Happy (HOLLA)days

What the heck...where did this week go?! I probably say that every week...but seriously, this month is flying by and I never want it to end! I have had SUCH a wonderful Christmas season so far for so many different reasons. Let me share some of them with you.

1. The members. I love this ward! They are so loving toward the missionaries especially recently with Christmas coming up. They realize how difficult it is to be away from our friends and family this time of year and they make sure they do all they can to help us have fun. In sacrament meeting yesterday, we were brought up in THREE different talks! One talked about how grateful they were for our "25 days of Christmas" text messages that we send out every day, one talked about having us over to cut down a Christmas tree in the forest at night with their family and how it almost crushed me as it came down, and one talked about how we are like the Who's in the Grinch with our joy and Christmas spirit. Say whaaaat!

2. My companion. Both of us have one Christmas to spend on our missions and we have the chance to spend it with each other! Her and I have grown so close and I love her so much. I'm so glad I've been able to get to know her and have her get to know me! She's a special companion since she's the one I'm spending the holidays with and I couldn't ask for anyone better. I'm positive we are going to remain best friends after the mish! What's even better is that we are going home on the same day next year so we'll be able to meet up again and go through the temple the day before we leave with the mission president and we will fly home together AND meet each other's families at the airport that we've both heard so much about :)

3. Service. I have NEVER found so much joy through service before...I used to see service as a burden or as some sort of duty that we need to do. I used to dislike sacrificing time out of my perfectly fine day to do a job of some sort for somebody else. As I've been focusing on service this month, I have grown an incredible amount of love for it! There is pure joy in putting other people's happiness above your own. There's no good way to describe it!

4. The savior. I hope you've all taken the time to watch the #ASaviorIsBorn video released by the church! We have been showing that in every lesson and with every door approach so I have seen it at least 100 times and I could watch it 100 times more if I had to. It has an amazingly powerful message that brings in the spirit every single time. I have especially loved focusing on Christ's birth and the blessings I have personally received because He was born. He was born so that we can be born again and what greater gift is there than that? He lived a perfect life and showed us the example to follow in order to return to live with our Father in heaven again. I have a very strong testimony thanks to my new outlook of the true meaning of Christmas of the birth of our savior! This never would have came to be if it wasn't for me serving Him this Christmas despite how challenging it may be. I will NEVER regret this.. 

We had zone conference this week! I absolutely love zone conference. Guess where it was being held this time? The TOPSHAM chapel! I was able to go back to my first area and be in the first church building of my mission....it's where it all started! It was so strange, it was like a huge clash of my mission all into one. I was in Topsham, with sister cox, sister daughety was also there, and my two roommates at the MTC that I love were there. All four sections of my mission in one day hahaha but it was SO good to see all of them again! 

The topic at zone conference was Christmas and the birth of Christ (of course) and the atonement. Zone conferences are literally spiritual feasts that we are able to sit and inhale for seven hours straight...there is nothing better than that! Being reminded of the redeeming power as well as the enabling power of the atonement was my favorite part. The spirit was so strong and I was better able to understand how I can apply those principles into my life. President Stoker also talked about grace and strengthening our weaknesses. He said, "The Lord makes up for our weakness when are are teaching and talking to people. This comes with the power of our calling. Not our ability to speak/teach well...He will look past that and use us as an instrument." Missionaries are the most self conscious people you'll ever meet...We might seem all tough and confident but we are all scared to death and unsure of ourselves. Thankfully, the Lord understands that and He makes up for the rest. He called us here to do His work and if we fall short in some way, He will work with us and make up for what we missed. (THANK GOODNESS). 

I've been opening up the 12 Days of Christmas gifts throughout the week and I have LOVED it! They make my entire day and it's something I will remember for the rest of my life. Thank you so much nena and papa for spending time and effort to do this for me...I couldn't be more happy with it :)

*drum roll*

I GET TO SKYPE MY FAMILY THIS WEEK!!!!! This will be my first time speaking to them face to face in 6 whole months :))) I can't wait! Best Christmas present I could ever receive! It'll be at 5:00 pm your time for whoever wants to be a part of it.

I love you all so very much and I hope you have the merriest of Christmases. #ASaviorIsBorn #merrychristmas

Tracting in the SNOW

We love our elf Ella!!

Bethel's Live Nativity!

Helped a lady in the ward put lights on her Christmas tree :) :)

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O Little Town of Bethel-hem

Helloooooo everyone! I hope you're all sledding and having snowball fights and feeling the Christmas spirit with all that snow on the ground!!! Must be nice..we haven't had a single inch of snow yet. And according to the weatherman, we won't be getting any before Christmas either. *cries for 40 days and 40 nights* remember how people have been warning me for months about the winters here in Maine? Soon enough I'm going to have to return my winter boots or something if it doesn't start going below 40 degrees! Sigh.

