MERRY CHRISTMAS!

What a fabulous week, although it didn't seem like Christmas here since it was like 70 degrees. We did some fun holiday season things though. Sister W's mom sent us stuff to make stockings so we did that Monday night before bed :) It was quite fun and relaxing. We also bought each other little gifts at the dollar store to stuff our stockings with. It was probably the nicest dollar store I've ever been to! So that was a fun little thing to do together as an apartment.

On Christmas Eve, Sister K, my previous companion, and I got to go out together to see our recent convert. She is so cute. She wanted to take us to lunch and bought us Christmas presents! We gave her a blanket and a scarf and she bought us these super cute friendship necklaces. I wear it everyday :) It was kinda fun to go out like we used to and it was super good to see our friend again. We are all best friends and I just love her to death.

We didn't proselyte at all Christmas Eve. We had a little bit of P-day time since we didn't get a full P-day on Monday and then we had dinners! We had dinner with two widows in the ward and I think they really enjoyed that. We were a little skeptical at first but we ended up having a really good time! We then went over to one of our ward member's home because they have a live nativity each year! We helped light tea lights all around the scene of Christ's birth, and then we got to watch people come and see it! There was music playing and then the story of His birth was also playing. It was super cool to see people walk up and feel the spirit so strong and just think about Christ. They also served cookies and hot chocolate. It was really cool and they have hundreds of people come. Then we got picked up by our District Leader and we went caroling as a district! That was fun. Then we went and had a little zone testimony meeting and prayer. At the end we all said a prayer for our investigators while Christmas music was playing and the spirit was really strong. It was a really good experience and I really enjoyed it. That night we slept around the Christmas tree! It was really fun and of course we woke up right at 6:30 (as usual, only with more excitement this time) to open our presents :) It was fun, we went around in a circle and stuff and got to see what everyone got. Thanks for all the presents by the way!!! :) I really enjoyed it. Then we got ready and did our studies before heading out to Skype! It was so fun to see all of you, and I really miss just talking to you guys! So that was really good/fun.

So I swear I did not used to be so klutzy until my mission! After we Skyped, we went to lunch. The little girls were so cute by the way. They got play makeup for Christmas and also finger nail polish so they had makeup all over their faces and then they painted our fingernails like Christmas colors. They were adorable and Sis W and I really enjoyed it because it was ALMOST like being with our own families. So here comes the klutzy part. We were outside painting nails and one of the tissues they were using started to blow away so I started to chase it....well I went to grab it right before it ran into a cactus, but part of the cactus was apparently under the tissue. So I stabbed my hand on a cactus. Immediately my hand started cramping up and my hand didn't hurt where I actually stabbed it, but I couldn't move my finger and my palm was intensely cramping. It also kind of started to numb up. It was too weird. So now my hand randomly cramps up and it still hurts but I'm fine. :) Just waiting for the venom to work out of my system. Ridiculous how accident prone I am now. I seriously fell off my bike two times this week. I told you about the one that happened on Christmas Eve and then yesterday I fell off again. Sis W dropped our phone while we were biking so I put my foot down to stop and the sidewalk is next to a decline down to a "ditch/rocks" so the sidewalk was a lot higher than the ground. Well I missed the sidewalk so of course I tipped over. However, I saw it coming so I tried to catch myself on my feet and ended up tripping and landing on my booty. It was definitely my most painful fall yet. :) BUT, I'm fine :) I did not used to be so accident prone, did I!? So I'm hoping that goes away once I'm off my mission again. 

