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
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