Christmas Mass and a Masonic Lodge

 Dear friends and family, 

I hope all is well with you and those you love during this holiday season. 

Here in Connecticut it was a little different, nonetheless, one to remember. 

It started a week before last, when my companion, Elder Olson, all of the sudden had an idea. "Elder! Let's go to a Christmas mass!" I willingly took up his idea and we started research immediately. As we called around to the local churches, most told us they were full on the roster. Try after try, we were just about to lose hope, when we found out one was open. Now, this was no ordinary Christian church we came across, it was, in fact one of the largest church buildings here in Waterbury: The Saint Anne's Roman Catholic Parish. 

Upon waking up Christmas morning, I'd have to say, I was more excited going to this Christmas mass than to open my few gifts. We hurried and ate breakfast to be there an hour early, just to be safe we had a spot. Upon arrival, we were the only ones there for a good half hour. The church staff had a very nice nativity up front with lights and candles. 

It felt super strange for a couple of reasons. One, we were the only white people in the crowd; the rest were Hispanics. And two, we had our missionary tags on, so everyone knew who we were. 
Anyway, the meeting was conducted, they sang some nice songs, said some nice verbatim prayers, and conducted Communion. Overall, it was a pleasant experience. 

The rest of our week was a bit mundane. Trying to find new ways to talk to people on Facebook can be like finding the hay in a needle stack. Yes, hay in the needle stack. For one, we come across a lot of rude and prickly, uninterested people who really don't want anything to do with us. I'm not mad at them. In fact, quite the opposite, we are just sifting the chaf from the wheat. We are here to find the one individual that's ready to hear our message. 

With the holidays, we were able to focus on serving the members by making 30 or so cinnamon rolls (thanks mom) to give out. It's always a good day to serve your fellow brothers and sisters.

Speaking of brothers and brotherhood, today for Pday, we were able to tour a Freemason lodge with a member. Along with two other companionships, we got to see the functions and processes of Masonry. This is pretty cool stuff. The kind of stuff our nation and our religion were founded on. Dating back to the time of Solomons temple, you can imagine a wide variety of similarities in our worship today. 

That's for this week, thanks for reading this email. Hope you have a wonderful new years! 

con amor,
Elder Rasmussen

One more photo of my recent painting