Anyway, this week has been GREAT! We've had so many good things happen and the spirit of Christmas is truly taking over our lives and I feel like I haven't stopped smiling. Everyone here is so happy and willing to give and serve and I've received more packages than I know what to do with and we got TWO NEW (possibly 4) INVESTIGATORS YESTERDAY and sister Lilly surprised us with homemade blueberry muffins for breakfast this morning and I'm just overall happy :)

Hahaha so on Friday night we had the ward Christmas party which was obviously SO MUCH FUN. The missionaries in the ward (us and the elders) sang a song that sister cox and I put together about missionary work in New England. We sang it to the tune of "rocking around the Christmas tree" (idea credit to Julie)❤️ Here are our lyrics!!

Walking around
your neighborhood,
Oh look! It's another dooryard.
Making sure
we choose the right door,
And dodge all your barking dogs
Will they let us in to teach a lesson?
Or rejection?
Footsteps sounding closer, and oh, look, he must be 104!

Hello sir, were the missionaries,
Oh, wait, he cannot hear,
Can you hear us now!?! (yells)
We teach about Christ, would that interest you at all?

He lets in, it smells like 40 cats! We're used to that!
Now he tells the story of his life
it's an hour later
"Sorry sir, but we have to go
We've gotta hit that member meal
It's been lots of fun
Do you know a time
We can come back to teach you more?"
That for you's a story of our life...every day
Walking through your neighborhoods
Declaring the gospel to all of New Englaaaand...

The ward absolutely loved it and they thought we were just hilarious:) they're all so proud of the way they live that they weren't even close to offended. It's nearly impossible to offend a Mainer by the way they live!! I love them. Ahh.

Oh, here's a story about how we almost died...no big deal. The other night we were driving around trying to find a member's house which is nearly impossible here in new england. The road system here is IMPOSSIBLE and so confusing and the GPS is absolutely zero help. It knows probably less than we do most of the time! It takes us to roads that are actually driveways or ATV trails or roads that don't even exist. I don't even know how to explain it...you just have to be here to witness it yourself haha driving is just ridiculous!

Anyway, so the other night our awesome GPS decided to take us to an ATV trail in the dark...in the rain...and in the thick fog. Thanks :') we eventually found out that we weren't on an actual road and tried to turn around but since it was SO muddy, we started sliding everywhere and we thought we were going to get stuck. Even if we did get stuck, we wouldn't have been able to call anyone because there is never any reception anywhere here in New England. Because Heavenly Father loves us and protects us, he took control of sister Cox's hands. She didn't even know what was going on, but all of a sudden her arms where turning the wheel in the exact way it needed too in order to remain from getting stuck. She also said that the whole time, her dads words rang through her head to "turn into the slide" which also kept us from getting stuck. We made it out alive so ALL IS WELL :) it was just very cool to see the blessings of protection.

We received the teaching record of two people this week from Manchester New Hampshire...they just moved into our area so we went over to their house last night to introduce ourselves and HOLY COW they are golden! The lady and her two kids are from the UK so they have the cuuuutest British accent. The fiancée is super nice but he doesn't have an accent, dang. I could listen to her and her kids talk all day! They absolutely love the church and everything we teach, they've been to the JSM, and they're just such great people. We set up an appointment to share a lesson on Tuesday so I'll have to let you know how it goes! They are actually quite a miracle to sister cox and I because recently we've decided to start praying specifically for a family to teach. We've been doing that for the past two weeks and TA-DA! We receive the teaching records of a family. #blessings

CHRISTMAS IS NEXT WEEK WHATWHATWHAT! I get to skype my stinking family and I couldn't be more excited :) I've been receiving some awesome packages in the mail and I couldn't be more thankful. I only get to spend Christmas on my mission once so we are trying to make the most of it!

I gave my 20 minute talk yesterday and it went great! 3 different people asked for a copy of it. Thank you nena for helping me out with that!!!! Couldn't have done it without you :)

I received the 12 days of Christmas from nena and papa and that made my whole week too. I was actually able to open the first day this morning and AHH it was so fun :) I LOVED all the homemade
ornaments!!!!! Thank you so much to those of you that made one for me. They are so cute and they're already hanging on the tree. Thank you nena and papa! I can't wait to see what else I have in store. We also got our own little elf named Ella! She's the little sister of my family's elf named Eddie. She's the cutest thing and she's so excited to join us in our lessons and in our studying and our planning and our Christmas celebrations. I never want this season to end!

I don't have a lot of time today since we are going to cut our P-Day short so that we can volunteer at the local food pantry...but I LOVE YOU ALL!!! If you feel the desperate need to send a letter or something....

750 North Road
Bethel, Maine 04217

Merry Christmas!

