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| MTC Sisters together again at our mission Christmas Conference |
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| My neighbor, Elder Young. |
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| A prop for our zone's skit |
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| For the Door Decorating Contest |
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| We went to a member's Hanaukkah Party. |
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| The food was so good |
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| Caroling Missionaries at the Williams |
It was another great week in Paradise :)
Tuesday we held both district meetings in the Arlington
building and afterwards we ran through our Zone Skit for the Christmas
party. Elder Payne rewrote T'was the Night Before Christmas to a story in
Dunn Ave. It was so funny! I'll try to send some of it home :)
Then we had a sisters' lunch at Blue Boy's sandwich
shop. We have some great sisters in the zone and we are excited to get to
know them more! Right after that we started our trade-off with the Dunn
Ave Sisters. Sister Parshall stayed in Arlington with me. We came
out together and we were in neighboring wards in Gainesville so it was fun to
have a day together. We had some awesome nerdy band conversations too
since she did marching band in Las Vegas! Don't worry though we got some
great work in too! We were able to stop by and see Sister Makuei.
Last Christmas we left some treats on their door on Christmas morning because
we knew they wouldn't have very much. No one in the ward seemed to know
about them so we stopped by and they are still there!
Wednesday we had lunch in Dunn Ave with our Relief Society
President. She has been super sick for a long time and so we haven't seen
her hardly at all since I've been here. It was good to get in touch with
her again. She told us stories from her mission which was fun too!
We are planning on getting a sign up going in Relief Society to go on splits
with the sisters in the ward!
Thursday was the Mission Christmas Conference!!! This
is one of my favorite days! Seriously--Christmas as a missionary is the
BEST!!! We started the meeting with skits, then we had dinner and a slide
show. And lots of visiting with mission friends too! It was great
to see all my MTC sisters! (the Elders that were in my MTC district are in
South Carolina. I've had some contact with them and they seem to be doing
well :) ). After the fun and food we head into the chapel for the
devotional. This really brings the spirit of Christ into Christmas.
I was asked to lead the congregational songs so that was fun too. The music
was beautiful and President and Sister Craig gave great talks! I received
some beautiful revelation that night. Then we get packages, letters,
presents, etc from family and friends. And someone always donates a pie
for every companionship! Yum! We didn't get home until about 9:00
and it made for a great day!
Friday morning we got a call from the Sister Training
Coordinators. They had a trade off planned with one of the other STL
companionships but something came up and they needed to reschedule so they
asked if we would mind trading off that day. We didn't have any plans so
we agreed. After weekly planning we met at the church and Sister
Petramolo stayed in the area with me and Sister Kloepfer went to Mandarin with
Sister Blotter. We had a great day together! We were able to go
teach the Makuei family. There must have been a huge language barrier
when she was taught because she doesn't know who Joseph Smith is. We
tried to speak very simply. She speaks Dinka and Arabic. We are hoping to
teach them some more and find them a ride so she and her 5 children can come to
church again.
Funny thing on the trade off--We
went to see the Gibbs, a less active family. I wasn't very clear about
who we were seeing and Sister Petramolo treated them just like
investigators! It was actually really great because it helped us find out
that her daughter who was visiting was not a member! And we determined it
would be good to review all the lessons with the family anyway.
Sunday our ward had a wonderful Christmas program. All
of the missionaries sang in the choir which was way fun! I was able to do
a duet playing flute for the First Noel with Sister Thompson singing. Our
investigator Karen came. She loved the meeting! She has been making
friends with the members and we are continuing to teach her! She is
working towards being baptized in February!!
One sad note from this week--a recent convert in the ward,
Sister Barger, passed away this weekend. It was sad, but she's been going
downhill in the hospital for a couple weeks now so it is good to know she is at
peace. I'm sure she is doing some amazing missionary work on the other
side!
Well, I hope y'all have an amazing Christmas! I'm
looking forward to calling! I LOVE YOU!!!
Sister Murray