So we also went on exchanges with the sister training leaders this week. I stayed in our area and Sis W went to their area. While we were on exchanges we locked our bikes up at the apartments. When we went to go get our bikes one of the tires was flat (on Sis W's bike, which Sister L was using at the time) and it looked like someone had tried to steal the bike! The way we had it locked probably looked like if they took the tire off, they could just take the bike. But it was also locked to the frame and the front wheel, so they couldn't. So I had no idea who to call so I started calling around and a young woman ended up getting us and taking us to our dinner appointment. Our dinner appointment was so sweet and they bought us a new tire! But first he tried to blow up the old one to see if they just deflated it to take off the tire and he ended up blowing it up because he was using an electric air thing. So the tire blew up. So while we ate dinner he went and bought us two more tires. He was going to send us home with a spare tire but then he did the same thing and blew up the spare tire! haha! He ended up fixing it on the third tire though. So that was so nice of him and he wouldn't let us pay him. What a nice guy! Some people are too sweet to us. 

Just this Saturday one of my investigators from my first area got baptized!!! YAY!!!! It was probably the most spiritual baptism I have ever been too. The bishop and the ward mission leader also said the same thing. She was in my other area, but of course I still got to go since I'm still here. It was awesome to see somebody that I actually taught all the lessons to finally be baptized! It was awesome. We have kind of had a rough week this last week so it was really rewarding to see all our hard work pay off. I realize that sometimes we are supposed to plant seeds so that people will be ready later, but the spirit just touched me and I knew that this was why I was here. That all the hard times are worth it if we help bring someone like her, who is so converted to the gospel, come unto Christ and be baptized. What an amazing experience that was! 

We visited the old woman who is insane last night. She literally is so crazy! She understood what we were saying last night and she responded, but she has some twisted views on who God is. We tried to teach her that God loves us and that we want to live with Him again, but she believes God will whip her and send her to hell. That was sad. So we are trying to help her. She also just wants to die because she is old and tired of living. But she is pretty hilarious and does say some funny things even if she is crazy. Sis W said, "Will you let us help you?" and she shook her head and looked down and said, "No." Then she perked up and said, "Wait, help me die!? YES!" What a little smart alack! She was laughing cause she thought she was so funny. But in all reality she really does want to die so that is kind of sad. But we are gonna keep working with her and hopefully she will come to understand that she is a daughter of God and that He loves her and wants her to live with Him again. She definitely is not all there though. 

We also have a new investigator. We taught him the Plan of Salvation last night, and he was really receptive. The only downer is that he is SO busy. But he loves to learn so hopefully this isn't just a "history" lesson for him. We'll see! 

Lastly, we saw another of our investigators this week. He said he will give up everything except THC (weed) and that he will stop smoking it, but he won't stop consuming it. He believes it helps his connection with God.  He is quite funny but he definitely wants to be a better person, so we are gonna try to help him to the best of our abilities! 

Well that's all I have for this week! It was a little slow stats wise with Christmas and people being gone, but it was still a good week! I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! Thanks for all the letters and pictures! I love them and hopefully I will get caught up with writing letters soon. I've just been so busy :) 

Anyway even though it didn't feel like the holidays, I was really able to focus on Christ and all he has done for me/us. We are so blessed and now I just want to share this knowledge with others. I'm so grateful for my Savior and for our loving Heavenly Father who loves us so much, that He gave His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. 

The Christmas stocking I made!

Our Christmas Tree

Christmas PJ's!!!!!

My Christmas loot

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!!

Well once again it has been an interesting week filled with many great times. This week we put someone else on date to be baptized! :) I'm pretty sure I said something about her in the past letters. She is the old one who is insane and only said a few things to us. She even said she was sweaty. Ya, that lady. The bishop thinks she is sane enough to get baptized though and wants us to work with her so we went this week and ended up asking her if she wanted to be baptized! She said yes so she is on date for the 28th of January. Her daughter was there and so she seems to be a little more sane when she is there. But hopefully that all works out! I thought for sure that woman would just have to have baptisms for the dead done for her because she was literally insane the first time I met her. Hopefully she doesn't drown when they baptize her! It will be interesting to see how things pan out! We are gonna teach her again this week so we will see what she thinks this week!