Share the #ASaviorIsBorn video!
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Making needhams (needums) with a lady in the ward. They're SO GOOD. It's a Maine Christmas treat!

We are #spoiled

I want a picture like this with all my companions...this one symbolizes the weather and the scenery we've been having every day together. Bare trees, cloudy skies, and how dark it gets so early in the day. 5 minutes after this was taken, it was dark out. It gets dark here at 4:00!!!! Crazy.

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Sunny with a chance of CHRISTMAS

This week was SO GOOD! So many uplifting and happy things happened which is what Sister Cox and I needed. The week started out difficult so we decided to reach out to our bishop who lives up the street for a blessing. He was more than happy to give us one and ever since then, I've felt so much happier.

Thursday in particular was our miracle day. First, we found out that Sister McLaren got a TEMPLE DATE! She's been recovering from smoking and she's been coming to church regularly now and her progress is just phenomenal. Now she's going to the temple for her first time tomorrow and that brings me SO MUCH JOY. 

In the same day, we went to visit an older woman who has a disease and is basically just waiting for her death at any moment. It's so so sad. Sister cox and I went to see her and she was in her bed looking so frail and sad...it was horrible. She asked us if we would sing her a song (remember how I don't sing?) and we said we would. We ended up singing 'I Stand all Amazed' and I've never had an experience like that before. The spirit was so strong and the lady was in bed with her eyes closed and a small smile on her face. It brought tears to my eyes as the feeling of joy and gratitude washed over me. I am so blessed to be a missionary and to have this opportunity to do these things for these people. These experiences are what being a missionary is all about! 

Another cool thing happened with planning for a certain lesson. I had a prompting that we should share a specific general conference talk with them and that night as we were reading it with them, the husband said "I feel like I really needed to hear all of this. I feel like this was written just for me." It was so neat to have been able to be that tool in the Lord's hand to share that talk with Brother Bernier at the time he needed it most.

An update on the 25 days of Christmas...its been going wonderfully! Since this is such a boony area, everyone lives pretty far away from each other and we don't have enough miles to bring them something individually every day so we just text them and encourage them to do different things. We've shared conference talks, we invited them to call up a relative that they haven't talked to in a while to wish them a merry christmas, we've challenged them to bake something to take to a friend or neighbor, etc. It's been so uplifting to hear their miracles and experiences as they've done these things and AHH I just love being a missionary :)

Something really different about this week was how often we were tracting and knocking on SO MANY DOORS offering them the new Christmas video. We dedicated hours out of our days just to go and offer it to people which was actually pretty successful! The video was an awesome tool to use as a door approach and it made us less threatening and the video brought a nice innocent spirit. We even got a couple return appointments out of it which is a stinkin miracle. There was even a man who tried paying us which was a first....we didn't take the money of course but it was cool to be offered it nonetheless :,)

I've been asked to give a TWENTY-MINUTE talk in sacrament meeting next week. And I'm teaching gospel principles that day....I didn't sign up for this. (Yes I did...oops). I have no idea what to speak about for twenty minutes. #help

Did you all watch the Christmas Devotional?! It was SO GOOD and I wish it could have gone on forever. I loved how Elder David A. Bednar brought up the comparison of Christ referring Himself as The Light and how the Christmas holiday has so many symbols of light. Christmas lights on our trees, on our homes, candles, etc. Samuel the Lamanite also prophesied the sign of Christ's birth with light. I just loved it all!

A scripture that I found this past week during my personal study time is something I'd like to share with all of you as well. It's 1 Peter 4: 12-13 which says:

Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.

Look at your trials as opportunities. We are given these hard times to give us a chance to grow closer to our Heavenly Father. He isn't punishing us or shoving trials down our throats because He's bored...He knows what we can handle and even when it seems like we can't handle it, that's when He begs you to draw nearer to Him so He can take on the rest.

"No pain that we suffer, or trial that we experience is wasted." -Orson F Whitney

Like the scripture said, once His glory is revealed, we will find that exceeding joy. Until then, work hard and turn towards the Lord. All our strength and answers can be found through Him :) I should probably take my own advice because there are times where the trials I'm facing seem a lot more apparent than the blessings I'm being given. There are times where I feel abandoned or lonely and I feel like God is stepping back to watch me handle things myself which sometimes may be the case, but it isn't always. There are times where I feel like my testimony isn't where it needs to be for someone serving a mission like I am. 

I need to ALWAYS remind myself that I am never alone...I am not waking up before the sun, knocking on doors, giving 20 minute talks, missing my friends and family, or anything like that alone. I would not be able to do this by myself! There is no way I have the strength and capacity to handle this without any extra help. I am so thankful for my Heavenly Father and for my Savior and their love for me and for their willingness to stand right next to me during this time. I am so blessed.

