Hey y'all!
Christmas is the best time of the year. :) I love it!
Even though it sometimes doesn't feel
like there's less than 10 days 'til Christmas, because there's no snow... but it has been cold! Not as cold as
Utah, but I have had to scrape ice off the car when we've left for meetings
early in the morning. (Nothing too bad - it only took a few pass-along cards to
scrape it off... but it did make me a little excited to see ice.) Sister
Morris and I are still praying for a white Christmas - It could happen! ;)
Sister Oliverson - I'm must say I'm a bit jealous of all the snow you're
getting... and Elder J. Ruesch, I'm going to be a wimp when I get home
too! I remember laughing at the "California kids" at Utah State
that were all bundled up in their winter coats as soon as the temperature
dropped below 60 degrees... yeah... that's going to be me... Sister Morris and
I saw a family that must have been from somewhere colder than Katy, Texas,
because all the kids were in short-sleeved shirts, and everyone else on the
street was wearing some sort of coat. It will definitely be interesting
jumping back into Utah weather when I go home in the dead of winter...
Anyway... moving away from my random tangent about the weather...
Christmas is the best time of the year. :) Yeah, sometimes it's hard
being away from home during this time of tradition, but I love spreading the
spirit of Christmas. Everywhere we go, we offer to share a Christmas
message, and so far, most people are willing to listen, even if they don't
really want to learn more about our religion. But at least they're
listening to missionaries, for however brief our message is. And maybe
they'll open the door to missionaries in the future. :)
We had a miracle of a day this past week - on Tuesday we had a
specialized training where all the missionaries in our zone and the Spanish
zone in the area got together and President Pingree came to teach us. He
talked to us about goals and planning, which was really useful. He talked
about asking the Lord for specific things, like "please help us
find where we should be at 3:00 tomorrow" and "we're going to be
here at whatever time. Please put someone who has been prepared
into our path." God knows what we're going to do before we know, but
when we ask Him for specific blessings, He is able to give us what we
need. And it shows the faith that we're putting in Him. We're doing
all we can, but we realized that we can't do it all on our own - we need His
help. I really enjoyed the training, and we're trying to apply it into
our planning sessions and throughout our days in general.
After the training, Sister Roe (we went on exchanges, so Sister Roe
was my companion for the day) returned to our area. And throughout the
day, wait for it.... EVERY person that we tried to see let us in!
That's right - EVERY door that we knocked on there was someone we were
able to talk to and share a message with. Granted, we didn't do any
tracting that day, in fact, all the people we visited were less active members,
but still, that's NEVER happened to me before! We were busy all day,
and we ended up teaching 7 lessons, which is more lessons that I've ever taught
in one day before. That's 7 people we were able to come closer to Christ,
in one day! It was awesome! We should have more days like that.
:)
As far as out investigators go, most of them have disappeared for
the holiday season... so we're having a hard time getting in with them
recently. Melissa, our Jehovah's Witness investigator, is still in town
and we were able to teach her this week, but everyone else is gone. After
the season we should be able to get in contact with everyone else though.
We did have a less active that we're working with at church yesterday, which
was awesome because she's really into family history, and the Gospel Principles
lesson was on Temples and Family History work, and she was able to be an active
part in the lesson - it was great. We had a few other less actives
"promise" that they would be there, but none of them came... darn
agency... I wish I could force them there, because I know how much it will help
them! But all we can do is continue to teach them and help them come to
that realization themselves.
Last night, we were able to go to a Christmas Choir Concert.
Every year, the Katy Stake and the Epiphany of the Lord Catholic Community get
together to perform this choir concert, and it was awesome! It made me
miss choir so much, especially when they sang songs that I've sung
before. But it was put together really well, and it really brought
the spirit of Christmas to everyone that was there. It was kinda weird
going into a Catholic church while wearing my missionary nametag... and there
were a few things that the Reverend Father did that were different than our
church, but it was cool to be able to see the differences. I'm sure you,
Devin and Mom, are able to empathize after going to different churches these
past few weeks. It's different, and kind of cool, but at the same time,
it helps me realized that we have the whole truth.
We have a few other Christmas activities - next Sunday all the
missionaries in the Katy Stake are getting together to put on a Christmas music
devotional - it should be a lot of fun. Hopefully it will be a
successful event! And next Monday we have a Christmas zone conference
with half the missionaries in the entire mission - that's how big our mission
is - there are too many people to fit in one church at one time! It's
awesome!
Anyway, I hope y'all are enjoying the Christmas season! Have a
great week! I love y'all so much!
Sister Ririe
Alma 5:48
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