So my companion is a fabulous singer and she's always singing and making up songs. So one of our zone leaders "died" this week. Don't freak out, that just means that he went home :) So we wrote him a little song about going home and called him and sang it to him. It was pretty funny. It was to a Backstreet Boys song so maybe we will have to sing it for you on our Christmas Skype call :) It's pretty fabulous and I think he enjoyed it ;) 

We visited another crazy lady this week too. She and her husband are former investigators. One of the young women in our wards visits her quite a bit because she has Alzheimers and enjoys visits. So we went with the young women. So first of all the Jerry Springer show was on TV while we were there. It was SOOO UNCOMFORTABLE. We were trying to talk loud and stuff and just talk to our investigator. Well she was talking about how she is a happy woman and stuff and there was a girl dancing on the TV all crazy. So she pointed out the woman dancing and we asked her if that was what she felt like doing since she was SO happy. (Ps, she is a black woman so picture this coming from an old black woman) She said, "OH NOOOOO. I do NOT like that. I would beat her butt, and throw it in the garbage can!" We of course just started laughing. It was quite funny to hear especially the way she said it :) So just a little funny story for ya. 

So there was a HUGE MLC meeting this week that my companion and I were invited to. MLC is mission leadership council. Well people from Salt Lake came down to train us so the mission can be better now that our mission president  is all settled and is starting to get in his groove. Well they invited "younger" missionaries who aren't in the leadership so that we could catch this vision and training too so if we are ever leaders in the future, we can maintain the new standards and such. So we were super lucky to attend. It was an AWESOME meeting and I learned a lot. There are going to be some changes coming into our mission because of the training. Awesome stuff to be a part of though because they only have one of those meetings once in every mission presidents time being there. 

This week we had some really good lessons with some other potentials as well! One guy is supposed to get baptized this Saturday. He has a little bit of a mental condition so he acts younger than he really is but he is so sweet. He can feel the spirit and even though he isn't sure about everything and doesn't quite understand everything we teach him particularly, he really wants to be baptized. So hopefully that all works out! We are teaching him as much as possible this week so he will be prepared! 

We also started to teach another girl. She is dating a member in our ward. So we have had two lessons with her and she has tons of questions and you can see her desire to really find the truth. But she is pretty logical and analytical so it's a bit harder for her to accept the truth and know it is truth. But she has a true desire so I know she will come to know the truth of what we tell her! She told us she really likes us and that we have been able to answer her questions better than past missionaries so the Lord is really blessing us and helping us through those lessons! Lastly, we street contacted a lady a week or two ago. She texts us every once in a while but has never really answered when we ask to meet with her. Well she finally decided she wanted to meet with us! We met her at a Walgreens and taught her. She was crying and she really felt the spirit. It was awesome. She even said she would come to the church the next day.Soooo Sunday came around and we had 5 investigators there! It was fantastic!

So an unfortunate story. We have handed out hundreds of mormon.org cards with our number on it just in the past few weeks. Well our friend got a phone so we gave him our number (standing right next to him) so he could text us and we would have his number too. Well we never got the text so we had him call us. Some guy answered the phone!!! SOOO we have handed out hundreds of cards to people who might be interested and we gave them THE WRONG NUMBER!!! It was not our fault though because my companion's trainer told her/used that number too. So somewhere, someone got the number wrong! What a HUGE bummer. But it's all good! At least we know now. 

The Christmas season is great for investigators. We bought 3 of our investigators church clothes with the help of  a young couple in our ward (They are soooo awesome! They do so much to help us). They went and bought it for us and we paid them. What a huge blessing though, the store was having a blowout sell so we were able to buy three dress outfits for a lot cheaper than normal! We took them their gifts last night and they were super, super grateful. They won't feel so "out of place" now. They love coming to church because of how accepting it is, but now they can feel more involved just by how they are dressed :) It is awesome! 

I love the Christmas season, although it doesn't feel to Christmasy here. But it's a great time to focus on the Savior and all he has done for us. What a blessing we have to have the truth/gospel in our lives. It's hard to see people reject that truth when we present it to them, but everyone has their agency. It's even more amazing to see the change come over people who do accept the gospel and learn of the truth for themselves. How blessed we truly are. Thanks so much for all the support and love. It's much appreciated! 

