Week 26: Merry Christmas!

Gingerbread village

This week was CRAZY!! And so much fun! There was so much that happened, so I'm just going to give you the highlights:

- My companion got sick on Thursday night (like, barfing all over the car sick, so that was exciting!) and so I started reading Jesus the Christ like every other missionary with a sick companion and then on Friday I was still sick from having the flu, so we just slept and played games and I built an entire gingerbread village. So that was entirely productive.

- On Saturday night, we volunteered at the Heritage Park nativity, which is a live nativity pageant put on by the Church. It was only, like, freezing, but I was so cold that I tucked handwarmers under my thick socks in my boots. We were at the information booth, so our job was to yell "welcome to the nativity!" and "thanks for coming!" And we got hot chocolate at the end! It was really good. And a little chilly.

- We had our special Christmas sacrament meetings! They were so good! And we got soooo much chocolate, haha

Chocolate!

- We went to visit this lady named Usma who we tracted into a few weeks ago and wanted to show her the Christ Child, but we just talked for a loooooong time about the Qur'an and the Book of Mormon. We taught her the restoration in her entryway, and she told us that Joseph Smith was probably just possessed by the devil and that our book really doesn't make as much sense as hers. So that was awesome! But she was really apologetic about destroying our beliefs and she gave us hugs and chocolates and makeup brushes and gave us each a copy of the Qur'an. It was really sweet and kind of funny.

- On New Year's Eve, our friend Joanna texted us and asked if we could come over and talk about God for an hour and we were like, um, yes??? So we called the hermanas in her area and we all went over and watched The Christ Child with her. It was so fun! And we gave her a Spanish Book of Mormon and she said she wanted to read it and start coming to church every week! It was sad to pass her off but it's gonna be so good!

- My friend Adam got baptized on Christmas Eve and I got to go! It was so cool and he gave me a special shoutout in his talk! He said that Sister Willis and Sister Bangura taught him some good lessons out of PMG, which was funny. I loved it!

- On Christmas Eve night, we went Christmas caroling with some elders in our district and we tried to stop by this inactive family in one of our wards that has been next to impossible to get in contact with, and this Filipino woman opened the door and offered us 20 dollars! We told her no thanks and she invited us in to have food! It turned out that the family we were looking for had moved, but they told us we could come back and teach them more about the Book of Mormon in January and do Bible study with them! So that was awesome.

Christmas blow-ups!

- Christmas and Christmas Eve! They were great! I love Christmas!!

Matthew wrote about how the birth of Christ was the fulfilling of Isaiah's prophecy: "Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us." I am so grateful to know about God's plan for us to find happiness and peace! And I feel so blessed to be able to share the good news with the people I meet :)

I love you and am so grateful for all of your examples! Merry Christmas!

Sister Willis