Merry Christmas!

Hello everyone! Sorry the email's a little late. The library was closed yesterday, so we had to come today instead. Christmas was excellent! Very different than usual....but excellent. We woke‑up very early and unwrapped presents before heading over to a member's home to open stockings with their family. We got there (at 7:00 a.m.) and there was stuff for S Larsen and I in our stockings!! They spoiled us so much. They are so great! We saw a lot of them this weekend because we helped them wrap presents the day before, and we came over after church while they opened presents. They just brought us in as part of their family.

So then we had both ward sacrament meetings. That ended at noon, and then we had "lunch" with the bishop's family and had a great time there. They have a tradition of eating waffles and ice cream on Christmas. They are an awesome family. Bishop reminds me a little bit of Dad, so I think that was comforting too! :) After that we went to one of our ward mission leader's homes and helped them put together some of their kids toys, and after that we had dinner with another family. It was so crazy! Dinner was delicious, after which we had a lesson and acted out the Nativity. I was the shepherd and their dog was my sheep (don't worry -- I had my pepper spray this time ;) We finished a little earlier than we'd planned, but worked on organizing the area book until it was time to call home!

I need to quickly sum up everything that happened this week! R. is now dated at Jan 8. We are working hard to get all the lessons done before then. She has only had Restoration, POS, and a chapel tour. There is a lot left to cover, and we found out that she can't meet with us until Saturday of this week! The hardest thing isn't necessarily teaching all the material in the time before her baptism, it's the commitments that make it hard. Imagine committing to the Word of Wisdom, Law of Chastity, Tithing, Fast Offerings, etc, all in one week. That's just overwhelming right? Wish us luck! I suppose a better request would be....pray for us please!!!

Next time I promise a cool story about how my knowledge of American Girl Dolls helped me in my missionary work. The follow‑up appointment is later today, so I want to be able to tell the whole story, not just the first half. Anyways I love you all! Thank you so much for everything you do! I pray for you all the time and think about how lucky I am to have such a great family!

Our Investigator of Three Days Wants to Be Baptized!

Hello everyone! I hope you're all doing well. I can't believe I've been out two months! Today! Crazy, right?

We first taught our new investigator, R., on Friday. She is a friend of some fabulous members in our P-ville ward. They have prepared her so well! She already wants to be baptized . . . and on New Years Day! She wants to throw a huge party and invite all her friends to the baptism. We will be taking her on a chapel tour this Wednesday.

Do you remember my gloves that have a special little pocket for handwarmers? Well, I was wearing them at last week's coordination meeting because we'd been tracting right before. As we were leaving the meeting, Brother S. took my hand to shake it and suddenly got this shocked look on his face because I had this bulging, very hot bump on my hand. It was pretty funny!

The other day I woke up in the middle night praying. I was praying in my sleep -- how embarrassing! I guess there are worse things than praying in your sleep, but still. Thanks to all of you who have sent cards and packages. I have felt so loved and supported out here. It has really meant a lot to me.

Is that YOUR hat?

I have that line stuck in my head every day! [From the timeless classic, Girls in Pink.] Sister L. always asks if I've seen her hat, and of course that line pops in every time! :)

It has been an exciting week. I'm writing on Thursday instead of Monday this week because we went to the temple on Monday, which was great!

Sister L. and I have been trying to improve our companionship teaching skills. I'm afraid I'm not very good at it yet. I'm not very good at recognizing when she's "handing off the torch," so to speak. But that can only come with more practice, so we obviously need to find new investigators to teach in order to practice. I'm beginning to understand how important finding is -- and how hard it is! Boldness is one of our goals at the moment. Sometimes I'm completely comfortable being bold, but other times I'm just plain chicken. So we've been tracting, visiting former and part-member families, and trying to talk to all those we see. We're also working on earning member referrals. I've also begun to see how you truly have to "earn" referrals from members. It's understandable, though. They need to be able to trust us with their friends!

We had a fireside with Shawn Bradley! More details to come, but it was awesome! It was tricky arranging to get B. there, and then we had to find a way there as well. It was absolutely worth it, though . . . even if I did have to play the piano in front of hundreds of people. Our other investigator, Z., is doing well and we found three new investigators. That is, the zone leaders found three new investigators when they blitzed our area recently. I really wish I could go tracting with them and see their skills!

We experienced a pretty awesome miracle this week. We hadn't been able to contact B. for almost two weeks and were pretty worried about it. He didn't show up for church, which worried us even more. We had been tracting in P-ville and we had the feeling that we should visit this one less-active person. We drove down there, knocked on the door, and there was no answer. I was really bummed out! I was positive that the Spirit had told me to visit this person. We walked back to the car and were talking about what to do next when a school bus drove past. Then I heard huffing and puffing, and running footsteps behind me! I turned around and saw B. running towards us! I couldn't believe it! He had been on that school bus that passed by, saw us, got off at the next stop and had run a block and a half to catch us. Isn't that crazy cool? We had been trying to get hold of him for days. The timing was AWESOME.

The M-ville sisters want to take me on splits with them because apparently one of Grandma's relatives there asked a member in their ward about me. I'm not sure which relative it was -- I'll try to find out soon.

The Ohio winter is definitely coming on fast. Right now there's a temporary warm spell that will be over in a couple days. But last week I thought my fingers and toes would fall off -- it's sooooo cold! The biggest problem is that prime proselyting time is between 5-7:30, but the sun goes all the way down by 5:00 which means it suddenly becomes VERY cold then. Even though it's cold, I know I'm supposed to be here!

Crazy Week!

Hey everyone! It's been a crazy week! I don't have much time today -- sorry! Computer time runs out so fast -- an hour definitely isn't enough. Thank you all so much for the Thanksgiving notes. They really meant a lot to me. Thanks again for your love and support!

Now for the news: we went down to 0 investigators at the beginning of the week. B's baptism was scheduled for this past Saturday, but his mother didn't allow it to happen. There was a whole lot of mis-communication. Now we haven't talked to B in a while and he didn't come to church yesterday. It's the saddest experience ever!

A and K aren't picking up the phone or returning calls, either, and we want to be careful how we approach them so that even if they decide not to accept the gospel now, they might still listen to future missionaries when they are better prepared. I will let you know how that goes.