HOT HOLIDAYS...

What a CRAZY week. It has been awesome and then horrible at the same time. With the Christmas season upon us, we have been SO busy and there is never a spare minute! So we have been challenged to invite one person each day to be baptized. Whether that is someone on the street, or one of our solid investigators, it doesn't matter, but at least one a day.. HARD RIGHT? Well we did it! Everyday this week we asked somebody to be baptized. A few people even said yes! So we had one day that was super awesome and we got a ton of potentials and stuff, but then the rest of the days were really tough and it felt like we weren't getting ANYWHERE. So it was really good yet hard at the same time. So with that being said, I'm going to talk about some highlights and funny things that happened this last week. This last P-day a young woman in our ward wanted to take "awkward Christmas pictures" of us and make them into Christmas cards to send to our families. Well we wanted ugly sweaters and stuff like that but ended up not finding any. So the family's house we were at, dressed us up in camo! haha we held this tiny little Christmas tree and did a ton of super hilarious/awkward pictures. However, they never got turned into actual Christmas cards, so we just have a ton of awkward pictures of us dressed up in camo and holding a Christmas tree. I'm sure they will give you a good laugh.

That same night it was dang COLD. We didn't have any set appointments so we were riding our bikes around and we OYM'd this guy riding his bike as well. He was higher than a kite! He was so drugged up and kept saying weird, weird things. But even though he was insane, and we probably should have been scared of him, I didn't feel danger at all and we ended up really making his night. He could not focus and didn't really care about what we had to say, but he loved talking to us. Believe it or not, we actually ran into him a few days later too. He was ecstatic to see us, and he talked to us for a while again. We kept trying to slip gospel things in but he is too scatterbrained to even comprehend what we are saying. So that was super funny and it was nice to know we made his night/day and helped a wayward soul ;) 

So here's another funny story for ya. Sister W and I are trying to reach the Standard of Excellence each week which requires that we get 16 member present lessons. We asked a young woman to go out with us and we decided on a time for after dinner and she also texted us her address. Well we were late to dinner (because of the high guy) and we didn't know where they lived so we looked up the address on our iPad. Wellllll, silly Sis W took us to the young woman's house instead of dinner. So she opens the door all surprised because we are an hour early. She tells us to come in and Sis W makes a comment about how it smells good or something. The father of the home then asked if the daughter needed to wear a dress or if she could just go in casual clothes. By then I figured out we were at the WRONG house and this was not dinner. I tried to whisper it to Sis W and she finally figured it out too. While we were awkwardly trying to whisper to each other the dad kinda figured it out too. He asked if he was supposed to feed us and of course we said no. He said, "uh, are you sure?" Sister W awkwardly replies,"Uh no! We were just stopping by to make sure 6:15 was still good and to make sure we had the right address! So we will be back later! Does that sound good?!" haha I was laughing SO hard. It was a terrible cover up ;) We ended up finding dinner and it was a good laugh there as well. The young woman ended up coming out with us later and she had a super good experience! She was there when we asked someone to be baptized (a former investigator that we have never met) and the girl said yes! The young woman just started crying and it was just a really good spiritual experience for her and she seemed like she had a lot of fun! So that was really good. 

Anyway so like I said we had one SUPER good day. That was because we talked to a ton of people on the street and basically all of them said yes we could come back later or listened to a lesson right then and there from us. We got like 9 lessons just on the side of the street or outside people's houses. It was awesome! Soooo hopefully they all work out! 

So honestly I fell off my bike TWICE this week....the struggle is indeed real. I hit my tire wrong on the curb and just fell right off. Luckily no cars were coming at the time so it was all good. I fell onto the sidewalk (but no injuries/i half landed on my feet) but my bike was a little bit in the road. It gave Sis W a good laugh :) The second time we were on a secluded street and we were looking up an address on our iPads. I was sitting on my bike and Sis W was standing and her bike was leaning against her. I was balancing myself on her bike (my foot was on her frame and my other one was kinda on a pedal) Anyway, she moved and there was no way for me to catch myself because her bike fell, my foot got stuck in the frame and I fell on top of her bike and my bike fell on top of me! Literally SO funny. A car, of course, turns the corner while I'm laying there with bikes strewn about me and stops to see if I'm ok. I was fine, but I was laughing so hard they probably thought I was sobbing. How embarrassing. 

