was even better! They're an awesome family.

Then we had a second Thanksgiving dinner with the Snows on Saturday. I was stuffed from both of them. And then both families sent us home with leftovers, and those were just as good! Very grateful. I was very skeptical with this Ward because I came from Canal, but Marble Cliff might be even better. It's crazy how Heavenly Father blesses us in involuntary and abstract ways that we can't even think of.


REALLY QUICK. The Church unveiled its new Christmas theme this year. Simply go to Christmas.mormon.org or LDS.org and check out all that is going on, it's awesome! Starting tomorrow, they'll feature what they are calling, "12 Days of Social". They'll post a new video every day for the next twelve days about people like Lindsey Sterling, David Archuleta, Devin Graham and more!

Oh and watch the new Christmas video!!! It is on Gospel Library and pretty much anything Mormon. Haha It's so good and the First Presidency wants EVERYONE to spread it through social media and
through our own individual lives. And us missionaries will definitely be using it and I'm pretty sure I'm gonna get sick of it by tomorrow but it's all good :)

Some of the many things I am grateful for include :

- A very cool companion! It's very hard for me to say anything bad about Elder Liu. He gets crap done, doesn't complain (most of the time haha), and he gets crap done. Oh yeah, I repeated that statement because he REALLY DOES GET CRAP DONE. And he laughs at my corny jokes
even when they shouldn't even be laughable. Which is awesome.

- The knowledge of having an eternal family. It's very comforting to know I won't be alone.

- Cheap food and Ward members willing to feed us. I don't know one missionary who wouldn't agree with me.

- A car. Holy moly. It gets cold here. That wind chill thing people talk about is real. Our mission car is a blessing!

- Food. Food is good.

- iPads. They're pretty freaking great.

- The Atonement. When you better understand the Atonement, the more appreciative you are of everything and everyone else. It helps you want to give back as much of your time and energy you can.

I could list so many more.

New area has a lot more potential in terms of potentials, new investigators, and baptisms.
It's just that struggle of either getting back in contact with them, or having them accept baptism. I'm not getting down though. It's a big decision to become a Mormon, but once you are able to see the goodness that comes from being one, people then become converted. I'm excited though! Hoping Liu and I spend at least one more transfer together here.We are getting crap done.

Cool experience of the day. We were walking in Downtown talking to people and we got around to this one homeless man. He was really nice and he said something that really stuck out to me. He said, "People think charity comes your pocket rather than your heart. It doesn't cost one penny to be polite."

Whoa. It made me think of our Savior, and the countless acts of kindness and love he administered to other people of all kinds of backgrounds. During this Holiday season, I challenge you to go out of
your way to help someone who is in need or is simply having a hard time. You never know how much YOU can help someone.

I watched a Homefront video the other day. Ya know. Those old 60 videos that Church made back in the 80's or something? They're freaking awesome. Anyways in that video, they had a quote that said,
"Love is actually spelled T-I-M-E." And then you see a little clip of a family from the 80's playing kickball outside. I thought that was like the coolest thing ever!

On a sad note, Ohio State Football lost last week.. And people weren't too happy about that because now they probably won't play for a championship. The reason I mention this is because I'm scared to go to downtown because of the result of that loss.. Haha there has been a lot of bad things going on there ever since then. I can't imagine what campus is like.

If you're looking for something to read or listen to, I HIGHLY recommend,
"Our Prophet : Thomas S Monson" by Elder William R Walker. It's a 40 minute devotional so it is longer than most talks, but it's awesome! It makes you appreciate President Monson a little more!

Love you all! Keep the Holiday Spirit.

Elder Galbraith

Sent from my iPad

Cool wall of art.
These are all over in this area, especially downtown.

This weird thing and us.
Some guy saw we were marveling over this thing and he said he would take our picture.
After doing so, we came to find out that he was gay and he was excommunicated from the Church
Let's just say it got awkward.

The Baker family and us! We had Thanksgiving at their house and it was delicious!

This is a High School! What the heck?!?
Right smack dab in the middle of Downtown.



Fried Rice. We had enough for 3 meals. That bowl was huge.

Had to take more temple pics.



My second District. Left to Right. Sister Farmer, Sister Hill, Sister Hopkins (She came out with me), Sister Beebe, Me, Elder Eason (another one who came out with me), Elder Liu, Elder Anfinson (ANOTHER one who came out with me) and he's also District Leader.
This group is awesome! Sister Farmer goes home in 8 weeks, and everyone else is younger than 6 months... Haha it's a very weird group but they are all different, to say the least.



We got a found a Christmas tree in our closet. It truly is a Christmas
miracle. And it's like a foot tall. Awesome!