Also, today we've been invited to go chop down a Christmas tree with the bishop and his family :) YAY. I've never chopped down a tree before so it should be fun! I looove bishop Lilly and his wife SO MUCH. They had us over for the devotional last night and Sister Lilly comes with us to lessons all the time. They're so coooool. 

LOVE YOU ALL HAVE A GOOD WEEK

Oh...by the way....this week the temp has been in the 50's. Somebody explain that kthanksbye

AND another thing...sister cox and I and the elders that are also serving in this ward have to do a skit at the ward Christmas party this Friday. PLEASE SEND IDEAS WE ARE PANICKING.

We got matching pajamas. Why are we so adorable.

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Ho-Ho-HOLY 1 MORE YEAR

Today is my "one more year" mark!!! In one year from today I'm flying home and returning to the real world. That makes me so sick to think about...I want to stay out here forever but yet I can't wait to start my life back up. Being a missionary is so rewarding and so uplifting and I've learned so much about myself and about this gospel. I really wouldn't trade this sacred time for the world...I can't wait to see all the experiences this next year will bring!

We are in week 3 here in Bethel, Maine and I really like it here! We haven't had any snow yet (thank goodness) but the weather has been freezing so it might as well be snowing...all the lakes are getting frozen over which is never a good sign..help. This past week has been very long, but very good. As you all know, we had thanksgiving! Two families were kind enough to feed us and invite us to their family parties which was very nice :) I really really missed my family traditions and it was a strange experience having to spend a major holiday away from home...I'm not sure if I liked it very much but everyone says the first one is the worst. We'll see! I'm just grateful the members here are so willing to make sure we are always happy☺️ 

It might sound very strange, but this year I am thankful for my trials. I am grateful for the experiences I've had before my mission and all growing up that has brought me here today. I am grateful for the way these trials have strengthened me and have given me a way to relate to people here. I am thankful for the testimony that these difficult trials have formed and that I am able to share it every single day with those that need it. I know it's not normal to be giving thanks for all the hard and challenging times in my life, but being out here on a mission has showed me the things I've learned and the far way I've come from them. I wouldn't trade my trials for anything.

Anyway, enough about gratitude...ITS CHRISTMAS TIME!!! You have no idea how excited I am. We put our tree up, we play Christmas music all the time, we bought stockings and Santa hats, and we have lights stringing all over our apartment. Sister Cox and I wear our hats as we plan and we wore them to one of our appointments we have also been planning a "25 Days of Christmas" for our investigators and less-active members in the ward that we've been working with. We want to do something for them every day this December so if anyone has good ideas, send them my way! That would be so helpful :)

IMPORTANT: the new Christmas video has officially been released by the church. It's the #ASaviorIsBorn and as missionaries, we've been trained and pushed and encouraged to share this video and to get people on the christmas.mormon.org website as much as possible! It's our 'Christmas initiative' and it's SUCH a wonderful message. Please go watch it and share it on your social media! The church is stressing this video so much because they know how much good it can do in this crazy world. FLOOD THE INTERNET WITH LIGHT. Thanks :) 

I have an ipad which means I can share photos and videos on the iCloud sharing thing. If you want to be a part of that so you can see what I'm up to throughout the week, send me your number or just let me know and I'll add you!

Church was crazy yesterday...it was like the Sister Cox and Watson show. Sister Cox spoke in sacrament, we both taught gospel principles, and then we taught third hour with all the relief society, priesthood, young women's, and young men's. Soooo basically the whole ward! We taught about member-missionary work and showed them the new Christmas video. Sometimes I wonder why I signed up for a mission when I'm terrified of speaking in front of people. Hmm. But it all worked out! The ward is really on board with helping us out which is awweessooommmeeeee.

Oh...here's some horrible news....our investigator Vivian who has been progressing with flying colors decided to come up to us at church yesterday and tell us that she doesn't want to be baptized. Are you serious. She's been more active in this church lately than 2/3 of the actual members are! She owns and reads all the materials, we teach her twice a week, she comes to ALL the ward activities, and now she comes out to say that she doesn't want to be baptized. We don't understand it. She's been being taught for 3 months now so I've only taught her about 5 times and I really thought she had that desire. It's literally heartbreaking when something like this happens...you love the people SO much that it kills you inside when you have to see them not realize the bigger picture. Sooooo frustrating :( 

I'm not sure what else to talk about...but I'm just super excited to serve at this time of year and focus on our Savior Jesus Christ. I feel so blessed to be representing Him at such a vulnerable time for the people who are unaware of everything He suffered for us. This time of year is a perfect time to serve and to love and to sacrifice your own time for the sake of others. I have a new love for service and I find pure joy as I put other's happiness above my own.

Merry Christmas!

Love, Sister Watson

Weekly planning with our Dr. Pepper's and Santa hats :)

Our tree!! :) :)

Welcome to Maine!

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