Dear Family,
This week was just fantastic! Goodness! I don't know where to start or wat I didn't tell you on Thursday! Christmas was great!
Monday we only emailed then went back to work for the day since we were going to the temple on Friday. So we walked around for several hours from place to place and handing out He is the Gift cards to everyone we saw. It was good, we handed a ton out. Lo and behold an hour after we did that someone called us back! That never happens. But, we missed the call and just got a voice mail and didn't understand it. And we didn't call back. This Sunday I was cleaning out our voice mails and a listened to it again and I realized what it said. This guy wanted to know more! So we immediately called back, he was still hard to understand but we did set up an appointment to come and see him! So that is sweet! A first for me! Call back. And then for dinner we went to the botanical gardens for a sweet light show! It was so magical. I can't even imagine what it would have looked like with snow. And no, we didn't have any snow at all this Christmas. In fact the day after it was 50 and sunny! It may have been my first not white Christmas. We also saw live reindeer! That was cool!
Tuesday we went to a Christmas Zone Meeting in Madison. I opened my gift of Truman Madsen's talks on Joseph Smith early and we listened to those on the way. It was a fun meeting to see everyone and to have a free meal. But that is honestly all I can remember of that day. This has been a long week. I can't believe that was even this week.
On Christmas Eve we started off by walking around downtown and handing out He is the Gift Cards again. That was fun and interesting. Then we went to Sister Buchanan's and she prepared several gifts we could go out and deliver. One of the people we went to lived in an old Victorian house. He is an artist and there was literally something painted every square inch of the house. It was incredible! I have never seen anything like it! I need to go back and take pictures. I can't even describe it. That was fun. We picked some people we thought it would be good for and enjoyed our afternoon. She wanted this Christmas to be different since her husband just passed away. So then we came back to her house when all the presents were delivered and ate some delicious Papa Murphy's pizza. Which it has been like a solid 9 months since I have had that. We had the veggie pizza, it was super good. We went and helped a member go and clean their apartment that they rent out for a while. Then we went to the Paulsens! It was so fun to be with a family! They were just way to good to us! We got an awesome Christmas Eve dinner just full of traditions! Their little girl had lots of fun with us. I got her to give me several hugs and squeeze as tight as she could! That felt good! Everyone needs a good little kid hug every once and a while. They gave us all huge stockings just full of gifts. It was so sweet of them. We acted out the nativity and just had lots of fun. After we learned some acupuncture! That was exciting! It was only for the truly brave in heart! I was the 2nd person to put needles into my arm so the pride of all the Elders was on the line. Not all of them did it though! I sent you a lovely picture attached :) We then sang some Christmas hymns and just had a good time! Sister Plante and I ended the night by doing a Christmas devotional. I thought I would have trouble sleeping but really that hasn't been a thing lately!
Christmas morning we woke up and opened presents! That was fun! Thank you for all the wonderful things that you sent me I love each one! Everyone was so good to me I have no idea how I am going to send a thank you card to everyone. Wow! We then went to the Lebeck's to Skype! That was fun! It was so great to talk to all of you! Or at least to look at all of you! It was fun! I can't believe we only have one more time left! That is just strange! But thank you for all joining! It warmed my heart and I will be able to make it through the next 5 months! We went to another members house and played games. We each got to pick one and I picked Dominion! That was super enjoyable and reminded me of fun times! My jaw about dropped when I saw that one. Then we went to dinner at another member's home and had Christmas dinner. We accidentally showed up 30 minutes early so I entertained the little girl and kept her out of the kitchen and was super helpful. That is what her mom said but I was just having fun playing with her and her awesome toys. We were best buds by the end of the night. Basically I just tried to get my kid fill for 2 days! They also provided us with some presents. People were just too good to us.
Friday was another big day! We got to go to the Chicago temple! We woke up brighter and earlier than usual to go! Let me tell you, it is a lot prettier in person! I think all of us missionaries were slightly shocked, pictures just can't capture it at all. It was so great to be back there. After we met the temple President and he blew our minds, so I am going to have to wait and ponder until I can go again and see. It was good after so long! After we got there we saw a van full of missionaries pull up from the Chicago mission for their zone conference. It was crazy.
We drove back through Lake Geneva which is super rich man's place. Supposedly it is the largest and clearest lake. That is where that huge picture of the mansion is from. We also saw places with gas at 2.12! It's crazy!
I decided all the miracles happen on Saturday. We tripled our lessons for the week and just had miracle after miracle. We met Hope who is having a hard time with her mother's death. So we taught her the Plan of Salvation. She just loved it! She is going to start the Book of Mormon and come to church next week! We are meeting with her again tonight to teach her the Restoration. It will be good. Then we just got in contact with a lot of people who had disappeared. We also got a referral! It was just a great Saturday!
Really it was a great week! I loved it! I can't believe how much happened. I will have to tell more stories in 10 months because I can't write it all. But I did get to finish the Book of Mormon this week and Jesus the Christ as my gift to Jesus. It was so great! I feel like I know my Savior so much more. I can hardly believe let alone comprehend the magnificent love he has for me and every child of God. I am so grateful for Him, the greatest gift of all. Through him all things are made possible and all things are made right! He is the great refiner and through Him we can all be changed and feel his love. I am so grateful to be on a mission. I am learning so many things I could have learned no other way. It is life changing!
I love you more than all the cheese consumed in Wisconsin! ;)I hope you have a Happy New Year! This will probably also be my first year (in remembrance) starting the New Year sleeping! Changes all over the place! Drive safe! I love you so much!
Anne
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