Christmas time always brings Joy. We have tried our best to bring happiness to all that we come in contact with. We are not forgetting what the spirit of Christmas is truly for. At this time my heart deeply longs for home; for the company of family on a holiday that we all hold very dear. But I am out doing what the true meaning of Christmas is for. To bring others closer to Christ.
Monday: Morning we went early to the Mission Office to prepare paperwork for all of the departing Visa waiters! It was such a heart warming and heart breaking time. They are headed for Brazil and they are all very excited and very nervous. We all sat and talked and took pictures of all the departing missionaries. After we said our final ‘goodbyes’ to all of the missionaries they drove off to the airport for their 14 hour flight. We returned to the day of which we did our normal Emailing. I was under the weather and feeling sick was not helping. I found out that I would be staying in Harrison Park, but we were also inheriting another Branch. We are now in charge of the YSA Branch. What a exciting thing! To see young people! All the people in Harrison park are older... After emailing I went and got Sister Phadnis guitar and we were playing it back in the Gym while people were playing sports. Then they pulled out a puzzle. I love puzzles. I got to also talk with Sister Prince for a while and that was great. After P-Day we went to dinner at a members (the Sanders). After dinner we picked up college hill and went to Steffanie Heycox’s house to help her with her house.
Tuesday: We worked in the office today and had a successful day of getting nothing done. After we left the office we had a wonderful lesson with our investigator Maria with a member, Sister Rochelle Benson. She is an awesome lady. After teaching Maria, we went over to Christy Baker’s house and taught her lesson 1 again. She wanted to retake all of the lessons, since she doesn't really remember anything from when she was baptized because she became less active.
Wednesday we went to Maria's house and gave her a gift for Christmas. She loved everything we gave her; which was an Ensign and a Triple combination scriptures. We wrote her name on the inside "Maria De Jesus" and signed our names below.
We then went to a LA house and gave her the Book of Mormon on CD because she cannot see very well anymore. Her husband is not a member and he is a very interesting fellow. We worked in the office for the rest of the day, and then watched a conference talk that we wanted to see if it would work all the way through since for some reason the talks are having problems on the DVD's. We had dinner at the Hamilton's and I was introduced to a fabulous thing, called Kefir. It is the only thing that my stomach does not really hate right now and it tastes good (a lot better than Greek yogurt) and it is healthy!!! So I feel good drinking it!
Thursday morning my stomach was hurting worse than it had the other days and the mission nurse said that I needed to go to the doctor to see what was going on. I called and they gave me an appointment for the same day. We left right after calling because we had to drive out to Andover. We had to attach the bike on the back of our car to give to Sister Browning. We got to the doctor and she asked me a bunch of questions and then she had me lay down and she was poking around in my stomach and she declared that most likely I had a stomach ulcer.She gave me a prescription and told me to take it. If in 2 weeks things were not better then they would have to take a scope down my throat... (not cool). After driving back I was informed that I would be driving a bunch of missionaries to the Toyota Dealership to pick up the new cars. Yay! Driving a 12 passenger van 40 miles on an icy freeway!!! and my first time driving it! it wasn't hard at all... it was like driving the suburban; only taller. After dropping everyone off I went to Walgreen's and picked up my prescription and continued on with the day. We ate dinner with the Harrison's and from there we drove to Shaunda's house and showed her the talk by President Monson: "I Will Not Fail Thee, Nor Forsake Thee". She loved it. We gave her all of the Baptism Questions to prepare her for her baptism on the 24th!
Friday we had district meeting. It was very good. We did a discussion on not drowning the people with the gospel because they cannot consume that much information as quickly as we want. As a demonstration he had one of the missionaries drink water, and kept saying “water is good for you; keep drinking.” He only got 3 cups down before he quit. So don't drown those around you with to many good things because they are not use to it! We ate at this Chinese place and I didn't get anything because it was best that I stayed away from the fried foods. We had a good lesson with Alma after we worked in the office we read the talk by Elder Uchtdorf "Come, Join With Us" We then stopped at Shaunda's house and gave her Christmas presents of the DVDs on General Conference, and Mormon tabernacle choir music and also a triple combination of scripture. after that we ate dinner at the Hamiltion’s.
Saturday It was snowing bad. We still went out and showed Sister Sobotka the conference talk "Come, Join With Us". She loved it and thought it was wonderful. After talking with her for a while and talking about how she can make her home more peaceful, we then went to Sister Favre's house to pick up some things to cook with for the refreshments for next week at Shaunda's Baptism. We then went and visited with a former investigator named Andrea, she let us in and we had a good talk and she said she would still like to learn what we were teaching but she was going to be a Jehovah Witness. (We don't think she really will like it once she starts getting into it.)
Sunday church was canceled all day, so we prepared for our plans of successfully handing out a box of Book of Mormons on Christmas Eve and Day. We then invited Maria and Shaunda to come to the First Presidency’s Devotional, which they held at 5 pm instead of 7 pm. Since church was cancelled, they passed the sacrament and we had a mini sacrament meeting. Then they let people come bear their testimonies. It was a wonderful night and only Maria had come and she enjoyed it. After we had refreshments and had to go home because I was starting to feel sick.
Over all things have been hard, but I am loving it out here, and I found a scripture that I really love and apply to my every day life out here. "...I would that ye should remember, that as much as ye shall put your trust in God even so much ye shall be delivered out of your trials, and your troubles, and your afflictions, and ye shall be lifted up at the last day." Alma 38: 5
I love you all and think of you daily.
-Sister Cindy Call
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