Christmas in Georgia was wonderful! Thank you to everyone for the wonderful presents and goodies! I loved hearing from y'all and getting your fun cards. We had such a great christmas! We pulled out our beds into the living room and slept by our little 2 foot tree with millions of presents underneath it. On tuesday night we watched the Nativity, and Mr. Kruger's Christmas.. because they were the only ones approved, and we had such a fun night. On Christmas morning we woke up super excited and wide awake, it was very easy to wake up at 6:30 then! we started by reading in luke 2, matthew 1, and 3nephi1. Then we said a prayer and then busted open our presents! I loved them all. We have so much sugar and treats though, we are so sick of them and we giving them out like crazy. But i did enjoy some of them:) We visited three families that day, we had a breakfast lunch and dinner appts. When we got home we realized what a mess we had left in our apartments. It took a couple of days to clean up.
It was sooo good to talk to everyone too! Next time we have to plan Skype or the calls better because apparently i took too much time and my companions were a little annoyed by it. I felt bad, but i have a big family:) We were really worried that we would have a hard time jumping back into the work but the next day we were excited, and it just felt natural, familiar to be a real missionary again. We noticed that because of christmas we had slacked off a little bit on the work and the rules, but we also noticed that it just felt so good to be a normal real missionary again. We sort of missed it.
We had a baptism on Friday for Karina. She is such a doll and i love her so much! We met her by a family named the Wagner's. she is dating their son and came to dinner that night we had dinner with them also. WHat a coincidence! She became interested in taking lessons and lo and behold she is now baptized! She has come so far and we have just been here to witness the spirit do it's work with her. She was absolutely glowing on Sunday after being confirmed. We're pretty positive that she and the Wagner's son will get married but not for another year. That means they can go to the temple! They are working on that and i'm so happy for them. Karina actually pulled us aside on Sunday after church and thanked us for all that we did for her, this gospel and church means everything to her now, and she is so happy and grateful to be a part of it. She had known about it for a while from her boyfriend, the wagner son, but she didn't know what she was missing out on. This work really does bring so much joy and i'm grateful to be so involved in it all. (D&C 18:15-18)
On Sunday we had one of our investigators come to church, her name is Dorian. SHe is 18 years old and lives in the same apartments as us. We met her last pday when we came up to email. SHe wants to find a church, (church shopping) and she was interested in ours. We had a lesson with her on friday, and we had our friend Narysa (sister goobs) with us, she is a member of our ward. (i'm telling ya, us members have a huge role and are vital to this work!) We found out that she lives with her sister who is 25 and their mom committed suicide two years ago. SHe wants to find peace and happiness, and she knows that her mom is telling her to find a church or something to help. When she came to church, she grabbed all sorts of pamphlets, cards, and in sunday school she was writing down notes on her program with a bunch of scriptures on them. She then asked to look at my PREACH MY GOSPEL book and asked if she could get one. I told her she could but she would have a cheat sheet for all the lessons we would teach her. nah, its probably better for her to just have the book instead of listening to us! She is such an angel. We wish transfers weren't' next week so we could all be here for her baptism. i know she will be baptized, cause she is amazing!
We had to teach the lesson though in Relief Society, on Hastening the Work. We talked about the roles as missionaries and as members. Member really have the biggest responsibility. If you think of it as pyramid.. Members are the foundation, next is home/visiting teaching, then comes us missionaries, and last is the investigator, less active, recent convert. The most influential and biggest priority is the members on the bottom. They have the biggest responsibility in inviting, befriending, serving, and sharing the gospel with others. Each step of the pyramid leads up to the top, (the investigator, less active, recent convert). The missionaries are there to assist the members in the work. I felt like we pretty much gave a throw down to the relief society and guilt tripped them. But they were so involved and really enjoyed it. At the end we gave everyone a mormon.org card and committed them to give it to some one within the next week, and we would followup with them next sunday. AFter church we got home and already had one sister call us saying she gave it out! We were very proud of her. We also encouraged that they have people or a friend come over when they have us over for dinner. We thought of making it so we couldn't come over at all unless someone was there, but we might lose some of our dinners and those are too important to us:)
I have such a testimony though of missionary work. Not because i'm a missionary but because as a member this is our calling and we must share the gospel with God's children. We have been so blessed to have our testimonies and have the gospel. But we must not take this blessing for granted. It is a commandment for us to share it. The only way to keep it and strengthen this blessing is to share it. I want to continue sharing it after my mission. After giving that lesson I plan on being a better member and representative of Christ by doing what the Lord has commanded us after my mission. There are so many blessings and it brings so much joy! Alma 26 will tell ya a lot of those blessings.
I hope everyone has as happy new year! And as a missionary i challenge y'all to bring one soul unto christ by next christmas! it starts in our homes but get out of your comfort zone and find someone! Love y'all! Happy new year of 2014!
Christmas Eve.
Our beds in the living room. We were so excited!
Christmas morning. What a mess!
Waiting for the font to fill for Karina's baptism.
Beautiful Karina. I love her so much.
My umbrella broke and wouldn't go down so i had to sit in the front seat the whole ride home with a big umbrella in front of me. The sisters couldn't stop laughing. I was ticked. It seems like i have to buy everything twice at walmart cause i either lose it or it breaks.
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