The One With the Last Christmas and a Transfer

12/26/16

Transfer News!!!

Oh my gosh. I just found out I'm getting transferred and am white washing an area (Blaine) with Sister Ching! CRAZY.

Beautiful Downtown Minneapolis

Christmas with Pat and Sister B

Christmas morning with the Burtons :)

MERRY Christmas everyone!!! Wow this week was crazy busy so im just gonna get right into it. Monday night we went caroling with our bishop and a couple of others that he invited over. It was awesome we had one of our investigators whose really promising come and sing. Although Monday was a tough night for me because I thought I was going to explode from eating too much. I could not fit anymore food in my body it was so gross. I think something I ate made me sick too cause I woke up in the middle of the night on Tuesday and was SO nauseous in surprised I didn't throw up. I just laid on the floor outside the bathroom for the rest of the night. Tuesday was just not super fun medically. On the same day I got sick I had to get an MRI for some pain I've been having in my hip and I learned that I have a torn ligament in my hip. Fun stuff. And that was just the beginning of the Week. 

On Wednesday we were volunteering at the food shelf we volunteer at every week and first off it was crazy busy. We set a record for the most number of people it has ever helped in one day. Near the end of the time this lady comes limping in and as she's signing in she tells us that she's bleeding a little because she caught her leg in the car door. I think ok maybe she needs a band aid, so I glance around the deck and this ladies' bleeding profusely! Her pant leg is completely soaked in blood and it's going all over the floor. Luckily one of our older volunteers, sue, came to the rescue. She is a retired nurse so she brought her into a different room and helped her as best she could until they could go to the hospital. That was crazy we were running back and forth grabbing all the medical supplies we could get our hands on while dodging the masses of people all over the place trying to get food. It was insane. Also on Wednesday though we met Vera. Vera is our investigator Vicki's adult daughter who is living with her right now. She was super nice to us and opened up about all of the awful things she gone through in her life. I felt a strong prompting to testify of god's love for her and as I did so she started crying and said she hasn't been to church in a long time but really misses it.  That was so cool, she said she wanted to talk to her husband about maybe coming to church with us and we have an appointment for this next week with her.

Zone Blitz

On Friday we had a Zone blitz. So all the missionaries in our zone met at the crystal chapel and then split up into different companionships and we all caravanned to downtown Minneapolis. It was fun being back in my old area :) Our goal was to talk with everyone and share the Christmas video #lighttheworld with as many people as possible. It was awesome. It was snowing like crazy and yet there was still people everywhere! That's one of the best things about downtown. You can still contact even in the middle of winter! I was with Sister Anderson who is serving in medicine lake and we talked to several really cool people. The last couple we talked to was an African couple from Liberia. We showed them the Christmas video and then started talking to them and sharing our testimonies of Christ. We gave them a Book of Mormon and invited them to church and as we were talking we found out they lived in Sister Andersons area so she quickly reached in her bag and grabbed a Mormon.org card with their information on it. So cool! In total as a zone we taught and shared the video 62 times! In 1 & 1/2 hours! God is so good! After the zone blitz we went and stopped by the salamis and got to see them!! We heard all about Nicole's trip to Kenya and we were able to share the light the world video with them all and ended up reteaching the entire plan of salvation which was cool. Nicole said she's going to talk to her husband about coming to church too which is exciting! Apparently he's practically never home, but we're hoping to meet him soon. 

That brings us to Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve was such a busy day. We started off by having an early Christmas with pat and Sister B in the morning, then we ran over to Muriels.

Movie with Muriel

 That was so fun. We wore comfy clothes and had gotten permission to watch the movie white Christmas. She made us hamburgers and fries and man was it good. It was so fun hanging out with her. Her daughter left her alone for Christmas Eve so she would've just been by herself if we hadn't come and she kept saying I'm so glad you guys came over. I just love her. Then we ran over to mercy hospital and met our investigator Sierra there and went caroling to the residents on the cardiac floor. I was a little nervous cause I've never done something like that before but it was amazing. The people working on the floor led us around to sing to different people and asked to visit certain patients of theirs. One room we walked into was so sweet. There was a young man on the bed with two family members and he had just had open heart surgery. It looked like he was in a lot of pain. When we asked if we could sing to him he softly said please, and then closed his eyes and hugged the pillow he had to his chest until we finished. That was so sweet, the spirit was very strong in that room. Then after that we went and had dinner with the moss's and Andersons. Sister moss and Sister Anderson are best friends and have had Christmas together for years. It was so fun to be around their cute family. My favorite part of the evening though was after dinner they always have...the best word I guess is a music concert. Very low key anyone who wants to sing can. Sister Cope played the piano and a quartet of me, Sister M, her daughter, Sister A's daughter, and I sang about 4 songs and we sounded so good! It was so fun and afterwards a bunch of the other families got up and sang. After the music concert we ran over to the smith family because we promised their kids we come track santa with them. We got to meet and get to know their neighbor who was over so that was a plus missionary wise. It was so fun to be surrounded by kids on Christmas Eve because they are so excited they almost can't stand it. They bring a little more magic into the Christmas season. Then last but not least we went over, had a lesson, and visited with Tina. Yeah it was a crazy day.

On Christmas we went over to the Burtons for early in the morning and was apart of their Christ as morning. They are so cute, they made each of us stockings and got us some presents as well. Then we went to church which was great. BROTHER NORTON WAS THERE! WOOO! Then we came home had our Christmas pizza for lunch and slowly opened presents. I don't think my feet will ever be cold again for the amount of socks I got hahaha. We Skyped which was both really fun and a little sad and then got picked up for dinner by Sister copes cousins. They live in medicine lake and drove us down there to have dinner with their family. So fun. Sister Cope LOVED it, and there family was so kind and sweet. It was a good ending to the day. Well that's it for this week. Love you all! Thank you for all the thoughts and prayers you send my way I really appreciate them!!

Spiritual Thought of the Week:

I was reading in the Book of Mormon this morning, in Mosiah chapter two. That chapter is the beggining of king benjamins sermon to his people and I noticed that almost the entire chapter is about keeping the commandments. I loved how in verses 20-21 king B. talks about how much we owe to god and how he could ask us to praise him with our whole souls and that would never be enough. Then he says in verse 22... "And behold, all that he requires of you is to keep his commandments...". God has given us every thing we have and are and the only thing he asks us for in return is to keep his commandments. That seems like so little of a price for what we've been given and yet so many fail to do just that. How important it is then to keep the commandments, when in return for so much we've been asked to do so little.

️Sister Richardson