Honestly the rest of the days were pretty rough. I have been getting a little sick so I'm extremely exhausted each day. I think its a little bit of the flu and a cold so I'm just really achy and weak. So that has definitely been draining! So we got all those potentials that one day and everyone was saying yes, well the next few days EVERYONE said no. We got comments that we were a cult, that Jesus said the Book of Mormon wasn't true, and one woman yelled at us saying, "DON'T YOU GUYS EVER GET THE HINT!?" So it was hard to have all that success in one day and then nothing else worked out and those people that said yes, haven't really gotten back to us/have been busy and we couldn't visit them again yet. We did get to go to the Christmas lights with an investigator though! Sis W has been teaching him for a while. He is basically the only investigator that they had/ that I came into the area with. His uncle and his girlfriend are also investigators but they aren't as dedicated and they don't keep commitments very well. Hopefully we can get them on track too though. But we asked did ask our investigator at the Christmas lights to be baptized! He said yes! We are shooting for the 28th so hopefully he goes through with it and is ready for this next step! We are definitely so excited for him and that was another good moment of this week. 

Lastly, we had our Christmas Conference this week! SO FUN! So it started Sunday night with the Mission President's fireside. The whole mission was there, plus investigators! That was the night I had to play the piano and I was SO nervous! But it ended up going alright. I played with violins so hopefully you couldn't hear my mistakes too badly. The next day we were at a church ALL day. We even had breakfast there. We had a bunch of talks and get to know you activities with the whole mission! It was super fun. Then we had a huge testimony meeting that was like two hours long. There are so many people in our mission though so not tons got to bear their testimony compared to how many of us there are. Then we had a Christmas dinner and family home evening! We had a ton of musical numbers and then Santa came!! They read a few people's names from the "naughty and nice" list. Most of the people on the naughty list were people who have wrecked cars or their bikes got stolen and stuff. It was super funny. Then we had some delicious dessert and went home. It was a long day, but a great one. It was awesome to get to know more people from the mission! Also we found out some fabulous news! Elder Holland is coming! He is going to be down for an ASU event so he is going to have a meeting with the missionaries as well! How exciting right? It will be January 11th so we are all super pumped for that. 

The last portion of our Christmas Conference was the temple trip today. Everyone in our mission got to go! We split up into different times and then took a huge mission picture at the end. BUT, the best part was that President and his wife were waiting in the Celestial room and they were giving out hugs for Christmas! Soooo I got to hug President T! It was the best part by far. I love that man. He is such a big teddy bear! He is such a big guy. It was like hugging a huge tree trunk. My arms only fit basically to his hips and he had to bend way over to reach me. It was so great though! It made all of us miss our families but it was so awesome! Also, it started to get really cold and then all the sudden today it was 75 degrees! I was sweating while we were trying to get our mission picture! It definitely does not feel like Christmas! It'll be weird to have hot holidays. 

Anyway have a fabulous week everyone and remember the true spirit of Christmas is to focus on our Savior, Jesus Christ :)

"Crazy" dress at the Goodwill

Our Christmas Tree!

Begin Again

What a CRAZY week! I can't even remember half the things I do each day anymore so writing emails is kinda tough sometimes! Well, last Monday I went and started saying goodbye to people. It was super sad :( SO we went out to eat at Chick-fill-A with the young woman who got baptized and then she dropped us off at one of the member family's. We went to the Mesa Christmas lights with them! We can only go with an investigator because it is out of our mission. So the family we were with brought his non member sister. It is SO GORGEOUS! Maybe even better than Salt Lake because it's not AS cold! :) haha it was really fun and the lights on the palm trees are so gorgeous! Also, guess who I ran into in the visitors center!? a young woman from our Stake! She is so cute and we were able to chat for a few minutes. We even took a picture together :) Anyway the lights were gorgeous.

