the Hermanas in my zone (ball, despain, hansen, hansen, carpenter, jeromin)  I can't remember if I told you: Hna Jeromin is from Hamburg. She's like my favorite ever. She gave me olives with anchovies inside.

Sisters who came -a-caroling. The only one whose name I know is sis. Vallinga, who is Mary

Hola todo! :)

I had a good Christmas. It actually ended up being pretty action packed; we were originally scheduled to have 3 hours of free time, but when the final schedule came through, we only had about 45 minutes of free time the whole day, and we were running behind, so it ended up being just long enough to go to the residence, drop stuff off and leave again. I really like that quote by Elder Holland. It's something I've been thinking about in that I was thinking how Christ is the only person ever to live who truly knows what it means to be alone. Every time we've felt abandoned or alone or even cast out from God's presence, we've always had the safety net of knowing that Christ has been there before (whether we acknowledge that in our state of misery or not haha). But Christ was removed from the presence of God on the cross and had NO ONE, not a single person, not even the hope of a single person, who knew exactly how that felt, and who had been through that before. He knows exactly how we feel and more. I've loved teaching the "fake" investigators. I know they've learned from our experiences, as have I. I remember when I would come and volunteer at the MTC, I would always come with a question, either for myself or someone else, and by the end of the night it would invariably be answered. It's amazing how the Lord works. He never makes mistakes, He never causes coincidences, He never has "fake" investigators. I've been well, but I'm beginning to get nervous... my entire zone is sick except for my companionship and a few lucky others. Here's hoping it stays that way.

 

So, this last week has been really hectic, but fairly good. Christmas eve, we had a nativity devotional. They used missionaries to reenact the nativity, and Mary had never held a baby before, so when they gave her "baby Jesus," every single sister missionary in the room panicked as we watched the baby's head go unsupported. Later when the baby started crying she tried to bounce it, but had little experience, making it clear to us that shaken baby syndrome was a definite possibility. Luckily Joseph was able to help her (a lot) and the mother of the child quickly whisked the baby away and replaced it with a much more durable plastic. I suppose the MTC will have to be more careful in their selections of Mary in the future. It was a really good devotional,a nd afterwards, we watched a Christmas carol. Sadly, it was a very creepy version, which, if you take into account our antsy-ness from just sitting still, was a bit ridiculous. Christmas we had a devotional with Elder Nelson, which was really good, but the line waiting to get into the devotional was so smashed together taht a bunch of people got clostrophobic (sp?) and eventually, my companion went sprinting from the throng to throw up. Luckily for us, that put us at the very front of the line into the devotional once she was feeling normal again. We sat right in front of Elder Nelson, and we smiled at him haha. Tender mercies... ish. (my companion really was fine; don't think me heartless... she just got too hot, she said). We also had a temple walk, a talent show, and a devotional by Greg Olson, the lds artist. As I mentioned in Eileen's section, we watched it's a wonderful life later that night, which was good except taht the missionaries were antsy again and my companeras whined the whole time haha. Anyway, I'm going to spend my last 5 min. uploading pics. Hope you're all well and happy. God is good, the church is true, and people are undoubtedly crazy (but they're worth it).

 

I forgot to tell you: I LOVED MY STOCKING!!! So much! :)

We made a fireplace out of a sandwich bag. That's what's uup.

Mucho amor,

Hna Bayles