Seasons greetings! :D

 

Good luck on the Christmas program this week, mom! You'll be great :D We met the ASL sisters from Sacramento a few weeks back, that was really fun. I tried my ASL skills and then remembered I have none. Too bad, haha. (Tell Holly Merry Christmas for me!)

 

@Craig telling the difference between fudge and cupcakes: that cracked me up. I'm looking forward for my possiblity of fudge in my box too :o yum.

 

YAY! Christmas boxes! Thank you :3 Are they both to be saved 'til Christmas? This'll be the longest week ever.

 

We had our ward Christmas party last weekend and I was able to acquire a bassoon to play! So I played "Far Far Away On Judea's Plains" in the shepard scene we had (it was really cute - they played out the Christmas story in several rooms. One of them had Samuel the Lamanite, and they had all the kids make paper airplanes and throw them at him. Hilarious! Especially cos none of the non-members that came [there were 23 of them] had any idea what it was about, cos the ones we're teaching haven't read that far in the Book of Mormon yet, haha). Super fun and cute! It was a really great program :) I'm also playing the same bassoon in our Christmas mission program on Friday, and then again for sacrament on Sunday. Busy busy! But it gives us a good excuse to invite people to church to see what a bassoon is... and have a spiritual experience, but you know. Missionaries aren't ALWAYS sneaky.... just sometimes. Haha!

 

I was also going to ask if there's any possibility I could change my mission scripture on my plaque? I think 3N 5:13 works a little bit better :)

 

On Saturday, we met the Meteer family, and we discovered that the mum (Mary Ellen) knows Dan Brown! And I go, "Hmm, I think I know him..." :P Apparently she sent a message to Tressy and she said she'd pass it along to you. Small world :)

 

Have you seen the "Forget-me-not" book by President Uctdorf? It is a cute little book! I think you'd like it. I like the pictures of the flowers in it; do forget-me-nots grow in Illinois? I can't even remember.

 

As far as this week goes... well, there are some weeks that Satan just tries really hard to just get us down. Other weeks he goes crazy and tries to get everyone else to fall off and get sick or whatever, so this week has been a really humbling week for us. Everything outside of our control went against us, so we weren't able to teach a lot of lessons this week.... We've been staying as optimistic as we can, and by the end of it we've been laughing a lot at the bad things that've happened. For example, Friday we were supposed to have a lesson with our sweet investigator Jacqueline, and when we called to confirm our appointment she said her youngest son [he's 2] started throwing up everywhere. ¯\[°_O]/¯ Not much you can do at that point. We laughed, we cried a little, and then we went to a meeting with the Elders. When a lot of bad things happen in a row, you start to really see the tender mercies of the Lord in everything - for me, it was getting to places on time, getting a lot of touching mail this week, and having people stand up for me when I wasn't even aware they were watching or paying attention. The Lord is ever mindful of us, and we just have to remember that the trials and things we go through are specifically for us and our refinement. Elder Anderson's talk this last conference talks a lot about that, and I've found strength in that this week.

 

Hm, I think that's everything. I love you all! Thank you for your prayers, they have strengthened me especially this week when I felt nothing was going right. It helps to know that people love you and pray for you always, and know that I do for all of you :)

 

LOVELOVELOVE,

Sister Nelson