The next day we were supposed to have a lesson with the couple we have been teaching but they cancelled for some reason. So we went and said goodbye to the member family whose home we were to teach the couple at.  I love this family and they have done so much for us; the father told us to come in because he had something for us. He had two forget-me-not flower bracelets hanging on the tree for us! They are so precious! He said he didn't want us to forget their family, or to forget each other (my companion and I). It is so cute! I love that family so much! Anyway then he taught us how to see auras and how to hold and recognize our energy (chi). It was SUPER cool. Sounds weird, but it's really cool. He is so in tune with the spirit. It's amazing. Anyway, they are one of my favorite families so it was really hard to say goodbye to them. 

So transfer meeting was on Wednesday!! The President  made this huge announcement about how there is a rare pair of sisters that are second half training each other and how the Lord is really trusting us and that we were put together because of our personalities, and we are supposed to be together for SURE. It actually made me really nervous! Anyway, we already knew he was talking about us and he was already looking straight at us as well. He also told us not to get a big head of this, but it was doing quite the opposite for me, it made me quite nervous! I hadn't realized how big of a deal it was I guess. Anyway so my new companion is indeed one of the missionaries who was already in our apartment! She is CRAZY! haha so she said when they say our names that I had to run to the front and jump in her arms. Transfer meetings are crazy, President will call one companions name, they will stand up and stuff, and then he calls the other companions name and they usually run up and hug or do something weird and crazy. So that's why she wanted me to jump in her arms. Well we sat on opposite sides of the very last pew of the chapel. President calls her name and she stands up and does a little cheer or something, he says my name and we both start running/screaming to the front. Well I jump in her arms and what does she do? Oh ya, she was laughing so hard that we fell over on the first pew! AWKWARD! Everyone thinks we are nuts now. I could just see President thinking, "Lord, ARE YOU CRAZY? What have we done!?" haha but all is well :)

SOOOO this week has been super draining for me. It's so hard to basically be starting all over again, but I've loved it. We are over two wards, ( in the same stake as the other wards I was over). My new companion and I are already friends since we have lived together and I am already learning a lot from her. She is a great missionary. So we haven't really had any set appointments but we've had quite a few lessons with people on the side of the street and we usually get a lot of OYMs each day. She is very good at those. We also made cookies with one of the Bishops and delivered them to like ten houses of all potential investigators! That was really, really good. So hopefully we get some good investigators soon. We are working on that mostly right now. Being in the same apartment/area is a blessing and a curse. It's really hard to see someone teaching those people that I started with and who are so close to baptism being taught by someone else. I love those people so much! But it's also nice to be so close so I can go to their baptisms when they DO get baptized. 

Anyway just some fun things that happened this week.My very first day we visited this super old, old, OLD lady. She is crazy! We knocked and sat there for a while. All the sudden she started yelling, "BETTY! BETTY!!! HELP ME! HELP ME!!!" We had no idea what to do. We didn't know whether to barge in there or what. We finally decided to just leave a note. So we started writing notes and putting them on her door when all the sudden it started opening. My companion frantically pulled all the notes off and the lady opened the door. She had no idea who we were but she let us in. We tried to talk to her but the only things she said that whole visit was, "yesss, nooo, I don't knowww, and I'm sweaty." Weird.....so since she wouldn't talk, we finally left. It was quite a welcoming moment into my new area ;) She was insane, literally. 

Anyway, we also went to a Quincenera (sp?) for a less active-recent convert. She was so cute. Thank goodness we aren't allowed to dance though because my companion definitely would have made me. Like I said, she is crazy/ a party animal. But we had a lot of delicious Mexican food! 

