I hope Christmas was fabulous for everyone. Ours basically consisted of sitting in on one Christmas dinner after another, which resulted in one of the most exhausting days I've had on my mission so far. It was a great deal of fun, but we couldn't work like we normally do because everyone was so busy with family that proselyting as usual would be difficult. I'm still not sure what we're supposed to do for New Year's. Perhaps President will tell us to stay in like on Halloween, but I still don't know.
Mark is on for baptism this Saturday and he's so ready and excited. We also set a baptismal date with another investigator, Timmy, and he picked his own date of Jan 4th, so we may have two people this Saturday. He has a lot of work to do to be ready, but he's also really eager to go forward with this. Sunday will be my last day here, so I'm so glad I get to be here for both of these.
We put on a missionary program for the third hour of church last Sunday. Our ward mission leader is a pretty bold person and wanted to invite the ward to become more active in missionary efforts, so we had all ten of the full-time missionaries and 6 of our ward missionaries (who are all recent converts) presenting tools to use in member missionary work. I was a little afraid the ward would hate us after that, but a lot of people said that it was a great program so I guess they're a forgiving (and missionary-minded) bunch. We also went to a baptism in Arlington for the cousin of Solomon, who was baptized into our ward a few weeks ago. We normally wouldn't be allowed to leave our area for that, but since Mark was attending, we got permission to go with him. It was a really great and spiritual experience.
For some reason, this has just been an exceptionally spiritual week. I'm so blessed to be surrounded by so many great people with powerful testimonies. Brother Snider is helping us teach Timmy and he thinks he doesn't have a good testimony (he was baptized as a child and his family was less-active, so he knew basically nothing beyond the name of the Church before the sisters found and taught him). But he has one of the most powerful testimonies of the Holy Ghost I've ever heard. We really could just sit and listen to him teach us about the Church all day. We've persuaded him to speak at the baptism on Saturday to other people can hear him.
This whole week will be crazy (as usual) but also because of all the preparations we have to make to leave. I won't get a p-day next week because I'll be on a plane for it, so I'll do my packing on Saturday and email the Monday after next. So don't worry, I probably made it to Brazil just fine. Anyway, that's about it! Love y'all and happy New Year!
Sister Nielsen
Pictures: really blurry one of all the missionaries (plus Johnny and minus Elder and Sister Andrew) at the ward mission leader's home
Hannah, a member
Me with Treneice's son Junior. I love her sons to death; they're always bouncing off the walls every moment of the day
No comments:
Post a Comment