We were taught and trained for 7 hours straight about how we can most effectively share this and blow it up this season. The church is releasing an advent calendar with 25 days and each day has different suggestions of acts of service that reflect the service Christ did while He was on the earth. They will also be releasing different videos every day until the 25th that do the same thing. The whole goal is to get EVERYONE sharing these videos and to also share your experiences as you do the acts of service that each day suggests! I can testify that serving others brings the purest form of joy and i can't wait to feel it all December long :)
OH, also, December 1st is the kickoff and it's a Worldwide Day of Service. We are all invited to participate in a service opportunity that day! You can find these videos on mormon.org's facebook page OR www.mormon.org/downloads. I would love to hear your experiences!! We have so many ideas of "lighting the world"...it's such a perfect way to close my mission! I remember sitting in zone conference and as soon as all of this was announced, a wave of excitement and love and gratitude and every other emotion that the spirit can bring filled my entire body. I knew for a fact that i was supposed to stay out here through all of December instead of leaving at the beginning which i planned on doing. This is going to be one of the best Christmases ever and i'm just so blessed❤️
But before we get to Christmas, we have Thanksgiving this week!!!! Yay!!! So far we have two meals that we've been invited to. So excited!
LEON PASSED HIS BAPTISMAL INTERVIEW!!! He was interviewed yesterday and he was seriously so excited for it. He couldn't wait to make it official and he even has a countdown going that leads to his baptism on Saturday! He also called us today asking if it's allowed for people to take pictures of his baptism so that he can keep them for memories. Unfortunately we can't take pictures of that actual ordinance, but we will be taking pictures of everything before and after :) I'm so excited to see him enter the waters of baptism...ahhh!!
Ohhhh here's a fun story. So we've been teaching a lady named Claudette for the past little while and she's super nice and sweet and we just love her. About 2 or 3 weeks ago we stopped by and her husband answered the door and told us to go away...okay. Bye. But, of course we kept driving past her house and whenever his truck was gone, we'd go have a lesson with her! This past week we taught her about the Plan of Salvation and right when we finished, her husband walked in the door. Shoot. He walked straight to the kitchen table and started reading a magazine quietly and we ended up going over and introducing ourselves. He said, "umm, what denomination are you from?" And when we told him that we are from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints he seemed so relieved! He thought we were Jehovah Witnesses.
I offered him a Book of Mormon and he took one...Hooray! Well, it gets worse. Their son called us that night and completely cussed us out for stepping foot on his parents property. He told us to never go over there again or he'll call the police😂 i don't know what people have against us! We simply go around offering joy to people and we get persecuted for it. But, it helps us feel just a little tiny sliver of the persecution that Jesus Christ went through during His time on the earth. I couldn't even imagine it...but that's something i've learned since being out here! When someone opens their door and looks at our name tags and acts on their anger/frustration through yelling or slamming their door, it's not because of me or my companion. They aren't angry at the 20 year old innocent girls on their doorstep. They are pushing their anger at Jesus Christ, the name on our chests. They don't know me enough to hate me like that...so when i receive persecution, it's really aimed toward my Savior and that fills me with so much gratitude and humility. He will go through any fiery furnace for His church and so will I.
Tonight we are going to a member's house to help them put up their Christmas tree and they're feeding us salmon and shrimp :)) LOVE. I'm so glad people are allowing us to help them put up decorations because that's one of my favorite things to do at home for the holidays!
Hahaha a few days ago we got into our car to go help a member tie up a blanket at the church and when i turned the car on, the dash said that we had a flat tire. Great. I think this was my 3rd or 4th flat tire on my mission...whyyy. Luckily the church is five minutes away from us so the member's husband was able to come to our rescue and we got it taken care of. Every time something like this happens, the Lord sends someone to help us immediately and we are so grateful!
This email so scattered and so random but there's just so much going on right now! We are teaching more people than i've taught my whole mission so far and they're all progressing and doing well and it's WONDERFUL. We are being so blessed. That's it for this week!!
❤️, Sister Watson
Zone P-Day today! We had a big thanksgiving feast (my idea💁🏻)
FIRST SNOW!!
Love following your blog god bless
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