Another funny story. I was wearing my cute bow flats, that aren't very practical, to church. Well I used to be able to walk to church because the other church is right next to our apartment. Well our new church is like 10 minutes away on bike. So I wanted to wear my cuter shoes for church though. Anyway as we were crossing the cross walk on our way home from church, one of my shoes came off! So I had to roll backwards and slide my shoe back on! So by then the light had changed and I had to wait on the side of the road and my companion had already gone across. It was really funny and embarrassing since everyone at the light saw my shoe fall off and watched me awkwardly waddle on my bike backwards to the sidewalk. But honestly, never is there a dull moment with my companion and I. She is quite funny. 

Also last night I had my first experience of getting "antied". The man would not let us get a word in edgewise! The best thing you can do in that situation is just testify, testify, testify. But we couldn't! He wouldn't let us say anything. He kept saying that Jospeph Smith did all these terrible things and was going off about how he had some Mormon neighbors who did some "terrible" things to him and that he knew what we believed and we don't. He said that the church was conning us and that we should listen to him because we are just stupid teenagers who didn't know anything and that he was saving our souls. It was quite interesting. He told us that people are always lying all around us and that he did his research on the internet to find out all of this stuff about Joseph Smith. It made no sense. I wanted to ask him why he would believe everything he read on the internet if he just told us that everyone lies a dozen times a day. He was so contradictory but kept telling us to do the research ourselves because there is proof that Joseph Smith did those things, and proof that the Book of Mormon never happened. Ridiculous. That just strengthened my testimony even more that Satan will do whatever he can to tear down/distort the truth. And as I was TRYING to testify, I felt the Spirit telling me that what I was saying, is definitely the truth. 

So something funny about my new companion is that she often talks in her sleep and sometimes sleep walks. Well for the past two nights, we have apparently been sleep talking to each other because when she talks, it wakes her up and she can remember it in the morning. So we just have tiny conversations in our sleep. However, I don't remember it in the morning! Kinda funny though! haha. Anyway those are the highlights of my week! I'm sure I'll have more to write as I start to know people better as well! Oh also, it is sooooooo cold here. I was NOT prepared for this weather. Especially at night when I am riding my bike! FREEZING! But I'm super happy to be here and I know that I'm supposed to be where I am for some reason, I just don't really know what it is yet. But I love being a missionary. I have no doubt that I am supposed to be on a mission. I love this church/gospel and I'm so glad I have it in my life! What a blessing it has been! Have a good week! :)

WHEN I FELL OFF OF MY BIKE.....

Just When I Was Getting Comfortable...

SO, what a crazy, crazy week. It doesn't really feel like we accomplished much because a lot of our appointments fell through, and hardly anybody answered their doors. I'm sure a lot of people were gone for Thanksgiving though. Anyway, on Monday we had exchanges! The sister training leaders came out with us. So I stayed in our area and my companion went to the Spanish area. I didn't even get lost at all while we went around! haha it was great. We got 19 OYM's (street contacts) that night, which is super good for me! We found one woman at a bus stop and she just started crying when we talked to her, and we ended up teaching a lesson on the side of the road; she was really excited and gave us her phone number and was so ready to meet with us. She lives at a halfway house and so wanted to meet us at the church. We had appointments with her this week, but they fell through... It was a good experience though because I'm not very good at OYMs! But since that day, I've been a LOT better. I learned a lot from my training leader. She has been out for 16 months so she knows what she's doing.

We also taught a homeless guy this week too! He loved us! We were with the other sisters who live with us as well, on the way home from district meeting. We stopped at a gas station for some hot chocolate because it was "cold" (aka like 50 degrees or so) ;) Anyway we taught him so much stuff and ended up giving him a Book of Mormon; he wanted us all to sign it in the back. He called us twice this week to check up on us, and he wanted to come to church but something came up. He promised to come next week though! He was such a sweet man and said he considers us his "adopted daughters." So that was super fun and cool. We were definitely supposed to be there to help him through a hard day! He has quite a weird situation that would take WAY too long to explain. 

