The Spirit and Joy of Christmas

hi everyone!

This week was really good. We had a lot of investigators make good progress as far as setting baptismal dates.

Here's the funny story of the week. We met with L and his grandma this week. We knew that lately he has been struggling with prayer, scriptures, and hasn't been coming to church, so we reviewed the commandments with him in hopes that we could motivate him to do those things. We asked him to pick one he wanted to work on for this week. His answer? Coveting. Hahahaha!

Skyping with the family on Christmas day

  The 75 year old investigator H that Sis Jenkins and I used to teach came to church yesterday! We gave him over to the elders when we switched areas, and the last time they met with him, as they were chatting before actually starting the lesson, he told them that as soon as he finishes the Book of Mormon, he wants to be baptized, and that he wanted to go to church that week. It made us so happy to see him in sacrament meeting on Sunday! He is such a sweet old grandpa.

Traditional Christmas dinner with the missionaries

Christmas was so good. It was (obviously) completely different than any Christmas I've ever had before, but I think I finally understood why people say that Christmas on the mission is the best. One of the most interesting things to me was that it still felt like Christmas- the spirit and joy of Christmas really doesn't come from presents or traditions or food or snow or even from being with family (although all those things are pretty great :D). It comes because everyone is thinking about Christ.

Thanks to everyone who has sent me their family christmas letter- I love reading them and seeing pictures! If you haven't sent me your christmas letter, I'd love to get it! My address is on the sidebar....and if you send me yours, I'll send you one from Taiwan!

Love you!