This was a beyond awesome week!
Christmas Eve, Christmas, and some other fun surprises! It was great. I loved
being able to be a missionary on Christmas and have the special opportunity to
testify of Christ on Christmas. I'm truly thankful for my Savior and for His
birth.
I'll start at the beginning of
the week! On Monday night we went to the Hill's house for dinner and Family
Home Evening. We had steak for dinner (score!) and got to read all the
scripture stories about Christ's birth and watch Joy to the World for FHE. It
was really nice to prepare us for Christmas. After that we continued to go
caroling with our zone. Thankfully no one kissed us this time...
On Christmas Eve we went to the
Gorman-Payne's house and spent time with their family. They had family there
from Florida
Our whole zone met at the stake
center at 5:30 a.m. on Christmas morning... Yeah, I guess we were all just excited
about Christmas. Plus it was one of our Elder's birthdays, so we had a mini
birthday party for him. Then we all played crazy ball for what seemed like
EVER, and then went home and all opened presents! We all sat around our mini
little Christmas tree! We were all so thankful to be with each other, even
though it was sad to not be with our families. Good friends make things so much
easier. I love Sister Harrison, Sister Stinnett, and Sister Cummings. I have
served my whole mission with Sister Cummings, from the MTC to now! She is like
my sister.
I made sure that we all had waffles for breakfast, because
let’s be honest, it wouldn't be Christmas without Belgian waffles for
breakfast.
We did our studies and at 1p.m.
we went to the Brown's house to Skype our families! IT WAS AWESOME! I loved
being able to talk to and see my mom and dad! I wish I had taken a picture of
it. That was the best part of Christmas by far. The best.
After Skype we got to go and
watch Joy to the World again and wait for dinner. It was so good and we had a
lot of fun with the Brown's! They are so sweet. We also stopped by some other
members and our Bishop's house! And, of course, our whole zone went caroling
that night.
Although I missed all our
traditions and being home with my family and the Murphy's, this was one of my
favorite Christmases. It was so Christ-centered, and I felt like I really got
to focus on and understand the true meaning of Christmas.
The rest of the week Sister
Harrison and I worked on our "member areas". I don't remember if I wrote about it in my
last email, but we came up with this idea to try and get the members more
involved in missionary work. It's really hard to get referrals here because 1.
Our area is reeeeeeally tiny, and 2. Our members pretty much only hang out with
other members. So what we've done is we've driven through every community we
have (they're all smaller, gated, neighborhoods) and drew out the community and
put every house and house number on it. We put where each member, less active,
and potential lived. Then, we divided all the communities up into smaller areas
(where the members live) and assigned the members their neighbors to work with!
We are really excited about it, I mean, who's not going to get to know their
neighbor? And the members we've done it with have been really excited about it,
as well as our Bishop and Ward Mission Leader. We are pumped! Then we are going
to have different monthly events that they can invite their "area"
to! What a blessing to have a small area where you can eventually literally
know every single person in it!
On Friday morning we had a
Christmas zone breakfast at our Stake President's house. He talked to us for a while and then had all
of us share our family Christmas traditions and what Christmas meant to us. It
was pretty awesome!
On Saturday we did more of our
maps. At the end of the day, Sister Christensen told us to stop by and JAMES
NISH WAS THERE. It was so awesome! I got to see one of my best friends! We
stayed there for a little bit and talked. I was so happy to see him!
Sunday was nice too, there was
a mission homecoming (which was why James was there), and Sister Harrison gave
a really great lesson on repentance in Gospel Principles. Then we had a combined
third hour on missionary work and every one wrote letters to the missionaries
that are serving from the Paseo Verde ward. It was sweet!
Today we are having Family Home
Evening with a family from the ward and will do other fun p-day stuff!
We get transfer information
this Saturday! Sister Harrison and I will most likely stay together, here. Yay!
We hope we stay together for a while. Oh, and on New Years we all get to go to
the mission office and watch a movie! Yay!
Happy New Years! Make some good goals and be sure to add one spiritual goal in there :)
Love, Sister Coltrin
Christmas Morning: Sister Coltrin, Sister Harrison, Sister Cummings and Sister Stinnett
An Oreo snowman for Diane
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Sister Coltrin and James Nish
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