Washington, Week 2

Hello, lovely people!

This week has been weird. It's been pretty good but also pretty bad. Good, because I love being a missionary, and I love my companion, and I've been very spiritually edified. Bad because almost all of our appointments fell through, and nobody will answer their door in this town! It's frustrating. Even a lot of our dinner appointments fell through, which never happens. It's always a highlight of my day to go to member's houses for dinner and visit with them. So it's really sad when that doesn't work out.

Have ya’ll seen the new Christmas initiatives this year? Go to www.christmas.mormon.org and the main one "A Savior is Born" is right there on the top, then if you scroll down there's another one on the bottom left corner of the screen called "Why We Need a Savior" It's so good! So powerful too. The videos really help you feel the Spirit. The other awesome thing is called "12 Days of Social." Not sure if you've seen it, but it's really awesome. For 12 days of December, famous Mormons are making YouTube videos that go around the theme "A Savior is Born." Of course I love the Gardiner Sister's video. Also Studio C's, and David Archuleta's are both really, really good, too. David Archuleta's almost made me cry. So powerful! We've been sharing it with all the members and also when we go teaching. This one brother, named Big Ed (he's taller than my friend Jared, and reminds me of Hagrid) actually broke down in tears sharing his testimony. I love how music does that to people. It takes the emotions, and spirit that you are feeling and just amplifies it. Gah! Music! Love it.

I met a lady named Gloria De Dios, this week. LOL

I got Hermana Luevano hooked on SmartPop white cheddar popcorn! She had never tried it before, so I gave her some of mine and she was like "How have I been living without this?" ha ha

The other thing that's been not so great this week is that we're all four getting sick. Hermana Luevano and I have been getting migraines and nausea all week, I had a fever last night, Hermana Hirche had a fever all week, and has been throwing up, Hermana Hall is starting to not feel well, too. Apparently it's going around church, so that's awesome. Please send some prayers our way! 

I got to see my other missionary friends a lot this week! First on last Monday after I got done emailing, we went to Othello and went grocery shopping, and then went to the church and saw all my friends in my zone, including Elders Cordon and Buchanan!!  

 Elders Buchanan and Cordon and Hermana Knight

We also had zone training (SO POWERFUL) where I got a really cool quote from Sister Lewis. I'll just take a picture of the whole deal, but basically we talked about how when we are teaching we need to not be a Homie or a Robot, we need to be a true friend. We also had trainer/trainee meeting. I got to see President And Sister Lewis! Woo Hoo! And Elder Harman. So that was really fun.

"The best missionaries aren't trying to be the grey area between black and white, they don't try to be the balance between a bad level and a worse level. They are a whole new level, a true friend."

Tomorrow we are having a huge Christmas party with all the missionaries in the northern half of the mission. All my MTC Friends will be there, except Hermana Aldrich, who is in Yakima, so in the southern half. My zone has been practicing a song to sing at the Christmas party called "Mary's Lullaby," from the Children's Songbook, and I get to play guitar with it!! SO fun and so refreshing. I love, love, love guitar, and I have missed it so much.

 Practicing Mary's Lullaby

 Playing chair soccer in Othello

Some other interesting and entertaining activities this week: On Thursday we helped Yvonne (less active member who had a heart attack a couple months ago) make some garland and put it up on her front door. It was really surprisingly hard!! It took us probably 2.5 hours, but now her house looks so pretty! She's also been coming to church the last few weeks, so that's really good! We also had two investigators show up at church yesterday, both unexpected. It was such a great, pleasant surprise. It was a Christmas miracle! Woo Hoo! I also finally tried mushrooms for the first time last night (I've never thought about it before). They were gross and tasted like a dirty sock, but I'm glad I at least tried them!  Hermana L. and I went to a single, less active sister’s house the other day and almost got trampled by a bunch of horses! We go and help her muck the stalls and put out feed sometimes (she's pretty old).They are normally a really nice bunch of horses, but it was raining and freezing cold. So I guess the little pieces of ice hitting them all morning really spooked them. It was pretty crazy. Jill was able to calm them down for a few minutes while me and Hermana L hurried and got out of the stable. It was pretty intense! I know Heavenly Father was watching out for us.

 Helping Yvonne decorate for Christmas

 Us with Yvonne. We love her!

 The finished product!

Another fun thing this week is a random secret family in the ward has been bringing all four of us presents all week to our apartment! It's the "12 Days of Christmas"! It’s so sweet! Yesterday we got ornaments and candy canes, and a plate of cookies. We haven't opened our presents from today yet. Also, Hermana Hirche's mom is sending her 12 days of Christmas every day too. So it's really fun when we get to open five presents every day! We also got a cute little nativity book from a member and we read a little story out of it every night while we drink hot chocolate (I drink milk, LOL). Anyway it's fun to have this cute little family to have Christmas with. I love my roommates. The other day Hermana Hirche got a random package from her weird uncle that had a blow up buck, some blow up teeth, and a set of blow up organs (like stomach, liver, etc.) and the note said, "Dear Hermana Hirche, I love you. Here is the most random things I could find. Merry Christmas" ha ha!

 Putting up our new ornaments

 Missionary Christmas tree!

Blow up buck from Hermana Hirsche's uncle

Anyway, I guess that's everything this week. It's been pretty weird. Hopefully things will start going better soon and I can get over this nasty bug, whatever it is. Please keep me, my companion, my missionary friends, and all my less active, and investigator friends in your prayers! 

Much love, Alison <3