I love the cold (ok, I hate the cold, but it DOES add to the Christmas feel)

This has been such a fast week!! 

 

I'm so excited it's Christmas Time.  Just ecstatic, truly.  I love the lights, I love the smell, I love the cold (ok, I hate the cold, but it DOES add to the Christmas feel) I love all the people out here, it's such a wonderful time to be a missionary.

 

Although, you'd think around Christmas time, people would be especially receptive to a message about Jesus Christ- right?  Haha wrong!  no one wants to talk to us, which makes the work go slower. 

 

 But life is still good.

 

Let's see... one of our investigators had a birthday this week! so we made him a cake!  We thought it would be so simple....

 

We knew he didnt like chocolate cake, so we went to the store and bought angel food cake!  Who knew that there were special rules for making angel food cake?  we were making it at this one member's house (the S's, I love them!)  and we messed up the cake, so it was like sunken and falling apart, and then we were gonna frost it, and they informed us you dont frost angel food cake, you like pour strawberries on it?   Anyways, then they help us out and give us new cake mix, and then this way nice frosting, and we brought it over to him, and it was the hardest thing I've ever done, because we were fasting, and it smelled sooooo good.  Anyways, he liked it, and CAME TO CHURCH! it was great, it was his first time, and it was fast and testimony meeting, and everyone just gave wonderful testimonies, it was the best one on my mission thus far. 

 

On Friday nights, we have a standing dinner/lesson appointment with the B's, and i love them so much.  Their two kids we baptized last transfer, and I'm just so so so happy with them, I definitely think they were one of the main reasons I came to Firgrove.   J is gonna go on a mission when he's older I think :)  

 

A favorite scripture for the week: 1 Nephi 3:5.

 

I am such a Laman sometimes.  On a daily basis, I see miracles happening all around me, and I feel I've seen the equivalent of angels coming down to basically tell me what's up.  And yet when I'm asked to do things that are difficult and/or I just don't understand why, how quickly do I think, "it is a hard thing you have required of us!" 

 

But time and time again, as I follow through and try to be obedient,  I'm like oh... I guess Heavenly Father was right again, haha.  I'm such a slow learner. 

 

Ok,  I've been thinking about this a lot this week.  and my thoughts are fragmented, and don't make perfect sense, but bear with me?  I've been thinking of ordinances like baptism, and taking the sacrament, and I've been thinking a lot about old testament sacrifices and whatnot, and then the way we are taught in the temple, and it's just been dawning on me:  Heavenly Father has been trying to teach us the most basic concepts since the world began, and he reintroduces ordinances and his gospel time and time again.  Countless times, the saints have been asked to leave behind their possessions and their home and go follow the Lord, and then they write about it in scripture, and then we read about it, and we're like oh sweet, cool story, and we learn NOTHING from it, so we have to learn the same principles through our own trials, cuz we weren't wise enough to just learn from the stories in the scriptures!  We take the sacrament EVERY week, and yet so often (for me at least) I've just eaten bread and water, and didn't give it a second thought.  And God gives us ordinances, because the only way that we can take truth and make it a part of ourselves is by DOING it time and time again until it sets in.  And what is he trying to teach us???  OBEDIENCE TO HIS GOSPEL!! That's all we need to do!  but we just can't get it straight :( 

 

Just been on my mind a lot...

 

Merry Christmas World!