Christmas Jams🎄

Dear everyone,

Can I just say how much I LOVE Christmas? I love it. I want some more of it. Sister Hall and I have been rocking out to Christmas music since I got here basically and it's been the best thing ever! Don't be hating on the Christmas music y'all!

This week felt sooooo long! It took forever to be over! I can't even really remember what we did, but man this whole Thanksgiving thing threw a monkey wrench at us. The holiday never seems to end! People were still doing thanksgivagain or actual thanksgiving on Friday, Saturday and Sunday it seemed😒 but you know what, good for them! I'm glad they're with their families! It's okay if they don't want to talk to me...

Okay so on Tuesday we went down to a little town called Huntingburg in our area and stayed there all day. We met a lot of Catholics (the whole town is devoutly catholic). We went up to this one house that was huge and had these ginormous pink French doors and a lady came out who then proceeded to tell us how she takes care of her feral cat colony, which consists of 19 cats. The craziest part was she had them all fixed... who does that? Apparently she really likes the colony and wants to keep them around but doesn't want to get overrun. We met some cool people though. I love hearing people's stories. I love hearing how God changed their life, or seeing God's hand in their life when they tell me about their experiences. He's working in all of us, guiding us, whether we know it or not, and I just love that and I love getting to tell people that every day.

That night for Clase de Ingles we had 5 new people come, and 4 of them knew no English at all, so that was fun! They were super sweet and boy it's so interesting when you have all these people together on different levels of understanding and how everyone helps each other, its just really cool. There's a woman in there from Mexico, Norma, who never lets me get away with anything! If the class has to say things in English, I have to say stuff in Spanish. It's real good for me, she is hilarious! And there's this abuella named Maria, who says the nicest things to us like she'll call us "angelitas" or "princesas" and she is just the cutest and I love her!

On Wednesday we went over to see the Lemond family and helped them make cookies and brownies! More like we helped to eat them😂 This family is so darn cute! They are inactive I guess, I don't understand why though. They still believe, and they're willing to have us come over for lessons, so I'm just excited to get to know them more. They loved the elders, so we'll just have to show them how fun sisters can be!😜

We met a lady named Shakira! And no, she was not from Colombia, or any Latin country, still cool though! We have a lesson with her later this week! Later that night we helped a family we're teaching paint their porch, I still have paint in my hair! Right after we went to dinner at the Leclere's. They live out by Huntingburg in the boonies and right when I stepped out of the car I smelled horses. Horses! I haven't been anywhere near horses until now! It made me so happy, I told Sister Leclere I would be down to help out around the barn if they needed us. I immediately loved this family and then guess what? Someone showed up a little later and I went to see who and it was the Hills from back in Woodhaven! They saw more and were like "hey we know you!" That just made my whole week! And tge best part is that sister Hill is pregnant!!!! Ahhhhhh I'm so excited! She found out right after I left,  I'm just glad I got to see them again and hear the news!😊

Thanksgiving was a very chill day. We studied, made cookies, had dinner with the Ahner family and attempted to put together a 1000 piece puzzle, it was great! I'm thankful that thanksgiving was calm!

Friday it took up half the day to go to district council, but at least we have our Christmas music so out wasn't so bad. The rest of the day we dropped off cookies and did weekly planning. I dont like planning😑

Saturday was a party cuz we went out to Huntingburg again, but this time we brought Hannah. Hannah is a gal from our ward who does everything and helps us so much it's ridiculous! She's 15, but she's approved to come to lessons cuz there's no one else who is available ever. I wouldn't want anyone but Hannah honestly! So it was fun, we had a lesson with a woman named Juana, and this time I understood like, 25% of the conversation in Spanish. Then we had a new member lesson with Felipe who is just the sweetest man you will ever meet, and so faithful! I felt like he should be teaching us!

Yesterday was good. There was a return missionary visiting the ward who all the older members kept trying to set us up with, so that was awkward. Later while we were out we had planned on visiting Blanca, but as we pulled up she was pulling out. So we thought, "on well." She texted us and told us she thought she saw us and that she had just run out to do some laundry at the laundromat. We started driving away, but I kept getting this thought to turn around and go back. I DIDN'T LISTEN! After trying by like, 2 other people, Hermana Hall was like, "what should we do?" And I told her we needed to go back cuz I had been ignoring a prompting and she said "oh my gosh same!" So we flipped that car around and that's when we got another text from Blanca telling us she wanted us to come to the laundromat. It just so happened to be the next right on the road??

The visit with Blanca was so good! We taught her the Restoration in the laundromat and she stayed engaged and had comments the entire time! She has a lot of potential, she already knows so much! It was just incredible how all these things worked out, and also that we were able to make it to dinner not super late😅 I'll never know what we missed or who we missed by not turning around immediately, but it was incredible to me that the Lord still allowed us to see Blanca even though we totally didn't deserve that second chance. He knows us so we'll though, and I can't help but think that everything worked out the way it was meant to. I just want to be more obedient about those promptings!

It was a good day, oh, and I volunteered myself to sing at our Christmas Zone Conference that's happening in 3 days... some zone leaders called and were like "we need more musical numbers" and I just blurted out that I could do something and now I'm doing a solo. Great.

Anyways, I hope Thanksgiving was wonderful for all y'all! I know there are little miracles and tender mercies we've seen in all our lives, and I know the source of all miracles is an almighty, loving being in whom we have every reason to be grateful for. This is a beautiful time of year to celebrate the birth of our Savior. It's a time where we can so easily share his light and love with others. Light the world has just come out and this year they're doing things a little differently. There's a theme for each week. Week 1 is light the World. Week 2 is light the community. Week 3 is light your family. Week 4 is light your faith. It's an exciting time for missionaries and I hope y'all get into the excitement as well!

I LOVE YOU SO MUCH! You are the greatest human beings and you are my life!

With love,
Sister Wilcox😘😘😘