Anyway Thanksgiving was good! We went and visited a member family.  I love that family so it was awesome to hang out with them for a few hours. We then went to the ward mission leader's home from one our wards to eat. She is a caterer. Need I say more? haha no I love them so much and they are like family basically.They take good care of us.They invited us over for Christmas too! But we had to leave dinner early because we had a zone activity. Guess what we got to do!? We got to wear sweats, bring desserts, and watch WRECK IT RALPH!!! SO FUN. It was such a blast! Definitely the highlight of the whole day. It was awesome. All in all, it was a good Thanksgiving, although it didn't really feel like Thanksgiving because I wasn't with family, and it's not super cold. So it was weird, yet good. 

So Friday we had some weird, awkward situations. First of all, a funny one. My companion fell off her bike. It was super funny. She was getting off and just fell over and landed on top of her bike. We were right outside a members home and he came running out asking if she was ok. She was fine, but it gave us quite the laugh for the rest of the day. Brother C. is so nice! He bought us Jamba Juices twice. We teach a couple at their home and this family has really been fellowshipping this couple. It has helped SO much. We couldn't do it without them. So we taught this couple and it was super weird. It was like our third lesson and we thought about teaching the law of chastity because they live together. We also taught scripture study, prayer, and going to church.. Well we ended up feeling like we shouldn't do the law of chastity so we didn't. But during the lesson, the guy dropped the F bomb! We were all so shocked and didn't know what to say. It was SO awkward. Brother C was eating lunch and basically spit it across the table cause he was so shocked! haha. Then this guy kept making some weird inuendos that just made things awkward. Anyway that lesson was a train wreck in those ways but it gave us something to laugh about later! That night we went back to the same member families home to help set up their Christmas tree because they invited their non member neighbor. So we left a spiritual message there too. It was a super fun day. 

So yet again, I'm still not happy about the piano thing....Guess who has to play the piano at the Christmas Conference in front of our WHOLE mission? Oh ya....me. To make matters worse, I have to accompany a few people playing violins!!!!!! Yes, I'm stressed out. We can't practice during proselyting hours....soooooooo ya I'm SO nervous. I broke out in a cold sweat right when they asked me. So ya, still not appreciating the fact that I play the piano because I am SO not good and haven't practiced in a LONG time! 

So last but not least, we got transfer calls last night!!!! The President called us. So one sister from the other companionship is leaving and second half training; my companion is staying and training again. I am inter-zoning and second half training (aka I'm not going to be in my same wards, but I'll be in the same zone. The weird part is that I'm also going to be living in the same apartment). And last, the other sister is staying. SOOO the only logical explanation is that she and I are going to be companions in her area, and my companion is getting a new missionary fresh from the MTC. The zone leaders called this morning and confirmed that they think that is what's happening so to start moving rooms and stuff and pay attention to how everything is done since we are both so new. My new companion was at the MTC with me, just in another zone. WEIRD!!! I'm super sad to be leaving my wards.. I was just starting to know my way around and to make some good relationships with the ward members! So I'm really sad and it'll be really weird to hear about our investigators and ward members from my current still since she is staying. But It'll be nice that I already know my new companion fairly well! But, that's about it for this week. 

To answer some questions you've had: 

Yes I get along with my district. There WAS two sets of Elders and two sets of Sisters, but that could change now. There are three districts in our zone, but again, that will probably change. They might split our zone. At zone conference we just have talks and go over stats and do "greenie" meeting/training. I don't really like it that much, but it has to be done. I do like my zone leaders though. One of them is finished in three weeks though. So he'll be home right in time for Christmas! Anyway, transfer meeting is on Wednesday so we'll all find out for sure where we are going and who are companions are that day! I'm excited and little sad at the same time! But I'm super glad I"m on a mission. It still doesn't really feel real. But I know that I'm supposed to be here and that wherever the Lord puts me, it's for a reason. Either for me to help someone, or for me to learn from other people. I miss you all, especially around these holiday seasons!!! Love you! Have a good week!

The police catching bad guys