We received an email from Emily on Monday, November 5, 2013:

Dear familia,

You made my Halloween so much fun!  I love how creative you are and everything you sent me appeals perfectly to me!  I basically turn the glowing pumpkins on every night and enjoy them.  We are going to make the cookies today.  (We need to make them soon or I am going to have eaten all the chocolate chips before we get to cookie time.  How did you know I love the big chocolate chips? ;))  We listen to the Halloween CD on repeat in the car anytime we go anywhere.  I love my new companion very, very much.  She basically knows all our Halloween songs :)  She is from Idaho, but she lived in Utah before she came.  She is one year older and she went to 3 years of college before the mission.  She was in my first MTC group.  You would probably see a picture of her in my MTC district, the first time around.  I already told Hna. Larsen that I have a Thanksgiving song to teach her that we can sing as a round.  She laughed and said she is excited.  Also, she is celebrating Harry Potter month with me.  ha! :)  It's wonderful!

I love being here and I love what I am doing.  I've been using the Atonement to feel more joy and not rely on people besides Christ.  Also, knowing that I have the best family in the world fills me full.  I love our family and all the members in it.  I know if we have our family that I have everything and more that I need to be happy.  :)  The love and support that I get from you means so much and sustains me.  I wish I was able to show you that more.  I read you letters multiple times and laugh at all the funny parts.  I miss your personality and I am so grateful for how you take care of me. 

It has been getting really cold here.  Freezing cold.  We freeze like every night.  Skirts!  We might try to go and buy some tights today or something.  We'll have to see what we can find.  I don't know how much of a good job they'll really do, but we need to try.  Maybe I need to get leggings instead..  We're going to go investigate our options because it's only going to get colder from here on out. 

I took that recording device and I am going to try to record on it and mail it to you and tell you some things.  Basically this is because it was so good for me to hear your voices on the CD you sent me, and so I thought I'd try to return the favor a tiny bit.  Oh, I love the CD.  I will literally listen to it for the next 14 months of my mission and after that.  Feel free to send me CDs with songs whenever you like!   Here is the thing about the recorder.  I'll probably just have to record it when we are driving in the car or something because we don't really have down time ever.  So it's not awkward, I'll probably have Hna. Larsen included in on the conversation and we can both tell you the story of this week. You'll get to see a lot of her personality from the recording.  I'll also have her tell you a bit about herself!  I think it'll be cool.

We're going to go, but we might be in Newhall tonight to use their computers to create baptism invitations for Mariano  and so I will probably check my email a little later today.  Thanks so much for everything.

I love you:)

Until later, love, Emma